In the seventh year of the open beta, there will be no new purchasable content added to Heroes of the Storm.
This year marks the seventh year since the public beta of Heroes of the Storm.
For most players, Heroes of the Storm is both familiar and unfamiliar. The stalk that is familiar with “The Storm Wants Fire” has been sung repeatedly in the game circle, and it has long been a household name; the unfamiliar is that no one has actually played “Heroes of the Storm”, just let this game live in everyone’s stalk.
Two days ago, Blizzard issued an announcement announcing that this game that is “hot” at any time will start from the seventh year of the public beta and receive the same long-term operation treatment as “StarCraft II” – “Heroes of the Storm” will maintain season rotation and Hero rotation, continue to operate the store, but no longer add new purchasable content, future updates will mainly focus on continuous client support and problem fixes, and balance updates as necessary.
The news came suddenly, but not without warning. As early as four years ago, “Heroes of the Storm” has cancelled the 2019 “Heroes of the Storm” global championship event plan, and most of the project’s developers have been transferred to other project groups.
At that time, “Heroes of the Storm” was like being sentenced to life imprisonment, and maybe there is still a chance to make an appearance; but this time, it seems that Blizzard has determined that it has changed from life imprisonment to death with reprieve, and it is difficult to see the light of day again. .
1
Seven-year-old Heroes of the Storm looks young, but it dates back to BlizzCon in 2010.
At the time, Heroes of the Storm was also called Blizzard DotA, a mod for StarCraft II that existed to show that the game’s map editor was powerful enough. Using the map and gameplay of “DotA”, coupled with the characters in “StarCraft II”, it can be regarded as a derivative of derivatives.
However, it is such a derivative that “Blizzard DotA” won the praise of many live players at the 2010 BlizzCon. These praises made the chief designer of “StarCraft II” bald brother (Dustin Browder) immediately decided to improve the mod, and gradually changed from a mod to a mod under the instigation of his colleagues. independent game.
The transformation process is not so simple, “Blizzard DotA” quickly encountered the first problem, “DotA” designer IceFrog ran to Valve with the copyright!
When it comes to copyright, the history of “DotA” cannot be avoided. “DotA” was originally a mod for “Warcraft 3”, released by designer Eul in 2003, and players have continued to make new versions based on the original “DotA” mod. Among them, “DotA: Allstars” designed by Guinsoo stood out and became the most mainstream version at that time.
In 2005, designer IceFrog took over the follow-up maintenance and update of “DotA: Allstars”, and gradually became the “DotA” in the hearts of players.
According to rumors, IceFrog had hoped that Blizzard would support him in making the sequel to “DotA”, but Blizzard did not accept it, which made IceFrog invest in Valve, which has become the current “Dota2”.
The truth of this story is not discussed, but Valve did register the “Dota” trademark in 2010 when “Blizzard DotA” was announced, and at the same time brought IceFrog under its command, and began to produce and announce “Dota2”.
Valve’s operation of declaring sovereignty made Blizzard very upset. After all, IP derived from Blizzard games, how can you lose it if you lose it? After challenging the “Dota” trademark, Blizzard and Valve ended up going to court.
The specific details after the court were not available, but the final result was that Blizzard and Valve reached an out-of-court settlement. Valve owned the “Dota” trademark, and Blizzard could only use the trademark for non-commercial purposes.
Restrictions on non-commercial use made Blizzard DotA renamed Blizzard All-Stars, and more transformations have just begun.
2
“Forbes” interviewed the bald brother in 2015 and talked about the past and present of “Heroes of the Storm”.
According to the bald brother, after deciding to turn “Blizzard All-Stars” into an independent game, they thought about making the game different, not the same as other games of the same type.
He hopes that every member of the team can forget everything in the past, return to the origin, and find a breakthrough from the custom map of “StarCraft” and Aeon Of Strife, which is considered to be the prototype of today’s MOBA game map.
So “Blizzard All-Stars” introduced a variety of map mechanisms, and made the prototype of the first map “Black Heart Bay”. Players need to collect doubloons on the map and turn them over to Captain Blackheart to bomb the enemy’s fortress.
Such a map mechanism strengthens the importance of the goal of “pushing the tower” in “Blizzard All-Stars”, and also makes the production team under the bald brother understand one thing, “Blizzard All-Stars” is to take the team route, and the individual Heroism doesn’t work here.
Under this concept, “Blizzard All-Stars” ushered in the shared experience gameplay. Players can increase team shared experience through laning and jungler, and enhance skills and damage by upgrading instead of purchasing equipment. The gameplay can be described as MOBA games. Unprecedented in the category.
At the same time, in the long-term operation mode of “Blizzard All-Stars”, unique maps with different mechanisms will be updated one after another. So far, the ideal form of teamwork and sufficient freshness have been basically formed.
But innovation often means risk, “Blizzard All-Stars” “debut is the peak”, and then… it can’t be saved.
3
After three years of internal testing, closed testing, technical testing, invitation testing, alpha testing, beta testing, public testing and a name change, Heroes of the Storm was finally officially released on June 2, 2015.
In China, every new news announcement and test opening of “Heroes of the Storm” is very popular, especially in the global internal test in early 2015, which has reached the highest index value hit by “Heroes of the Storm” so far.
In foreign countries, the popularity of “Heroes of the Storm” appeared when it just launched the official version, which is why it is said that “the debut is the peak”.
Since the characters in the game are all from Blizzard’s IP, “Heroes of the Storm” is simply Blizzard’s version of “Super Smash Bros.”.
“Heroes of the Storm” is often linked with other Blizzard games. For example, if you upgrade your account level in “Heroes of the Storm”, you can get the card back and cards of “Heroes of the Storm”. ” to get props for Heroes of the Storm.
Coincidentally, after the launch of “Watching Pioneer” in 2016, Blizzard also tried to link it with “Heroes of the Storm” to see if it could catch a ride, so characters such as Genji, Maomei and D.Va were added to ” In “Heroes of the Storm”, a reward task for players to play “Heroes of the Storm” to get skins was set up, which successfully attracted a wave of “Heroes of the Storm”, making many players feel that “the storm is finally going to fire”!
However, this wave of popularity comes and goes quickly. Most players are just playing quests to get a skin, and few people are willing to stay and continue to play. After all, “Overwatch” was the sweet pastry at the time. Who would not “ass” and continue to play your half-dead “Heroes of the Storm”?
Since then, “Heroes of the Storm” has never had a highlight moment, only the “Storm Wants Fire” that has no practical help to the game, and is spread by word of mouth among the player group.
4
For early “Heroes of the Storm” players, “Storm fires” is like an expectation, expecting Blizzard to revitalize the game, just like “Final Fantasy 14” and “Rainbow Six: Siege”. .
And now the players who play the “Storm Wants Fire” stalk seem to have a joking mentality of watching the fun and not taking it too seriously, and have long lost that kind of pure expectation for the game. The reason for this is that, on the one hand, Blizzard’s reputation in the past two years is really bad, and on the other hand, “Heroes of the Storm” has already been finalized, and it is difficult to bring any major breakthroughs.
It’s not hard to understand why it didn’t fire. For most players, the excessive emphasis on teamwork in Heroes of the Storm can easily lead to insufficient positive feedback for high-level players, but is often held back by low-level players.
Secondly, the unique map mechanism of “Heroes of the Storm” has exposed difficult problems in the middle and early stages of long-term operation – the routine of playing is fixed, and there is already a set of standards for when and what to do. Many professional games only need The winner can be decided in ten or twenty minutes, and if you lose a rhythm point, you will lose the whole game. Want to see a 50-blood comeback in the “Heroes of the Storm” professional game? Maybe this scene doesn’t even exist.
Although the routine of the game can be fixed and new maps can be launched to avoid the lack of freshness for players, more maps also mean that the cost of learning the mechanism will increase, which invisibly adds a threshold for new players to enter the pit. Obviously, it is not to add Just add.
Of course, “Heroes of the Storm” is also an important point of “not popular”. “DotA” was handed over to Valve only two years ago and has launched a sequel, while “League of Legends” started relatively early. In 2015, when “Heroes of the Storm” was launched, the two games had already divided up the MOBA game market and rolled into one piece. Red Sea.
Everyone took “team play” as a joke, only Heroes of the Storm took it as the truth.
Epilogue
Heroes of the Storm hasn’t had a new hero update for over a year and a half after the launch of the new hero Hogg in late 2020. For players who still stick to the game, it is far more important to continue to play than to become popular.
While Blizzard has announced a reprieve for Heroes of the Storm, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any expectations. Maybe we can pin our hopes on Microsoft, expect Phil Spencer to make a big linkage, continue to launch new heroes through “Heroes of the Storm”, and see first-party IP characters like Steve and the Master Chief appear in the same game. , to achieve another scene that has never appeared in “Nintendo Super Smash Bros.”.
But, all of this is just a wild fantasy. From a realistic point of view, “Heroes of the Storm”, which “wanted to fire”, may not be popular anymore.
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