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Why Heroes of the Storm is the MOBA for me
First and foremost, if that trailer from CarBot didn't even crack a smile, you have a heart of stone. This trailer, or tribute as CarBot calls it, was shown at BlizzCon to introduce gamers to Blizzard's newest offering: Heroes of the Storm. Anyone who's been keeping an eye on my Twitter will know that I was almost as excited about Heroes of the Storm as I was about Warlords of Draenor, so I took the earliest opportunity to go and play it. And then two subsequent opportunities to go back and play it again. I've played a fair bit of League of Legends, and more recently quite a bit of SMITE, and I enjoy both games, and the MOBA genre as a whole. Blizzard is, I should mention, apparently keen to get away from calling this a MOBA, and move towards the idea of a "Hero Brawler". There are several important differences between the mechanics of Heroes compared to League, particularly, which I really think are fantastic shifts away from a bloated system. Talents over Item Shop Now I will not pretend for a second that I am a pro League of Legends player. Heck, I'm probably not even a good one. I got into LoL very late, very late indeed, and there are a couple of elements that have stood in my way as a newer player. The item shop is definitely one of those elements. Even since the introduction of the Shopping List system, and with the Recommended Items list, it's confusing when you're just getting started. Working out what you need and knowing what's good are second nature to a seasoned player, but tricky to a beginner.
Heroes of the Storm: The renamed Blizzard All-Stars
Blizzard's MOBA is now officially known as Heroes of the Storm! That's right, remember that trademark filed earlier this year? Speculation has abounded as to what it might be -- one of the front-running theories being that it was the name of the next WoW expansion -- but it turns out that was wrong. Not that anyone's sad to be wrong in this case, I'm sure! Given the timing of this (incredibly adorable) mini-trailer's release, I think it's a safe bet we'll be seeing a good deal more from this title at BlizzCon, and I'm certainly looking forward to it!
Blizzard hiring eSports Director for All-Stars
WoW Insider posted back in January about an interview between Eurogamer magazine and Chris Sigaty, Starcraft 2's Production Director, about the ongoing silence on the title. Back then, it was confirmed that there was still a team working on it, but that they were looking at other MOBAs and their business model. But now, as our sister site Massively reports, Blizzard has posted looking for an E-Sports director for the upcoming title, amongst other things. What does this mean? Well, Blizzard isn't renowned for hiring people at great speed any more than it is for making games at great speed, but as Massively points out, this is pretty firm confirmation that the game is still at least in the works. I'm allowing myself to hope that there might be an announcement at BlizzCon this year, although given how it's in only a month and a half, that might be rather ambitious of me.
