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20 Heroes Just for Logging In - Heroes of the Storm - MMORPG.com
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
20 Heroes Just for Logging In - Heroes of the Storm - MMORPG.com
Heroes of the Storm News - The Heroes of the Storm team is preparing to unleash the "2.0" version of the game and what better way to celebrate such a momentous event than by giving away free stuff? In this case, players can score TWENTY HotS Heroes just by logging in. Heroes are grouped together in any one of four bundles, each with a theme attached. The event will begin on April 25th and run through May 22nd. Once in game, you'll receive 100 gems, enough to purchase one of the bundles.
Comments
Always a sad reminder that the industry is based on popularity rather than quality; once you're the "big guy" of a genre, you can slack off for years on end and people will still throw money at you while others update thrice as frequently (each with higher quality) and work their ass off without being given proper chances or having to fight tooth and claw to obtain such.
Not that Blizzard needs more money... They are already the "big guy" of Arena Shooters, RTS, MMOs, Card Games and Hack 'N Slash. The latter also being somewhat depressing as there are amazing hack and slash games out there in the same predicament.
WoW has been doing this to new MMOs for years; the only one that has really broken through it all was Final Fantasy XIV. Not only did it acquire a strong subscription base after its remake, but their budget was doubled for Heavensward and then Tripled beyond that for Stormblood. As an annoyed side note, I've been trying to get FFXIV's lorebook for about a year now (it seems), but it's always sold out the moment it gets in stock.
They would need to overhaul their core design and create some well paying tournaments to make a dent in the two juggernauts at the top.
Yes it can be that the user base was stagnant (still i had to wait like max 30 seconds for the most played hero to find a match), but saying it is failing compared to DOTA2 and LoL is like saying FF XIV is failing compared WoW because WoW has more subscriber (and even there, i'm not so sure).
People have different things they like and different way to play. For me HoTS is the best MOBA because it make u play with the team, it spur the team to move together for the same objective more then farming gold for buying item and become stronger (alone, usually).
Sorry for the rant, but recently so many people online are going around saying "oh, hots it's dieing, they are giving free heroes and chaning so much other things, they really must be dieing", actually no, even talking about the PRO world, i think HoTS has is niche players and viewers. Surely nothing compared to LoL PRO world but as most said, when you become the most popular, people play/view your game just because, while not even giving a chance to a game that keep innovate himself with new maps, new heroes with different mechanics etc.
I love HotS and have never enjoyed or gotten into LoL or SMITE. It's a great deal and I'm looking forward to it.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
People need to stop being mindless drone following trends around, and just play games that you really enjoy.
I used to play LoL a lot and was even close to challenger, but honestly farming the first 15-20-30 minutes just so you can oneshot later when you have all the items wasn't that fun for me after I saw the idea that HotS brought.
I like HotS because things happen faster(games are shorter), you need to play with the team. Even if 1 person is goofing it's almost impossible to win(of course that's sometime a minus when that guy is doing it on purpose). But definitely what I like the most is the objectives each map have. Really looking forward to Hanamura.
Also 1 big thing that people tend to forget to mention is the community. While HotS have quite a few jackasses(most aren't rude, but would throw game on purpose), that's all they are... it's not like in LoL where I don't want to even use the words I have in my mind to describe part of the community. Someone throwing a game is the least of your issues in LoL. There are usually families and death involved in the chat. It's a horrid thing :P
I actually still prefer HotS though. It's just way more relaxing game in my opinion, easy to learn, hard to master I guess. I don't really find it that competitive as LoL. Mind you, I'm not a pro player, currently at Gold Rank in Team League after just playing 10 placement matches, but boy does it start to get toxic at that rank. What people don't understand is, that in 90% of the cases the match is already lost at the draft.
Also.. does someone know if gold will keep the same value as it does right now?
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
I played a lot of LoL and enjoyed it very much,played some Dota2, some Smite. And then played HotS. Dont think i would ever want or need to go back to any other. The quality and content of those game are so far behind HotS for me that i doubt if thosee 3 were released in the same time there would be any competition between them. The only reason LoL or Dota2 are more popular is because they were relesed earlier and gathered already a huge playerbases.
I understand giving away 20 free may entice players to continue playing because it's free stuff but it is a little unfair to those who paid money for those same heroes. If you think about how much hero tuning they do in the first two months after one is released the paying players are almost testing them out until they get to the place where they no longer need to be adjusted and then they just end up giving them away for free with promotions like this.
Those bundles are so strange. The Assassin bundle has Sylvanas, one of the best Specialists in the game, yet the Specialist bundle doesn't have her? Chen, Dehaka and ETC, with Dehaka and ETC being some of the best tanks in the game, are in the Specialist and Support bundle, yet not in the Tank and Bruiser bundle?
I'd say it has much more to do with how long each has been around. LOL and DOTA2 are what spawned the mainstream craze of the mods that came before them. Each has a steady lock on many mainstream Esports, as well as players. When there is advancement as well as collection involved people tend to stick with the game they've gained the most in, (for better or worst). It's hard to step in late in the game in such markets, just like it has been in MMOS competing against Blizz..
They wouldn't have done half as well in the team shooter arena if TF2 wasn't so dated at this point. That genre was ripe for the picking it seems, the MOBA on the other hand is a different story.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
There were a lot less heroes to choose from when last time the gave away free ones, so right now the give away more. And it is probably the most important update to the game since release, so a special bigger award is totaly understandable.
And about it being unfair - its not. Its like buying games for example. Do you think it is not fair that you buy a game at release for full price and a year later it us at big discount? Or some even older games given away free with bundless and such? When you buy anything, its totally understandable that the price of it may change. What you are paying more for, is the possibility of using it sooner. You payed for those heroes some time ago and you could have playwd them for a long time before all those other players that will get them now for free. That was the privilege you paid for.
The bundles are something special for HotS 2.0 launch. Log in, get 100 gems, pick a bundle. That amount of gems is like a couple of bucks. If you check the HotS reddit, there's a spreadsheet where you can plug in which heroes you own and it'll show you which bundle has the most value for you. Unless there's just a hero you want really bad. Pick a bundle first, and then open your vet loot chests you get. Any duplicate will result in shards and you can use those to buy stuff like skins, mounts, etc.
Gold will be used to buying new heroes and rerolling loot boxes. So the value stays relatively the same. Can't buy master skins with them, since they are no long master skins.
The bundles all have themes to them. The assassin bundle is for heroes with a more aggressive playstyle. Sylvanas is also in the flex bundle, which gives a wide variety of different roles. The support and specialist bundle is more of a mix of warriors and supports, those warriors can have fairly supportive roles, like ETC can go prog rock build and off-heal the team, chen can provide shields to his team, zarya is the same. Like how Alarak, Thrall and Kharazim are in the tanks and bruisers bundle, as each of them can take a decent beating and can act as pseudo-front line if played well.
Looking at the bundles, there's a good variety of a lot of different roles. I wouldn't get hung up on the names too much.
It's funny, because at the level that most players (even ranked players) play at, HotS is by far the best experience. It just doesn't have the high-end level of play that the others have.
If I had to levy a complaint against HotS, it would be that it is overly repetitive. This, unfortunately, is an issue with most of the genre. League of Legends has hosted a largely stagnant, oppressive metagame in all levels of play for years - causing me to long since abandon a game that I once enjoyed and spent way more money and time in than I'd like to admit. This same boring lane setup has infected almost the entire genre. Smite works almost identically to League in this. Paragon works almost identically to League in this. And so on and so forth. For a different experience, one essentially has to play DotA2 - and that game certainly isn't without issues of its own.
Is it a cool move?
1 it is nothing more than marketing,you know the millions the marketing team spend and get PAID to do.
2 Since we need a hero to play the game,yeah go figure,they are giving us heroes lol.
I would rather developers quit with the shenanigans,the GAME is the most important part and the ONLY reason we are there,make great games and you won't need to keep marketing and looking for gimmicks to get people to play.
The game is actually a mess,designed by what seems an amateur UI designer.Example,when game starts my computer/win defender does the popup asking if i want to allow the app to access my connection/PC whatever.I can't even access it because my mouse is locked to the game window lol.Just really lazy sloppy designing.
Know what would make me happier than ANYTHING they are currently doing?FIX the dam launcher/app,it is super frustrating and on both my computers.One PC it just locks it up completely and on my faster one it runs like a snail,slower than 56k.It all started back when they did the HS Ungoro/Diablo3 update,somewhere in that time frame.Blizzard's customer support?Can we see your log files,then 100's more posters later still no fix.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.