The logic behind Orphea

General Discussion
1

Let’s try and understand the logic behind this new hero.

First: Why choose Orphea over another more desired hero? Blizzard chose one of two options, but they picked the option that is less desired by the majority of Blizzard fans. Blizzard fans certainly wouldn’t have chosen her over Mengsk, Belial, Imperius, Zoltun Kull, Deathwing, etc., but what about outside of the playerbase? What about players who have no attraction to the game because they never grew up playing Blizzard games? Could this appeal be to the typical LoL player? By judging the loli characterization and playstyle of Orphea, it seems that this is the case.

Second, let’s look at other instances of Blizzard trying to appeal to “bigger audiences”, and what that will mean for the future of Blizzard games. Let’s look at the new mobile game for Diablo. This is another perfect example of what Blizzard fans don’t want, but if Blizzard is looking elsewhere for customers, then they don’t care about pissing off their fans. They want more. They want the mobile market, which is the biggest gaming market in video games.

So, it looks like Blizzard sees more profit to be made in trying to appeal to the larger market of non-Blizzard fans. This trend will end in one of two ways: either they succeed, in which case if you are a Blizzard fan, you will be pushed out (or you will conform to their new games model. Get used to mobile trash and LoL styled games). Or, they will fail and… who knows? Go under seems like a stretch, but certainly become a shell of it’s former self. In which case, the Blizzard fan will still lose, as all of the iconic games you grew up with will become “Diablo 7: Diablo’s Dad”, or “Warcraft 9: Here’s another demon invasion”.

3 Likes
2

They did say in the deep dive that Orphea, as a Nexus original, was designed to be friendly to new players while still being hard to master. It’s entirely possible the art style was chosen to be familiar to other MOBA players.

Blizzard has done a great job catering to their core audience, but they can’t always do that. It’s bad business and leads to an insular culture. If HotS is going to grow, it needs to be more than just fan service. If all they do is throw characters from other games, HotS can never truly step out of their collective shadow.

That’s why it’s so exciting to see them do original stories and characters and find their own style.

21 Likes
3

Imperius MAN!

SO many great characters.

2 Likes
4

This is an absurd assertion. First, adding Orphea doesn’t accomplish anything that any other Blizzard hero might also have accomplished, from the ‘outsiders’ perspective. So, as an outside, I would see HoTS, see the numerous characters, and either be interested in the lore, or not. To be interested in the lore, the characters have to be interesting. To be interesting, they have to have a complex character. Most of the heroes in HoTS accomplish that, while Orphea, arguably, does not. If anything, outsiders might be attracted to HoTS because of the established history of each character and the allowance that would have on diving deeper into that character’s story. I can’t do that with Orphea. How much interest can be generated with her? Not much, it seems.

If HotS is going to grow, it needs to be more than just fan service.

Or, the nature of growth is dependent on more than just styles of characters. It might be that HoTS isn’t growing because of the lack of features, implementation of gameplay, balance, promotion, etc. If Blizzard truly thinks that heroes like Orphea will “help HoTS grow”, HoTS is probably doomed.

5 Likes
5

This logic does make sense in a way.(wanting to appeal to as many people as you can) But could you imagine if this game came out with random OC characters from the get go that had no lore backing from the games of blizzard? Literally the only reason people were drawn to this over other mobas is that it was fan service and they could play as people they were used to seeing in other games they played.

Now there is a good enough portion of characters from other blizzard titles, but I can understand why some people are mad. Damn people make threads every day about the same heroes and to see them get put to the side for something that is a loli from lol would be insulting. I personally don’t mind them doing something like putting a new character in the game, but making it a loli is a little disappointing, just wondering how that discussion went at the design team’s meeting. “Next hero must be a young girl in a skirt!”

2 Likes
6

To an outsider, they don’t. And this game doesn’t supply much lore about them.

Why do you want Deathwing or Imperius? Because they are awesome. In Warcraft. In Diablo.

To an outsider, it’s just a dragon and an angel. We have multiples of both of those already.

We do not have anything like Orphea, and because she is a Nexus creation, this team has full creative control. They can write these comics because no other department in Blizzard would get in the way with a plethora of pre-established lore that only fans will care about seeing accurately depicted.

So Orphea, and by extension writing original story for the Nexus, allows them to attract new fans who wouldn’t have seen Deathwing as impressive.

As I said, HotS can never step out of the shadow of other games if they don’t create, and I’m delighted to know the development team has the passion to create because copying what’s already been done would have been the easy route and been more worrisome for the long-term health of the game.

8 Likes
7

Sure, let’s look at Diablo. It has an immense amount of dislikes and few likes.

Orphea has a ton of likes and a few dislikes.

Should we go further or…?

1 Like
8

Release one hero out of dozens, it must mean they’re unmistakably trying to appeal to the casual LoL crowd. Yes, this one hero will drive them all to HotS.

Galaxy brain stuff right here.

The things these blizzflakes choose to get all pissy about never cease to amuse me. Because ONE HERO OUT OF 83456923983424902384 MEANS THE GAME IS DONE, NO MORE MENG WHAT HIS NAME OR THAT ONE DRAGON THAT LOOKED COOL WHEN I WAS 13! THE HORROR!

You people need to seek help. This level of entitlement is not in line with what most human beings would consider remotely logical for a thinking, grown up adult.

3 Likes
9

You’re right though. There’s a crap ton of people who have no idea who Imperius is. He shows up on like… 2 cinematics and that’s it. Deathwing is one of the hundreds of dragons WoW has. Deathwing’s time to shine was shattered as soon as Hots received its first dragon with alex.

I can tell you how it would have gone…

Deathwing confirmed!

Forums: “Damnit! another dragon?! why the heck didn’t we get insert one of hundreds of possible heroes”

1 Like
10

The fact that this game doesn’t supply the lore is irrelevant. Obviously, people would have to visit a wiki, or whatever, to read more about a character. My point is, is that if they wanted to, they could. However, with Orphea, they can’t in any capacity, simply because she is a super-generic, stereotype that seems to be an appeal towards LoL players. The most they can find out about her is to read some badly put together comics that don’t satisfy in any capacity.

Why do you want Deathwing or Imperius? Because they are awesome. In Warcraft. In Diablo.

Yeah, but they still are awesome. What’s awesome about Orphea? As an outside, I can come to see why Deathwing is awesome by reading, or even playing those games that I might not have known about. With Orphea? Nothing.

To an outsider, it’s just a dragon and an angel.

Yeah, maybe to start off. But, as I’ve said above, there is at least potential for the person to understand why Tyrael is more than an angel and Alextrasza is more than just a dragon. Again, with Orphea, she is just a loli girl with daddy issues used to appeal to LoL players. Where’s the potential?

We do not have anything like Orphea, and because she is a Nexus creation, this team has full creative control. They can write these comics because no other department in Blizzard would get in the way with a plethora of pre-established lore that only fans will care about seeing accurately depicted.

And because she is a Nexus creation, she is as bland as bland can be. But this sidesteps the entire issue of demand, anyways. Even if she were a lot more interesting, she runs into the problem of player demand for other characters.

So Orphea, and by extension writing original story for the Nexus, allows them to attract new fans who wouldn’t have seen Deathwing as impressive.

Assuming that Orphea-like characters are the reason why HoTS isn’t expanding. If you truly think this is the main reason, then I’d like to know your justifications.

3 Likes
11

I could give a long winded explanation but I will just keep it short.

Because cute loli, that’s why. :smiling_imp:

2 Likes
12

As a HotS player, I can see the appeal. I don’t know anything about Orphea, but I did see her skills in action and they looked fun. I liked the way her playstyle appeared, granted my judgement of that may change once I get hands on. We have been told many months ago they were going to start introducing Nexus original characters, and you get upset at the very first one? Do you really need story for a MOBA? Yeah, all the characters in HoTS already have their own story lines, but that’s because they came from Blizzard games that focused on story lines. 10/10, excited about Orphea as a character in a game, no story needed.

1 Like
13

I’ll admit that the video for Orphea isn’t nearly as disliked as the new mobile Diablo, but I would say that Mobile Diablo is a much more grievous mistake than trying to shoehorn OC content into a mashup of Blizzard characters. Orphea represents a much more chronic problem that has been plaguing HoTS, in which the “dead game” meme becomes, ironically, an actual consideration. That problem is questionable design choices by the HoTS team, to where people no longer have faith in the future of the franchise, which perpetuates the issue.

Also, look at the overall numbers. Diablo: Mobile has nearly 275K dislikes and nearly 9k likes, which is quite a lot of people. Orphea’s reveal, on the other hand, has less than 11k likes/dislikes. I could make the argument that the people who would have disliked the Orphea reveal have been long gone for some time now, because of design choices just like this one. Ultimately, out of the people who are left, there is a mentality that whatever Blizzard dishes out, we ought to be grateful.

1 Like
14

i would pick orphea over every other heroes you have listed

1 Like
15

@Bitterman

Good for you. Next step is to learn what anecdotal personal experience is, and why it’s not indicative of overall trends.

16

You are delusional if you think the HOTs team would have gotten any different response from the community had the released a known character. Nobody is ever happy. When whitemane and yrel came out the forums had the exact same hostility. The blizzard community is selfish and entitled. They will never be satisfied with a hero release.

1 Like
18

Really? Mind sharing a link to the old forums that show any of this hostility?

19

We can use the information you have provided though. For example, we can’t really compare Diablo and HotS, both are very different games and were released with a very different market in mind.

Let’s also go to the YouTube channel, Orphea, in one day, has a little under 10k likes. Whereas Alex and Hanzo release video has 11k, and it’s been a year.

The HotS number of players hasn’t been high, but I still almost never see the same player in a game back to back, or even in a week or month.

Let’s compare to 2016, when HotS had a good amount of players, even with said amount, the trailer for Rag and Varian turned out to be at 9.5k. It does have 800k more views but that’s from blizzcon 2016, it’s expected.

20

Do we really have to find a link months prior or are you just kidding?

21

What kind of demented mind do you have to even think about Yrel and a little girl as something more than just that?

I mean… it says more about you than anyone else by you noticing these things. Cutesy underaged girl? Skinny jeans? What…