Heroes of The Storm Game Director Steps Down

[Steven Bogos]

Heroes of The Storm Game Director Steps Down

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Dustin Browder says he is moving away from Heroes of the Storm to pursue other projects at Blizzard.

Some potentially bad news for Heroes of The Storm fans today: Game Director Dustin Browder has announced that he is moving away from the hero brawler to "pursue other projects" within the company.

The game's current Technical director Alan Dabiri will be stepping into Browder's shoes as game director.

"This was not an easy choice to make. I still play Heroes five nights a week, and sitting in the bullpen surrounded by this team has been the most intensely creative experience of my career. But one thing that's making this decision easier is knowing the future of Heroes is in the right hands," said Browder.

Before Heroes, Browder was the game director for StarCraft II. Could his departure to work on "other projects" be indicative of a new StarCraft project at Blizzard?

Source: Blizzard [https://us.battle.net/forums/en/heroes/topic/20752455206#1]

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[sagitel]

Before Heroes, Browder was the game director for StarCraft II. Could his departure to work on "other projects" be indicative of a new StarCraft project at Blizzard?

i think it has more to do with the dwindling number of HotS players. the game got that overwatch promotional and had a week of being on twitch's promoted games and yet the waiting times are high as ever.

 

[Hawki]

Before Heroes, Browder was the game director for StarCraft II. Could his departure to work on "other projects" be indicative of a new StarCraft project at Blizzard?

Eh, doubt it. We know that there's two unnanounced projects that Blizzard's doing - one Diablo, one first-person (which technically could be the Diablo game). We've had people transferred over from WoW (e.g. Chilton) and Hearthstone (e.g. Barba) to an unnanounced project recently, so it doesn't inherently suggest that it could be StarCraft.

Or you could follow the logic that Browder's RTS experience combined with people who know WoW equals Warcraft IV...please...anyone?

 

[sagitel]

Before Heroes, Browder was the game director for StarCraft II. Could his departure to work on "other projects" be indicative of a new StarCraft project at Blizzard?

Eh, doubt it. We know that there's two unnanounced projects that Blizzard's doing - one Diablo, one first-person (which technically could be the Diablo game). We've had people transferred over from WoW (e.g. Chilton) and Hearthstone (e.g. Barba) to an unnanounced project recently, so it doesn't inherently suggest that it could be StarCraft.

Or you could follow the logic that Browder's RTS experience combined with people who know WoW equals Warcraft IV...please...anyone?

warcraft IV is like half life 3. while it pains me, i have to accept its never gonna happen. you have to let it go too

 

[Hawki]

warcraft IV is like half life 3. while it pains me, i have to accept its never gonna happen. you have to let it go too

Quiet you!

As vain a hope as it is, I do have a bit more hope for Warcraft IV than Half-Life 3, if only because Blizzard still makes games, and has at least mentioned the possibility of making it. Not a great possibility, but being mentioned at all is a step above the prospect of a Half-Life 3 at this point.

 

[Jandau]

I've always been kinda sad about HotS - it's a good game, it really is. But it came in at the wrong time, tried to push into a market dominated by some of the most popular games on the planet with some of the most fanatical fanbases in existence. It failed to carve out a niche, and that's a shame. Personally, I'm over MOBAs, but if I were to consider picking one up, HotS would likely be at the top of my list.

As for the future Blizzard projects, the first person thing might be an Overwatch game. Probably a prequel. My guess would be that the explosive popularity of Overwatch got them to resurrect at least some of the ideas from the original project Titan. It's probably not going to be an MMO, and there's little point in making another multiplayer-forcused FPS, so my money is on a single-player (or at least coop) FPS.
The Diablo project could be anything, from a D2 remake, a new expansion, or even D4. Personally, I'm hoping for D4, with lessons learned from the mistakes they made with D3.

 

[barbzilla]

Before Heroes, Browder was the game director for StarCraft II. Could his departure to work on "other projects" be indicative of a new StarCraft project at Blizzard?

i think it has more to do with the dwindling number of HotS players. the game got that overwatch promotional and had a week of being on twitch's promoted games and yet the waiting times are high as ever.

If you have a significant amount of experience playing HoTS then you are likely way higher on MMR than the new players joining to unlock the genji skin. Not to mention many of the people trying to get skin spend most of their time just farming beginner AI bots with 1 friend. So I wouldn't say that your waiting times are indicative of anything related to new players joining.

 

[sagitel]

Before Heroes, Browder was the game director for StarCraft II. Could his departure to work on "other projects" be indicative of a new StarCraft project at Blizzard?

i think it has more to do with the dwindling number of HotS players. the game got that overwatch promotional and had a week of being on twitch's promoted games and yet the waiting times are high as ever.

If you have a significant amount of experience playing HoTS then you are likely way higher on MMR than the new players joining to unlock the genji skin. Not to mention many of the people trying to get skin spend most of their time just farming beginner AI bots with 1 friend. So I wouldn't say that your waiting times are indicative of anything related to new players joining.

i dont. i am level 14 in the game. and pretty new in there. but there is no MMR in the quickplay (i dont know about ranked. never got there). i have been pitted against teams who are all level 40 with one level 2. and i have had a game where everyone is level 40 or everyone is lower than level 10. all while i was level 12-14.

 

[barbzilla]

Before Heroes, Browder was the game director for StarCraft II. Could his departure to work on "other projects" be indicative of a new StarCraft project at Blizzard?

i think it has more to do with the dwindling number of HotS players. the game got that overwatch promotional and had a week of being on twitch's promoted games and yet the waiting times are high as ever.

If you have a significant amount of experience playing HoTS then you are likely way higher on MMR than the new players joining to unlock the genji skin. Not to mention many of the people trying to get skin spend most of their time just farming beginner AI bots with 1 friend. So I wouldn't say that your waiting times are indicative of anything related to new players joining.

i dont. i am level 14 in the game. and pretty new in there. but there is no MMR in the quickplay (i dont know about ranked. never got there). i have been pitted against teams who are all level 40 with one level 2. and i have had a game where everyone is level 40 or everyone is lower than level 10. all while i was level 12-14.

Levels have nothing to do with MMR, and there is a MMR, it is just behind the scenes. Basically the game assigns you a number based off of the number of wins and losses you have, and that number gets adjusted per win based off of the average MMR of your team vs the average MMR of the opponent team.

 

[Hawki]

As for the future Blizzard projects, the first person thing might be an Overwatch game. Probably a prequel. My guess would be that the explosive popularity of Overwatch got them to resurrect at least some of the ideas from the original project Titan. It's probably not going to be an MMO, and there's little point in making another multiplayer-forcused FPS, so my money is on a single-player (or at least coop) FPS.

I think Blizzard is well aware of the demand for singleplayer Overwatch content, but I can't see them developing a separate game to deliver it, namely for the following:

1) Why would it need a new engine for that?

2) A full-priced Overwatch multiplayer game and a full-priced Overwatch singleplayer game? I'm not sure how that would go down from a PR perspective. Blizzard caught (IMO, unwanted) flak for StarCraft II, even when all three games were full campaigns, and HotS and LotV were priced as expansions. Even I would be uneasy about the prospect.

3) I feel that adding in singleplayer content to Overwatch, paid or otherwise, would be a better option. Small missions built for specific characters or something. It would fit in with Blizzard's MO as well, to have a select no. of games being supported rather than multiple, one-shot releases, not to mention that they haven't had a singleplayer-only game since Lost Vikings II.

The Diablo project could be anything, from a D2 remake, a new expansion, or even D4. Personally, I'm hoping for D4, with lessons learned from the mistakes they made with D3.

I think a remake can be ruled out. D2 can be purchased off battle.net and in stores still, I'm not sure what a remake would add bar improved graphics. Oh, they could tweak around with the game, but while this isn't my own point of view (D2 is actually my least favorite Diablo game), D2 is almost certainly the most popular installment, so changing its gameplay is walking an iffy line. Likewise, I think an expansion can be ruled out as well. D3 seems to be in a similar position as SC2, where both games are at the point of receiving steady DLC, both free and paid for, rather than massive expansions. So of the two, that leaves D4 or a different kind of game in the same setting.

I'm likely in the minority here, but if there is to be more Diablo, I'm more inclined to option 2. D3 is actually my favorite installment in the series, and while there's things you could change, I don't know if those changes would be enough to warrant a separate isometric game. Or D4 could be radically different, at which point it's just speculation as to how it would play. But a Diablo game in a separate style (third person? Open world? Souls-type?) is something that sounds far more interesting to me, and it wouldn't stop D3 from getting new content as well (e.g. Hearthstone and WoW are both Warcraft games, and both are getting more content over time).