Heroes of the Storm™ Cinematic Trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ecv0bT9DEo#ws)
Heroes of the Storm™ Gameplay Sneak Peek (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_fAkO3WOSY#ws)
http://www.heroesofthestorm.com/en-us (http://www.heroesofthestorm.com/en-us)
who's signed up for beta? i'm actually interested in trying this. seems like a fresher take on the moba genre. i like the idea of no gold, items or jungling. more focus on skill, shorter games and probably more fun.
I got to play a few games of it these past two days, so I may be able to clear anything up if people have questions about it. Or I can give out a brief summary of what makes the game tick / how its different from LoL/Dota2
Signed up.
The Doors - Riders On the Storm (Remastered HD) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DED812HKWyM#) the title makes my think of only this.
but honestly i dont see how it differs. it may be because i didn't get too into mobas as a genre.
nice trailer
Heroes of the Storm - Heroes Models and Skins (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLNaNnPRh88#ws)
Here's a vid that shows more of the heroes as well as some custom skins. Some of skins change the hero into a different character altogether, but you can usually tell which are skins and which are new heroes all together.
On a side note, not Blizz has two games called hots
Is that last one supposed to be Zul'Jin from Warcraft 2? That Axethrower hero character from one of the early Orc missions? If so, awesome.
Also, I saw a picture with some blizzard avatars in the background, saying "heroes of the storm" on facebook and I think it was legit. One of the avatars in the background was one of the Lost Vikings, so here's hoping at least one of them makes it in there!
i'm mostly excited for abathur
Quote from: ΨNicole on November 14, 2013 12:18 AM
Is that last one supposed to be Zul'Jin from Warcraft 2? That Axethrower hero character from one of the early Orc missions? If so, awesome.
Also, I saw a picture with some blizzard avatars in the background, saying "heroes of the storm" on facebook and I think it was legit. One of the avatars in the background was one of the Lost Vikings, so here's hoping at least one of them makes it in there!
There's an interview with Husky and Dustin Browder where they do mention wanting to put in characters from lost vikings and other (older) blizzard games
Quote from: rtil on November 14, 2013 12:50 AM
i'm mostly excited for abathur
While I got to play him, Dustin describes his very unique play style in that same interview if you have yet to see it.
hm is it actually fun? i mean you don't get to control anything and just cast spells? sounds kind of boring.
I thought he was pretty intetresting to play, very different than any other hero in the usual mobas these days. But yeah, you are sacrificing what would be the normal amount of micro for a heavier amount of map awareness. There's a lot more to it than you'd think when you hear it described to you though.
Then again, I only played him once, and had no idea what I was really doing
alpha started today. a lot of people streaming it http://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Heroes%20of%20the%20Storm (http://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Heroes%20of%20the%20Storm)
Quote from: rtil on November 10, 2013 07:29 AM
Heroes of the Storm™ Cinematic Trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ecv0bT9DEo#ws)
Heroes of the Storm™ Gameplay Sneak Peek (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_fAkO3WOSY#ws)
heroes of the storm (http://hackerbot.net/mmo)
who's signed up for beta? i'm actually interested in trying this. seems like a fresher take on the moba genre. i like the idea of no gold, items or jungling. more focus on skill, shorter games and probably more fun.
I heard its a very simplistic MOBA... no items, shared XP and so on.
I mean it sounds nice if you just want to chill, but I guess the lack of complexity will not really help the game in the long run. There is just not enough optimization and theorycrafting you can do.
However, it will be interesting to see how well it does.
well, we don't know that yet. simple games can still have a lot of depth and complexity to them, and MOBAs with items can still get stale (LoL)
The result will be a little more like an RTS if you ask me. The lack of those things will be replaced with a focus on player skill, decision making, and teamwork. Also don't forget about the difference in how leveling up works in this. Each level grants a skill or bonus that can only be achieved at that level more or less (and you have two-three options per level). Thus, as you level up, there will be a lot of different ways to build your hero, thus sort of granting the illusion of building a hero with different sets of items, resulting in a lot of options for variety for each person you play as.
Leave it to Blizzard to make a real sequel to dota that isn't fucking garbage.
so i'm in this alpha now and i have a few things to say about it in its current state if anyone's still interested
the gameplay is basically dota boiled down to its simplest form with map-specific quests. no gold and no items. no last hitting, no creep blocking. teams share experience. every map has a unique quest-style side missions that allow your team to take control of or summon powerful creeps. creep camps are not killed for gold, they are fought to go into your lane and fight with you.
matches are generally shorter than your typical moba game. they usually last around 15-30 minutes. it's very rare for a game to go longer than 30 minutes because of how fights go over time. towers run out of ammo and slowly recharge, so eventually they become useless.
not all of the heroes have a mana pool. some have meters that charge based on attacks that you can spend on abilities and things like that - like Sonya and her "fury" meter that rises when you use your basic attacks. health and mana/energy can be restored from randomly dropped "regen globes" that drop while fighting. i suppose it is an item but it is consumed immediately to you and heroes around you.
the game is all about teamwork and paying attention to the map's special quest. you can be losing a match the entire game, but if you are able to completely dominate the other team on the map quest and summon a super powerful megacreep/monster/bombardment attack, you can suddenly turn things around and win. winning teamfights is only important so that the enemy team will be dead during an active quest. i guess what i'm saying is that it seems that HotS games revolve almost entirely around these quests. it gives you something to think about, and is timing specific. some maps have more powerful rewards for completing quests than others, but ignoring them is definitely a mistake. in fact, i think it's worth leaving a lane that's in danger in favor of helping your team complete a quest because of how critical they are.
every hero has a mount and a free teleport back to fountain at all times. the mount has a 2 or 3 second cd, the teleport a much longer one. you can mount/unmount and teleport anywhere on the map during the game. taking damage cancels both abilities.
there's lots of heroes with a wide array of abilities. the worst thing about the game involves the heroes, though. first of all, access to heroes is LoL style, but even worse. every week, a few heroes (about 5) are free. the 5 heroes that are free go on rotation every week. so you get to try 5 heroes for a week, and then they go back to being pay heroes. to make matters worse, each hero has to be leveled up individually. leveling up a hero unlocks more "talents" they have - talents are abilities that you can choose between for certain levels while playing the game - for example at levels 2, 5, 10, 15 and 20 you get to pick between your next talent you want to play with. lvl 1 heroes usually don't have the best talents, so you need to play the hero a few times to level them up to unlock better talents. i'm not really sure why they did this.
you can earn gold by playing to unlock heroes with gold, but it takes a while. they want you to pay real money for heroes. you can also buy mounts, skins, etc.
the game can be fun, but it's not balanced yet. there is no counterpicking and this creates big problems sometimes. for example, Nova is a burst damage hero who can go invisible without using mana. she can gank and escape very easily because of this. there are heroes who can decloak and counter her, but because your team is selected before you are put up against another team, you can never know if you'll be playing against a hero like Nova. and in a game without items and wards, it's hard to adapt to strategies you can't counter.
i don't think i've played the game long enough to say whether it's legitimately good or not or how much replay value it has. i'll just say what i like and don't like about it in a list to summarize.
things i like
- different maps with unique layouts and quests
- simplistic gameplay means you can focus more on what's important
- shared exp means support heroes and struggling players on your team don't get left behind level/stats-wise and there are less stomp games and chances for comebacks. not perfect solution but ultimately does more good than harm for the game
- ability to diversify your spells and passives with talent selection 'hero builds' instead of item builds
- ability to take control of powerful 'boss' units in some maps with quests
- easy to get in to
things i don't like/not sure about
- no counterpicking.. i don't understand this
- less skill overall required to play because of lack of many common moba mechanics. possibly less metagame potential because of this, hard to see this very casual game being an esport
- too much microtransaction stuff, talent gating and free hero rotation means f2p players will be frustrated by the gold trickle. unlocking heroes you actually like without spending money will take a while, and leveling them up before you get their full set of abilities seems pointless.
- some of the quests have automated stuff that just happens, it's not nearly as exciting as the ones where one of your teammates gets to control another unit
it is still in alpha, so a lot of things could change. but overall it feels like a game stuck between two worlds. blizzard is very late to the moba party, so they're definitely trying something different. in a lot of ways it works, but in others it's not.