Heroes of the Storm

I'll keep saying it till I'm blue in the face but Blizzard never fail on good cinematics.

So this is basically blizzards version of dota?

Quote from dux

I'll keep saying it till I'm blue in the face but Blizzard never fail on good cinematics.

So this is basically blizzards version of dota?

Yeah it definitely meets that description. It's interesting to see the MOBA-scene turn into a frenzy. More competition for League, we'll see what happens I guess.

I like it.

I see LoL as a very casual version of DotA, but still following the same overall design.

I see Dota 2 as the exact same as DotA, but with different visuals and a great emphasis on the community (great support to competitive game streaming, specific interfaces to improve the spectators' experience, etc). But of course, since the last patch, it looks like Valve's game is dis-attached to the original mod.

In Blizzard's case, it seems they decided to make something different: shorter matches (half the time than what an average Dota 2 match lasts?), created different maps, added a new floor to them (in one of the videos we see a player going to the lower ground to search for skulls) and, for what I understood, certain quests that reward the team who completed to push forward towards their main goal. No last hitting could make the game more casual, but I don't know how well that combines with the new maps to achieve a casual experience. Being able to change a hero's ultimate skill could be interesting.

I loled when they said "hero brawler genre". Come on. Just say "dota"! Riot likes to call it "MOBA". I think Valve calls it "ARTS". Can't these companies just be fair with gamers and call the genre the same term? We all know it's dota. And that is an ARTS. We don't call FPS a "soldier shooting genre".

holy shit I'm excited for this I love the idea of putting all the heros together into a dota style game

"we have all these assets and we need money!"

it's a win win situation

Rick itsn't this just like BF4 ? as far as i can tell it does work

Everyone I play LoL and DotA with is very interested in this so we'll definitely be checking it out. Sounds like the objectives will take it different routes than existing AoS games... THAT'S RIGHT I USED AOS. This genre has more names than games.

I always love it when a new Blizzard CGI trailer gets released.

AoS? oh my! I don't even know what that is hahah

Quote from Taylor

This genre has more names than games.

QFT /

Aeon of Strife was the original map in SC. It's probably the most useful term but the least used.

I'm really not sure if we need another hero arena game. It feels like this game is a couple of years late, even by Blizzards standards. I'll try it anyway but I'm skeptic.

Pacing of the game looks really weird. All the animations seem really slow.

At least it looks like they're trying out new things with levels though which is a plus.

I have done about a dozen projects in the last two years on this from really small "what is MOBA or ARTS or whatever" projects to "we are building a MOBA...help us understand why our alpha testers are telling us it sucks and we will be roadkill against the established games out there" to "Hi I'm an investor. Should I invest in MOOBLAH? My son plays Angry Birds on my iPad so that must mean no one on earth plays on any game on a PC anymore, right?"

So a few things we've learned:

1) We like "MOBA" as the name of the genre. Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. Action-RTS is nice but we just flipped a coin and decided on MOBA for all our forecast, tracking and segmentation intelligence products our customers buy. Everyone shrugs

2) We put MOBA under the Strategy category. Is that right? Meh, right enough and it's just easier to think "MOBA is a type of strategy game" even if that's not exactly right from everyone's perspective.

3) LoL is still (as of now) the biggest game in terms of number of worldwide players. DOTA 2 is fast gaining and really gaining outside of Asia where Valve is strongest. In other words, it's a two giants and a bunch of smaller players. LoL + DOTA 2 = roughly 95% of the PC MOBA space right now in terms of hours played. But LoL is still friggin huge in China thanks to Tencent.

4) Everyone is asking us if Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm will stand a chance against LoL and DOTA 2. The answer is: yes. It will get marketshare. It will cannibalize more than it will grow the MOBA genre. MOBA, like MMO before it, is going to hit saturation and there WILL be some genre burnout. However we can't simply say that because WoW caused a lot of subscription MMO burnout that LOL/DOTA 2 will do the same and in exactly the same way.

tl;dr version:

just because you are building a MOBA does not mean you can print the $$$. Blizzard has about the best chance of anyone to successfully enter the market but MOBA is a grind like MMOs and F2P is not a cure for printing money despite what you may have heard.

Yeah I totally agree with the cannibalizing point. I think this is where I begin to shit my pants if I'm Riot Games, my biggest and basically only franchise is LoL, and bigger more established game companies are edging in on my little niche turf.

Quote from FMPONE

Yeah I totally agree with the cannibalizing point. I think this is where I begin to shit my pants if I'm Riot Games, my biggest and basically only franchise is LoL, and bigger more established game companies are edging in on my little niche turf.

[Blocked Image: http://i.imgur.com/R7RImVn.jpg]

Quote

On July 12, 2013, Business Insider named Riot Games #4 on its list of the top 25 technology companies to work for in 2013

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riot_Games

Yep, definitely a niche and I'm sure they're trembling...

Yeah but that doesn't mean it's a good game