00:08I'm Alex Smith, game designer on Hearthstone, and I'm here to welcome you into the Emerald Dream.
00:15The Emerald Dream is a magical realm separate from the world of Azeroth,
00:19and it's under the protection of the green dragon aspect, Ysera.
00:23It is flourishing with nature, highlighting the beauty of the wilds,
00:26and it serves as home to the World Tree, which preserves the balance of nature on Azeroth.
00:32Druids, like Gnarleks, tap into the Emerald Dream for their power.
00:36We really wanted to do this iconic setting justice,
00:39so it was super important that we capture that lush, ethereal quality that players love from World of Warcraft,
00:45while also delivering that whimsical, fun twist that Hearthstone is also known for.
00:50But we weren't the only ones interested in twisting up the Emerald Dream.
00:54In this expansion, the forces of the Old Gods are creeping into the Emerald Dream and corrupting its beauty,
01:01trying to turn it into the Emerald Nightmare.
01:04Their goal? To destroy the World Tree from within.
01:07Druid, hunter, mage, paladin, priest, and shaman have aligned themselves with the druids of the Emerald Dream
01:13in defense of the World Tree.
01:15The World Tree itself has granted them new power through the new keyword, imbue.
01:20The first time you imbue, your hero power swaps to a new imbue hero power specific to your class,
01:27indicated by a fancy flip animation.
01:30Each additional time you imbue, that hero power is upgraded with a splash of some fun visual effects.
01:36We also highlight what is upgraded by bolding the numbers in the text of your hero power.
01:41Shaman's imbue hero power is blessing of the wind,
01:44allowing you to transform your minions into ones of higher and higher cost.
01:48Imbuing a few times means that even the lowliest minions can quickly become threats.
01:53And even if your opponent can clear them off, you can bring them all back with shaman's new legendary minion,
02:00Marithra.
02:01Hunter's imbue hero power is the blessing of the wolf,
02:04which increases your beast's attack and reduces their cost.
02:07Each time Hunter imbues, both effects are upgraded.
02:11When crafting the visuals for imbue, we had the goal that you should be able to breathe in emerald dream
02:17magic.
02:17imbue literally had to pass a smell test.
02:20The animations were most successful when they felt minty and refreshing.
02:24Death Knight, Demon Hunter, Rogue, Warlock, and Warrior have all succumbed to the Old God's influence.
02:30For their loyalty, they've been given their own new keyword, dark gifts.
02:35Dark gifts are a pool of 10 effects that are added to certain minion discover options.
02:40The minions and the dark gifts are a time, so you pick them together.
02:44Early on, we explored reusing the Battlegrounds quest UI for this flow,
02:48but we felt that it would take away too much time from players to wait for the full animation.
02:54We also wanted to stay consistent with how dark gifts are displayed on enchantment banners after the minion is played.
02:59There are also cards that reward you if you've imbued enough times, like the ancient guardian, Molorn the Waywatcher.
03:07The Wild Gods are powerful protectors of the Emerald Dream, but some of them have fallen victim to the Nightmare's
03:13corruption.
03:14So now, each class will have their own legendary Wild God.
03:19Bersok is a corrupted Wild God aligned with the Death Knight class.
03:22For this expansion, the concept art team created unique designs for each of these Wild Gods that incorporated the visual
03:29themes of their classes.
03:30Here, for Ursoc, you can see that he wears the skeletal remains of his vanquished foes as armored.
03:36I mean, come on! What's more Death Knight than that?
03:39We did not hold back for our Wild God animations.
03:42If Emerald Dream magic is serene, flutters in the breeze, smells of mint, Emerald Nightmare magic should be collecting flies.
03:51This nightmarish take on Ursoc erupts with serrated red thorns reaching across the board as he lashes out at anything
03:59in his way.
04:00Each class also gets their own Choose One card, representing the strong connection between Druids and the Emerald Dream.
04:06We typically don't see this many Choose One cards in one expansion, and that meant that we needed to create
04:13even more card illustrations to accommodate all of the other classes.
04:17As the card illustrations developed, it was so cool to see the artist embrace the narrative aspect of their trio
04:23of cards they were working on.
04:24In the end, they just felt like a choose-your-own-adventure comic strip. It was really cool to see.
04:29Doing Choose One cards outside of Druid opened up some opportunities for us to explore a totally new space.
04:35For instance, Barb Thorn is our first-ever Choose One weapon.
04:40Another way we used art to tell the story this set was to lean into the duality between Dream and
04:46Nightmare-aligned characters.
04:47We portrayed Nightmare Corruption to be nasty, distorted, jagged, withered, and of course red.
04:55Basically the opposite of the Dream, with all of its lush greenery and beautifully organic shape language.
05:00This expansion at its core highlights the clash between nature and corruption.
05:05As seen in Ysera's diamond card animation, where she uses nature magic to cleanse Nightmare Corruption and restore the Dream's
05:12beauty.
05:12That tension and madness is really the visual hook for the entire expansion.
05:17Speaking of madness, we've got not one, but three cards available for you ahead of this expansion.
05:23Log in right now to get Ysera as your Into the Emerald Dream login reward.
05:27Then, head over to the shop to claim another freebie, two copies of Creature of Madness.
05:33Those two are available right now, along with two Into the Emerald Dream pre-purchase bundles.
05:38And then, in a few weeks, celebrate the start of the Year of the Raptor with an in-game event
05:44and the Raptor Herald card.
05:46Get ready, we're heading Into the Emerald Dream on March 25th.
05:50We hope you enjoyed playing it as much as we loved making it.
06:02We hope you enjoyed playing it as much as we loved making it.
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