Heroes of the Storm

Heroes of the Storm (formerly titled Blizzard DotA, and Blizzard All-Stars) is an upcoming Action-RTS (or "MOBA") game. It will be free-to-play and it is expected that the game will be released digitally. Formerly a mod for StarCraft II, it has since become an independent product. Blizzard is apparently intent on pushing the game as an e-sport.

A beta will be held in the first half of 2014.

Premise
Heroes from Azeroth, Sanctuary, and the Koprulu sector have been sucked into the Nexus, a transdimensional storm. Stranded in a strange limbo of clashing universes, these combatants are joined by the same fate&mdash;to engage in pulse-pounding combat, to team up in a deadly struggle for survival, and to answer the age-old question...who would win?

Monetization
Heroes of the Storm is free-to-play. Players can unlock heroes and other content just by playing the game. Cosmetic upgrades like skins, equipment, and mounts will be available. New heroes will also be released over time, along with new battlegrounds, though battlegrounds will probably be freely available to all players. It’s also possible that additional talent options for existing heroes could be available as unlockable content.

Gameplay
Blizzard intends that Heroes of the Storm will have multiple maps. Many of these battlegrounds share environmental features, like forts, which are sprinkled along the pathways between each team’s base. Each fort includes structures such as gates to prevent enemy movement and healing fountains for health and mana regeneration, in addition to a protective guard tower. Capturable watchtowers also mark important positions on many battlegrounds, offering vision on key areas.

The game will feature an automated matchmaker, based on player skill. It will have its own ladder.

A beta test will be carried out before release.

The average Heroes of the Storm game is designed to last approximately 20 minutes. The layout of the game encourages early team-based aggression. If all five members of a team go for the neutral boss early enough, or capture their jungle camps, there is no way that the enemy will be able to counter-push their lanes. Each player is assigned a hero. During the match, waves of computer-controlled minions spawn from towers and advance along each lane. Heroes fight alongside their minions to destroy enemy towers and advance toward the enemy base while protecting their own. During their battles, the heroes gain experience and gold, enabling them to become stronger.

In addition to lane fighting, heroes can traverse the jungle and take advantageous objectives such as power nodes for different kinds of bonuses. These bonuses are guarded by mercenary camps.

The gameplay will provoke aggression more than in DotA, where camping by a tower and last hitting the creeps was the best, but not intuitive or heroic-feeling strategy.

When heroes cooperate to kill an opponent, all of them get a "takedown" and share the gold. The game no longer punishes unselfish play. In accordance with this approach, instead of showing each team’s kills on the scoreboard, it will show everyone in game how much gold each team has. This is intended to reinforce the team-oriented feel of the game.

Towers
Towers regenerate ammo, but not as quickly as they consume it by attacking, so they cannot be used as a "defense crutch". Enemy players can easily destroy towers unsupported by heroes, promoting a more aggressive hero vs. hero style rather than a more passive hero vs tower style. The towers have fewer hit points than in previous MOBA games. Once a tower is destroyed, it will not return.

The Jungle
There will be mercenary camps in the jungle that, when defeated, will provide mercs rather than lane minions to the winning player's side. The mercs will be more powerful.

Jungle groups have difficulty tags and recommended number of players above them; examples might include Level 8 Solo vs Level 12 Group.

Heroes
As of BlizzCon 2013, there are 18 playable heroes in the game.

Each hero starts the game with a set of powerful abilities and traits, and over the course of the battle players will have the ability to customize their hero with unique talents and heroic abilities.

Each hero will have three stats - Damage, Health, and Mastery - and fit one of four roles, as described by Blizzard:


 * Assassins: "Assassins do alot of damage. Try to kill enemy heroes and avoid counter-attacks."


 * Warriors: "Warriors are tough, they often have ways to stun or block the enemy. Try to protect your allies.”


 * Supports: “Supports often heal their allies. Stay close to your friends and keep them alive is your role.”


 * Specialists: “Specialists do lot of weird things. Many are good at killing enemy towns, but others have powers that can change the flow of the game. Explore specialist to have unique brawler experience."

Heroes will be able to ride into battle on a mount, allowing quick returns to a fight and great mobility from one lane to another. Mounts replace boots. They have a two second channel time and allows heroes to move around faster on their respective summoned mounts. Each hero has their own mount. For instance, Kerrigan has a zergling. While mounted, when a hero is hit by any source of damage they are dismounted and stunned for several seconds. Thus, it is recommended that heroes dismount before reaching combat.

When a player first plays the game, they will only have a few heroes available to them at first. As one plays matches, more heroes will unlock. When an individual has earned all of the heroes, they can begin unlocking cosmetic “prestige” items by winning games with specific heroes. Prestige items can include alternate weapons, crowns, and other accessories. Customizable skins can be unlocked for heroes over time.

Assassins

 * Kerrigan
 * Nova

Specialists

 * Warfield (in a siege tank)
 * Witch Doctor
 * Zagara

Supports

 * Tassadar
 * Thrall
 * Uther

Warriors

 * Arthas
 * Muradin (dwarf marauder)
 * Stitches (undead abomination)

Other/Unknown

 * Abathur
 * Anub'arak
 * Chen
 * Elite Tauren Chieftain
 * Goblin Tinker (goblin)
 * Grunty (murloc)
 * Illidan (demon hunter)
 * Kyle Blackthorne
 * Leon (ghost)
 * Malfurion Stormrage
 * Raynor (marine)
 * Sylvanas (living and undead version)
 * Tychus
 * Ultimaton (ultralisk)
 * Valla
 * Za'Muro (fel orc blademaster)
 * Zeratul

Proposed Heroes
The following heroes are/were under consideration by Blizzard, but have not been confirmed as of yet:


 * Artanis
 * Azmodan
 * Barbarian
 * The Butcher
 * Deathwing
 * Fenix
 * Gabriel Tosh
 * Gallywix
 * Garrosh Hellscream
 * Gelbin Mekkatorque
 * Genn Greymane
 * Kael'thas
 * Kel'Thuzad
 * King Varian
 * Lady Vashj
 * Maiev Shadowsong
 * Mistress of Pain
 * "Ogre Ninja"
 * Selendis
 * Skeleton King
 * Thrall (shaman version)
 * Tyrael
 * Tyrande Whisperwind
 * Velen
 * Vol'jin

Removed Heroes
The following is a list of heroes who were present in the game engine and/or proposed for inclusion, but have not been included/removed for whatever reason:


 * L80ETC (replaced by Elite Tauren Chieftain)
 * Sarah Kerrigan (as a ghost, became a default skin for Nova)
 * Vaevictis (Hunter Killer)

Minions
Minions are the cannon fodder of both sides that fight alongside heroes. They're mass produced and "pieces of junk." Artistically, they have simple designs. "Mega-minions" will also exist, but are still mass produced.

In every minion wave there will be a ranged creep carrying a banner. When that minion is killed, it will drop a sort of regeneration globe that restores health and mana. The globes effectively keep the usual zoning and denying techniques while sticking with the game’s fast-paced early aggression goals. The players will effectively be able to zone their opponents from their globe while also taking control of their own, giving the players much more lane sustain and lane pressure.

Structures

 * Healing fountain
 * Mana tower
 * Pawn tower
 * Knight tower
 * Rook tower
 * Watchtower

Development
"In a tiny, trans-dimensional pocket universe sit two dark and terrible gods. One red. One blue. To amuse themselves, they kidnap great heroes from across time and space! And those heroes come from one company: BLIZZARD! These heroes are forced to fight to the death in an endless battle with no purpose... other than ladder points. This is Blizzard DOTA! Coming soon(ish)™. Seriously!"

- Original mod summary



Classes
The game's classes were originally organized and described as thus:


 * Tanks: Heavily armored, designed to soak up damage as they initiate battle and to control fights.


 * DPS: Damage-dealers, and the hardest-hitting heroes, but tend to be more fragile. Teams will need to keep them protected.
 * Support: Support heroes have abilities that can do a wide range of different functions in team fights such as healing, stuns, and other methods of crowd control.


 * Siege: Siege heroes can attack from long range, making them ideal for destroying enemy towers. They also tend to have abilities that affect a wide area, making them useful for controlling space in team fights.

Items
In earlier builds, when a hero died, they revived at a goblin shop. Here they could buy items such as healing potions and other consumables, stat bonuses, and artifacts. Heroes would be able to use a simple array of items - Stat Boosts, Consumables, Items, and Artifacts. The heroes will engage in context-sensitive banter. Rather than worry about recipes, many of these items started at Level 1 and could be upgraded to Level 3. While the list of items was much shorter than other MOBAs, the items available had very a specific purpose. Blizzard planned to incorporate more items without overwhelming newer players.

Items are no longer present in the current build of the game. Items in past builds of the game include:


 * Auto-turret
 * Cloak of flames
 * Health potion
 * Health stone
 * Mana potion
 * Mana stone
 * Runestone
 * Soul token
 * Tome of damage

Skins
The original approach to the game was that each character have a "good" and "evil" skin. Skins of the current build are more various with no such dichotomy.

Lore
The game originally took place on a cyber gaming planet, with heroes plucked from across time and space to provide entertainment. Other settings from Blizzard universes were considered for inclusion in later builds, such as Sanctuary. The idea was that various races from Blizzard universes had been thrown into the cyber world, and taken to future technology (e.g. cyborg ogres).

Production
As of BlizzCon 2010, heroes could use currency earned in battle to purchase upgrades in shops. They then fought alongside allied creeps for maximum efficiency and crush enemy towers and their bases. Two factions existed in the game&mdash;the Guardium and the Scourge. Each hero had a "good" (Guardium) and "evil" (Scourge) version. The evil incarnation usually wears some zerg armor. The aesthetics of the map were based on chess and tabletop roleplaying games.

As of July, 2011, the map had entered playtesting. By August of the same year, the game has undergone a complete reboot, the original version "flattened." According to Frank Pearce, the original version bore too much resemblance to its Warcraft III counterpart, where novice players were at a disadvantage. Blizzard seeks to redesign the game to make it "easy to learn, difficult to master. The game was originally expected to launch concurrently with Heart of the Swarm but has since been delayed, and will be released seperately.

During development, a number of employees who had worked on Blizzard's Project Titan were shifted to work on All-Stars. As of August 2013, the game's development has reached "a significant internal milestone," and has entered wider internal playtesting. Blizzard will have more information on the game later in the year.

Blizzard DotA (as it was originally called) was the subject of some controversy, in light of Valve's Dota 2. Blizzard has taken steps to prevent any trademarking of "DotA" or any other acronymn of "Defense of the Ancients," maintaining that it should remain with the Warcraft modding community, from which the concept sprung. In May of 2012, both Valve and Blizzard reached an agreement&mdash;Valve would be able to use the term "DotA" commercially while Blizzard could use it in a non-commercial sense. The name of the Blizzard version was changed to "Blizzard All-Stars," which Rob Pardo stated "ultimately better reflects the design of our game."