Heroes of the Storm technical alpha

[DeeBye]

I was checking out my battle.net account to opt in to the Overwatch beta, and I saw that I had the Heroes of the Storm technical alpha in my games list. Has anyone else tried it?

[LennyLen]

Nope... but then again I only got my bnet account a few days ago.

[NiteFox]

Nope. Still waiting on my invite, Blizzard.

Stiiiiiill waiting...

[NiteFox]

Welp, I've been in for a few weeks. It's fun, like really, insanely fun.

Blizzard took one long, hard look at the MOBA genre and drew up a list of what was fun and what wasn't fun. Everything that was fun (team fights, jungling, sticking together as a team) they expanded on. Objectives encourage map awareness, provide additional flashpoints for fights, and can help delay snowballs. Everything that wasn't fun (exp and gold gain tied to last-hitting, character progression being tied to both levelling and items, snowballs) they've eliminated or streamlined.

The main concerns are the real cash cost of Heroes and cosmetics, though some of the bundles are good value (Nexus and Starter). Gold gain (for buying characters and cosmetics without spending money) is low compared to the cost of, well, everything, but it's likely that the gold gain is intentionally nerfed for the Alpha to prevent early access players getting too much of a head start on others.

But man, it keeps you playing. Being able to squeeze in two or three games in the same time as a single game would last in Dota2 or LoL means that time spent seems a lot more meaningful. I'm sure as hell enjoying it.

[Occhidiangela]

Been enjoying HoTS on and off for a few weeks.
I am not sure how what's going on is a Beta, what with the Heroes of the Dorm competition recently shown on ESPN ... but it is what they decide it is.
I like the game being shorter on average than LoL.
Also like the "no items" approach.