There’ll be no more Overwatch 2 and World Of Warcraft in mainland China from January 23rd, 2023, Blizzard and NetEase have announced. Those are among the games that NetEase have handled publishing for within the country, but the two companies have failed to reach an agreement to extend their deal. To add insult to injury, NetEase’s president Simon Zhu has taken to LinkedIn to blame “a jerk” for the deal’s collapse.
]]>Heroes Of The Storm, Blizzard's take on the MOBA, is entering its dotage. In a short news post, Blizzard say they're going to keep the game running, but "there are no plans for new for-purchase content" and future patches will focus on bug fixes.
]]>In a new virtual 'fireside chat', Blizzard head honcho J. Allen Brack has given an update on the success of their anti-toxicity systems. They've been using machine learning to help combat abusive chat and bad behaviour in Overwatch and Heroes Of The Storm for a while, and recently brought the system to World Of Warcraft's public channels. It sounds like a success there too. Brack also announced that the next BlizzCon, which is online-only, will be free for everyone to watch.
]]>Blizzard’s multi-universe MOBA Heroes Of The Storm will remove the ability to buy loot boxes with real world money, according to their latest test region patch notes. You’ll still be able to roll the dice with currency acquired in game, and you’ll still be able to pay for various heroes and cosmetics using your hard-earned quids, but no more direct wallet-to-random draw conversion.
]]>They must have been shipping eggnog, mistletoe, tinsel and other festive goodies to the Blizzard store in bulk, as they're kicking off seasonal events in multiple games today. Team FPS Overwatch and crossover MOBA Heroes Of The Storm are getting especially daft for the season, while Bungie are playing it a little more straight in shoot n' looter Destiny 2. Not that they haven't found time to dress up the occasional Ghost as a snowman, or assemble a small fleet of sleigh-styled hoverbikes. Check out some of the trailers jingling their bells around below.
]]>After smooshing decades of Blizzard history into mega-crossover MOBA Heroes Of The Storm, the studio have announced that a brand-new, original, never-been-seen character is joining the fight. Orphea, whose title I believe is "Heir of Raven Court and daughter of the Raven Lord", hasn't been in any Blizzard game before, which is... weird? Perhaps they wanted to create a specific type of character and, with so much of Blizzard history mined out, the closest they could find within the lore was a wizard whose most notable deed was selling Jaina bubblebath once. Here, come meet Orphea.
]]>"All microchips are," prog rock band Kansas famously almost sang, "is dust in the wind." Friend, we are gathered today to celebrate the retirement of another generation of hardware. Blizzard have removed support for 32-bit and DirectX 9 from Heroes Of The Storm, saying farewell to hardware that once powered PCs with such ha-ha-hilarious joke names as "Chipster", "Siri", "Crunch ALL The Frames", and "Not Sure If Overclocked Or Just Loud". Farewell, old friend. Enjoy your retirement in the cloud. Not that Heroes is free from nostalgia, as yesterday's patch added Warcraft 3 wrong'un Mal'Ganis as a new character.
]]>Blizzard are to disable paid loot boxes in their games Overwatch and Heroes Of The Storm for players in Belgium, following the country's recent ruling that their random grab bags of hats constitute gambling. Players in Belgium will no longer be able to buy loot boxes in either game with money or 'Gems', though they will still be able to earn boxes of cosmetic doodads by playing. Blizzard's change is following similar moves from games including NBA 2K18 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
]]>James “Bakery” Baker no longer plays Heroes of the Storm competitively. Before retiring through injury, the 21-year old Brit was the captain and support player for Team Dignitas, widely regarded as one of the best teams in Europe – and even the world. From 2015 to 2017 he played a major role in many of the squad’s biggest tournament successes, collected more than a hundred thousand dollars worth of prize money, and has no doubt helped foster the game’s competitive scene.
With that wealth of experience, it makes him the perfect person to ask about the journey Heroes of the Storm esports has been on since Blizzard’s MOBA launched in 2015, and the current health of the game for professional players today. In such a crowded market, where it’s surrounded by rivals from all sides, is Heroes of the Storm a viable career choice for someone looking to get into esports? How successful has Blizzard’s approach to supporting the game been for all involved?
]]>I'm sorry. I just can't take a wild-eyed inquisitor named 'Sally' seriously, even if she is Heroes Of The Storm's latest playable character. Maybe it's because I grew up with a daft, soft Labrador by that name. Maybe it's because it's just not that intimidating sounding. I mean, the big fancy inquisitor's hat is all well and good, as are the World Of Warcraft-standard enormous shoulder pads, but it all comes crumbling down under that name. Maybe we should just call her Whitemane, eh? She's out now, and available to play in Blizzard MOBA Heroes Of The Storm today.
]]>Back in 2016, Blizzard started hiring for a new first person game, by grabbing a couple of artists and moving Dustin Browder (the director of StarCraft 2) from his role on Heroes of the Storm to work as the director for the unannounced project. A new job post on Blizzard's career site shines more light on what is probably not Overwatch 2. The listing says that Blizzard are “looking for a talented and experienced Senior or Principal Designer” to develop weapons and abilities “in action or first-person shooter games.” They also want a hire that has a passion for playing and creating PvP game experiences. So strap in for StarCraft: Galaxy Royale. Or not. But we can all speculate wildly. And we will!
]]>This year's BlizzCon will run November 2-3, Blizzard have confirmed, and the first round of tickets will go on sale on May 9th. BlizzCon is their annual fan convention in California, with panels, tournaments, and events for all their big games. It always brings some big announcements too, setting up the year of Blizzard to come. For people who can't get there, Blizzard will also sell 'Virtual Tickets' to access livestreams of anything as well as the customary in-game goodies, and the main presentation livestreams tend to be to everyone for free.
]]>If this had been announced just a few days earlier, I'd have assumed it was an April Fools gag, but Blizzard are (mostly) deadly serious here: Diablo's crumbly old sage Deckard Cain is the latest addition to their fast and accessible MOBA Heroes of The Storm, and he's quite unlike any other character in the game, or many other MOBAs for that matter.
]]>It has been said that if you ever want to learn to swear in every language known to man (especially Russian), you merely have to play a few rounds of Dota 2 without disabling voice chat. Knowing this, Blizzard's decision to include this as the latest standard feature of their softer, milder take on the MOBA genre comes as a bit of a surprise.
As of today's patch, Heroes of The Storm now allows your team to share their exact and unfiltered thoughts on your performance without having to go through the trouble of typing them.
]]>The next Overwatch map will launch on January 23rd, Blizzard World have confirmed. It's taking the gang to the magical kingdom of Blizzard World, a theme park based on Blizzard's other games, from the StarCraft rollercoaster 'Journey to Aiur' to the 'Snaxxramas' restaurant. Us, nah we're not having fun, we're going there to shove a payload around. After a stretch on the test servers, Blizzard are now confident that they've jacked the saltiness of fries high enough that people will become parched and need to buy a drink but not high enough to vomit, so they'll set the map live on the main servers next Tuesday. New costumes based on characters from other Blizzard games are coming too.
]]>As if the hordes of Hanzo players swanning around Overwatch ignoring objectives like they're god's gift to murder were insufficient, the archer is coming to Heroes of the Storm too. Blizzard announced last night during BlizzCon that they're adding Hanzo to their free-to-play crossover MOBA along with World of Warcraft's dragonqueen Alexstrasza. He plings arrows, she heals people and blasts fire. A big ol' update reworking some of HotS's gameguts is in the works too, with changes including zooming the camera out a little further and improving matchmaking.
]]>A cartoon tells me that "Kel'thuzad, Archlich of Naxxramas" has found his way into Heroes of the Storm [official site]. The cartoon also revealed to me that I would have been far more into a He-Man/She-Ra style cartoon featuring these characters than I am into Heroes of the Storm.
]]>Mech-piloting, Dorito-munching pro gamer D.Va has joined the cast of Blizzard's free-to-play crossover MOBA Heroes of the Storm [official site], arriving just a few weeks after Genji. If you know her from Overwatch, you largely know how she works in HotS, because abilities translate fairly directly between the two class-based games. She stomps around in a mech which has shields and boosters and which she can set to self-destruct as a bomb, and she can scamper about on foot popping people with her pistol. Here, have a look in this trailer:
]]>Overwatch cyberninja Genji has arrived in Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm [official site] and the mech-piloting digital sports superstar D.Va is soon to follow. To give them somewhere familiar to scrap, the free-to-play crossover MOBA's update 2.0 has added a map based on Overwatch's Hanamura level. HotS 2.0 also reworks the player progression and loot system, and brings an event with crossover rewards in both HotS and Overwatch (including, oddly, a D.Va cop outfit for Overwatch). Oh, and all players are receiving enough virtuacash to unlock a bundle of twenty characters for free. Those busy Blizzees! Here, watch what Genji is all about:
]]>A company who make and sell cheats for Blizzard games including Overwatch, Hearthstone, and World of Warcraft must pay Blizzard over $8.5 million, a US court has ruled. This is the latest development in Blizzard's battle with cheaty botters Bossland, which has so far spanned five years, the courts of several countries, and even more cases. This latest ruling says that, along with paying up, Bossland are ordered to stop selling their software in the US as it "circumvents technological measures that control access to Blizzard's games". Other cases are still ongoing, mind.
]]>World of Warcraft, StarCraft 2, Diablo 3, Hearthstone, and Heroes of the Storm are all to stop working on Windows XP and Windows Vista as Blizzard start phasing out support for ye olde operatinge systemes later this year. Other, older games will still work fine, but folks will need to upgrade to keep playing those newer ones. Windows XP is now fifteen years old and Vista ten, Microsoft have long since stopped updating either, and Blizzard say "the vast majority" of players have upgraded, so they're knocking old Windows out and smashing 'em in a big skip.
]]>It's time for my "they added a hero I know from another game so I'll check back in on Heroes of the Storm [official site]" check-in as Lúcio from that "Overwatch" game I've heard so much about hits the public test realm.
I'm feigning Overwatch ignorance for vaguely comedic effect but actually Lúcio is one of the few characters in that game I love playing as so I'm legit interested to see how he manifests in HotS. Especially so since his skillset in Overwatch involves things like being abole to skate on the side of buildings to cross gaps and exploit verticality which... is less of a thing in HotS.
]]>It is time for my semi-regular check in with Heroes of the Storm [official site]. That game has reached the point where I'll boot it up when a character I've heard of or who sounds mechanically interesting turns up, but nothing keeps me actually playing beyond that. Valeera Sanguinar is the hero who has brought me back this time. She's an assassin and... well, Heroes of the Storm needs more assassins like the NFL needs more commercial breaks. It has 25 assassins and 38 characters split over the other three classes.
Anyhoodle, let's take a look....
]]>Hey, you! You there in the Blizzard-branded t-shirt, with the Blizzard flat cap, the Blizzard denim vest, the Blizzard cashmere scarf, the Blizard pocketwatch, and the Blizzard gardening gloves: fancy seeing your favourite Blizzardmen in a new way? Blizzard are making all characters in their crossover MOBA Heroes of the Storm [official site] free to play with this weekend. What would Zarya out Overwatch say if she met a Murloc? What do the Lost Vikings make of Zergmen? And for god's sake, will you push mid and win? Find out from Friday.
]]>Continuing the merry romp across the Blizzard Entertainment Transmedia Franchise Expanded Universe, Zul'jin--no, you're thinking of Vol'jin; this one is the Warcraft II fella, the Zul'Aman WoW boss--has arrived in Heroes of the Storm [official site]. No, you're thinking of Hearthstone or Heart of the Swarm; this one is the MOBA. With the confusion cleared up, yup, the forest troll warlord is now flinging axes with gay abandon around... ah, Summoner's Rift? The Nexus. warworld is called the Nexus in HotS. Heroes of the Storm, that is, not Heart of... ah, nuts to this. Just watch this video of ZJ getting angry:
]]>There’s a lot going on at Blizzcon 2016 – new Diablo classes, Hearthstone cards and long-rumoured Overwatch characters for a start. If Blizzard keeps making games, how large could Blizzcon become in the future? Could it grow too large for Anaheim, California, perhaps? At this rate it’s only a matter of time before it engulfs the whole of the US West Coast. But for now: more announcements.
Between all of the show’s marquee announcements, and all its eAthletes competing for big cash money prizes, there’s also been the usual bevvy of updates unveiled for StarCraft II, World of Warcraft and Heroes of the Storm. Time for a roundup!
]]>Heroes of the Storm's [official site] Heroes Brawl mode is out now marking a victory for consistent brand experiences across a multi-franchise media landscape. It's a rotating game mode where Blizzard switch up how you play and what heroes you can use and the like. They have similar modes in Hearthstone and Overwatch so you might be familiar with the concept from there.
I've tried it a grand total of one times and at the moment I think I'd rather just play normal HotS. Whether that's just because of the current flavour of Brawl or the mode itself I'm not sure.
]]>Heroes of the Storm [official site] is one of those games that I enjoy when I do boot it up but I tend to forget it even exists until I get an email about it. For me it's fun to dip into, but it doesn't stick beyond that. Today's reminder was the info that the game is getting Heroes Brawl mode as a kind of evolution of the arena mode which I... don't remember playing.
So what is Heroes Brawl, other than a reminder of how HotS is definitely a hero brawler and not a MOBA?
]]>A second Overwatch character (class? Hero? Overwatcher? Omniumumumanaut? wizard?) has arrived in Blizzard's free-to-play crossover MOBA Heroes of the Storm [official site] as a new hero (Champion? Summoner? Lord? wizard?). Zarya, the pink-haired Russian with a honking great gun, arrives in this week's update with her usual Overwatching abilities.
A StarCraft-themed new map is in too, with nuclear warheads to gather and launch. What a merry dance across the Blizziverse this update is.
]]>Auriel's time has come, as she officially makes her debut in Heroes of the Storm [official site] in early August.
The archangel from Diablo III will join the public test realm next week before entering the Nexus the week of August 8th. Auriel's a Support character, and possesses a number of healing and damage-dealing abilities. Here's a video introducing her:
]]>I miss the days when cheats for multiplayer games were quaint little things which didn't quite work - wallhacks which turned levels into confusing glass mazes, aimbots which mostly missed unless you had a really low ping. I almost felt sorry for people using them. Now cheats are everywhere, they're horrible, and they're difficult to stop. Blizzard are going straight to the source, recently filing a lawsuit against a company who make and sell hacks for WoW, Hearthstone, Diablo III, Heroes of the Storm, and, most recently, Overwatch [official site]. Well, they're going after them again.
]]>Angels are an easy Halloween costume - rub a little flour into your Slanket [other wearable blankets are available -ed.] and tape an Aerobie Sprint [other objects can be thrown -ed.] onto your head - but they're rarely cool, are they? However, I have always quite liked the radiant cheesecake murdergirls of Magic: The Gathering and the eerie archangels of Diablo. I'm always glad to see more of Diablangels. Tyrael is already in Blizzard's supergroup MOBA Heroes of the Storm [official site], and soon he'll be joined by the supercool Auriel. Oh, and Warcraft's naughty orc magician Gul'dan is coming too.
]]>Blizzard's Battle.net Mobile Authenticator app is now less of a faff, simply showing "Approve" and "Deny" buttons for authorising logins. Previously, it'd generate a code folks would need to type out while logging in to play Overwatch, StarCraft II, and whatnot. It's a tiny change but removing any faff from security procedures is always good. If you already use the authenticator, hooray for less faff! If you don't use it because you don't like faffing about, mate, come on, how much simpler can it get?
]]>Medivh, the conflicted wizard from recent documentary Warcraft:The Beginning, will be turning up in the Nexus soon bringing his magical mcgubbins to the Heroes of the Storm [official site] roster.
I feel like you could use his treacherous nature to really interesting effect in a MOBA - like, maybe a random chance for Sargeras to show up mid-game and mess with the character, converting him to fight on the enemy side. I have no idea how you would even begin to go about balancing that or making the player invest in one team's victory when they might defect at any moment but it would be an interesting challenge.
As it is Medivh in HotS is all portals and ravens and ranged mystical shenanigans. Here's a basic rundown:
]]>Heroes of the Storm [official site] is currently debuting new hero Chromie, a forgetful gnome who also happens to secretly be a Bronze Dragon called Chronormu. How does that even work? I'm going to try to find out.
]]>I was in a long distance relationship for over two years and gaming was incredibly useful for keeping in touch with my partner*. But not every game was a good fit, either because of relative game experience or temperament or any number of other things. So here are some of the games which worked and some of the games which didn't. I'm going to explain them from my point-of-view because I don't want to presume to know exactly what his experience was!
]]>Every character in Blizzard's free-to-play MOBA Heroes of the Storm [official site] will be available to play free of charge this weekend. Normally HotS has the usual MOBA deal of only making a small, rotating lineup of ten wizards free at any one time, wanting people to pay up (real or fake money) to unlock wizards permanently. But with the grand finals of their Heroes of the Dorm college team tournament this weekend, Blizzard are celebrating and welcoming folks in with an unlocked roster and bonus XP.
]]>I'm starting to feel like your accidental official Blizzard correspondent at the moment. I think it's because I've been playing a lot of Heroes of the Storm [official site] and Overwatch [official site] so both are in my brain when I'm scouting for news. When I have time I should really update my thoughts on both games, actually. I'll add that to the To Do scroll.
BEFORE THAT let us turn our attention to a piece of cross-over news. Tracer, the dual pistol-wielding, timey-wimey cockney from Overwatch will be joining the cast of Heroes Of The Storm this month and Blizzard have released a video to showcase her abilities and skins.
]]>Primal Zerg hero Dehaka is burrowing his way into Heroes of the Storm [official site] from the StarCraft-iverse to become the game's fiftieth playable character.
My knowledge of StarCraft lore is perhaps best described as "minimal" but there's a short Hotline Bling reference in the Dehaka introduction video so now I have "You used to call me through the Overmind..." stuck in my head as a lyric. It kind of fits as Dehaka's whole deal is that he stayed home on the Zerg planet and is an individual not part of a swarm but I'm not sure that the Overmind would have ever called him because he doesn't have a psionic connection which I assume you need for zerg brain broadband and booty calls from the Overmind or whatever.
Anyway, here's how the hero works:
]]>Blizzard's take on the lane-pusher genre had maps of various shapes and sizes, but it was missing a one-laner until now. With their latest, the Lost Cavern, Heroes of the Storm [official site] wants to give the community something they were apparently already trying to make on their own: a map with no objectives, no lane pushing, and just one unending teamfight in the middle.
Predictably, it won't be part of the competitive side of the game. More surprisingly, it won't have its own dedicated queue: people will have to personally invite their friends to enjoy it. And it won't be quite an ARAM map. Just an AM, without the random.
]]>Prepare the cake and light up the candles, because Heroes of the Storm [official site] has announced its next hero, bringing the roster up to 50 characters! What do you say? We don't do candles and cake anymore? We just give them an achievement?
Anyway, as reported by Destructoid, it's Dehaka's turn to join Blizzard's MOBA. He comes from Starcraft, and among his abilities it stands out that he won't be able to use mounts.
]]>I've not checked in with Heroes of the Storm [official site] in a while so the appearance of a spotlight video for upcoming hero, Li-Ming seems like a good excuse. She's just been added to the test realm so she should be added to the regular HotS roster soon. We know she was being set up as a glass cannon (fragile but capable of inflicting massive burst damage) but let's see how that's been translated into skills.
]]>At some point, one has to wonder how many heroes could possibly be hidden inside a single tempest. I'm no meteorologist, but my suspension of disbelief is starting to strain here.
Case in point: Blizzard announced two new characters for Heroes of the Storm [official site] this week, both lifted from the Diablo universe—Li-Ming the Wizard and Xul the Necromancer. They'll bring the Heroes roster up to 48 different characters, by my count [49 by mine! -unhelpful ed.].
]]>Blizzard has announced the full details of its Heroes of the Storm [official site] Spring Global Championship with eight regional shindigs culminating in a Global Championship event in April. The various prize pools for all of this top $1m and the company will be rinsing and repeating for a Summer and Fall season as well.
I'll put their more detailed breakdown below with prizes and regional partners and dates and things. I suspect that when the full details for the Spring Global Championship are announced it'll explain more about how this all feeds into the next World Championship.
]]>Look, Blizzard, you claim you're serious about digital sports yet here you are, missing out on montage opportunities. Yes, sure, tournaments and pageantry and a good game and all that are nice, but mostly you need good frag montage videos. Adding a werewolf character to Heroes of the Storm [official site] should have hundreds of fans making videos set to one of the all-time greats, Shakira's She Wolf [workplace warning: video shows Shakira dancing inside glitterguts], winning billions of views, but- oh, it's a He Wolf. Shakira didn't sing He Wolf, Blizzard. Don't you even know that? But sure, you enjoy Greymane, the Lord of the Worgen. Whatever.
]]>Blizzard have added a new character to the Heroes of the Storm [official site] roster. Er...two new characters? One and a half?
It's Cho'Gall, the two-headed ogre magi of Warcraft fame. First announced at BlizzCon earlier this month, Cho'Gall's either "zany and innovative" or "a stupid gimmick" depending on who you talk to. Why? Because each of his heads is controlled by a different player—one for Cho, one for Gall.
]]>BlizzCon 2015 has been good to Heroes Of The Storm [official site], it seems. Not only will it soon receive three brand new characters, an Arena mode and a new battleground, the Heroes Of The Storm Global Championship Circuit will run in 2016 playing host to three competitive events throughout the year. Oh, and Blizzard are also working to replace the game's matchmaking system in response to recent player criticism. Trailers and deets after the drop.
]]>So Activision Blizzard's creating a new division "devoted to esports" within the company. It's going to be chairman-ed by the former CEO of ESPN and the NFL Network, Steve Bornstein, and senior vice presidente-ed by a co-founder of Major League Gaming, Mike Sepso. There's a press release and everything.
]]>The finals of the Heroes of the Storm [official site] European Championships were mere hours away as I huddled on a sofa with match caster Manuel 'Grubby' Schenkhuizen. He's a former Warcraft 3 World Champion and StarCraft 2 pro player but this weekend he was dispensing wisdom on the subject of Blizzard's all-star hero brawler. Meanwhile I was stealing his expertise and putting it in my game journalist pouch so I could feed it to you later.
What I wanted to know was this: how to make the jump from playing HotS with more enthusiasm than expertise in a pool of friends and strangers to watching a competitive HotS match and knowing what on earth is going on.
You need to be more like an anxious parent at a music recital. Read on to find out why!
]]>This weekend, Prague was flooded with Blizzard fans for the Road to Blizzcon EU regionals. Players in the Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone and World of WarCraft tournaments competed for a slice of the $300,000 USD prize pool, as well as the chance to play in the World Championships at BlizzCon in November. Pip was at the tournament and will have more in-depth coverage later, but check out the winners below.
]]>Heroes of the Storm [official site], perhaps detecting that I had headed off for a few days, deployed a new patch for public testing and included a new character as well as a bunch of other twiddles and tweaks. At the time I was too busy working out how to say different ice cream flavours in Italian (and occasionally lapsing into Spanish, English and French) but now there is no ice cream, only scoops of Lt. Morales.
I guess that's probably a good thing because Lt. Morales (in theory) increases your chances of survival what with being a medic and a support character. Ice cream wouldn't care if you were being ganked.
]]>So here's an interesting development. Heroes of the Storm's ranked play option is limiting party size to two people.
In a mid-August patch the party size for Hero League was set at a maximum of four (you could actually play as a full five stack but it would put you into the Team League queue to play exclusively against other groups of five instead of mixed opponent parties). After listening to the feedback and seeing how the patch played for a little while, the maximum party size has been shrunk again. Here's why:
]]>Blizzard continue to add to their bubbling amalgam of SuperBrands by introducing the Monk character from Diablo III - a new playable dude for the company's MOBA offering Heroes of the Storm [official site] in a big patch this week.
Sexy, topless MuscleMonk Kharazim was detailed earlier on in the year - He's the first support-class character to be added to HotS from the Diablo series. He's a healer with offensive fighting potential and some nice mana restoration abilities.
]]>A pair of recent interviews with Blizzard employees, conducted by IGN at Gamescom, have hinted at the future of the Warcraft franchise beyond the MMO's vice-like embrace. It's not only movies; there might be a new strategy game on the cards.
]]>At Gamescom last week Blizzard announced that Heroes of the Storm [official site] would get a host of updates including new heroes, a map and skins. Some of this content is now out on the Public Test Realm, Blizzard's publicly available testing environment where players can help shake out bugs and preview what's coming next. There's one very interesting change: you must now buy any paid-for items before you can test them. It's a strange combo of Early Access and pre-ordering, where these items - in this case new hero Kharazim, aka the Monk from Diablo 3 - will transfer to your main account only when they're fully released.
]]>Ah, that weird feeling where the wall separating the Blizzardiverse and the Dotaverse-whose-inhabitants-originated-in-the-Blizzardiverse-and-then-diverged-for-legal-reasons thins a little and you can almost hear the phrase "assertion of IP rights"*. By which I mean, "Hey - there's a Heroes of the Storm [official site] spotlight video for Leoric, The Skeleton King."
]]>We knew Diablo's Butcher was coming to Heroes of the Storm [official site] with its Diablo-y Eternal Conflict expansion, but Blizzard had saved up a little secret or two. They don't let you even into Los Angeles this week unless you have something new to show off, you know.
The Monk and dear old King Leoric the Skeleton King are also making his way to the free-to-play Dote 'em up, Blizzard showed off last night in a new trailer.
]]>Sweet Western deities, Blizzard does work fast. Heroes of the Storm [official site] has only just come out of beta, but from deep in the dark MOBA death-mines the developers have apparently been working on a new content expansion themed around the Diablo universe.
It's called Heroes of the Storm: Eternal Conflict, and it'll introduces a new map and two new characters; this according to a live-streamed launch event that took place over the weekend.
]]>Heroes of the Storm [official site], which launches out of open beta today, is Blizzard’s take on the MOBA - and if the very mention of the ‘M’-word made you want to heave your monitor out the window then it may just be a game you should play.
Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas are popular in direct proportion to the degree with which they are hated by people who don’t play them - and there are very good reasons for both of these things. Blizzard have made a game that seeks to make peace with each side. I think, if given time by either party, it would succeed, even if these impulses sometimes leave the game in conflict with itself. I, personally, bloody love it.
]]>There is, I know for a fact, a special drum in the Blizzard offices. This drum is chained in a dark oubliette "lest it awake". Carved from glimmering red-flecked obsidian, its five-metre span is topped with a skin that feels eerily familiar. Some swear they've seen obscene glyphs tattooed into the skin, dark marks which vanished upon blinking. It is Blizzard's launch trailer drum. Crows rising from the trees this morning to pelt themselves at my window mean the drum has been sounded.
Heroes of the Storm [official site] has launched into open beta, and the drum booms mightily in its launch trailer.
]]>Like a cunning master plan finally coming to fruition, Blizzard has, cracking its bejewelled knuckles, announced that the launch of Heroes of the Storm [official site] is going to be paired with the first ever Heroes of the Storm Championship Tournament.
]]>Blizzard's upcoming Heroes of the Storm [official site] is, in my humble opinion, a belter of a game. Such praise is small beer to the Californian mega-developer, however, which with HotS and the upcoming Overwatch intends to reclaim a leading role in the eSports industry it helped to create. HotS is still in beta but the long road began this weekend with Heroes of the Dorm, a college-focused competition that culminated in a grand final broadcast live on ESPN – the latter being not only something of a coup, but also an eSports first. The event laid bare Blizzard's intentions for HotS and, despite some community grumbling, what looks awfully like a new take on how best to present competitive gaming.
]]>Blizzard's free-to-play Doter Heroes of the Storm [official site] will enter open beta on May 20th, but that's still one full month where your dreams of frolicking and fighting as Kerrigan, Diablo or the Lost Vikings will go unrealised.
Unless, of course, you get into the closed beta using one of the 1000 keys we're giving away below.
]]>Crystal Maiden and Windrunner are, of course, the most delightful characters anyone could ever hope to play on the Doting fields. Who could ask for more? I suppose lots of folks are quite attached to Blizzard characters, though.
If you want to lock and lord as Kerrigan, Diablo, Nova, Illidan, and other Blizzard chappies without paying £30 to access the Heroes of the Storm [official site] beta, good news! Blizzard today announced that their free-to-play Dote 'em up will enter open beta on May 20th, then officially launch on June 2nd.
]]>Purveyors of April Foolery, Blizzard, have temporarily added a giant head mode to Heroes of the Storm.
"Variety is the spice of life in Heroes of the Storm, and we’re always looking for new ways to allow players to customize their Heroes and infuse their personalities into the denizens of the Nexus," they say. "Big Head Mode is just another step in that direction."
]]>The most recent Heroes of the Storm patch has arrived, bringing with it a new hero (Sylvanas) and new map, Tomb of the Spider Queen. Let's take a gander at the patch notes, shall we?
]]>Heroes of the Storm [official site] developer Blizzard is hosting a student eSports tournament called Heroes of the Dorm. The grand prize: up to $75,000-worth of college tuition* for each member for the winning team.
eSports developers and third parties setting up initiatives for student players is not a new thing, but it has been generating more interest in the last year or two as the prizes on offer have increased. If you're part of a great team you could earn a sizeable chunk of your university tuition. This isn't about scouting for talented young players to recruit and put on the pro scene where eSports is a full time job. This is about eSports existing in tandem with compulsory and further education and how companies are approaching that. I don't think I've talked about that on RPS so here are a few cool examples:
]]>Blizzard have ruined my "I'll only post about Heroes of the Storm [official site] once today" plan by releasing the official trailer for upcoming character, Sylvanas Windrunner.
Sylvanas Windrunner, Queen of ALL ABS ALL THE TIME the Forsaken, was a known quantity in that she's been a confirmed HotS character since BlizzCon 2014 - I thought she'd been mentioned at a previous Blizzcon too, back when it was called Blizzard DOTA (I'm trying to find the bit in the panel video at the moment) - but there hadn't been any detail on how she plays until the developer's 2015 PAX East panel.
Heroes of the Storm's [official site] lead game producer, Kaéo Milker, has gone into detail on how Blizzard are hoping to tackle toxicity in their fledgling MOBA. It's a three-pronged approach looking at communication, incentivisation and punishment.
Milker was talking about the subject as part of a longer interview with Red Bull but this particular subject is one about which I feel strongly. It's the worst aspect of actually playing MOBAs and gives the scene a bad name.
]]>Blizzard are continuing to bounce merrily around their history with crossover throwdown MOBA Heroes of the Storm [official site], this time digging up a new character from before their 16-year stretch of Diablo, Warcraft, and StarCraft. Or characters, I should say. Sorta. But not. Kinda. The latest addition, see, is The Lost Vikings from ye olde puzzle-platformer of the same name, and they're technically one single 'hero' but you can control all three independently.
]]>For the low, low price of £29.99, you too can become a wizard this very day! Simple Paypal me £29.99 and I will send you detailed instructions on how to turn curtains into robes, coloured card into a pointy hat, chopsticks into wands, and socks into familiars, along with helpful tips on how to remove glitter from carpets.
I mean, you could take that 30 quid and buy a Founder's Pack for Heroes of the Storm, getting instant access to the beta and some wizards and a special mount and jazz, but that won't help me.
]]>Among my many professional failings is the inability to comprehend MOBAs. I understand the basic mechanics and have tried to enjoy both of the major players: gave LoL a real go for a few weeks then got bored, gave up Dota 2 after seven bewildering hours I'll never get back. My regret is never reaching or understanding the fun part that must be there. Then I played Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm.
]]>Heroes of the Storm (Blizzard's Blizzard-em-up) have moved from to closed beta. We'll have a more detailed impressions piece up tomorrow evening but until then, here's the basic update info.
Heroes of the Storm is Blizzard's take on the MOBA genre – although they'd rather you called it a hero brawler. It features characters from all reaches of the Blizzardiverse doing battle on various maps. Each map has a unique objective which can be completed in order to earn a boost for your side.
To coincide with the move to beta, Blizzard has added a new map, a new hero (Thrall) and a ranked play mode. There's also a draft mode which lets you try to create particular team compositions or try to counter-pick your opponents. For more on any/all of the above, read on:
]]>"Blizzard: The Game" as Mike Morhaime named it marches ever on toward release. Heroes of the Storm will be entering closed beta on January 13th. The difference between this and their current technical alpha, which is also invite only, will be a ramping up of frequency of invites and more polish in various areas. This was the most major of Blizzard's announcements for the game during Blizzcon, but they detailed some other upcoming changes.
]]>Part of a miscellany of serious thoughts, animal gifs, and anecdotage from the realm of MOBAs/hero brawlers/lane-pushers/ARTS/tactical wizard-em-ups. One day Pip might even tell you the story of how she bumped into Na'Vi's Dendi at a dessert buffet cart.
Dota, League of Legends, Smite – these are complex games to get your head around and thus a good first impression is key.
Until this point the introductions tended to come via excited friends. People who popped up online or at the pub to announce, "Hey, I've found this awesome game which I think you'll love and which we can play together. Won't that be great?"
]]>"Me too!" cries Heroes of the Storm as it sprints after big siblings League of Legends and Dota 2. "No," they say as they slip behind the bike sheds, "you can play when you're older." Infinite Crisis titters in the background, the nerdy friend who gets in because it does their homework. Heroes of the Storm stamps its feet and sulks. It just wants to share its new patch.
I'd basically forgotten about Heroes since Pip's hands-on report in April. The ongoing "Technical Alpha" is still invite-only and mostly unavailable to regular humans, but Blizzard are still blitzing out information about the patches to the general populace. The latest adds a new map, a new hero and changes customisation and progression options.
]]>'Hero brawler'. That's what Blizzard would like you to call their all-star lane pushing videogame, Heroes of the Storm. In marketing terms it's better than referencing your competitors by saying Dota-like or LoL-a-like (sidenote: no-one says LoL-a-like and this is a crying shame). More importantly, it's better than the emotionally dead and uselessly expansive MOBA. It gives you the flavour of the game you're about to play. The phrase 'hero brawler' contains something of the rambunctiousness you'll find infecting lanes, infiltrating the weird scrubland that the genre's traditional vocabulary dubs 'jungle' and venturing into haunted mineshafts.
]]>Heroes of the Storm's developers might have made some major missteps (that they apologized for), but that doesn't mean the game itself isn't looking extremely promising. I played a fair amount of Blizzard's MOB- excuse me, "hero brawler" during BlizzCon, and I found it to be a streamlined approach to an often unwieldy genre that could provide a nice alternative when lengthy LoL or DOTA 2 matches sound unappetizing. But man, it's still really weird to see Jim Raynor - decked out in full space marine garb, no less - riding a pony whose spine probably looks like a rusted-over sawblade at this point. 17 mins of informatively shoutcasted footage below.
]]>Well, my Heroes of the Storm interview ended on a strange note, didn't it? You don't know the half of it, either. You weren't actually there. As I attempted to explain why designing female characters that look as empowered as their male counterparts is absolutely not about political correctness for political correctness' sake, the room's atmosphere seemed to me to become extremely curt. Browder seemed highly resistant to engaging on the topic, and sounded particularly severe when saying "We're not running for President." Because clearly, that's the only scenario in which this sort of thing really matters. When you're trying to make kissy faces at the camera and win hearts by pretending to care about The Real Issues.
Now, I don't know if Browder meant for it to come across that way, and he could well have misinterpreted the bottom line of my questioning. If so, that's fair and understandable, and I apologize for using him as an example. Also, I very much appreciate that he said he'd at least take the feedback to mind. But the attitude he seemed to express is an incredibly prevalent one both within the industry and among its closest followers, and I'd be remiss if I didn't discuss it in detail.
]]>Papa Blizzard, Papa Blizzard! Why are Aunt Kerrigan and Uncle Diablo fighting? No, seriously, why? I didn't even know they were from the same side of the family. Or the same dimension. And yet, for all the "because why not"-ness of the game's premise, Heroes of the Storm plays quite nicely, taking MOBA mechanics and sanding down the rough edges to a point of real intuitiveness - sculpting a svelte ice swan from a figurative iceberg. I discussed the surprise hit of BlizzCon with game director Dustin Browder, and we touched on everything from business models to plans for a map editor to whether or not Heroes counts as a "casual" MOBA. That was all delightful. Unfortunately, Browder's perspective on the MOBA genre's epidemic of absurd, hypersexualized female characters turned out significantly less so.
]]>After Blizzard's own community invented what is now considered the MOBA genre, the lumbering blue giant finally has one of its own. Again. Heroes of the Storm was originally conceived as a StarCraft II map editor showcase, then reinvented as a slightly more robust standalone, then renamed, then consigned to more than a year of worrisomely silent obscurity. But now, at last, it's slowly but surely trundling down the danger-laden lane to completion. And it's good. Really, really good. Heroes strips the MOBA genre - or "hero brawler" according to Blizzard's sweaty, desperate attempts at renaming the genre - down to its basest essentials, and they just... make sense. Matches are quick, convolution is minimal, and there are even some fairly unique heroes mixed in with a handful of DOTA/LoL re-skins. Read all about it below.
]]>Blizzard Convention Two Thousand And Thirteen Anno Domini Year Of Our Metzen is upon us. Shortened to "BlizzCon" despite the svelte elegance of its full name, the show is Blizzard's favorite place for new announcements. I am sitting in a very prickly chair in gaming's most cavernous convention hall, and I'll be writing about and recording what happens all weekend. First up, Blizzard's repeatedly reinvented MOBA Heroes of the Storm.
]]>Blizzard might want to consider firing its acronym-wrangling-keeping-washing-and-redeploying department (or AWKWARD, for short), because it seems to have run out of ideas. Once upon a time, there was this little expansion pack called StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, but its friends just called it HOTS. And now Blizzard's MOBA, once known as Blizzard All-Stars, has been rechristened Heroes of the Storm - aka, er, HOTS. Gee, this sure is awkwar-- wait, I get it now! Oh AWKWARD, you clever scoundrels, you. But yes, Blizzard's officially chasing dreams of MOBA glory again, and a big re-reveal is set for BlizzCon next month.
]]>
.png?width=1200&height=630&fit=crop&enable=upscale&auto=webp "The Last Of Us Part II ידרוש חשבון PSN כדי לשחק במחשב, מה שהופך אותו לבלתי ניתן לשחק בלמעלה מ")
