A message from Kaéo Milker

General Discussion
1

Yesterday, we announced a difficult decision—the HGC will not be returning in 2019 and we’ll be transitioning some Heroes of the Storm developers to our other game teams. While our extended Blizzard family working on World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Overwatch, and our unannounced projects will be getting an influx of much-needed, extremely talented Heroes devs to help them achieve their goals, it also means that we’ll need to change the cadence of support for Heroes going forward.

So, I’m sad. I’m sad because I love this team and this game that we’ve built together, with all of you, and this past year has been such a great one for Heroes of the Storm. The HGC had its best year yet and I was so looking forward to the 2019 season. On the game side, we’ve had a steady stream of some of the most sought-after heroes, amazing themed events, and impactful reworks. We also made meaningful progress on improving core systems and features across the game. We truly hit our stride in 2018, so I’m disappointed that some of the exciting plans we had for 2019 will have to change.

But all is not lost. The team that remains dedicated to Heroes of the Storm is a veritable Who’s Who of developers who have been driving every facet of the game from the very beginning—from people you know and have seen speak publicly about the game for years, to those who have poured their hearts into it from behind the scenes. In short, we’re continuing to develop the game with an incredible team that has the experience and passion required to support Heroes of the Storm well into the future.

The Heroes of the Storm team and I also have a unique opportunity to rethink things and reprioritize. Because now more than ever, our charge is to focus on taking care of you, our players, and to channel all our energy into keeping the game dynamic and fun. This means we’re still committed to regular hero reworks, themed events, and even new heroes. We’re setting our sights on the new goals and timelines for what we want to do with the game from here on out and we’re eager to share those plans as soon as they’re finalized.

So, I’m also excited. I’m excited for my teammates to bring their hard-won experience from making this game to the other teams at Blizzard to help their games be even better. And I’m especially excited for Heroes of the Storm to continue evolving with a renewed focus and purity of purpose.

Thank you for joining us on the journey so far, and please bear with us through these changes. Your feedback is as critical as ever, and continues to guide our priorities and decisions while helping us be better along the way.

Thank you,
Kaéo

188 Likes
5

Just don’t let the game die…

Edit: Entire roster F2P at next Blizzcon, but all skins and cosmetics, all with gems.

77 Likes
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I’ll play this game until it dies, so you guys better have some fun stuff in store for the future. Thanks for making a game that I’ve enjoyed for almost 4 years.

124 Likes
8

As long as I get deathwing im happy

34 Likes
9

Games are about community… you just removed that key component from this game.

109 Likes
12

Because now more than ever, our charge is to focus on taking care of you, our players, and to channel all our energy into keeping the game dynamic and fun. OKAY. Right

20 Likes
13

It hurts

Most everyone that plays this game did it because they loved blizzard games

Activision-Blizzard took that love and threw it in the garbage.

You can still save it, but I doubt that will happen.

80 Likes
15

Please dont let the game die… I love it so much and i love the idea to put all heroes from different blizzard games into this game. I even love the idea of Nexus original ones! Keep up the good work! Love ya.

44 Likes
16

I feel a bit better after reading that but still really really fearful about the future.

46 Likes
17

EVEN new heroes. Wow. RIP HOTS

68 Likes
19

Thank you for giving more details after the corporate announcement! So many of us love this game, and I hope you’ve seen the comments around the internet-town that we would be very happy with steady support that is laid out, and doesn’t need to be a new hero every 6 weeks.

I know a lot of people are saying slower heroes releases, with interspersed reworks, and continue these great events like the Toy Winter Event as much as feasible. It will help, and I think people had a lot of good points that having more time between new heroes and reworks will allow the player base to get used to and learn the changes. And could be doing a fun event while we learn! :smiley:

16 Likes
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This post really confirms my that management screwed over the development team just as much as it did the players, the pros, the entire community: even you guys seem to have not known about any of this until it already happened. I’ll try to support the development team, but I don’t think I can ever forgive Blizzard for doing this to the game and its developers.

78 Likes
21

This is the biggest positive to look forward to.

18 Likes
22

RIP Blizzard, long live Activision.

45 Likes
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The day they let Activision decide everything to do with the original Blizzard games is the day we need to prepare for our beloved games to die. If you need me, I’ll be waiting for WoW to pass away via server death, sitting next to my favorite barkeep, Gryshka the Innkeeper, in Orgrimmar.

23 Likes
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The real question is how small the team will be going forward.

Why not take the passion you guys have for Heroes and rebuilt it from the ground up instead of continuing to force a dead engine? Hearthstone started out small, it can be done again.

6 Likes
25

This is odd, one day after killing HOTS you post something on the forums with some information that people can use even though it isn’t much. Maybe you should walk over to the Diablo team and let them know we have been waiting for some news on the future of that game since Blizzcon and haven’t heard a peep out of them. Here’s hoping that you can continue to keep the forges burning hot with the power off to save money, but you do all still have phones.

15 Likes