Heroes of the Storm: Blizzard's long road to reinventing the wheel

Despite Blizzard's bluster about avoiding the term 'MOBA' and wanting to make something different, the alpha of Heroes of the Storm still leans heavily on staples of the genre: two teams of five use the unique traits and skills of their heroes to repeatedly bash each other to death while gradually knocking down defensive structures. The complexities that bubble up in-between add the texture that makes MOBAs fascinating, but the core remains compelling and easy to understand: infinitely spawning waves of opposing AI 'creep' armies meet in the middle of the map to fight each other, but won't make any progress without help from players; destroy the defences that stop your AI guys from getting to the other side, and you've won. Peek beneath all the sorcery and blood, and you're basically playing American football.The traditional back-and-forth is still here, but it quickly proves little more than a red herring. It's something to do when you aren't busy with roaming around to recruit mercenary camps, or fighting over map objectives, sure - but focussing purely on towers and creeps is a sure-fire way to rapidly lose.Rather than embedding long-term appeal in a roster of strange and nuanced characters, Heroes of the Storm wants to keep things fruity by offering a wide variety of maps. At the heart of each map is a unique gimmick that largely dictates the flow of the match, encouraging players to drop what they're doing and focus their efforts on something else. Ghosty McPirate wants yer booty doubloons! There's a cursed idol to collect in the woods! Control the shrines and activate the statue to turn yourself into a beastly man-dragon!The Haunted Mines proves the most consistently fun, seeing players abandon the main map entirely to re-murder zombies and collect as many skulls as they can. Both teams then summon giant bone golems that slowly stomp across the map laying waste to structures along the way. More skulls means a much more powerful golem, and the finite number of skulls to collect makes sweeping the mines feel tense and thrilling - should you run the risk of splitting up to collect as many skulls as possible, or stick together as a group and wipe out the enemy team while they scavenge?http://images.eurogamer.net/2013/art.../80/format/jpgIf you get killed before delivering your gold doubloons to Blackheart, you'll drop them on the floor for anyone to grab.

Conversely the Cursed Hollow map proves far more frustrating and inflexible. Cursed tributes spawn one at a time in specific map locations, requiring both teams to drop everything and do their best to contest it. Encouraging regular team-fights is cool, but also requires a level of teamwork that's incredibly difficult to nurture with strangers. Loose objectives like collecting skulls works, but laser-focused stuff like this proves frustrating if one player on your team doesn't understand their importance.The importance of objectives can't be understated, either - I've yet to play a game that hasn't been comprehensively decided by the outcome of these map-specific challenges. Pay the pirate enough money in Blackheart's Bay and he'll eventually destroy their base with cannons without your team even having to get anywhere near it.Even if the initial batch are a bit hit and miss, there's amazing scope for keeping things fresh. Currently the maps are all based on World of Warcraft, but the wibbly-wobbly nature of the Nexus means they can do whatever they please. Rock N' Roll Racing please, chaps.The other advantage of focusing on maps instead of characters is that the extremities you'd usually see there can all be smoothed out. Team composition is less fragile and fickle, which means players can just pick their favourite hero. When you've coughed up six quid for it, that's super important. They've also sidestepped the hell that unfolds when two League of Legends players want to be the same hero by asking you to pick which character you want before you start searching for a game.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...ting-the-wheel