HEX Update – Happy Valentines Day

Hi HEXers. It’s that special holiday where you get together with the one (game) you love… us! It’s the Friday HEX update.

I’m Not Just a Player; I’m also a Client

We just patched the HEX Alpha yesterday to add more cards and improve stability. Players should be able to complete tournaments more often as our engineering team gathers data and continues to fix bugs. Expect a server-side patch soon that should result in better tournament performance. If you missed the patch notes from yesterday, read up on our most recent Patch Breakdown. That post also includes news about the final decisions regarding the chain and an introduction to Replicas! If you’re looking for some development insight as well, lead PVP developer Dan Clark posted his notes yesterday as well. Our QA team and programmers continue to work on the next patch which you’ll be seeing soon. You can submit bugs on our Official Bug Report form and follow your bug’s progress from alive to DEAD on our spreadsheet.

Spoiler Alert!

On Wednesday, Cory posted his second blog update. He fielded questions from the community and included a few spoilers like these new card frames.

The first question he fielded was features players can expect when we move into Open PVP Beta.

Here is our current list of features for the Open PVP BETA:

• Deck Creation

• Collection Management

• 1 vs. 1 PvP Battles

• 1 vs. AI Battles

• Matchmaking

• Socketed Cards

• Chat

• Friends

• Constructed Tournaments

• Sealed Tournaments

• Draft Tournaments

• Deck Sleeves

• Store and Pack Opening

• Primal Packs

• Basic in-game Tutorial

• Mail

• Mac Support

• VIP Program

• Guilds

• Auction House

• Double-back

The launch of the game will come in several phases. The first monetized phase is the Closed PVP BETA, where your collection is wiped, we give you the Kickstarter rewards, and we start actually selling products. This phase will include all our current players, it will last several weeks then transition to Open PVP BETA.

As I am sure you have noticed from the above list, we are not including PVE content in this first phase. We have been working very hard to ensure that the core game systems are rock solid, because if we are going to take your money, we need to give you the best gaming experience possible. Be assured that the PVE content IS being worked on right now, and we have game designers and engineers currently building the content.

The issue was that the PVE content had been gated by core PVP systems engineering, so it was always going to be one of two scenarios: either the PVE comes after PVP, or we hold all of it and launch simultaneously. At one time I felt very strongly we should hold everything and launch it all at once, but as we got deeper into development and gathered more feedback from the community, I just could not imagine holding PVP (and specifically draft) if it’s working and playable.

I expect that we will be launching PVE features relatively quickly after the Open PVP BETA. PVE will start with an arena system that introduces you to mercenaries, leveling, and using equipment on cards. After that, we will roll out building your characters, dungeons, and raids.

You can find more answers about HEX and a few more spoilers Cory’s Tumblr post. Don’t forget to +Follow him!

Become a Mod!

Don’t forget that the deadline to apply to become a volunteer moderator is quickly approaching. Help our community become a positive place for players of all types and experience to discuss HEX!

U-N-I-T-Y 3D

Unity Engineers– we need you! We need one awesome Unity engineer to join the HEX team here in Lake Forest, CA! If you want to revolutionize digital trading card games with us, please apply at the email found the link. There are sodas and donuts and we’ll give you monitors that rotate and swivel to go vertical– straight up like a roller coaster! It’s wild.

Shards of Fate Development Feedback

The good fellows in R&D have set up a subforum for users to provide feedback on their experiences with Set 1, Shards of Fate. Over the next few weeks, please try keep discussion focused on card concerns or combination of cards being too powerful, too weak, difficult to play against, too disruptive to a deck you are trying to make, or can elaborate as to what you feel your deck is missing that would make it perfect. Please also respect the feedback of others and don’t get derailed discussing the validity of others feedback. So, play around with HEX and let us know what you think of the cards!

…and finally, Happy Valentines Day

Have a great weekend! Please leave any questions or comments in the forums linked below, and don’t forget to Like us on Facebook, Follow us on Twitch, register on our forums, and Follow us on Twitter.

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