Heroes Of The Storm and Blizzcon 2011

A friend of mine was talking to me about the newly named DotA-like game by Blizzard, "Heroes Of The Storm". He wasn't overly fond of DotA but enjoyed a similar Warcraft 3 map called "Eve of the Apocalypse". Most notable for it's support of different maps and team sizes, EotA was pretty damn fun, but lived under the shadow of DotA.

Anyway, he told me just now that depending on the game's mechanics, he might be interested in giving Stormy Heroes a try. There was a talk by the team working on it at Blizzard back in 2011 which you can find below. I told my friend that I would list a few of the big differences for him to read on his lunch break.

• Multiple maps and a serious effort to move away from the exact same map that every other DotA-like game uses.
• Removal of mechanics such as last hitting in favour of certain creeps dropping health globes. This is probably to encourage more aggressive play styles over people sitting in lanes and farming.
• Kill stats are based around the team and not around the individual. No more claims of people stealing each others kills.
• A simplified item tree to prevent newer players being overwhelmed.
• A number of mechanics that allow early game pushes to be extremely effective. Including heroes with strong pushing power and an ammo limit on towers with a slow restock time.
• Something about having mounts instead of boots.
• Killing the big neutral boss brings him to your side, forcing the enemy team to react or lose to the boss destroying their base. 

Whether all these make it into Stormy Heroes is anyone's guess, but we'll likely find out more at Blizzcon this year.