All Heroes of The Storm Heroes Are Free This Weekend

[Steven Bogos]

All Heroes of The Storm Heroes Are Free This Weekend

In the ultimate "try before you buy" every single Heroes of The Storm hero will be free this weekend.

2016 was a pretty big year for Heroes of The Storm [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/heroes%20of%20the%20storm?os=heroes+of+the+storm], with the game receiving 16 new heroes, 2 new battlegrounds, and a plethora of skins and mounts. To celebrate, Blizzard is running a free weekend for the game this weekend, meaning that every single one of its 60 heroes will be free for everyone to try.

"To kick off 2017, celebrate everything that has happened in the past year, as well as everything we have planned for the year to come, we're inviting everyone to enjoy three days of a completely full Hero roster from January 13-16!" wrote Blizzard in a blog post [http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/20459871/have-a-happy-new-year-with-a-full-hero-roster-1-9-2017].

Typically, Heroes of The Storm offers 10 "free-to-play" heroes that rotate every week, with players being able to permanently purchase heroes for their account with either in-game gold or real-world money.

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Source: Blizzard [http://us.battle.net/heroes/en/blog/20459871/have-a-happy-new-year-with-a-full-hero-roster-1-9-2017]

Permalink

 

[Hawki]

I really...really...really shouldn't complain...but...

Can the next hero PLEASE be a non-Warcraft one? And even better, any class other than an assassin?

 

[Vigormortis]

Thanks for thinking of the players, Blizzard! You're the best! Such paragons of the industry!

Meanwhile, over in Dota 2 land, Valve still refuses to let me buy heroes. What a bunch of dicks.

 

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

well I guess it's a good time to level everyone to 5

I really...really...really shouldn't complain...but...

Can the next hero PLEASE be a non-Warcraft one? And even better, any class other than an assassin?

Blizzard:

Meanwhile, over in Dota 2 land, Valve continues their special offer of All-Heroes-Free-Forever.

Thanks for thinking of the players, Blizzard!

I'm not one hundred percent okay with the pricing in heroes but to be fair every other MOBA pretty much has the same system besides it's not that hard to grind up coins for the people you really want.

 

[Hawki]

Thanks for thinking of the players, Blizzard! You're the best! Such paragons of the industry!

Meanwhile, over in Dota 2 land, Valve still refuses to let me buy heroes. What a bunch of dicks.

-I can think of a grand total of one other ARTS that gives all its heroes for free, namely Strife. Like almost every game in the genre bar the handful still standing, it faded into obscurity.

-Less "Dota 2" land and more "Steam land." Since Valve is in the position of being able to have an annual revenue of over 3 billion dollars by pretty much doing fuck all, Dota 2 having all its heroes being free is hardly samaritan in comparison.

-I tried "Dota 1 land." I hated it. From what I can tell, Dota 2 land is the same as Dota 1 land but with a slightly shinier coat of paint.

 

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

Thanks for thinking of the players, Blizzard! You're the best! Such paragons of the industry!

Meanwhile, over in Dota 2 land, Valve still refuses to let me buy heroes. What a bunch of dicks.

-I can think of a grand total of one other ARTS that gives all its heroes for free, namely Strife. Like almost every game in the genre bar the handful still standing, it faded into obscurity.

-Less "Dota 2" land and more "Steam land." Since Valve is in the position of being able to have an annual revenue of over 3 billion dollars by pretty much doing fuck all, Dota 2 having all its heroes being free is hardly samaritan in comparison.

-I tried "Dota 1 land." I hated it. From what I can tell, Dota 2 land is the same as Dota 1 land but with a slightly shinier coat of paint.

Let the Epic battle begin!!!!!!!!

 

[Steven Bogos]

I really...really...really shouldn't complain...but...

Can the next hero PLEASE be a non-Warcraft one? And even better, any class other than an assassin?

I actually did an interview [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/168619-Heroes-of-The-Storm-Developer-Interview] with the devs a while ago and asked about this:

TE: Currently, there are 13 StarCraft heroes, 13 Diablo heroes, 2 Overwatch Heroes, 1 "Blizzard Classic" hero and a whopping 28 Warcraft heroes. The bias seems to weigh heavily on Warcraft at this point, and I feel like it's only going to get worse - especially at the rate you guys are releasing new heroes! We already have almost all of the "major" Diablo characters, and StarCraft has always been fairly thin on "hero" characters. What will you do when you eventually "run out" of Diablo and StarCraft heroes? Are you worried about Warcraft characters dominating the Nexus?

KH: I think it would be a fallacy to assume a goal of universe-parity, as Warcraft has always been, and probably will always be for quite some time, one of our most popular universes. Time and time again, the polls from our various fan websites consistently list a majority of Warcraft Heroes that our fans want to see. So, I wouldn't say we're too worried about having a healthy number of Warcraft heroes. That being said, we won't neglect Sanctuary and the Korpulu sector, as they are still just as near and dear to our hearts. We still have a large handful of characters from those universes that we want to pull in, and will in the coming years. There's a lot of runway in front of us, and I can't wait to explore it!

 

[Jandau]

I tried getting into HotS when it came out, but the time required to grind out the gold for any of the more expensive heroes turned me off. I don't mind the system in principle, I just think the gold income/hero price ratio was too tedious. Have they mitigated that since release? Are they at least dropping the price on older heroes? And no, I don't care about the 10 free heroes. That's literally the bare minimum they have to do to make their game playable...

 

[laggyteabag]

I tried getting into HotS when it came out, but the time required to grind out the gold for any of the more expensive heroes turned me off. I don't mind the system in principle, I just think the gold income/hero price ratio was too tedious. Have they mitigated that since release? Are they at least dropping the price on older heroes?

Yeah, every few patches a hero gets dropped down in price, but it is still the same tiers of 2000/4000/7000/10,000 gold. Off the top of my head, the characters that were dropped in price recently were Johanna (D3 Crusader), Leoric (D3 Skeleton King Boss), Rexxar (WC Hunter), and Nova (SC Ghost).

Otherwise, im pretty sure that if you log in now, you get a hero for free, to keep permanently, and they have also introduced Brawls, that are similar to Hearthstones Tavern Brawl or Overwatches mode by the same name(?), that gives you 1,000 for completing 3 matches of it everytime that it rotates.

 

[WindKnight]

I tried getting into HotS when it came out, but the time required to grind out the gold for any of the more expensive heroes turned me off. I don't mind the system in principle, I just think the gold income/hero price ratio was too tedious. Have they mitigated that since release? Are they at least dropping the price on older heroes?

Yeah, every few patches a hero gets dropped down in price, but it is still the same tiers of 2000/4000/7000/10,000 gold. Off the top of my head, the characters that were dropped in price recently were Johanna (D3 Crusader), Leoric (D3 Skeleton King Boss), Rexxar (WC Hunter), and Nova (SC Ghost).

Otherwise, im pretty sure that if you log in now, you get a hero for free, to keep permanently, and they have also introduced Brawls, that are similar to Hearthstones Tavern Brawl or Overwatches mode by the same name(?), that gives you 1,000 for completing 3 matches of it everytime that it rotates.

There's also Zarya, who cost 15,000, but I got her free in the nexus challenge.

 

[laggyteabag]

I really...really...really shouldn't complain...but...

Can the next hero PLEASE be a non-Warcraft one? And even better, any class other than an assassin?

Well, luckily for you, its looking like the next hero that is coming out is Valeera Sanguinar, who is an StarCraft Support!

...oh wait...

But yeah, I agree. I love Warcraft, and there are still so many heroes from WC that I would love to see introduced into Heroes of the Storm, like Tirion Fordring, Grand Apothecary Putress, Kel'Thuszad, or Vindicator Maraad to name a few, but with the release of Zul'jin, this is the 4th or 5th Warcraft Hero in a row, and it really feels like StarCraft, Diablo and Overwatch have really taken a backseat here.

What I really want is another support character. The last Hero we had was Auriel, who admittedly was fairly recent, but before that, it was Lt Morales who came out in 2015.

 

[RJ 17]

I really...really...really shouldn't complain...but...

Can the next hero PLEASE be a non-Warcraft one? And even better, any class other than an assassin?

I actually did an interview [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/168619-Heroes-of-The-Storm-Developer-Interview] with the devs a while ago and asked about this:

TE: Currently, there are 13 StarCraft heroes, 13 Diablo heroes, 2 Overwatch Heroes, 1 "Blizzard Classic" hero and a whopping 28 Warcraft heroes. The bias seems to weigh heavily on Warcraft at this point, and I feel like it's only going to get worse - especially at the rate you guys are releasing new heroes! We already have almost all of the "major" Diablo characters, and StarCraft has always been fairly thin on "hero" characters. What will you do when you eventually "run out" of Diablo and StarCraft heroes? Are you worried about Warcraft characters dominating the Nexus?

KH: I think it would be a fallacy to assume a goal of universe-parity, as Warcraft has always been, and probably will always be for quite some time, one of our most popular universes. Time and time again, the polls from our various fan websites consistently list a majority of Warcraft Heroes that our fans want to see. So, I wouldn't say we're too worried about having a healthy number of Warcraft heroes. That being said, we won't neglect Sanctuary and the Korpulu sector, as they are still just as near and dear to our hearts. We still have a large handful of characters from those universes that we want to pull in, and will in the coming years. There's a lot of runway in front of us, and I can't wait to explore it!

The issue has always been that the WC universe is just much more conducive to creating MOBA characters than SC...and Diablo's cast - even including villians - isn't as big as WC's. There's an army of named characters from the WC universe that can be tossed in, where-as we already have most of the main characters from SC so all that's left is to start making random units into heroes like they did with Hammer and Morales (I wanna see a Zerg Defiler as a hero. :3)

Here's an "alleged" list of heroes that are currently in the works. Note: this has in no way been confirmed, and the source of this list did not provide their source. But here we go, for what it's worth:

Warcraft
Brann Bronzebeard
Deathwing
Garrosh
Kel'thuzad
Maiev
Valeera
Varimathras
Lady Vashj

Diablo
Aidan the Dark Wanderer
Baal
Belial
Cydaea
Deckard Cain
Imperius
Malthael

Starcraft
Alexei Stukov
Arcturus Mengsk
Gabriel Tosh
Selendis
Valerian

Overwatch
D. Va

Blizzard Classics
Blackthorne
Snake Sanders from Rock n Roll Racing

 

[Vigormortis]

-I can think of a grand total of one other ARTS that gives all its heroes for free, namely Strife. Like almost every game in the genre bar the handful still standing, it faded into obscurity.

"Everyone's doing it, so it's okay!"

No, it isn't.

Points for calling it an ARTS instead of a (barf) MOBA, though.

-Less "Dota 2" land and more "Steam land." Since Valve is in the position of being able to have an annual revenue of over 3 billion dollars by pretty much doing fuck all, Dota 2 having all its heroes being free is hardly samaritan in comparison.

You honestly believe Blizzard....Blizzard....needs the revenue stream from real-money transactions in HOTS to support it? Or, more specifically, that they have to charge for cosmetics AND playable characters?

'Kay...

-I tried "Dota 1 land." I hated it. From what I can tell, Dota 2 land is the same as Dota 1 land but with a slightly shinier coat of paint.

Whether or not you like the game is irrelevant, and does nothing to invalidate my point.

:/

Let the Epic battle begin!!!!!!!!

Only if it's televised. I want it recorded for posterity.

 

[Paragon Fury]

I really...really...really shouldn't complain...but...

Can the next hero PLEASE be a non-Warcraft one? And even better, any class other than an assassin?

We had this year;

Zarya - OW Tank
Auriel - Diablo Support
Varian - WC Tank/Assassin
Medhiv - WC Specialist
Dehaka - SC Tank
Xul - Diablo Specialist

6 non-Assassins vs. 7 Assassin isn't bad.

6 Non-WC Heroes vs. 7 WC Heroes isn't bad either.

 

[Hawki]

"Everyone's doing it, so it's okay!"

No, it isn't.

Well, I'll agree to disagree there. I don't find anything wrong with the models used by games such as HotS, LoL, and Smite. Just because Valve's is the most generous, it doesn't mean that every other model is morally abhorant.

You honestly believe Blizzard....Blizzard....needs the revenue stream from real-money transactions in HOTS to support it? Or, more specifically, that they have to charge for cosmetics AND playable characters?

That's a gross simplification, intentional or otherwise. I'm sure Blizzard could survive if HotS adopted Dota's model, but it would almost certainly become a black hole of cost-benefit if it was. I'll point out some quick differences:

-Latest figures I have is that Valve has an annual revenue of 3 billion USD, while Blizzard has an annual revenue of 1.2 billion (Riot has 1.6 billion, in case you're curious - in essence, Riot games more annual revenue from one game than Blizzard does from six).

-Valve's annual revenue would mostly come from Steam, whereas Blizzard's would come from their games. In essence, Valve gets far more by doing far less (in terms of time/investment), and could operate Dota 2 at a loss and still keep its revenue stream. Blizzard isn't lacking in cash, but its revenue stream depends entirely on game development and associated products.

-HotS is going to account for a portion of that revenue. I don't know how much, but this is when cost-benefit analysis would come in, coupled with which every Blizzard game is getting new content, in addition to old games being maintained.

-At least at this point in time, HotS is getting far more content far quicker than Dota (more heroes, more maps, more brawls, etc.), not to mention that Dota 2 is essentially a port of a pre-existing game, whereas HotS was built from the ground up (ergo, in theory, a lower "sunk-in cost.") My guess is that it costs far more to develop content than maintain content.

So, in essence, is Dota 2's model the "best" out there? For the consumer, yes (well, there is the argument that it adds to Dota 2's inpenetrability, but that's another issue), but it's a fallacy to assume that model would be viable for every other company out there. Blizzard might have been able to pull it off, but I can hardly begrudge them (or anyone) for not doing so. Not when the model is pretty solid already (high gold flow, can purchase every hero without spending a dollar if you want, etc.)