Heroes of the Storm Closed Beta is live - so let's talk about the release date

New heroes and villains will be joining the Nexus in the Closed Beta and beyond.

So Heroes of the Storm is officially out of Alpha and has begun its Closed Beta testing, which with most games is usually the point at which the community starts getting its first good look at them pre-release.  However, with most games the community isn't actively participating in the testing phase usually exclusive to developers.  The Technical Alpha for Heroes has been going on since March 2014, so the start of the Closed Beta is a slightly different milestone in the development timeline than in previous Blizzard projects.  However, even if we don't have a one to one comparison, from looking at other games we may be able to predict a window for the game's release date before a company rep decides to grace us with something more specific than "when it's ready."

Throwback Thursday: The retro trend of Heroes of the Storm's Warcraft characters

For the last several years, the Warcraft franchise has become almost synonymous with World of Warcraft.  The other day, a friend of mine commented that Hearthstone wasn't so much "Heroes of Warcraft" as it was simply "Heroes of WoW".  It's true that Hearthstone currently draws on elements from WoW more than any of the other Warcraft games, and that the MMORPG will likely remain the defining aspect of the franchise.

However, a recent pattern in Heroes of the Storm implies that Blizzard is making an effort to hearken back to the Warcraft that many of its older fans remember.  So for the first post of 2015 (and first Throwback Thursday edition) let's take a look at how Blizzard is tacitly acknowledging that some of those Warcraft fans may not necessarily be World of Warcraft fans.

Dual-citizenship: It's OK to like more than one MOBA

DotA 2 (left) and League of Legends (right) finally duke it out.

Happy New Year, everyone.  Hope you all had a good holiday and wishing you all well for 2015.  For my last post of 2014, I thought I'd tackle possibly one of the most defining, but definitely the ugliest, aspects of the MOBA genre.  And maybe, just maybe, help bring about a change for the new year.

"Rek'Sai: Scourge of the Desert" bodes well for League of Legends lore

So lately the popular opinion of League's lore is that it is either low quality or non-existent, both because of what fans have dubbed "The Great Ret-con", when Riot's lore department removed the Institute of War from the official narrative.  The decision met with severe backlash (case in point: you'll have to click "show" to see that actual quote since the comment is below the forum's rating threshold).


With the story piece released yesterday, I think that the lore department's stated goals of expanding the world are actually beginning to show some results for the narrative as a whole.  It's ironic that they would be brought about with the introduction of League's first "true beast", who would be expected to have a fairly small story element (eat caravans, terrorize cities, burrow, repeat).

Borderlands: The PreSequel DLC - more than the last, less than expected

So the second piece of Borderlands: The PreSequel DLC was announced on Thursday.  "Holodome Onslaught" will be released on December 16, 2014 and is essentially adding a boss-rush mode and a level cap increase.  And that's it.

Deckard Cain: Hero of the Storm - Really?

So, I fully realize this will not be a popular viewpoint (if anyone bothers to read this) but I don't think the (until recently) last of the Horadrim should join Heroes of the Storm.  At least not as a playable character.  Stay awhile and listen.

Welcome to the Jungle

Preseason for League players inspires equal measures of excitement and dread.  Excitement because this is when Riot introduces the most sweeping changes and dread for exactly the same reason.  

We as gamers can be a pretty conservative lot and change is scary.  We all wonder the same things: “will my favorite champion get nerfed?”, “will my favorite strategies still be viable?” but it all boils down to one, simple question.  

Will the game still be fun?