Heroes of the Storm: Difference between revisions

Heroes of the Storm is an upcoming multiplayer online battle arena video game developed by Blizzard Entertainment for Microsoft Windows, OS X and iOS. The basis of the game is the combination of heroes from Blizzard's Warcraft, Diablo, and StarCraft franchises. It is planned to be a free-to-play digitally distributed online game, supported by micro-transactions.^[1][2] As of August 2013, the game was in internal testing at Blizzard.^[3]

As a part of the arcade feature for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, a custom map called "Blizzard DOTA" was announced alongside several other mods of Blizzard Entertainment at BlizzCon 2010.^[5] At that time, the map was developed to showcase the modding abilities that were to be added to StarCraft II.^[6] In 2011, however, development of Blizzard DOTA was rebooted and demoed at BlizzCon 2011.^[7][8] In comparison to the previous iteration previewed at BlizzCon 2010, the gameplay was described as "fast" and "streamlined".^[9][10]

Following the announcement of Dota 2 by Valve Corporation, Rob Pardo, the executive vice president of Blizzard Entertainment, expressed concern at Valve using and trademarking a name that originated from within the Warcraft III community. Following a failed trademark injunction on the part of Riot Games, Blizzard acquired the former's subsidiary, DotA-Allstars, LLC., the original company that represented the servicing of Defense of the Ancients. Subsequently, Blizzard filed an opposition against Valve for claiming the DotA trademark.^[11] On May 11, 2012, Blizzard and Valve announced that the dispute had been settled, with Valve retaining the commercial franchising rights to the term "Dota", while Blizzard would change the name of Blizzard DOTA to Blizzard All-Stars.^[12]

In June 2012, Dustin Browder, the director of StarCraft II, stated that Blizzard All-Stars did not have a release date, but that it would definitely be after the release of StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm.^[2] In an interview in January 2013, he noted that parts of the game were "starting to feel really good", with "a really tight multiplayer experience", but that there was no way to project a timeline on it, since it was not complete enough to run a company-wide internal alpha test.^[13] In February 2013, the Activision Blizzard fourth quarter 2012 earnings report listed Blizzard All-Stars as one of the areas of continued investment for Blizzard throughout 2013.^[14] Dustin Browder commented in March 2013 that a few artists had transitioned from the StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm team, to work on Blizzard All-Stars for the time being along with the few designers on the team.^[15]

In August 2013, Blizzard president Mike Morhaime said that the game had reached a significant internal testing milestone, and was going into wider internal testing. Describing it as an "action real-time strategy" game, he said that Blizzard was looking to put their own spin on the genre and challenge some of the existing design paradigms. The Blizzard All-Stars team was expanded in May 2013, from some of the resources who were reallocated when Blizzard's Project Titan project was rebooted and the team downsized.^[3] On October 17 2013, the name of the game was changed to Heroes of the Storm.^[16]

On November 8th, Game director Dustin Browder detailed some of the battlegrounds at BlizzCon 2013. He also announced that signups for the public beta would now be available on Blizzard's website.^[17]

• Official website