Arena

When you enter the arena area and agree to a fee payment (cash or gold) you are offered a choice of three classes to play randomly. Have just started and not knowing anything but Mage I am sad to see that is not an option for me. I do see priest and select it. You are then shown 3 cards to chose from. These can be class cards or common to all classes but will all be of the same rarity. You pick a card and  another set of 3 with be shown. This continues till you have picked thirty times completing a deck. 

Deck chosen and off I go to Match wits with another player I hope is as new as myself or playing cards they know nothing about like I do. 

Now you get to play match after match till one of two things happens. You either win a total of nine games or you lose three. Either of these will end your arena run. Guess which I had happen?

Three games later I am looking at the menu to do something else, lol. 

Second day

I am home again and excited to go at it again. Hearthstone

(Hearthstone is a new CCG game from Blizzard, the guys that brought us World of Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo.)

I quickly settle in and begin to learn the Mage class. The Mage is the class everyone has unlocked when they start the game for the first time. I am playing the AI as I start to get the feel for the game, cards, flow. 

 As I continue to beat up the computers AI I start to level up the character I am playing to level 10 (you will unlock a series of Basic cards the relate to that class, Mage in this case, as you level).

All this winning against a poor AI has me again feeling like a giant among boys. It's time to mash the play button and find that poor player that shall feel my wraith. 

WAIT, what's this? Arena?

MASH 

What's this? This area costs either real world cash or ingame gold to play. I am quickly informed you that I am welcome here the first time for free, but from then all shall pay. 

To be continued

 

I'm in!!

10/21/13

So I found the mail I so hoped for and desired for awhile now...

Welcome to the Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft Beta Test

Woot! I am in, only 10 more hours of work and I will get home to download it. 

10/22/13 05:30am

Home sweet home, start the download process, off to shower

0600

Sit down to see what it's all been about, this waiting. Blast thru the tutorial. I have a background in MtG (magic the gathering) so the tutorial is very simple to beat but does a OK job of getting me up to speed with the mechanics of this UI (user interface).

Now I think I am all that and a bag of chips so I jump in and look for a real game to play. An easy loss later maybe I ain't all that??? Really???

Off to bed. I do have another 12 hours work tonight