Heroes of the Storm (A new MOBA game by Blizzard)

[Frailty]

Haven't seen a thread about it. So yeah... Apparently Blizzard's joining the MOBA scene
Heroes will consist of famous characters from various games by Blizzard such as Jim Raynor, Arthas Menethil, etc (I'm not very familiar with the others. I've only played Starcraft and Warcraft)
I wonder if it will be as successful as DoTA2 and LoL. Considering the fact that the origin of the genre started with a custom map from WC3, I'd say it was only a matter of time Blizzard joins the scene.

cinematic trailer

YouTube

https://youtu.be/f_fAkO3WOSY

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

gameplay sneak peek

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

Abathaur looks cool from what I saw, and they're eschewing the same old 3 lane MOBA map to apparently. Something they found from testing was that the standard map type was played less and less compared to their newer.. er.. dynamic(? can't remember how he described them) maps.

[frivolity]

More competition is always good, and I've always liked WC3's designs. I'll probably give it a try when it comes out.

[RobotCat]

It seems like they going for a even more casual market than LoL, with no last hitting at all, no item purchase, and 15-20 minute matches. There might be some good numbers there + whatever fan base they currently have amongst their 3 big franchises.

It doesn't look like it's going to be competitive at all though, so hard to tell if it has the legs to reach the level of coverage that LoL and DOTA2 has.

[ArchmageXin]

I would give it a shot. Interesting. I noticed Abomination as one of the heroes (complete with the infamous chain grab). I wonder if Dota is going demand copyright?

Probably not, seeing original Dota was made on blizzard property.

[ArchmageXin]

Originally Posted by RobotCat

It seems like they going for a even more casual market than LoL, with no last hitting at all, no item purchase, and 15-20 minute matches. There might be some good numbers there + whatever fan base they currently have amongst their 3 big franchises.

It doesn't look like it's going to be competitive at all though, so hard to tell if it has the legs to reach the level of coverage that LoL and DOTA2 has.

I wouldn't laugh at this. Remember Blizzard's WOW and Sony's EverQuest. When WoW came out, people were bitching Blizz was catering to casuals, with easy corpse run, no gruesome pvp, no "hardcore" loss for dungeon raids.

And what happened? EQ was brutally crushed by blizzard and reduced to the ghost of itself. EQ II was butchered BAD while WoW Soared.

I could see a total repeat of "hardcores" calling WOW's game "noob friendly" "for casuals" etc, until they realized their playerbase is toasted.

This would be a moderate threat to valve (Since they have other productlines) but could brutally crush Riot.

[Westlo]

Originally Posted by ArchmageXin

This would be a moderate threat to valve (Since they have other productlines) but could brutally crush Riot.

lol @ brutally crushing Riot. Blizzard would be ecstatic if this could be as popular as DOTA 2.

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

Well, look at Hearthstone - simplified (deceptively so) card game along the lines of Magic but with a Warcraft theme, it's not even out yet and it's insanely popular with people throwing money at it like its stripper at cheap drinks night. They should probably be worried, what with Blizzards penchant for "innovating" ideas from other games (look at the features they added in Warcraft each expansion which interestingly enough happened with a competitors MMO at the same time - big one that stood out for me was the titles and achievements from LOTR:O) and improving on them. Never mind the brand awareness.

[ArchmageXin]

Originally Posted by Westlo

lol @ brutally crushing Riot. Blizzard would be ecstatic if this could be as popular as DOTA 2.

Riot have only LoL at the moment. Valve has alternatives. From a business prospective, that means Riot could be seriously threatened.

Anyway, it really depend on how serious blizzard is willing to do this. If they manage to pull it off, or convert its WOW population into this game...

[RobotCat]

Originally Posted by ArchmageXin

I wouldn't laugh at this. Remember Blizzard's WOW and Sony's EverQuest. When WoW came out, people were bitching Blizz was catering to casuals, with easy corpse run, no gruesome pvp, no "hardcore" loss for dungeon raids.

And what happened? EQ was brutally crushed by blizzard and reduced to the ghost of itself. EQ II was butchered BAD while WoW Soared.

I could see a total repeat of "hardcores" calling WOW's game "noob friendly" "for casuals" etc, until they realized their playerbase is toasted.

This would be a moderate threat to valve (Since they have other productlines) but could brutally crush Riot.

Well there's a huge difference between when WoW was released and now. Back then, MMORPGs were niche games. 300k subs was considered a breakout success. Blizzard won because they made MMORPGs mainstream. Also, EQ didn't lose their playerbase because of WoW, WoW just grew and grabbed new players from other markets, mostly non-gamers. EQ didn't really die off until it's player base naturally shrinked due to an aging game.

However, if you look at the current MOBA market, it's pretty saturated. LoL has 32 million actively players on a monthly basis, I think that's more than all of Blizzard's games combined. League made MOBA mainstream, and it's one of the forerunners of international e-sports. Essentially, LoL is where WoW is right now. So far no other MMO has been able to take over WoW's spot. Blizzard entering the MOBA market at this point is basically like EA trying to challenge WoW with SWTOR.

Blizzard might be able to take a few million players from LoL, but that's not going to do much to a behemoth with such an established player base. I can see HoTS doing well with even more casual gamers than LoL (which is already very casual) but even if it gets a 10 mil+ player base it's not going to topple LoL.

Originally Posted by Mr Hat and Clogs

Well, look at Hearthstone - simplified (deceptively so) card game along the lines of Magic but with a Warcraft theme, it's not even out yet and it's insanely popular with people throwing money at it like its stripper at cheap drinks night. They should probably be worried, what with Blizzards penchant for "innovating" ideas from other games (look at the features they added in Warcraft each expansion which interestingly enough happened with a competitors MMO at the same time - big one that stood out for me was the titles and achievements from LOTR:O) and improving on them. Never mind the brand awareness.

The mobile card game market is perfect for the taking right now. All the current trading card games are pretty much just progress quests with a huge F2P cash shop tied in. Hearthstone is the first one to actually offer a real 'game' comparable to traditional competitive CCGs like Magic the Gathering. In that regards Blizzard really has no real competitors and it should be pretty obvious why people are flocking to Hearthstone. Wizards never seemed that interested in the digital market, but they seem to be content with MTGO and their physical card market (which is doing very well) so I guess they never decided to enter.

[ArchmageXin]

Well there's a huge difference between when WoW was released and now. Back then, MMORPGs were niche games. 300k subs was considered a breakout success. Blizzard won because they made MMORPGs mainstream. Also, EQ didn't lose their playerbase because of WoW, WoW just grew and grabbed new players from other markets, mostly non-gamers. EQ didn't really die off until it's player base naturally shrinked due to an aging game.

Except you forgot EQ II, which came out within weeks of WoW. And Blizzard raped it six way to sunday. I was there when both games came out, and EQ II just couldn't win. Even though both games were identical in term of game play.

However, if you look at the current MOBA market, it's pretty saturated. LoL has 32 million actively players on a monthly basis, I think that's more than all of Blizzard's games combined. League made MOBA mainstream, and it's one of the forerunners of international e-sports. Essentially, LoL is where WoW is right now. So far no other MMO has been able to take over WoW's spot. Blizzard entering the MOBA market at this point is basically like EA trying to challenge WoW with SWTOR.

However,

1) Blizzard has a unholy brand name.

2) Unlike WoW, MOBA does not have a high time sink investment. I can log in for a 40 min game of LoL, I can log in 20 min for whatever this new game is. There would be a learning curve (of course), but after a certain stage, you can get used to the game.

Why was WOW especially successful and able to crush all other MMOs? Because think about it, if I invest 3 months in getting to level 80 and Tier 4 armor and meeting a whole bunch of friends online, I wouldn't abandon it because when I go to Guild wars of whatever, the grind/netowrking has to start again from point ZERO. WoW was effectively an captivate audience. The same cannot be said for MOBA games.

3) Map variety. This is a very dangerous ground for any MOBA. Dota, LOL, HON all use a SINGLE Map for their major league gaming. This has been going on FOREVER. The reason for this of course, is because MOBA maps are difficult to balance. But if Blizzard can make new maps and retain balance (Like SCII maps)...then it is a whole new ball game.

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

Point 3 was pretty heavily hinted at during the panel that internal testers abandoned the old style map pretty much in favor of the newer ones.


edit: Hour or so of gameplay from Blizcon, I can't watching since I'm over the data cap so can't tell you what it's like.

YouTube

https://youtu.be/Zhf-OVtvML0

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

[hamazura]

what a movie.... dat cinematic o_o
but i'll stick with dota 2 since in this kind of game, i tend to like playing with my real friends, and our country is dota-country, since dota 1~

[RobotCat]

Originally Posted by ArchmageXin

Except you forgot EQ II, which came out within weeks of WoW. And Blizzard raped it six way to sunday. I was there when both games came out, and EQ II just couldn't win. Even though both games were identical in term of game play.

Vanilla WoW was better than EQ2 in pretty much every way aside from the graphics and sandbox elements it still had. EQ2 didn't even have a pvp server at launch. Also, many EQ1 players did not want to move to EQ2 because they didn't want to lose their investment in their EQ1 characters.

So EQ2 basically had to try to market to a new playerbase just like WoW did, except it didn't have the mass appeal of the Warcraft/Blizzard label, had way higher system requirements. WoW had a better UI, better quests (especially solo), and graphics that looked good even on low-spec machines. For a casual player who's probably never played a MMO before, WoW was the obvious choice.

However,

1) Blizzard has a unholy brand name.

2) Unlike WoW, MOBA does not have a high time sink investment. I can log in for a 40 min game of LoL, I can log in 20 min for whatever this new game is. There would be a learning curve (of course), but after a certain stage, you can get used to the game.

Why was WOW especially successful and able to crush all other MMOs? Because think about it, if I invest 3 months in getting to level 80 and Tier 4 armor and meeting a whole bunch of friends online, I wouldn't abandon it because when I go to Guild wars of whatever, the grind/netowrking has to start again from point ZERO. WoW was effectively an captivate audience. The same cannot be said for MOBA games.

3) Map variety. This is a very dangerous ground for any MOBA. Dota, LOL, HON all use a SINGLE Map for their major league gaming. This has been going on FOREVER. The reason for this of course, is because MOBA maps are difficult to balance. But if Blizzard can make new maps and retain balance (Like SCII maps)...then it is a whole new ball game.

Blizzard name isn't as great as it once was. SC/SCII have pretty much lost their place in competitive gaming to LoL in pretty much every market. Diablo 3 was a pretty bad blunder. I have no doubt they'll get a sizable player base, but I doubt it's going to CRUSH LoL.

Also, LoL does have a pretty unholy time commitment. It takes forever to get higher ranked, and anyone who's even a bit competitive will keep playing to hit that fabled Diamond ELO. You also have to purchase heroes, so there's a money commitment too.

A lot of more casual players will probably play both or move to HoTS though, but again, LoL is not going to suddenly lose 32 million players. DOTA2 came out, and while it gained a huge player base pretty quickly, LoL was able to grow a lot too. If anything, Blizzard is targeting players who are not currently playing any MOBA.

Finally, HoTS is still in the alpha stage. Knowing Blizzard's history, it probably won't be released for at least another year. They probably want to start the game off on a big roster so there's still a lot of dev work to be done.

[barcode120x]

Don't forget that both LoL and DotA 2 are essentially F2P. Blizzard is going to have a tough time attracting those players with a one time fee and I'm guessing it'll be 50 or 60 bucks. Not only do they think about pricing the game, they also have to think about doing a cash shop or item drop system. I'm not a fan of the treasure boxes and item drops in DotA 2, but it's cool when you do get something good. Those that have invested a lot of money, trading, or just pure luck in item finding may be unwilling to head to Blizzard's game.

[RobotCat]

Originally Posted by barcode120x

Don't forget that both LoL and DotA 2 are essentially F2P. Blizzard is going to have a tough time attracting those players with a one time fee and I'm guessing it'll be 50 or 60 bucks. Not only do they think about pricing the game, they also have to think about doing a cash shop or item drop system. I'm not a fan of the treasure boxes and item drops in DotA 2, but it's cool when you do get something good. Those that have invested a lot of money, trading, or just pure luck in item finding may be unwilling to head to Blizzard's game.

HoTS is supposed to be a standalone F2P game though. You don't need SC2 to be able to play it.

[barcode120x]

Originally Posted by RobotCat

HoTS is supposed to be a standalone F2P game though. You don't need SC2 to be able to play it.

If so, I probably will jump on board . Then again, I'm really finding that hard to believe it'll be free considering its Blizzard...but if it is, I'm not gonna complain haha.

[konart]

Was trying to access beta, but couldn't enter my battle.net account.

Guess what? You have to log into your account to contact their support.

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

^ have you tried https://us.battle.net/account/suppor...n-support.html? Also, yeah you have to log in because all the beta's are tied to one profile on your account.

Originally Posted by barcode120x

If so, I probably will jump on board . Then again, I'm really finding that hard to believe it'll be free considering its Blizzard...but if it is, I'm not gonna complain haha.

I do believe I remember them saying in the panel it will be a standalone F2P game. They're gona make money off of the various skins like LoL and such.

[Jaden]

Well I'm up for this. About time somebody innovated in this genre. Removing the exp/gold grind while emphasizing other things sounds like a great idea.