Games By James Plafke Jan. 17, 2014 2:51 pm
For those that have sworn off early access or closed beta games, Blizzard has a potential monster hit that is soon to blow up the online gaming arena.*Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is Blizzard’s upcoming online collectible card game that is currently enjoying a massively successful closed beta. While those of you who peruse the iOS and Android app stores for games will instantly roll their eyes at yet another digital CCG hitting the market,*Hearthstone is a cut above the rest. It’s more like the wildly successful*Magic the Gathering than any throwaway iOS card battler. When*Hearthstone*finally releases to the public, all signs point to it being a massive hit, which is why a Chinese developer already ripped it off — from head-to-toe — and released a clone long before the game even announced when a public beta would be.
The clone game, known as*Legend of Crouching Dragon — no tiger involved — looks almost exactly like*Hearthstone. From the playing field, to the matchmaking spinner, to the way the cards glow with a soft green border when they are playable, the game is an unabashed clone.
The only major difference in its presentation appears to be the actual card art. Rather than*the*World of Warcraft characters and scenery that are the basis of the art in*Hearthstone, it appears as though non-WoW art is used.
Two other changes in the cloned game are, perhaps ironically, changes for which*Hearthstone*players have been begging for quite some time.*Legend of Crouching Dragon has many more emotes than*Hearthstone, which doesn’t yet have a decent in-match chat box, and only supplies a handful of basic emotes. Another change, which is plainly visible in the above video, is that the cloned game has been released on mobile platforms.*Hearthstone will release on almost every popular mobile platform — even Windows Phone — but those clients have not yet been released, and there aren’t hard dates for when they will be.
It’s no secret that China has a lawless approach to copyright, but it speaks to*Hearthstone’s impending popularity that a developer ripped the game off long before Blizzard’s title has even hit open beta.
More...
The clone game, known as*Legend of Crouching Dragon — no tiger involved — looks almost exactly like*Hearthstone. From the playing field, to the matchmaking spinner, to the way the cards glow with a soft green border when they are playable, the game is an unabashed clone.
The only major difference in its presentation appears to be the actual card art. Rather than*the*World of Warcraft characters and scenery that are the basis of the art in*Hearthstone, it appears as though non-WoW art is used.
Two other changes in the cloned game are, perhaps ironically, changes for which*Hearthstone*players have been begging for quite some time.*Legend of Crouching Dragon has many more emotes than*Hearthstone, which doesn’t yet have a decent in-match chat box, and only supplies a handful of basic emotes. Another change, which is plainly visible in the above video, is that the cloned game has been released on mobile platforms.*Hearthstone will release on almost every popular mobile platform — even Windows Phone — but those clients have not yet been released, and there aren’t hard dates for when they will be.
It’s no secret that China has a lawless approach to copyright, but it speaks to*Hearthstone’s impending popularity that a developer ripped the game off long before Blizzard’s title has even hit open beta.
More...
