World of Warcraft at Ten Ton Hammer

By Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle

From the standpoint of a player, game designer, and even a marketing guru, there's always been a clear association between MMORPGs and less digitized sorts of games (pen-and-paper RPGs, miniatures, trading card games, board games, etc.). An MMORPG's ruleset, traditionally limited the technology needed to provide a real-time experience to tens of thousands of players on a single server, is stentorian enough to fit into an offline format, and both forms of entertainment aim to serve up a interactive, individualized experience. It was no real surprise when trading card games (TCGs) began sprouting up based on popular MMOs like EVE Online and World of Warcraft. Blizzard has also licensed a board game (by Fantasy Flight) for WoW, as well as an RPG (White Wolf) and even a manga (TokyoPop).

Upon registering at BlizzCON and ravening through our prize sacks like the schwag-averse disciplined press types we aren't, we were surprised to find a World of Warcraft TCG starter set with everything needed for half a game (your buddy will need a starter set too). With a retail value of $11.99 times 8,000 attendees, it's pretty obvious that Upper Deck believes in the MMORPG-TCG connection too. Intrigued by SOE's just-announced plans for the Legends of Norrath TCG, we determined to see how Blizzard is exploring it's TCG options and what plans Upper Deck has in place for it's ever-expanding game. Later on Day Two, we caught up with Upper Deck's Claudine Riccanor and Game Designer David Baumgartner for a quick demo and some questions.

Baumgartner walked me through the basics of the game as I struggled to hear through the noisy throng wildly cheering on the nearby Starcraft finals some 100 feet away. For me to pick up the game despite the noise and my TCG noobishness means that I either had a good teacher or the game was very accessible, probably both. We were playing with "Through the Dark Portal" series starter sets. BlizzCON attendees got the first series starter set, "Heroes of Azeroth", and the third set – "Fires of Outland" (official site) – is due out on August 25th.  Despite the new series, Baumgartner assured me that there are no plans to discontinue any earlier series at this point, so those of you getting into the game recently still have time to get your Turtle mount loot card. Upper Deck also publishes two 1-5 player cooperative "raid decks" called "Onyxia's Lair" and, most recently, "Molten Core." No expense was spared on the art for the cards, and though beautiful and clearly Warcrafty, the blood and gore (i.e. dismemberment) represented on some cards might be a little much for the under-12 crowd.

Back to the original TCG, the objective for the game is to kill your opponent's hero before running out of cards – a rule that limits games to be quick, aggressive 30 to 45 minutes or faster matches. The starter set even comes with a pre-constructed deck that eliminates the complexities of assembling a deck full of allies, items, and abilities that compliment your hero (an Alliance Warlock, for example, can't use Horde allies or plate armor cards). Baumgartner walked me through managing resources, readying abilities and allies, as well as an attack phase.

It turns out that Upper Deck and Blizzard had tied a TCG to an MMORPG long before "Legends of Norrath" came along. While described as offering "cosmetic" in game bonuses, the randomly inserted loot cards offer food, pets, picnic furniture, and even a not-so-cosmetic epic mount, the Spectral Tiger. In addition to the "legendary" rare, scratch off loot cards, players get points in the form of a code redeemable online for every pack they buy. As we were playing, Claudine explained the UDEpoints system to me. Basically, players get 100 points for every booster pack they buy. You then trade your accumulated points for rewards, both in-game and physical products.

But UDEpoints prices are… pricey. An ogre disguise, complete with dance, comes in at 25,000 points. At $60 a booster box (24 packs), that Chris Farley Chippendale's dance will set you back the equivalent of $625. While we at Ten Ton Hammer hope you wouldn't spend that kind of money on an in-game item, it is a pretty cool bonus if you feel the need to buy 3,600 cards to beat that punk kid down the block. By the way, the first two sets contain 361 and 319 cards ("Heroes" and "Dark Portal", respectively, so odds are you'd collect them all plus get your cool ogre disguise.

Other TCGs have gone digital (Magic: The Gathering and Pirates CSG, to name two), even allowing players to trade in their physical cards for digital copies and vice-versa. Upper Deck, however, is content to let Blizzard cover the online games segment; there are no planes for WoW TCG Online at present.

Along with the launch of "Fires of Outland" this month, I asked if Upper Deck was planning some kind of cross-promotion with the just-announced WoW expansion: Wrath of the Lich King. "No comment," Claudine said, smiling, as David and I wrapped up the demo with no clear winner. While both of us had to hurry off to our next appointments, I look forward to playing some more WoW TCG soon. And, of course, getting Couriant one of those spectral tiger mounts.