The Heroes of the Storm team ended 2018 by announcing that Activision Blizzard would no longer be supporting the competitive circuit and moving developers off the title and onto other projects within the company. 2019 is not off to a much better start. Late Thursday night, Kevin Michael Johnson, also known as “Cloaken” within the gaming industry, announced that he will be transition off the Heroes of the Storm team and onto other projects.
As 2019 rolls around, the Heroes of the Storm creative team has a large task ahead of them: giving heroes who haven't received new skins over the past 18+ months, new toys to play with. Currently, that number is 22 or a little more than 25% of the current roster. While at face value that may seem like a lot of heroes that need love, and it is, Blizzard has one of the most talented creative teams in the gaming industry and, arguably, the world. Where should they start? Great question. How about some of the heroes that haven't been touched since their release, 2016 or 2015? Below is a deep-dive into a handful of heroes that the art team can flex their muscles on.
Nearly two weeks ago, one of the most popular, beloved and talented former professional players in the history of Heroes of the Storm esports, Thomas “Ménè” Cailleux, had enough. While streaming the game on Twitch, he began talking to his chat about his love for the title, regardless of the tough times it has been through lately, and, visibly frustrated, he began pleading for Blizzard to work with him, other former professional players and content creators to help improve the game. His rant, which was immediately clipped and put on the Heroes of the Storm subReddit, has garnered nearly 12,000 viewers and was one of the top posts for that week. His message though is one that has circulated throughout the pro scene for years: “Why hasn’t Blizzard worked with those who play the game at the highest level and have a deeper understanding of hero’s kits, battleground mechanics and what the game needs better than the vast majority of the player base? What is there to lose?”
Once Activision Blizzard announced that they would no longer be supporting the competitive Heroes of the Storm scene, Ian “workhorse” Anderson, the founder of HeroesHearth went to work. His goal, aside from growing his platform dedicated to entertaining and educating the community close to his heart, was to help establish a way for the competitive scene to not completely die due to the game developer’s decision.
Today it was revealed by Dot Esports' reporter Nicole Carpenter that five former professional Heroes of the Storm players for Team Naventic have filed a lawsuit against former owner, James Ross Elliot II, for more than $50,000 in unpaid earnings. According to the report and information provided to InvenGlobal, the players had tried to serve court documents to the owner 14 times. But, due to Elliot's unknown location, they had been unable to complete the process. The Dot Esports report claims that Christopher “zuna” Buechter, Ken “Kenma” Buechter, Sammuel “bigempct” Hua, Thomas “Tomster” Maguire, and Josh “bkid” Choi state that they are owed $55,125 in unpaid wages and prize money, not including interest.
Less than a week after Heroes Lounge opened sign-ups for their crowd-funded competitive tournament, Division S, 20 former professional Heroes of the Storm players have formed teams. Thomas “Mene” Cailleux, Dennis "HasuObs" Schneider, Jérôme "JayPL" Trinh, Filip "SmX" Liljeström and Aleksandar "ethernal" Milanov will make up one team from Europe. The former Leftovers squad from EU consisting of Maksym "Mopsio" Szczypa, Mark "Linked" Šepec, Arkadiusz “Bl3kitny” Czarnecki and Mikołaj "PotiBoss" Potera have teamed up together to assert their dominance.
Team: - Model: Angie Photo: Liveforever Original Upload: http://www.inven.co.kr/board/webzine/2898/1004?p=15
The law firm Pomerantz LLP announced that they are investigating Activision Blizzard's fraud charge. Pomerantz LLP, a law firm that specializes in corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigations, disclosed in a press release that they have received information that Activision Blizzard did not notify investors beforehand of their split from their partner, Bungie, in concerns for the stock price falling; if this is true, they will be investigating whether this was a deliberate act or if some of the investors happened to not be aware of it. Activision Blizzard made an announcement on January 10th that they will be splitting from Bungie, the company that developed the Destiny series, after a 10-year partnership. Simultaneously, Bungie announced they have taken over the publishing rights for the Destiny franchise, which had been serviced by Activision Blizzard. This has caused Activision Blizzard's stock price to fall from $ 51.35 (10th 16:00) to $ 45.48 (11th 10:00) based on NASDAQ.
Less than a month after Activision Blizzard announced they will no longer be supporting the competitive Heroes of the Storm scene, the first replacement professional league will begin signups starting tomorrow. Heroes Lounge, one of the largest Heroes of the Storm amateur sites in the world, has announced that their pro league, Division S, has crowd-funded over $13,700 within the last few weeks in an attempt to create an appealing enough format where former professional players and up-and-comers can showcase their play for cash prizes. Signing up to join the league is a fairly simple process, according to Heroes Lounge.
Che Chou, formerly of Blizzard Entertainment, has joined Ubisoft as the company's Senior Esports Director.
Once the Heroes of the Storm World Championship concluded at BlizzCon in November, Mandon “Dittri0” Florent went to work creating his own tournament to supersede the Nexus Games event that weren’t returning in 2019. The appeal of the Nexus Games in the past was that it took place during the competitive offseason and pitted amateur teams within the same region against one another for pride and a cash prize. He took to Twitter to seek help from the general population as creating a tournament of this size is not a task he wanted to take on alone and, to his surprise, help arrived. One of those individuals, Arnaud "Ouille" Pontonnier, contributed half of the $2,000 initial prize pool and has worked with Dittri0 to acquire additional funding, a sponsor and has helped overall to organize the event. Currently, the event, which begins tomorrow, has accrued a prize pool over $2500 and has secured a partnership with Razer headsets to be given away to the winners.
Shocking news greeted Heroes of the Storm fans on December 14th -- the HGC, the official esports league for Heroes of the Storm, would no longer be held in 2019. It's natural that no tournaments are held when the popularity of the title falls short. However, the way that Blizzard announced the end of the HGC was quite shocking - not only because it came without warning, but also because it was very unlike Blizzard, who has a reputation as one of the best gaming companies in the world. Needless to say, this caused quite a bit of disappointment and anger. In just one announcement, Heroes of the Storm esports was wiped from the esports economy. Numerous people who were dedicated to HotS esports lost their jobs in just one day. Gen.G Jae-Won ‘Rich' Lee, who is known as the Faker in the HotS esports scene, also lost the chance to play on the stage.
"Something about this Tetris tournament captured the lighting in a bottle entertainment factor that every esport broadcast is desperately trying to understand."
Leader of the Angiris Council and Aspect of Valor, Imperius has valiantly led the armies of the High Heavens to innumerous victories over the demons of the Burning Hells. While his methods are exact and severe, there is no greater defender of righteousness in the entirety of creation.
Activision Blizzard’s tumultuous 2018 ended last night with a regulatory filing that announced the firing of the Cheif Financial Officer (CFO) Spencer Neumann. Per the filing, the termination of his employment was “unrelated to the Company’s financial reporting or disclosure controls and procedures.” He is currently on paid leave, per the company.
In the middle of the night, a Portuguese Heroes of the Storm Twitter account leaked the newest hero set to join the nexus next week. The often requested and short-tempered Archangel of Valor, Imperius, is slated to go live on the Public Test Realm (PTR) starting on Wednesday, according to the tweet. While his role in the nexus is currently unknown, his backstory and attitude are all too familiar to fans of the Diablo franchise. For everyone else who isn’t aware of Imperius’ storyline, here’s a little information to catch you up to speed.
The technological advancement following the Industrial Revolution had a huge impact and led to a massive decline in manual labor. Many average craftsmen resided in their village or town for almost the
Activision Blizzard announced last week that they are no longer supporting the competitive Heroes of the Storm scene but the community hasn’t. Since the press release that effectively ended the Heroes Global Championship (HGC) and Heroes of the Dorm circuits released last Thursday, numerous organizations, fans, and community members have voiced their interest in making a new tournament structure or league viable. The hashtag “#saveHotS” began appearing on different social platforms and is now acting as a rallying cry for those who do not want to see the competitive scene of one of their beloved games die altogether.
Team : - Model : MyBoo Photo : Sahde Original Upload : http://www.inven.co.kr/board/webzine/2898/1514
It’s been five days since Activision-Blizzard made the announcement that the Heroes of the Storm Global Championship (HGC) circuit would be discontinued and developers from the title moved to other, unannounced projects. Although “announcement” is too generous a word. Maybe “slap-in-the-face” is more appropriate considering the disingenuous manner the message was delivered, via an unfeeling press release. The content of the statement itself felt more corporate than personable. To many, it was insulting.
