I’m not talking about the in-game stuff; I’m talking about the lack of support on the meta side. We should have had guilds within the first year; there should have been native support for tournaments and such; group quests with real rewards (i.e. “Win 3 ARAM games with your guild-mates”); 2 and 3 man challenges on rotation (we sort of had that?).
Hindsight is 20/20, of course, and the dev team on this game is by far the best that any Blizz game had aside from the OG WoW team.
From my point of view this was a classical marketing and product positioning desaster: They wanted to create a fun, easy to understand, family friendly brawler but at the same time wanted to attract core gamers and esports with a game type, that is known for toxicity.
They should have just turned this game into full ARAM/arena mode. Anyone remember the arenas with the garden terrors for example they had in the beginning?
They should have not gone into the typical 3 lane MOBA direction but instead should have focussed on fast paced action brawls. If they would have made this game into an ARAM and arena brawler, it might still live today. What I see these days is: ARAM has waiting times of like 5s while QM has waiting times of around 5 minutes and Storm League often does not load a match at all. This means: Most players stick to the brawl portion of this game and are done with laning for 20 minutes and then lose the match in just one team fight because your death timers are then 60s and the opponent just cuts through your structures like butter in the end. And people are also done with wasting time in Storm League only to lose due to a troll or an AFK in your team. Then just play a 5-10 minutes ARAM match instead and skip to the next one if you have a troll.
I don’t think that’s the issue. I think the main issues is that they were way late to the moba party. Valve got the rights to Dota 1 in 2009 but has existed since 2003, then made Dota 2 in 2013. Riot acted quickly and released LoL in 2009 (announcing it in 2008). So why did Blizzard wait until 2015 to fully release Hots? They took too long and by the time they did release it, Dota and LoL were already well established in the moba genre. Although it did pretty well for itself, competing with already established products isn’t easy to do.
I play every day and have fun. I don’t at all care for how they run the competitive league play but since I stopped playing or caring about SL its not really an issue. If I had the time I would work on playing in one of the tournament leagues but I already have way too much on my plate for more than a game or two a day.
Because HotS wasn’t even a response to the MOBA genre’s popularity (initially).
“Blizzard DOTA”, later known as “Blizzard All-Stars”, and then renamed again to “Heroes of the Storm” was originally conceived as a custom map for Starcraft 2, the purpose of which was to show off the capabilities of the SC2 map editor (that’s also why HotS uses a modified version of the SC2 engine).
Only later during its development did they decide to spin it off into its own full-fledged game (I think the reason for that choice was mainly that they couldn’t set up a way to purchase heroes from in-game with the SC2 map version).
So, the reason why it was so late to the MOBA party is that it only started development after SC2 was released, and not, say, when DOTA (1) started getting really popular.
Because they didn’t think that dota would have gotten as big as it did. They couldn’t stop Valve from getting the rights to it and didn’t even think of challenging it until later.
So why didn’t they want to challenge it right after that happened? They tried to stop Valve from obtaining rights, failed, and then didn’t even think of making some sort of competition? Idk. From a business standpoint speed is crucial and they failed in that regard as well.
This is just stupidity from them. Waiting until SC2 came out and attempting to make a moba was a dumb decision. They should have started creating a moba once they “lost” the rights to dota. They took the L and it bit them in the rear, because both dota and LoL are more popular because they decided to not act.
Valve filled for a motion to trademark DotA, and Blizzard filed to block the trademark; the term could cause confusion since they have things associated with the name. Based on the terms raised on their concern, the settlement benefitted both parties’ claim, even if people want to ‘read between the lines’ on their take. People may be more prone to remember that blizzard changed the name of their product, but may not recall that Valve made changes too. It wasn’t going to stop Valve from releasing a game or magically make Icefrog obligated to create the game in a Starcraft 2 engine.
Rob Pardo – who posted the announcement regarding the settlement said this in a later interview regarding blizzard’s response to DotA*:
Honestly it was just development bandwidth. We were aware of it.* We knew it was getting really popular. I actually did have kind of an official sit-down meeting with the other execs of the studio and said: “Hey, we should really talk about this”. And we walked down the path and talked about what it would take. We also actually brought Icefrog out and talked to him a bit too . We made the decision we just couldn’t take it on and make it successful at that time.
A lot of blizzard attention has been on the WoW IP, and starcraft already suffered on that end, taking years to get Starcraft 2 going, and having to drop Ghost – and other projects – in the span. Yea, people can point at the ‘terms’ changes between back then and now on old warcraft and Re:forged, but it’s not that Blizz ‘lost’ the suit, and it’s not that they didn’t consider competition, but it is easier to tl;dr the conclusion that way. Yea, blizzard probably could have conducted itself different in trying to appeal to icefrog, or offering to buy the game off Valve, but some of the concerns are in priority particular to warcraft, and those parts panned out. Unless someone gets the terms of the settlement out in the open, they could have ‘won’ as much as they ‘lost’ by whatever agreement Valve got to offset blizzard stall on the trademark. Esp since the name, and ‘rights’, didn’t matter.
Wouldn’t that be the same thing as trying to obtain the rights?
And even then, dota 1 had been around since 2003.
No but they would have stopped them from using dota as their name. Blizzard would be the creators of it and valve would have had to create a new game. Since dota 1 was popular already, dota 2 would probably be similarly popular even if it was under blizzard, assuming they didn’t screw it up.
It’s not only about using the dota name, but more about not creating a moba game at that time.
I understand that other games were higher on the priority than a new moba game… I’m just saying that’s why it isn’t as popular as the two moba games made in 2009. Because they were late they had to “steal” players from already established games. It’s not easy to do that. I’m not saying they couldn’t bring players in… but that’s also assuming they had proper advertisement. They missed the opportunity and that’s partially why this game suffered, among other things.
What would have SAVED this game is, if they gave Azmo an 8 Annihilation multiplier for picking Gluttony and not 4. As well as given Hammer a 300% Damage 1-shot with Ambush talent, and make the mines explode 5 times each and not 3, with Pulse Detonation Core.
Made me think of Black Mirror where the father was punished by having their vision and audio block out their daughter. Truly horrific. While no doubt plenty would welcome the ability to not be able to see or hear anything D:I.
This game is awesome to me, I still cannot understand how they fail to make millions with it. Great devs, pathetic leaders. As in the real world imho : great people, pathetic leaders.
No. A trademark is specific protection on a logo or slogan to stop imitations from confusing customers on where the good/service comes, though if you notice ‘chinese knockoffs’ of something, there really is a limit to what it does. Some things cannot be trademarked, or some companies choose not to trademark something. Apple computers can’t prevent juicers from selling Apple juice, while Kleenex is practically synonymous with tissues and often the term people say even if they aren’t using that brand.
Having “Dota” or not trademarked wouldn’t prevent someone from making a 5v5 game with 3 lanes, automated creeps, hero items, etc etc.
To note: blizzard and valve both professed to have ‘rights’ from particular creators that had worked on the games, the works were too derivative with other creators that it didn’t really matter what ‘rights’ were claimed. The conflict of concern came from DotA-Allstars, which was already a derivative work from other creators – indicated by the use of “allstars” – and particular asserts were referential anyway (such as Lina Inverse, whom creators didn’t have the ‘rights’ from slayers to use). The concern for blocking the trademark of DotA was to try to prevent locking out communities from using an established term and the settlement effectively split the concerns: communities could use “DotA” as the acronym for “Defense of the Ancients” (general terms) while Valve could use “DOTA 2” for their logo.
While name recognition may have helped, considered the size difference between LoL and Dota, the more defining aspect has probably been Icefrog, and not the logo imo.
Still game type and mode and how Blizzard acted did not fit.
You cannot release a game which is hyper competitive and known to be extremely toxic and then pretend that this is a family friendly fun hero brawler. The reporting system killed this game for many players that just left. Today you can tell people “you play bad”, will get reported and if you accrue of those reports in a certain time you will be automatically silenced, then suspended, then banned. This has become a joke. “Abusive” is everything today in this game as long as people are pissed and click the button. There were times, when people that were racist or something were banned. Today you are banned because you tell other players that their hero choice sucked or that dying 15 times is terrible.
The whole mindset of this game is a joke: Blizzard never tried to teach the players how to really become better. Instead they added a useless MVP screen where those, that laned all day long and never participated in fights showed up. Or those that died 15 times because they “soaked” so much damage. Then this “You did great” messages. Instead of saying “Hey, dying 10 times and only having 40k damage on a Kel’thas is really, really bad” they say “Hey, you captured 2 camps, that is more than the standard player has on this map has”. Seriously?
You can troll your team mates in draft by not filling, you can troll by not showing up on objectives (because you are Samuro and instead capture 10 camps - but still lose the match at the end), you can troll by picking the worst heroes and worst talents. But still Blizzard claps you on the back and if anyone else says a word about you, then they are hit by the suspension hammer.
This attitude killed the game. You cannot build a LoL clone and pretend that it is a family friendly Angry Birds experience. Something I have heard so often in this game - more often than in any other game I played before: “It is just a game”. The excuse of everyone that ruined the match by terrible playing. And this whole casual attitude was supported by Blizzard while they wanted this game to become a competitive esports hit.
This is just not working! It is like playing soccer and then not allowing fouls and emotions on the field and banning viewers in the stadium for booing out the opponent team or singing too loud.
No wonder Blizzard nowadays creates mobile cash crab games. They have long abandoned their reputation to create games for core gamers or being a hardcore gaming company.
So I fully understand, a trademark prevents a name or logo from being used to represent another person’s product?
This is more of my concern. Regardless of what they called it, they could have made another game at the time of this to compete with DotA correct? I get that their priorities as a company weren’t to make a moba to compete with Valve’s, but that still is a reason this game wasn’t as popular. By the time they released one, even in early stages, late is late and the other two companies already had a foothold in that area.
To be clear, I’m not saying they should have dropped their current ongoing projects and focused on a moba, but because it wasn’t a top priority, its part of the reason it is not doing well today, while LoL is doing great. There are other reasons of course, but I feel like that is a bigger one.
yea, and when it came around to actually make “blizzard dota” people were expecting something much sooner than what we got with HotS Beta. Dustin Browder probably has quotes around on the transition from one iteration to the next, from staff-made map mod to independent icon on battle.net, but there was a turn where the team realized something could be made, and wanted to set it apart from a “moba” but, it didn’t really meet fan expectations (for those following it) nor create something intuitive and distinct to stand out for unfamiliar players.
It’s essentially been an underdeveloped game with overdeveloped heroes. Maybe if the first map was Towers of Doom (indirect core interactions) and all other map variety followed after that; or it didn’t have 3 lanes, 5 players on each side, and automated minions could it have stood out as a “hero brawler” instead of another “moba” or perhaps if heroes were released in ‘team’ packages and the game had more warriors/supports to offset the assassins; or maybe if the old 5-talent system was still in place, but “multiclass” role selection gated certain talents (ie, if a player queued as a “tank” then they could only pick select talent options each tier) and enforced role-selection at match start could the mix of teamwork + not lol/dota stood out better.
So do you think it didn’t do well because it wasn’t so similar to the other two mobas, but at the same time not unique enough? I can see that.
I hope I’m not giving off the vibe that I don’t like this game, because I do and I’ve played LoL and idk it doesn’t hit the same. I just think there are certain things that happened, or didn’t happen, that prevented this game from “blowing up” as the OP described in the title.
I may be wrong, maybe advertisement, good monetization, or urgent production of a mobe game around 2009 wouldn’t have changed the outcome. I don’t know, these are just my assumptions, but I still do think these things had something to do with its current state.
You’re not, least not to me. When people like something, it makes it that much more curious why things don’t work out. I think overall, Hots is like the ‘perfect miss’ on weaving though all sorts of other variations that could have worked out better for it.
There’s a lot of things that compare to HotS – Wow dungeon parties, LoL/Dota marketing and monetization, etc etc.
I think the thing I’m most bitter about is that the slop for Diablo Immortal pvp is a major simplification for HotS, and it probably rakes money in hand-over-fist for significantly easier development. I’d almost wonder if they just plugged HotS over as a DI queue option if the playerbase wouldn’t shoot up by having some sort of linked incentive to play HotS for DI gearscore. Ranked season play earns a gatch roll on their pay-2-win runes or whatever.
It didn’t pick up in the MOBA community because everyone was already invested with their Time/Money in LoL and Dota 2. Then loot box’s killed it for Blizzard because it was no longer a cash cow.
If you got banned it was probably because you were being disruptive and purposely not working with your teammates or outright throwing the game, not because you told someone they were a bad playing in chat.
