A message from Kaéo Milker

General Discussion
26

It feels like you killed a huge part of the family, Blizzard. This decision and how it was carried out absolutely smells of an out-of-touch, pretentious, “we know better than you” company.

You didn’t just cancel HGC, you let the community down, you let your fans down…you let PEOPLE down.

Listen to how much you screwed this up.

I am so angry at Blizzard shills right - it’s taking everything I have not to curse you out.

Your management left you out to dry - left you to deal with the fallout Kaeo. They abandoned you just as much as they crapped all over us.

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28

This is bad u.u…I feel very sad…

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29

I can only hope this means fostering a sustained, positive community rather than catering to esports.

While it’s unfortunate that some ill-prepared people have lost their jobs, what seems to have been forgotten over the years is that games are meant to be enjoyed by players, not spectators.

I never watched a second of HGC as I have never watched a second of OWC because I believe that games should put your typical player first, not pros. We’ve seen too much balancing around the top 1% that has harmed the experience for the rest of us.

What this game needs going forward is a renewed focus on making the game enjoyable for as many people as possible. This includes:

  • Balancing around the many, not the few.
  • Continuing to improve matchmaking so a worthwhile experience is had much more often than not.
  • Addressing toxicity and implementing harsher punishments for rule-breakers.
  • Further quality of life changes that make the underlying game more fun.

The time to start is now.

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30

The timing and the way that Blizzard ended HGC were just shameful. As much as I like this game, I think the game is going downhill. Playerbase is going to shrink without pro scene to look up to :frowning:

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31

You literally killed the entire pro scene over night, what do you think will happen now? People got burned, the company acted very unprofessional, no one will ever trust you again or want to do business with you after this, especially after how you took down everyone by surprise. A patch with exciting new content just released less than a week ago, it also introduced controversial changes, which in the end to everyone’s surprise proved not to be too horrible after several revisions. Despite all of this, you still went ahead with the kill order.

I’m under the impression you have lots of unreleased stuff prepared for us and are planning to milk it out over the next 12 months or less, before you finally pull the plug and are now minimizing the damage from the cruel PR you just pulled off on us.

I always kept saying how I am surprised by the work you managed to do with such a small team and low budget, and waited for every new patch in anticipation like a kid. It was my favorite out of all your games, because of the tight and relatively small community around the game, opinions you wanted to share had a wide reach and it allowed for such a great discussion.

But now Blizzard spit on their fanbase and the competitive scene and I’m done with supporting this crappy practice of theirs.

Tell me, you expect WC3 reforged to be extremely profitable or will a 20 year old game include lootboxes and MTX bs? The fanbase is no doubt smaller than of HOTS so is it just another cash grab?

The incompetence over how D3 was handled, how WOW is being handled (deleting beta forums btw Kappa), and you didn’t even have the decency to take HOTS behind the shed not to kill it infront of the crying children.

Again, HOTS team was very passionate and best, with unrivaled communication to fans compared to other departments. I’ve never seen such great twitter, reddit and especially forum engagement ever. If anyone is getting axed because of budget cuts, consider a promotion for them and fire the numbers people instead, those that lack passion and the ones that led us to this point.

My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined HD 1080P. Also I’m done with Blizzard at this point. You’ve completely dropped your values.

http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/mission.html

REMEMBER THESE? You think you do, but you don’t.

You just snapped the fingers and there it is. But except removing people that deserve to be suspended from the game, like the community has been begging you to, you removed content creators, pros and people who are passionate about it. This will only make the game worse for few that remain.

I hope the company learns a valuable lesson out of this, and that the community punishes it properly this time by voting with their wallets for once.

No doubt that stupid WOW mount you just released last night had earned you more than enough already to finance all of HOTS and HGC for another year, but will end up in some idiot's pocket as a bonus for cutting costs. All while some 200 hardworking young men are left without a job on Christmas. Such a PR disaster this is.

The talent is real and everlasting at Blizzard, it is the management that repeatedly keeps ****ing up by introducing bad business practices without ever thinking long term. The reason HGC shutdown hurt so much is because Blizzard has a monopoly over the pro-scene. Something like this should have never happened - and who says it won’t happen to Overwatch anytime soon? Technically your game is only as popular as you market it to be, and people are slowly getting tired of it. But you never gave HOTS a fighting chance even though it is superior to its competitors in many ways. F you, company men.

p.s. how deep does the rabbithole go?

https://clips.twitch.tv/CallousSmellyChowderWTRuck

141 Likes
32

I hope we at least are getting HotS Immortal out of this. I didn’t really get into Planet of Heroes because I want to play some real Blizzard characters.

1 Like
33

The HGC had a good run, and I enjoyed it while it lasted, but being truthful this game was never gonna make it as an e-sport, that much has been obvious for at least a couple of years.

I’m glad Blizzard has supported it for as long as they have, and while I share in the community’s frustration and disappointment that it’s no longer continuing that disappointment hasn’t shaken my desire to continue in my playing of Heroes of the Storm.

Years ago, before this game launched when it was still just “Blizzard DOTA” I said I’d play this game even if there was no esport attached to it. Because I wanted to play a MoBA game with Blizzard heroes, because I wanted Blizzard’s take on the genre.

HoTS hasn’t disappointed. This game is fun for me, while League and DoTA2 are still not.

That this fun has never translated into e-sports popularity is disappointing albeit understandable. This game’s marketing was disappointingly focused on casual friendly which drove away a lot of potential new competitive players at the beginning, a move the fledgling e-sport’s scene never recovered from.

If I’m being 100% truthful. I knew HGC was never going to last. It doesn’t stand as a pillar of E-sports as we know it the way that Starcraft has. It was fun, it had great times, but it lived as long as it was going to.

Maybe some community presence will pick up the flag, host community tournaments and keep the competitive fire alive. That’s what would happen in Starcraft 2 if Blizzard suddenly cancelled WCS this way.

Who knows? All I know is, this game is still fun. These devs continue to evolve the game and I continue to support it.

15 Likes
35

It’s pretty unacceptable. This really changes the way I see blizzard. It’s not quite as bad as EA but I’m fairly certain it’s heading that direction. It’s on blizzard to hold me from leaving them and it’s on blizzard to hold the other people in the same mental state. I almost bought the new stitches skin for $15 last night and then I saw blizzards post. How many times did that happen immediately after the news broke?

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36

If you can do prioritize please priotize releasing new heroes on a steady release schedule. Keep em coming. New heroes are the number 1 most important thing in this game. If you have to sacrifice something, sacrifice skins and mounts.

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37

I feel like this is a corporate blindside. It makes me sad, angry, and disappointed.

Blizzard used to be the best. Now it is just a corporate entity out of touch with every aspect of its fanbase who are the people that built the company.

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38

Well, it happened. Moving foward, I have some suggestions:

  • Make the game more accesible, by balancing heroes for your fans, not only for the pro gamers, now that you don’t have HGC.
  • If money was the problem, you could make all skins purchasable with gems. Many of my friends complain they cannot insta-buy a skin or comestic because they don’t have the shards and it isn’t buyable from gems. I get you want to sell more chests but you could consider it. Not everyone want to gamble with their money.
  • Publicity. With the money you are saving from HGC and reduction of staff, you could pump more ads. For example, more crossover events within Blizzard games (not activision), more “invite your friends and get rewards” or something that can help new players engaged. Some of my friends tried the game, but as a veteran I screw them (newbies) with my MMR by putting them on really hard matches. The result is that they drop it because they don’t like so many lost matches in a row.
  • Finally, don’t let us die on us. If you want you can design a system to ask us what we want next. Listen even more your fans. We are hardcore and buy stuff. Even a poll on twitter is fine. On this point you need to mantain your fanbase, then expand it and when the time is right maybe return to HGC.

We totally support you. With all our love. Keep it up team. Don’t let us die.

48 Likes
39

So much this. 2018 felt like the game was really coming into its identity and now…

Thank you guys for sticking to it. If there’s a silver lining to be found, this is it.

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40

This could mean we will probably get more content than before if they are going to focus their priorities on releasing content since the pro scene is dead. :thinking:

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41

Not buying it. Best of luck keeping this game alive with no one playing it.

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42

So when will WE get our Tassadar rework?
Or buffs?
Idk. Just if someone reads our posts about Tassadar, you could know that we really wants dat one.
We have our own ideas what you can use.
Some of us made their own reworks.
Why you just can’t, idk, ask us about Tassadar? What we want, how he can be buffed, etc.
I love Hots, but it’s really hard to do something, when nobody listen to us.

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43

We know you are gonna leave the forums if this gonna happens so to keep you around they aren’t going to give him buffs or a rework :stuck_out_tongue:

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44

Kaeo,
Though you can’t revive HGC how much you like.
it’s time to go for alternatives to revive the pro scene.

Look for sponsors. Work with the community. Have the community help raise tournaments up. Add an amateur leagues where people who cannot become pro’s but want to do tournaments can play too. And may become pro’s too.

Also look for modders. Custom game modes kept alot of games around. Try to allow it on HOTS too with a custom game tab!

13 Likes
45

A VAST VAST majority of the people playing this game never watched HGC or even post on the forums.

Cancelling it doesn’t change anything for them.

The fact that the forums are so overloaded with whines about QUICK MATCH should tell you just how seriously this game’s population takes the competitive aspect of this game.

Nothing is going to change for the vast majority of players just because HGC is gone. Nothing.

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47

I do not know who attributed this responsibility, but how you communicated these changes throughout the community in a state of mourning. What it looks like is that they give up on the project, give up on Heroes of the Storm, or the game does not have a lot of visibility compared to other titles like Dota 2 and League of Legends or the title has not resulted in significant profits for the company . Whoever plays and loves Heroes of the Storm invests more than money in this title, invests time and confidence, confidence that Blizzard will do a good job with this game that deserves much more prominence than it has received. Heroes of the Storm is an exemplary game of the moba category, but is treated as a casual game by both the Blizzard marketing team and the game market as a whole. So what we ask for as a community is for the company to be more transparent and not to come up with beautiful and well-crafted speeches. We want to know whether or not we are wasting our time and money by investing these two elements in Heroes of the Storm by investing this in Blizzard. It’s really cool to see that you have new projects, but it’s unwise to see that you’re investing so much in new things when you have not been able to align and take care of the projects that have been going on for the longest time. So tell us what the real is; Are you going to let this game die or will we have an HGC in 2020, greater title visibility, constant updates and organizations in metagame, a live and harmonious game? What should we expect from Heroes of the Storm?

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48

Why you just not turn down the servers? We, the trust-love players, don’t deserve to see the game die slowly.

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