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News
Rutgers crowned Heroes of the Storm Tespa Collegiate Champions
There's a new champion in the world of collegiate Heroes of the Storm esports. In a highly-contested series, Rutgers University took down Cal Poly Pomona 3-1 in the grand finals of the Tespa Collegiate Series on Sunday afternoon at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas. The roster consisted of Dominick “BegForMercy” Maisano, Rick “hiimrick” Green, Hexuan “NatsumeAl” Ma, Dustin “Supertai” Nguyen, Peter “noOreos4u” Thach and Stan “msMarvel” Potapov. Each player, in addition to a championship trophy and bragging rights, will receive a $500 scholarship prize to their respective university and one ASUS ROG laptop.
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News
Four biggest takeaways from the Heroes of the Storm AMA
On Thursday afternoon, members of the Heroes of the Storm design team took to the game's official subReddit (/r/heroesofthestorm) to answer questions fans had and talk about the future of the title itself. For those who want to peruse the full thread, the AMA can be found here. If you're looking for the most, in my opinion, important bits of information scattered throughout the over 1,200 comments on the AMA, the four most noteworthy topics are laid out below that shed some light on the future of the title in 2019.
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Feature
A week in review: Heroes is a Classic, Cloaken leaves, a dank panda.
Fans of the Heroes of the Storm franchise went through a lot this past week. From weird highs to depressing lows, the full spectrum of emotions was experienced. Maybe it’s fitting that the end of this week fell on 4/20 as the “holiday” can allow individuals who celebrate to cope with the pain or comprehend the oddness that occurred. An icon left the company, Heroes of the Storm is now labeled as a “Classic Game” and more took place that left us thinking...what?
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Interview
Heroes Devs on Chromie: "Hopefully, with these changes, we don't have a plan to rework Chromie again in six months..."
Chromie and reworks: name a more iconic duo. For the third time in the past 18 months, the long-ranged Assassin in Heroes of the Storm has been reworked to provide an overall better playing experience for those piloting and playing against her. The newest iteration of her kit, which can be found here, is one that the design team hopes might stand the test of time. Most Heroes in the game have not experienced drastic reworks, yet Chromie continues to receive attention from the development team. I spoke with Alex Neyman, Senior Live Designer, to shed some light on why it’s, once again, Chromie's time in the re-design spotlight.
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Interview
The holistic Hero rework: Brett Crawford on Heroic parity, a Hero's feel, and more.
Last week the Heroes of the Storm development team revealed the two newest heroes to receive an overhaul or “rework” to their existing in-game kits. One of them, the Support hero, Lucio, was released into the game back in February of 2017. Upon his entrance into the nexus, his healing output--thus his power level--was quite high. All a player had to do while manning the character was stay within range of his teammates while his healing and speed auras would do the rest of the work. Occasionally, if the team was in trouble, his Sound Barrier heroic would provide a massive burst heal that would either turn the tide in a fight or save the team long enough for them to scurry away to safety. Over time, through tweaks to his kit, the design team provided a more interactive experience when playing with and against Lucio. But, it wasn’t enough.
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News
Khaldor on META Madness: "The draft alone should be great to watch from a players perspective."
Beginning this weekend, the META Madness tournament hosted by long-time Heroes of the Storm caster Thomas “Khaldor” Kilian will kick off with six teams fighting it out for a €1,000 prize pool. The event is being sponsored by RUNTIME, a nutrition company based out of Europe. Taking place over a two-day span, the bracket-style tournament will feature best-of-five matches until a winner is crowned. What separates this event from the other Heroes’ tournaments that have popped up since Blizzard stated they would no longer support the competitive Heroes of the Storm scene is the “Madness” aspect. According to the rules, heroes that are banned during the Draft phase are not eligible to be selected for the entire tournament. With numerous top-tier threats off the board, players will need to adapt over time and test their abilities to perform with unique and off-meta heroes.
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News
18 months, 3 reworks, 1 Chromie: a patch notes story
Ever since Chrome, the Keeper of Time, went live in Heroes of the Storm back in May of 2016 the development team has had their hands full finding out what they want to do with her. A Ranged Assassin who can one-shot an enemy with a couple of well-timed abilities is a delicate balancing act. In theory, if a hero relies on landing long-range skill shots for the majority of their effectiveness in battle the balance team needs to consider a few design aspects: It’s important to make the damage output impactful enough to make up for that character’s low health pool while rewarding a good player who is able to land difficult skill shots. If the range on those abilities is too long and the damage is too high, they will be able to poke away at the opposition while remaining at a safe enough distance, providing very little counter-play and a frustrating experience for the opponent. If the opposite is true then players will not feel rewarded for playing that hero if they can be engaged upon very easily, blown up and lack the necessary tools to keep themselves safe while not putting out enough damage to make the risk worth the reward. In the past 18 months, Chromie has experienced three reworks to her kit, including two in the past seven. By following the clues left in the patch notes since her inception and developer comments left by the balance team, a tale can be told about what they may have intended her to be and what they learned along the way.
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News
Lucio full reworked talents and abilities
One of the grooviest heroes in the Nexus, Lucio, is the newest recipient of a rework in the latest Heroes of the Storm Public Test Realm as the patch went live Monday morning. Since he was introduced into the game in February of 2017, Lucio’s popularity--similar to his rhythmic jams--have had its’ ups and downs. There was a time when he was arguably the strongest Support character and helped push the Double Support meta into existence. Then, once the development team knocked Support characters down a peg as a whole at the end of 2017, his relevancy disappeared along with it. Times are changing, however. The development team ripped apart his outdated tools and reassembled it in a way that makes him more interactive to play with and against.
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News
The most violent team wipe in recent memory broken down
If you blinked, you missed it. In a six-second span, an elite display of professional game knowledge, team coordination and mechanical skill was put on display during the Heroes Lounge Nut Cup over the weekend that left Twitch chat, Reddit and the Heroes of the Storm community with their jaws on the floor. In Game Two of their series, team “Washed Up” consisting of former professional players Thomas “Ménè” Cailleux, Dennis “HasuObs” Schneider, Filip “SmX” Liljeström, Aleksandar "ethernal" Milanov and Ivan "SportBilly" Koturić pulled off a team wipe of “Coming Through”’s roster that all but sealed the match and series.
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News
Despite cutting costs, HotS dev team is as dedicated as ever
They didn’t make the decision to have their employer, Activision Blizzard, cut support to the competitive scene. They certainly didn’t have a say in numerous individuals who were working on the game being transferred to other titles, making their lives more difficult. And, they didn’t intentionally alienate thousands of players who have slowly stopped playing the game over the last four months. What is in their control, is how the inner workings of the game itself will operate going forward to ensure that the current playerbase is given the best playing experience possible. On Wednesday afternoon, members of the development team held an “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) on the game’s subReddit (/r/heroesofthestorm) where fans were chomping at the bit to get the opportunity to have their questions answered.
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News
Collegiate Heroes of the Storm tournament reaches five-digit viewership
What transpired over the weekend was a spectacle within the Heroes of the Storm community that many feared would never happen again after Activision Blizzard stated they would no longer support the game’s competitive scene back in December. A competitive Heroes of the Storm tournament reached over 11,500 --11,537 to be precise-- viewers on Twitch at a single moment, according to twitchtracker.com.
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News
Four months later, first Korean HotS tournament since BlizzCon announced
Ever since Blizzard stated they would no longer be supporting a competitive Heroes of the Storm professional circuit, numerous crowd-funded tournaments have been popping up within North America and Europe. Now, Korea is getting involved in the action. On Thursday long-time Korean commentator Daniel “Gclef” Na shared on the Heroes of the Storm subReddit that a tournament featuring former pros was in the works. Today, specifics have been revealed. The event titled, “Heroes of the Storm League: REVIVAL” will begin on March 14, featuring a $6000 prize pool and includes eight teams made up of some of the most well-known and accomplished players to ever play the game.
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Feature
How Blizzard can monetize Heroes of the Storm going forward
Activision Blizzard loves making money. So much so, that their Chief Executive Officer, Bobby Kotick, during their most recent earnings call began his statement with: “We once again achieved record results in 2018.” What followed was him stating that the company would be laying off around 800 individuals but that’s a different story altogether. A few of the company’s entities: Overwatch, the Overwatch League, World of Warcraft and Hearthstone have reliably brought in income for the company in recent years. What has struggled-- and likely one of the reasons why developers were moved off the title and onto more profitable ones-- is a way for Heroes of the Storm players to be incentivized to spend money in or on a title they love. This isn’t a recent development either. All a die-hard fan of the game has to do is visit Blizzard’s official gear shop online or at a company-sponsored tournament and you will see very, very little Heroes of the Storm merchandise. Why this is so perplexing is the concept of Heroes lends itself well to merchandising.
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Feature
4 Games to play during oppressively long Heroes of the Storm queue times.
We’ve all been there. You download the newest Heroes of the Storm patch on the launcher, anticipating the opportunity to jump into a Ranked game and try out the newest tweaks on your favorite heroes. You rush to click on “Hero League” or “Team League” when, like a Death Eater from Harry Potter, an estimated queue time of 803 seconds sucks the excitement out of your body. What’s there to do for over 13 minutes? You could pray to the Lord of Sin, Azmodan, and hope the stars align in a way that the wait is only a couple of moments. Or, if you’re truly cursed, the 803 seconds is a conservative estimation and, depending on your rank, you may be sitting in the queue for upwards of 20 minutes. You could cancel your attempt to play in Ranked mode and wait only a few minutes to play Quick Match or Unranked but, eh, that’s not your cup of tea. You’re a competitive fiend whose skin tingles when you see +3 for Performance Adjustment at the end of a hard-earned win. The good thing is that, while I cannot make your queue time any faster, I can present a list of cheap or free games that you can play in queue opposed to having your mind slip into madness as you watch your two favorite heroes spin in a circle as you wait for a game to begin.
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News
Heroes of the Storm's Twitch viewership plummeting
When Activision Blizzard announced that the company would no longer financially support the competitive Heroes of the Storm scene back in December, the community was split. There were those who didn’t particularly care as following the competitive scene wasn’t their cup of tea, others were concerned this would be the end of their beloved title and a wide range of feelings in between existed as well. Two months into a world without the Heroes Global Championship (HGC), a story is unfolding that may be an indication as to what the future could look like for the title on Twitch, the largest streaming platform in the world.
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News
Who is Anduin Wrynn? Heroes of the Storm’s next hero(?)
Late Tuesday night, a Korean member of the Blizzard Entertainment scene leaked some information via datamine related to the next hero slated to enter the Heroes of the Storm universe. Lord Anduin Llane Wrynn, the High King of the Alliance, King of Stormwind, son of Varian Wrynn, nephew of Jaina Proudmoore and nephew of Magni Bronzebeard, among the other numerous titles he posses, is rumored to be entering the nexus.
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News
Endemic Esports partners with ULT apparel to support former Heroes of the Storm players
The future was looking bright for Endemic Esports in the Heroes of the Storm scene. Once the 2018 Heroes Global Championship circuit ended after BlizzCon in November, Endemic worked to put together their official roster for the 2019 season. It was settled. Josh “bkid” Choi, Sammuel “bigempct” Hua, Dane “Daneski” Coleman, Vi “ViN” Nguyen and Liam “Liam” O’Malley would be the squad that Endemic would rock and try to contend in the North American region with. Then, Activision Blizzard put an end to that dream with one swift press release on December 13, ending their support of the professional Heroes of the Storm scene. The community was shaken, organizations that had invested money into the 2019 season, furious, and players whose gaming careers relied on the income, lost. This past week, Endemic Esports, led by Chief Executive Officer, Michael Reilly, released a statement that they had partnered with ULT, an apparel company, to support the players who never got the chance to represent their org in the new year.
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News
High-level play a-plenty in Heroes of the Storm's last seven days
If you’re a fan of high-level Heroes of the Storm play, the past seven days have been kind to you. Not Heroes Global Championship (HGC)-level of kindness, but solid enough to give their pallets a small taste of what they may have been missing since Blizzard dropped the hammer on the competitive scene a couple months ago. Over the weekend, Heroes Lounge held a qualifier for their upcoming Division S tournament which is the first competitive event featuring former professional players since the HGC came to an end. Naturally, teams comprised of top-tier participants faired the best and qualified for the official event beginning in the near future.
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Long-time Heroes of the Storm Creative Content Lead to leave team
The Heroes of the Storm team ended 2018 by announcing that Activision Blizzard would no longer be supporting the competitive circuit and moving developers off the title and onto other projects within the company. 2019 is not off to a much better start. Late Thursday night, Kevin Michael Johnson, also known as “Cloaken” within the gaming industry, announced that he will be transition off the Heroes of the Storm team and onto other projects.
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13 Heroes of the Storm characters that desperately need new skins
As 2019 rolls around, the Heroes of the Storm creative team has a large task ahead of them: giving heroes who haven't received new skins over the past 18+ months, new toys to play with. Currently, that number is 22 or a little more than 25% of the current roster. While at face value that may seem like a lot of heroes that need love, and it is, Blizzard has one of the most talented creative teams in the gaming industry and, arguably, the world. Where should they start? Great question. How about some of the heroes that haven't been touched since their release, 2016 or 2015? Below is a deep-dive into a handful of heroes that the art team can flex their muscles on.
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Interview
Ménè on Blizzard seeking advice from ex-pros: "Why are we going to listen to you? It's not like we have anything to prove."
Nearly two weeks ago, one of the most popular, beloved and talented former professional players in the history of Heroes of the Storm esports, Thomas “Ménè” Cailleux, had enough. While streaming the game on Twitch, he began talking to his chat about his love for the title, regardless of the tough times it has been through lately, and, visibly frustrated, he began pleading for Blizzard to work with him, other former professional players and content creators to help improve the game. His rant, which was immediately clipped and put on the Heroes of the Storm subReddit, has garnered nearly 12,000 viewers and was one of the top posts for that week. His message though is one that has circulated throughout the pro scene for years: “Why hasn’t Blizzard worked with those who play the game at the highest level and have a deeper understanding of hero’s kits, battleground mechanics and what the game needs better than the vast majority of the player base? What is there to lose?”
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HeroesHearth founder: "If we build it, will they come? That is the ultimate question."
Once Activision Blizzard announced that they would no longer be supporting the competitive Heroes of the Storm scene, Ian “workhorse” Anderson, the founder of HeroesHearth went to work. His goal, aside from growing his platform dedicated to entertaining and educating the community close to his heart, was to help establish a way for the competitive scene to not completely die due to the game developer’s decision.
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News
Former Naventic players file lawsuit against owner for unpaid earnings
Today it was revealed by Dot Esports' reporter Nicole Carpenter that five former professional Heroes of the Storm players for Team Naventic have filed a lawsuit against former owner, James Ross Elliot II, for more than $50,000 in unpaid earnings. According to the report and information provided to InvenGlobal, the players had tried to serve court documents to the owner 14 times. But, due to Elliot's unknown location, they had been unable to complete the process. The Dot Esports report claims that Christopher “zuna” Buechter, Ken “Kenma” Buechter, Sammuel “bigempct” Hua, Thomas “Tomster” Maguire, and Josh “bkid” Choi state that they are owed $55,125 in unpaid wages and prize money, not including interest.
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Division S features nearly two dozen former pro players
Less than a week after Heroes Lounge opened sign-ups for their crowd-funded competitive tournament, Division S, 20 former professional Heroes of the Storm players have formed teams. Thomas “Mene” Cailleux, Dennis "HasuObs" Schneider, Jérôme "JayPL" Trinh, Filip "SmX" Liljeström and Aleksandar "ethernal" Milanov will make up one team from Europe. The former Leftovers squad from EU consisting of Maksym "Mopsio" Szczypa, Mark "Linked" Šepec, Arkadiusz “Bl3kitny” Czarnecki and Mikołaj "PotiBoss" Potera have teamed up together to assert their dominance.
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News
Pomerantz LLP Investigates Activision Blizzard’s Fraud Charge
The law firm Pomerantz LLP announced that they are investigating Activision Blizzard's fraud charge. Pomerantz LLP, a law firm that specializes in corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigations, disclosed in a press release that they have received information that Activision Blizzard did not notify investors beforehand of their split from their partner, Bungie, in concerns for the stock price falling; if this is true, they will be investigating whether this was a deliberate act or if some of the investors happened to not be aware of it. Activision Blizzard made an announcement on January 10th that they will be splitting from Bungie, the company that developed the Destiny series, after a 10-year partnership. Simultaneously, Bungie announced they have taken over the publishing rights for the Destiny franchise, which had been serviced by Activision Blizzard. This has caused Activision Blizzard's stock price to fall from $ 51.35 (10th 16:00) to $ 45.48 (11th 10:00) based on NASDAQ.
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News
Life after Heroes esports: independent pro league sign-ups start tomorrow
Less than a month after Activision Blizzard announced they will no longer be supporting the competitive Heroes of the Storm scene, the first replacement professional league will begin signups starting tomorrow. Heroes Lounge, one of the largest Heroes of the Storm amateur sites in the world, has announced that their pro league, Division S, has crowd-funded over $13,700 within the last few weeks in an attempt to create an appealing enough format where former professional players and up-and-comers can showcase their play for cash prizes. Signing up to join the league is a fairly simple process, according to Heroes Lounge.
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News
EU Nexus Contest launches tomorrow, community supported
Once the Heroes of the Storm World Championship concluded at BlizzCon in November, Mandon “Dittri0” Florent went to work creating his own tournament to supersede the Nexus Games event that weren’t returning in 2019. The appeal of the Nexus Games in the past was that it took place during the competitive offseason and pitted amateur teams within the same region against one another for pride and a cash prize. He took to Twitter to seek help from the general population as creating a tournament of this size is not a task he wanted to take on alone and, to his surprise, help arrived. One of those individuals, Arnaud "Ouille" Pontonnier, contributed half of the $2,000 initial prize pool and has worked with Dittri0 to acquire additional funding, a sponsor and has helped overall to organize the event. Currently, the event, which begins tomorrow, has accrued a prize pool over $2500 and has secured a partnership with Razer headsets to be given away to the winners.
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Interview
Interview with Rich, Who Dominated Heroes of the Storm Esports: "I woke up only to find I’ve lost my job"
Shocking news greeted Heroes of the Storm fans on December 14th -- the HGC, the official esports league for Heroes of the Storm, would no longer be held in 2019. It's natural that no tournaments are held when the popularity of the title falls short. However, the way that Blizzard announced the end of the HGC was quite shocking - not only because it came without warning, but also because it was very unlike Blizzard, who has a reputation as one of the best gaming companies in the world. Needless to say, this caused quite a bit of disappointment and anger. In just one announcement, Heroes of the Storm esports was wiped from the esports economy. Numerous people who were dedicated to HotS esports lost their jobs in just one day. Gen.G Jae-Won ‘Rich' Lee, who is known as the Faker in the HotS esports scene, also lost the chance to play on the stage.
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News
The Archangel of Valor's full talents and abilities are here
Leader of the Angiris Council and Aspect of Valor, Imperius has valiantly led the armies of the High Heavens to innumerous victories over the demons of the Burning Hells. While his methods are exact and severe, there is no greater defender of righteousness in the entirety of creation.
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News
Activision Blizzard fires CFO, joins Netflix
Activision Blizzard’s tumultuous 2018 ended last night with a regulatory filing that announced the firing of the Cheif Financial Officer (CFO) Spencer Neumann. Per the filing, the termination of his employment was “unrelated to the Company’s financial reporting or disclosure controls and procedures.” He is currently on paid leave, per the company.
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Who is Imperius? Heroes of the Storm's next character
In the middle of the night, a Portuguese Heroes of the Storm Twitter account leaked the newest hero set to join the nexus next week. The often requested and short-tempered Archangel of Valor, Imperius, is slated to go live on the Public Test Realm (PTR) starting on Wednesday, according to the tweet. While his role in the nexus is currently unknown, his backstory and attitude are all too familiar to fans of the Diablo franchise. For everyone else who isn’t aware of Imperius’ storyline, here’s a little information to catch you up to speed.
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Heroes community looking to #saveHotS
Activision Blizzard announced last week that they are no longer supporting the competitive Heroes of the Storm scene but the community hasn’t. Since the press release that effectively ended the Heroes Global Championship (HGC) and Heroes of the Dorm circuits released last Thursday, numerous organizations, fans, and community members have voiced their interest in making a new tournament structure or league viable. The hashtag “#saveHotS” began appearing on different social platforms and is now acting as a rallying cry for those who do not want to see the competitive scene of one of their beloved games die altogether.
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Column
Opinion: Blizzard pulls plug on HGC, killing more than just Heroes esports
It’s been five days since Activision-Blizzard made the announcement that the Heroes of the Storm Global Championship (HGC) circuit would be discontinued and developers from the title moved to other, unannounced projects. Although “announcement” is too generous a word. Maybe “slap-in-the-face” is more appropriate considering the disingenuous manner the message was delivered, via an unfeeling press release. The content of the statement itself felt more corporate than personable. To many, it was insulting.
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News
HGC community responds to collapse of Heroes esports infrastructure
When Activision Blizzard announced on Thursday that they would no longer support competitive Heroes of the Storm at the amateur, collegiate or professional level going forward, a can of worms was opened. A decision based solely in the name of saving money and dedicating resources to more profitable ventures within the company, the backlash from the Blizzard community has been harsh, a feeling of betrayal and worry over the future of the title.
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News
Blizzard to end competitive Heroes of the Storm scene
On Thursday afternoon, Blizzard Entertainment's new President, J. Allen Brack, made his first big move since the recent resignation of the long-time figurehead, Mike Morhaime. In an official statement, Brack announced that the company would no longer support the competitive Heroes of the Storm scene at the professional, collegiate or amateur level going forward.
