#351 Why I am the Perfect Heroes of the Storm Player

Some stirrings around the internet has revealed that an early build of Heroes of the Storm has made it into the hands of some people on the internet and that means that a beta version of the game is on the horizon. With that I believe now is the best time to write the third installment of one of my oldest blogging series, explaining why I am the perfect player to play the Beta of Heroes of the Storm.

The storm is coming

This series started way back in the early single digits when I explained how I was the perfect Diablo 3 player because I knew nothing about the previous Diablo games so I could offer the purest feedback without any bias from the old games. (Be MOP #25)

Fun fact I wrote that blog post because I one of my college professors was a proud Greek man and I knew he would be flabbergasted if he ever learned that I used a famous Socrates quote to make my case for me to play a videogame

I made my case about Hearthstone because with my past experience with Pokemon TCG and  Magic the Gathering would help Blizzard with giving feedback when it came to balancing some of the odder and unconventional deck builds. (Be MOP #240)

Now I get to make my case for Heroes of the Storm. First off I got the experience of playing Blizzard games for years and I have been writing about them for years so I know the ropes when it comes to their participating in Blizzard’s betas.

But more importantly I have been following this game’s development cycle ever since I first mentioned when I compared Blizzard to the Pokemon company with their choices to expanding into different genre of games (Be MOP #68) to when I was predicting Blizzard’s major announcement in last year’s PAX East (Be MOP #191). I was there to write about the official acknowledgement that the game is still in production in the Activision-Blizzard financial results (Be MOP#219) after months of no updates on the game and all the way through their third final name change (Be MOP #288).

If comedy have taught me anything it is that a good running gag needs a killer ending to finish off the series and I like of no better ending than letting me into the beta.

So Blizzard, Please?

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Be MOP focuses on the world of videogames with my own reflections about the current news and developments that happens throughout the gaming industry. Updates Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays

#288 An ARTS by any other name

Good news everyone! In preparation for next  month’s BlizzCON 2013, Blizzard has officially -and finally- announced their own Action Real Time Strategy game to compete with the likes of League of Legends, DOTA 2, Heroes of Newerth, and DC Comics’ Infinite Crisis.

It’s about time the company acknowledged this game, even when factoring in Blizzard-time

 

This game has been on my radar for quite a years ever since Blizzard first announced three years ago in the 2010 BlizzCon, up to when they causally mentioned it in the Activision-Blizzard’s Q1 Financial Report (Be MOP #219). Since then the project when through a bit of an identity crisis, initially the game was called Blizzard Dota then last year it was renamed as Blizzard All-Stars and now finally settling on the title “Heroes of the Storm” and the official announced it with a humorous little self-referencing video titled “The Game Formerly Known as ‘Blizzard All-Stars'”

Curse them for using that Prince joke, I was going to use that for this post. I guess they know their audience.

 

As the title of this post suggest the name of the game is not what we should focus on but instead on the game play and the uniqueness it brings to the table. For this game to be successful it needs to have something built into the game that makes it stand out from the other A.R.T.S like League of Legends and Dota 2.

As of right now there is no video of the game play of the Storms of the Heroes, either from back 2010 or from the current build, but I would not be surprise if Blizzard releases a ton of content, including the starting champion pool, the maps designs and that one thing that makes them stand out from the other games on the market.

To any Blizzard employees that might be reading this: First, hey how’s it going? Secondly, I would gladly volunteer to be a beta tester if you are looking for players.

 

But I want to know what you think, what do you think of Blizzard’s ARTS game? and more importantly what do you think of the ARTS/MOBA genre?

I ask the second question because to me, it looks like the ARTS genre is on route to be the defining go-to genre for 201X  for the PC similar to how the MMO was big thing for the PC gaming world back in the 200Xs.

 

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Be MOP focuses on the world of videogames with my own reflections about the current news and developments that happens throughout the gaming industry. Updates Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays

#191 Predicting Blizzard’s PAX EAST Announcement

With all the craziness of Patch 5.2 going on I want to take a minute to bring to light something in the gaming world caught my eye, it was the news snip-it that states that Blizzard is planning to announce something at this year’s PAX East

The stars have aligned, this will be the year I will be able to witness a Blizzard announcement live.

This announcement must be big, because in previous years Blizzard  did not send their Warcraft game developers to Boston instead they would send representatives of Cryptozoic, Blizzard’s sister company, to PAX EAST to promote their trading card games and save any announcement about video games for their Blizzcon.  

I might be able to see Zarhym LIVE! I wonder if he will be just as skull-y and float-y as he is in his profile picture

The burning question is, “What could the announcement be?” It’s not about Star Craft II.5 or the expansion pack of Diablo 3, and it is certainly does not have anything to do with project TITAN (unless that’s what they want you to think!).

My first go-to Blizzard guess would be an updated announcement to Blizzard’s A.R.T.S. game, Blizzard All-stars, something that I have not heard about since last Blizzcon.

If any Blizzard employee’s are reading I would love to have a hands on trail on this game

If the announcement is not Blizzard DOTA’s release date or a major update on the game-play  it whole panel could be a tease for content that is in the early stages of development. It must have to be something that they want to announce now to get the media’s and player’s hype and then use the time between now and Blizzcon to flesh out the project.

My second guess would maybe have the announcement be something related with the Warcraft movie, maybe officially announcing the movie and them take the rest of the time talking about the plot or cast.

My third guess -and it’s a tad out there- is that Blizzard is using this time to announce a new Intellectual Property, a new game entirely. They could go to PAX EAST with the primary announcement with some concept art of the game and then properly show off the fleshed out game-play at their convention in the fall.

Or the announcement could be a reboot of some of Blizzard’s older games

The people at PAX East released the official schedule for all three days and as of right now Blizzard is planning to make their announcement on the first day, Friday, at 10 a.m.

I may not be the first to break the story but I can guarantee that you can read my reaction on whatever Blizzard has cooking on this blog, the Monday after the convention

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I would also like to take this time to mention Humble Bundle’s fifth Android video-game bundle.

As always it follows the pay-what-you want model with rewards and incentives for paying above the average  and you can choose where to can your money goes, either at the awesome game designers or the equally awesome charities, Child’s Play and EFF.

The site is http://www.humblebundle.com/

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Be MOP focuses on the Mists of Pandaria expansion of World of Warcraft with my own reflections about the current news and developments that happens throughout the game’s life cycle. Updates Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays