Stop calling them Blizzard. Blizzard died the day Mark Morhaime was forced to step down.
This is very sad news for HoTs. Activision is taking full control now and as someone else said, this is just the .."soft" phase of what will come in the near future.
Oh and, someone asked who came with the idea to make Diablo Immortal.
Well , that will be the co-fonder which recently came back to Blizzard to ruin it. Because of Allen Adham ( which I don't like it at all ) , Blizzard has became the puppy of Activision.
So .. all 'hail" to Allen.
Also: The whole article written by Activi ..I mean J. Allen Brack and Ray Gresko , is one of the worst I saw in Blizzard history.
IMO, heroes are never worth buying in MOBA games (unless they offer generous all-unlock packs like in Smite), as unlocking them is your main progression and incentive to keep playing. Though in HotS, they take far too long to unlock and the dailies in HotS are more chore-like and restrictive than those in other mobas, killing that long term incentive for me.
This leaves cosmetics, and Heroes of the Storm has, without a doubt, the lowest quality skins I have ever seen in a MOBA. They are grossly overpriced, don't compare to League of Legends skins from 2-3 years ago, let alone today, and they can be obtained for free from lootboxes. It's why I've never spent so much as a penny on this game.
Certainly raises questions about "e-sports". Certainly suggests that its not enough to simply suggest that "game X" has an e-sport option (and so will make lots of money).
Nosgoth was already a prime example of that (and another game i loved dearly)
Nosgoth was really fun. The Vampires all played very differently, as did the Hunter's. I do miss that game.
3rd person over the shoulder is incredibly underrated in the MOBA space imo.
Certainly raises questions about "e-sports". Certainly suggests that its not enough to simply suggest that "game X" has an e-sport option (and so will make lots of money).
Nosgoth was already a prime example of that (and another game i loved dearly)
Nosgoth was really fun. The Vampires all played very differently, as did the Hunter's. I do miss that game.
3rd person over the shoulder is incredibly underrated in the MOBA space imo.
There isn't much frame of reference for 3rd person. Smite is the only real example, as Super Monday Night Combat died on arrival and Paragon spent 2 years floundering as a terrible game with no identity.
Certainly raises questions about "e-sports". Certainly suggests that its not enough to simply suggest that "game X" has an e-sport option (and so will make lots of money).
Nosgoth was already a prime example of that (and another game i loved dearly)
Nosgoth was really fun. The Vampires all played very differently, as did the Hunter's. I do miss that game.
3rd person over the shoulder is incredibly underrated in the MOBA space imo.
There isn't much frame of reference for 3rd person. Smite is the only real example, as Super Monday Night Combat died on arrival and Paragon spent 2 years floundering as a terrible game with no identity.
And it seems strange to me, for a twitch based competitive genre.
Smite objectively takes more skill, generally, then the majority of MOBAs as, unlike the vast majority of MOBAs, auto-attacking requires the same kind of aim as abilities.
Auto attacks are essentially a small area cleave (melee) or a line skill shot (ranged). There's no "click and automatically do damage."
since the changes to Quick Match and the insane queue/waiting times (normally 10-20 mins if you play assassin), most people i played with online have now left and gone elsewhere.. with this news i think i will now be doing the same... RIP heroes.... i will miss you old friend..
If HotS closes it will make me SO sad. It's truly the only MOBA I've ever played or liked in any way. Such a shame. I wonder what Brack's scissors will cut next?
It's not making any money - it's no secret that HotS is the worst performing product in Blizzard's porfolio. They dumped a lot of money into it - especially in marketing efforts and it just never cought on due to LoL/Dota2 stranglehold on the entire MOBA playerbase.
From a business perspective - you have to cut your losses and move on, yes it always sucks for the fans - but Blizzard must make decisions like this.
As far as really good games closing down - happens all the time - having a good product that doesn't sell - yep, it sucks, but when it comes to online games where you have continuous expenses in paying devs/hosting/marketing - you have to step back and just cut your losses at some point. IMO Blizzard should have done this years ago with HotS.
IMO opinion - it's been long overdue to let HotS go - from a pure business perspective, this is the right call.
If Blizzard was doing great financially - this wouldn't be happening - the reality is - they've been seeing a steady decline in players over all of their products - so the money has been tighter at Blizzard now that it has been in previous years:
"What's most troubling is the decline in active users for the Blizzard segment (World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Hearthstone, and other titles), in which MAUs have declined by 5 million year over year to 37 million at the end of the third quarter. The company highlighted Overwatch and Hearthstone as major culprits in year-over-year losses in active users.
Even though management noted that Overwatch's active users were stable over the sequential second quarter, the year-over-year loss in the franchise is disappointing and shows that not even the interest in Overwatch League has been able to prevent players from leaving the game compared to the comparable quarter."
This is what companies do when money starts to be tight - have to trim the fat, stop investing into failing products
This is what happens when a company chases trends rather than setting them.
Heroes of the Storm is an innovative title though. Its questing/boss pushing mechanics have only been seen in 3 other mobas (Reapm of the Titans, Sins of a Dark Age, and Master x Master). None of these were successful in the west and the last came out after Heroes of the Storm.
I would call Heroes of the Storm a more casual, refined, polished Realm of the Titans on paper, and when it comes to map design, Heroes of the Storm is completely unique.
It certainly doesn't deserve to be lumped in with actual shameless trend chasers like Paragon, Infinite Crisis, Heroes of Newerth, and Strife.
since the changes to Quick Match and the insane queue/waiting times (normally 10-20 mins if you play assassin), most people i played with online have now left and gone elsewhere.. with this news i think i will now be doing the same... RIP heroes.... i will miss you old friend..
Not the best of news to welcome you to the boards, but all the same welcome!
A lot of people are comparing HotS and LoL, but they are vastly different. It's stupid to compare. Also
as an eSport it was doing just fine. The problem is that in all these years they never fixed their MM system. It's stupid to place GM/Masters/Diamond players with Bronze/Silver/Gold/Plat players. Their understanding of the game is just too different and with no possibility to make a comeback late game it just literally forces new players away.
That was the whole issue. No new players stayed around because the MM ruined their early in-game experience. They never had the chance to see what it feels like to be in games with both teams being equally matched.
Pros:
Creatively, HotS have a lot more you can "do" with your heroes than you do with other games like DOTA and LoL.
Games were shorter which 1. means you get faster to the fun part of the game(aka not level 1 fights) 2. you could play more games.
You can get skins for free a lot faster than other games.
Community is at least 1000% better than other MOBAs... Recently I started playing LoL and literally in my first game there were trolls that told people to kill themselves, they kept feeding on purpose and we still won... No idea why someone would go mental when they are winning, but LoL for example is filled with such people, but then again he went mental while champs were being selected... There were death threats literally before the game even started... Truly a wonderful community. About 3 out of 5 games are like that pretty much.
Cons:
Sadly probably 90%-95% of the games aren't equally matched because there is no actual MM system. It just places whoever is queued against each other. The reason for that is probably the lower playerbase, but that's also the reason for the lower playerbase..
Ranks were irrelevant. There were people who have played 10 heroes and don't even know the spells of the rest of the heroes, but are somehow in Diamond/early Master...
Blizzard never really cared for the game.
I haven't played HotS since Blizzcon. When I saw that MM being fixed wasn't even important to them I just lost all hope. I prefer to play HotS over LoL, but sadly games are not only really bad, but in the past 2-3 months have been getting worse and worse...
I was really hoping that they will fix it, but it seems like we are about to witness history as Blizzard is about to shutdown their first game ever... If that doesn't show how bad and out of touch with their players Blizzard is then I don't know what does.
From literally one of the best if not the best game developing companies, Blizzard is taking a dive with it's might to try and get on Daybreak Games level... and from what I'm seeing recently they just might do it.
If HotS closes it will make me SO sad. It's truly the only MOBA I've ever played or liked in any way. Such a shame. I wonder what Brack's scissors will cut next?
I personally think that Dawngate was the best MOBA ever made, but Heroes of the Storm is my second favorite and one that I have played plenty of.
I wish more people knew about Dawngate before it closed down. It was so fun compared to other MOBAs.
It did almost everything right (except for picking its publisher), and if it had only managed to come out before League exploded in popularity, it would be the gold standard for the genre.
An anonymous insider at Blizzard told me the company is changing its name to Brack Catching Flack.
Funny as it is, in that Kotaku report about the Diablo Immortal kerfuffle, sources told them that cost cutting measures were being implemented...maybe this is one of the first. I mean, they'll save hundreds of thousands on those two tournaments alone, let alone by shifting resources to other teams meaning they don't have to hire new employees.
I wonder if Morhaime's sudden retirement was balking at doing such things under pressure from investors and / or Activision?
I should try
Cracking jokes at Blizzard's expense is one thing, but I still feel really bad for Wyatt Cheng. He received absolute silence on a game he was told to hype up as part of his job to a live crowd of thousands, became a meme, received death threats, racist remarks, and a lot of petitions for his firing. Immortal's announcement disappointed me, but Activision also gave me Destiny 2 free of charge the same week.
There are certain things this game offers that other MOBA don't but judging by the way they have progressed in their development I doubt they see those things. If it gets close to the end they should try changing the view of the game to 3rd person from what it is currently to see how it works if it gets to the point where they have nothing left to lose. Eldevin did it with a very small studio so for a company like Blizzard with all their resources should be ez pz.
HotS might be the first MOBA to 'leave' the esports scene and effectively go into maintenance mode, but i doubt it will be the last as i think times are 'shifting' and MOBA's are probably just going to be the latest casualty, i don't really see this as being unusual as market trends are just that, the 'latest' one is probably B.R games, of which Fortnite is probably the current biggest threat to MOBA's. I still think that Blizzards gamble involving mobile gaming in China is likely to be something of a failure, but as a learning curves go, it may be a necessary lesson.
since the changes to Quick Match and the insane queue/waiting times (normally 10-20 mins if you play assassin), most people i played with online have now left and gone elsewhere.. with this news i think i will now be doing the same... RIP heroes.... i will miss you old friend..
Death spiral: players leave so wait time increase so players leave.
Maybe not the same game but the same problem could arise in Hearthstone,another Blizzard game. They sort of fixed the possible problem of a fast deteriorating game by giving incentive to playing.."free packs" "gold". I mention this because of the talk about que ues.Hs has already suffered a decline as has HOTS and what happens is then we start to see longer waits,HS is not nearly as bad as HOTS yet but what happens when a game designed around grind starts to have long wait times.People don't liek waiting,at least not more than maybe 30 seconds tops,any longer and peopel will begin to leave the game and then it snowballs the same way it snowballed for Wow on it's inception.
We saw the bonus cutting to top employees,so we know for fact there are lower profits and the big shots at the top always want answers and the mid bosses all want answers because their cushy high paid job is also in jeopardy. Me personally,i game for the RIGHT reasons>>>FUN,i don't like ideas behind games like HOTS grinding to get heroes paying in cash shops to get heroes and grind for rank points.The same goes for Hearthstone,Blizzard is a one dimensional game designer,they role with the same idea in all their games.So what ever happened to everyone always saying i play FOR FUN?I don't see it,i do because i play my old fave Unrealtournament,NO ladders,NO rankings,no rewards,no bragging,just FUN.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Maybe not the same game but the same problem could arise in Hearthstone,another Blizzard game. They sort of fixed the possible problem of a fast deteriorating game by giving incentive to playing.."free packs" "gold". I mention this because of the talk about que ues.Hs has already suffered a decline as has HOTS and what happens is then we start to see longer waits,HS is not nearly as bad as HOTS yet but what happens when a game designed around grind starts to have long wait times.People don't liek waiting,at least not more than maybe 30 seconds tops,any longer and peopel will begin to leave the game and then it snowballs the same way it snowballed for Wow on it's inception.
We saw the bonus cutting to top employees,so we know for fact there are lower profits and the big shots at the top always want answers and the mid bosses all want answers because their cushy high paid job is also in jeopardy. Me personally,i game for the RIGHT reasons>>>FUN,i don't like ideas behind games like HOTS grinding to get heroes paying in cash shops to get heroes and grind for rank points.The same goes for Hearthstone,Blizzard is a one dimensional game designer,they role with the same idea in all their games.So what ever happened to everyone always saying i play FOR FUN?I don't see it,i do because i play my old fave Unrealtournament,NO ladders,NO rankings,no rewards,no bragging,just FUN.
not to be rude but what was the point that you were making? that you were not their target audience and they should have made everything free with minimal features to appeal to you? am sure their sad to lose a non willing to pay customer that happy with a near 20 year old game....
i still think 90% of CEO are idiots and hate their focusing more on profits trying chase the easy casual dollar, i am happy that causal are a fickle market that are quick to jump to the next flavor of the month, instead of them keeping to the core audience that was willing to show support they get to lose face and money trying chase the flavor of the month.
maybe few company's will have to sink to make way for a better market that won't put thier profits first it already starting happen i believe with all the backlash from loot boxes, overpriced dlc, F2P cash shop and even Thu their rushing to jump into F2P mobile market for easy money their starting to get tired of it also so that well is not as deep as their shiny eyes think.
Comments
This is very sad news for HoTs. Activision is taking full control now and as someone else said, this is just the .."soft" phase of what will come in the near future.
Oh and, someone asked who came with the idea to make Diablo Immortal.
Well , that will be the co-fonder which recently came back to Blizzard to ruin it. Because of Allen Adham ( which I don't like it at all ) , Blizzard has became the puppy of Activision.
So .. all 'hail" to Allen.
Also: The whole article written by Activi ..I mean J. Allen Brack and Ray Gresko , is one of the worst I saw in Blizzard history.
This is a great video and mirrors how I feel as a player.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
IMO, heroes are never worth buying in MOBA games (unless they offer generous all-unlock packs like in Smite), as unlocking them is your main progression and incentive to keep playing. Though in HotS, they take far too long to unlock and the dailies in HotS are more chore-like and restrictive than those in other mobas, killing that long term incentive for me.
This leaves cosmetics, and Heroes of the Storm has, without a doubt, the lowest quality skins I have ever seen in a MOBA. They are grossly overpriced, don't compare to League of Legends skins from 2-3 years ago, let alone today, and they can be obtained for free from lootboxes. It's why I've never spent so much as a penny on this game.
3rd person over the shoulder is incredibly underrated in the MOBA space imo.
Smite objectively takes more skill, generally, then the majority of MOBAs as, unlike the vast majority of MOBAs, auto-attacking requires the same kind of aim as abilities.
Auto attacks are essentially a small area cleave (melee) or a line skill shot (ranged). There's no "click and automatically do damage."
I would call Heroes of the Storm a more casual, refined, polished Realm of the Titans on paper, and when it comes to map design, Heroes of the Storm is completely unique.
It certainly doesn't deserve to be lumped in with actual shameless trend chasers like Paragon, Infinite Crisis, Heroes of Newerth, and Strife.
as an eSport it was doing just fine. The problem is that in all these years they never fixed their MM system. It's stupid to place GM/Masters/Diamond players with Bronze/Silver/Gold/Plat players. Their understanding of the game is just too different and with no possibility to make a comeback late game it just literally forces new players away.
That was the whole issue. No new players stayed around because the MM ruined their early in-game experience. They never had the chance to see what it feels like to be in games with both teams being equally matched.
Pros:
Creatively, HotS have a lot more you can "do" with your heroes than you do with other games like DOTA and LoL.
Games were shorter which 1. means you get faster to the fun part of the game(aka not level 1 fights) 2. you could play more games.
You can get skins for free a lot faster than other games.
Community is at least 1000% better than other MOBAs... Recently I started playing LoL and literally in my first game there were trolls that told people to kill themselves, they kept feeding on purpose and we still won... No idea why someone would go mental when they are winning, but LoL for example is filled with such people, but then again he went mental while champs were being selected... There were death threats literally before the game even started... Truly a wonderful community. About 3 out of 5 games are like that pretty much.
Cons:
Sadly probably 90%-95% of the games aren't equally matched because there is no actual MM system. It just places whoever is queued against each other. The reason for that is probably the lower playerbase, but that's also the reason for the lower playerbase..
Ranks were irrelevant. There were people who have played 10 heroes and don't even know the spells of the rest of the heroes, but are somehow in Diamond/early Master...
Blizzard never really cared for the game.
I haven't played HotS since Blizzcon. When I saw that MM being fixed wasn't even important to them I just lost all hope. I prefer to play HotS over LoL, but sadly games are not only really bad, but in the past 2-3 months have been getting worse and worse...
I was really hoping that they will fix it, but it seems like we are about to witness history as Blizzard is about to shutdown their first game ever... If that doesn't show how bad and out of touch with their players Blizzard is then I don't know what does.
From literally one of the best if not the best game developing companies, Blizzard is taking a dive with it's might to try and get on Daybreak Games level... and from what I'm seeing recently they just might do it.
I should try
Cracking jokes at Blizzard's expense is one thing, but I still feel really bad for Wyatt Cheng. He received absolute silence on a game he was told to hype up as part of his job to a live crowd of thousands, became a meme, received death threats, racist remarks, and a lot of petitions for his firing. Immortal's announcement disappointed me, but Activision also gave me Destiny 2 free of charge the same week.
They sort of fixed the possible problem of a fast deteriorating game by giving incentive to playing.."free packs" "gold".
I mention this because of the talk about que ues.Hs has already suffered a decline as has HOTS and what happens is then we start to see longer waits,HS is not nearly as bad as HOTS yet but what happens when a game designed around grind starts to have long wait times.People don't liek waiting,at least not more than maybe 30 seconds tops,any longer and peopel will begin to leave the game and then it snowballs the same way it snowballed for Wow on it's inception.
We saw the bonus cutting to top employees,so we know for fact there are lower profits and the big shots at the top always want answers and the mid bosses all want answers because their cushy high paid job is also in jeopardy.
Me personally,i game for the RIGHT reasons>>>FUN,i don't like ideas behind games like HOTS grinding to get heroes paying in cash shops to get heroes and grind for rank points.The same goes for Hearthstone,Blizzard is a one dimensional game designer,they role with the same idea in all their games.So what ever happened to everyone always saying i play FOR FUN?I don't see it,i do because i play my old fave Unrealtournament,NO ladders,NO rankings,no rewards,no bragging,just FUN.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
i still think 90% of CEO are idiots and hate their focusing more on profits trying chase the easy casual dollar, i am happy that causal are a fickle market that are quick to jump to the next flavor of the month, instead of them keeping to the core audience that was willing to show support they get to lose face and money trying chase the flavor of the month.
maybe few company's will have to sink to make way for a better market that won't put thier profits first it already starting happen i believe with all the backlash from loot boxes, overpriced dlc, F2P cash shop and even Thu their rushing to jump into F2P mobile market for easy money their starting to get tired of it also so that well is not as deep as their shiny eyes think.