Video Interview: Cory Jones from HEX: Shards of Fate
Today we got to spend a little time with Cory Jones, President of HEX Entertainment, talking about the development and future of their TCG/MMO HEX: Shards of Fate.
Besides watching me get my deck stomped on, watch as we chat about the first PvE content added to HEX, how the game differs from its primary (and currently legal) competition, and get a sneak peek at some of the new items being added to the same soon...some of those items COULD be coming as early as the end of June, but don't mark the date down on your calendar just yet as things can change.
If you want to check out HEX: Shards of Fate, head on over to the game's website and get started now.
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About the Author
Mike “Magicman” Byrne has been a part of the MMOBomb family for years and serves as the site’s current Editor-in-Chief. His love for MMOs and gaming in general has led him to covering games for numerous gaming websites including Gamebreaker TV and XIV Nation where he proudly displays his fanboy flag for FFXIV:ARR.
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Thanks to my cord-cutting, no-cable ways, I didn't watch the final round of the Heroes of the Dorm competition last night, when it aired on ESPN2.
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It seems he’s a pretty big fan of the game.
The update is live.
Pretty sure you just put the pointy end into your enemies, right?
The game is only $5 on Ubisoft's store as part of a Black Friday sale.
Firstly, this game's sole selling point was to have implemented a intricate PvE system with all sorts of different content that you'd expect out of a normal MMORPG but not out of an online card game. Features like partying, guilds or raiding instances for loot have gained the interest of many players who enjoy playing with their friends in PvE or who like to farm and grind cards and card upgrades from the PvE portion of the game. HEX promised not to let the player's ability to gain cards from the PvE content interfere with the PvP balance, which is why they have separated these 2 areas off from each other.
As far as the PvP is concerned, this precaution doesn't really play out well as the PvE content is still lacking and therefore couldn't even influence the PvP balance anyway.
They have barely started scratching on the surface of what they need to add to make their game stand out from other card games, as all of the features that they introduced to draw attention to their game have yet to see implementation in their game and the recently added PvE content is lacking.
As of right now the only reason to play HEX in terms of playtime value is for the PvP but then that raises the question: Why spend the time playing mediocre PvP on HEX, a PvE-centered game, when there are actual PvP-centered card game alternatives?
This is the reason why it doesn't make much sense playing HEX right now. It's also a reason to give the game more time and check it out again once it's gotten enough of it's PvE content realized so that it does not just simply seek to stand out, but actually does it.
Completely aside from the lack of the single point of interest (the PvE) of this game: In what the game manages to stand out right now is through the interaction of dreary colors on your screen from when you log into the client, up to the battle's background, the animations and even the cards themselves. At no point does the thought come up that what you see is overly ugly or phenomenally good-looking, it's just a plain and boring style that doesn't make you feel like anything is going on, even in battle when the attacks are executed, special effects activated or commands given, there are no interesting quirks and everything seems so lifeless. Adding some more screen-shaking, effects or giving the cards some entertaining monologs might have liven up the playfield more. As of right now it's an atmosphere in the game that makes you mostly feel indifference towards what's going on in the game, both outside and inside of battles.
It's a cardgame, so you would spend more time on thinking your next actions through and hence prefer a calm environment instead of big disturbances going on, yet on the other hand this is a computer game so make use of the goddamn capabilities to make the battle seem more like a battle since that's one of the primary advantages the PC card game has over playing the card game in RL and if this advantage is left untouched, then that's a huge waste of opportunity. I don't feel that they need to improve on this right now since they missed this train, but it's a substantial critic point since many people have this kind of expectation as a standard for any client-based online TCG. The game needs to keep pushing out PvE content as top priority right now in my opinion.
Aside from the graphics and aside from the PvE or rather the lack thereof, there is really not much to say about the game in comparison to other online card games right now. I hope that they don't come to the conclusion that they had too high ambitions for their project after all and I hope that they work on to make it what it can still become. A game worth playing.
1. Did you lose? > Shit RNG.
2. Did you win? > I am the best deck builder ever.
Why ?
I have play MTG bef4 and it happens very often, the minimum card capacity in a deck is 60 cards, I put 30 resource cards in every of my deck and it s very often in the 1st 13 turns I would get only 1 fking resource card o_O
Half of my deck consists of resource cards and I cant even draw one in the 1st 13 turns ? wat the du ma ?
So yeh no thx fk these shetty TCG games :]