On January 23 2014 04:14 Rayeth wrote: I really think Blizzard is doing themselves a disservice by comparing this game to Dota. After playing it at Blizzcon it didn't have that same feel that Dota games have. It was MUCH slower. No shop and shared Exp really change the dynamic of team fighting and it doesn't feel as hyper competitive like those games do.
I wonder if it really should be classified as something else. If LoL and Dota are ARTS (or MOBAs?), then this is really just a lane pushing game. It isn't the same ballpark and doesn't really play by the same rules. Its like comparing Baseball to Cricket because they both involve bats hitting a ball. They just aren't the same.
Kinda like comparing Starcraft to C&C, Rise of Nations or Halo wars, or CS to Doom or TF2, right?
Just because the 2 major titles in the genre are extremelly similar doesn't mean something diferent doesn't apply. It gets silly if every game in the genre must be a Dota clone.
On January 23 2014 04:29 rezoacken wrote: Mobas already bore to death both playing and watching. I'm certainly not excited for a version that looks even slower.
I don't see this winning over the moba crowd. Maybe the casuals or people that don't play moba but by definition casuals will play and then move on.
It's slower paced but there's more team fighting (since that's almost all there is to do) so it balances out I think.
On January 23 2014 05:43 Yurie wrote: What is this games selling point compared to bloodline champions and Dota 2?
I believe the main ones would be: 1) Blizzard game. 2) Blizzard Heroes nostalgia etc 3) Short, hopefully fun and easy games. NOT marathon matches, NOT too hard to get into.
On January 23 2014 05:43 Yurie wrote: What is this games selling point compared to bloodline champions and Dota 2?
I believe the main ones would be: 1) Blizzard game. 2) Blizzard Heroes nostalgia etc 3) Short, hopefully fun and easy games. NOT marathon matches, NOT too hard to get into.
Basically, what Hearthstone is to M:TG
Step 1: casualize WoW. Step 2: casualize SC ...
Step X: casualize game Y
If there is one thing you can certainly say, it's that they have changed their target demographic a lot from the old days. And unfortunately for people like me, there are rather a lot of companies opting for this route.
On January 23 2014 05:43 Yurie wrote: What is this games selling point compared to bloodline champions and Dota 2?
I believe the main ones would be: 1) Blizzard game. 2) Blizzard Heroes nostalgia etc 3) Short, hopefully fun and easy games. NOT marathon matches, NOT too hard to get into.
Basically, what Hearthstone is to M:TG
But MtG is one of the simplest and most casual CCGs ever... It's kindergarten league when it comes to complexity, strategy involved etc. (one of the reasons why most people pick it up as their first CCG and later leave for something more challenging).
Is Hearthstone even simpler and more casual than that? (never bothered to really check it out since I'm not much into WoW)
On January 23 2014 05:43 Yurie wrote: What is this games selling point compared to bloodline champions and Dota 2?
I believe the main ones would be: 1) Blizzard game. 2) Blizzard Heroes nostalgia etc 3) Short, hopefully fun and easy games. NOT marathon matches, NOT too hard to get into.
Basically, what Hearthstone is to M:TG
Step 1: casualize WoW. Step 2: casualize SC ...
Step X: casualize game Y
If there is one thing you can certainly say, it's that they have changed their target demographic a lot from the old days. And unfortunately for people like me, there are rather a lot of companies opting for this route.
Geez what are you on about WOW was a causlized MMO already. Ever play any MMO that came before it? Like Everquest?
On January 23 2014 05:43 Yurie wrote: What is this games selling point compared to bloodline champions and Dota 2?
I believe the main ones would be: 1) Blizzard game. 2) Blizzard Heroes nostalgia etc 3) Short, hopefully fun and easy games. NOT marathon matches, NOT too hard to get into.
Basically, what Hearthstone is to M:TG
But MtG is one of the simplest and most casual CCGs ever... It's kindergarten league when it comes to complexity, strategy involved etc. (one of the reasons why most people pick it up as their first CCG and later leave for something more challenging).
Is Hearthstone even simpler and more casual than that? (never bothered to really check it out since I'm not much into WoW)
If MtG is simple then I'd hate to play anything that you consider complex.
Hearthstone is as simple as it gets. Really easy resource mechanic, tooltips that show what everything does. Can pick it up and learn the game in minutes. I don't know anything at all about strategy or complexity but there are plenty of people who play and watch Hearthstone so I can only imagine it has enough of a level of complexity and strategy in it to draw in and keep fans.
HotS is going to be a lot of fun to play I think, but it's not going to be an eSport. Don't expect it to be an eSport and you wont be disappointed. If you don't enjoy Mobas, you probably wont enjoy HotS. It's going to be free to play, so I'm not even sure why there's any discussion about it. Download it, give it a shot, if you don't like it you can uninstall it and all you're out is the 40 minutes you spent downloading/installing/playing.
On January 23 2014 05:43 Yurie wrote: What is this games selling point compared to bloodline champions and Dota 2?
I believe the main ones would be: 1) Blizzard game. 2) Blizzard Heroes nostalgia etc 3) Short, hopefully fun and easy games. NOT marathon matches, NOT too hard to get into.
Basically, what Hearthstone is to M:TG
Step 1: casualize WoW. Step 2: casualize SC ...
Step X: casualize game Y
If there is one thing you can certainly say, it's that they have changed their target demographic a lot from the old days. And unfortunately for people like me, there are rather a lot of companies opting for this route.
I don't know about WoW and how casual Hearthstone is relative to other CTGs. From what I've gathered, it's probably true what people say.
Regarding SC though, yes SC2 is less mechanically demanding than BW. But I don't know anyone who would characterize SC2 as a casual game. In fact, can you name a harder-core game from the "modern" era?
On January 23 2014 07:51 c0ldfusion wrote: Regarding SC though, yes SC2 is less mechanically demanding than BW. But I don't know anyone who would characterize SC2 as a casual game. In fact, can you name a harder-core game from the "modern" era?
What is the "modern" era? Post 2k? Post 2k5? 2k10?
For me anything 2k+ is "modern" (I still can't believe we're past 2k10). It might be different for others.
There's been quite a lot of games that I'd consider recent enough (2k4+) that far surpass SC2. All the Relic games basically (DoW, DoWII, CoH, not played CoH2 but that probably too), Armies of Exigo, Supreme Commander and stuff like that. That's only considering the RTS genre, if we broaden the spectrum then you get a shitton of hardcore games (like Battle Worlds: Kronos for example, which states even in the tutorial that it's damn hard and you'll most likely be losing a lot even in SP and the only way to improve is practice).
SC2 might be the most well-known product, just because it's Blizzard that doesn't release new games all that often, it was hyped and advertised beyond belief. There are different, and often better, products, they're just not as widely known.
I miss the days of truly unique and hardcore games, like the Homeworld series... Now every game seems to be following the same design patterns and they all look and feel largely the same.
Edit: Watched the HotS stream.
I won't comment on the horrible UI and graphics since it's still deep in Alpha. I will however comment on how the map is so small and open for the most part, leading to a ton of grouping up and removing a huge part of positional play, so important for any game in this genre.
The "dungeon" idea stolen from the Armies of Exigo is a nice touch (which could potentially alleviate some of the positioning problems) but it could be done a lot better. I like the idea of collecting skulls to spawn mega-creep, not like how the skulls drop to the ground and you have to run around collecting them.
Shared team experience is a joke.
No items, base upgrades or whatever else you could do with money? Turning creeps into just xp/skulls is so boring, removes a lot of potential dimensions from the game.
Mounts are a joke.
I like the idea of getting super/mega-creeps to spawn for you and help with the pushing. Similar to Battle Tanks, although there you could also upgrade your base, regular creeps, buy items and change your hero with cash, which added a whole lot to the game (like a "poor" position, where you farm to upgrade your AI-controlled stuff instead of your own shit and help your team this way).
The "talent tree", various ultimates to choose for each hero etc. Why not just add another hero instead? Would be more interesting than seeing 5 variants of the same hero...
Dustin Bowder should never comment on anything ever again. Words spew out of his mouth in a constant stream of bad diarrhea and just create a lot of confusion instead of clarifying things.
On January 23 2014 05:43 Yurie wrote: What is this games selling point compared to bloodline champions and Dota 2?
I believe the main ones would be: 1) Blizzard game. 2) Blizzard Heroes nostalgia etc 3) Short, hopefully fun and easy games. NOT marathon matches, NOT too hard to get into.
Basically, what Hearthstone is to M:TG
But MtG is one of the simplest and most casual CCGs ever... It's kindergarten league when it comes to complexity, strategy involved etc. (one of the reasons why most people pick it up as their first CCG and later leave for something more challenging).
Is Hearthstone even simpler and more casual than that? (never bothered to really check it out since I'm not much into WoW)
Yes it's simpler/easier.
Currently being interessed by android netrunner personally... good theme (hackers vs corps), asymmetrical, interesting mechanics, no randomness in boosters, expensive though , I'm sold. Just need more plays
On January 23 2014 15:20 MrProb wrote: Give Blizzard some credits here when you're the best in the business it's extremely hard to outdone yourself.
What? They haven't been "the best in the business" for a while now. I think that the last good things that came out of their stable were WC3 and WoW: TBC. Everything after that is pretty much a failure.
I think they have some pretty cool ideas for Heroes of the Storm and I will definitely keep an eye on it. I really wish they would look into increasing the move speed of heroes across the board. Faster moving heroes would complement the style of game they are going for, imo (not to mention be far less dull to watch).
Now my guess is that for WC/WoW there is also Thrall, and maybe Jaina, not sure, but just feels that way IMO (I mean even Hearthstone has those two, lol )
For D universe I've heard that Azmodan was in the pick somewhere, but they either removed him, or just no-one plays him, lol.. Other than that - I imagine the 2 left unused classes would make it - i.e. - Wizard and Monk.. Dustin mentioned that they even might try the Crusader as well.. So that's like 9.. Maybe Nihlathak would be a good 10th pick.. Not a bad idea to add up some Necromancy in this
Also - there was also some Zul'Jin and Gul'Dan (ok, not sure about Gul'Dan, but definitely sure with Zul'Jin) experimenting back in the alpha.. So IDK - it's probably gonna be WC/WoW universe to populate further on
Either the way - the Hero roster has quite added up to a good release point, so I guess they wait for D3 RoS to come out and then launch start of Beta.. Though analyzing from that point of view - It's better for Blizz as a whole to not release the Beta as soon as D3 RoS is released.. But wait a bit more - till the second half of this year
And I really hope that Narud (with his Hybrid badass form as an Ulti) and the Defiler (I mean the Zerg Defiler unit, rofl) could be a good final pick candidate hero
I keep wondering. Why did they decide to go the road of DotA/LoL with this (lanes, creeps and all that jazz) instead of BLC? It would be a great way for them to attract some of the WoW community, as well as people from other genres (FPS mostly) and have a shot at a very successful competitive game since most of the BLC problems wouldn't apply to them (poor marketing, lack of advertisement, bad target group selection etc.).
EPT
, I'm sold. Just need more plays 
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