Rumour: Heroes Of The Storm To Charge For Character Unlock
A couple of days ago, we brought you the news of Diablo 3’s pre-order incentive. That of unlocking a character from Blizzard’s upcoming Heroes of the Storm. I speculated that it seemed as though they were planning to sell characters, something akin to League of Legends. It seems as though that conjecture was correct. Although there has been no official word from Blizzard, some data mining brought to us by the clever folks at Heroes Nexus seems to have uncovered confirmation of that plan.
Datamined Facts Behind the Heroes Free to Play Model
There have been several gaming sites reporting on the “rumor” that Blizzard will be using the same free to play model as its competitor, League of Legends. We have several facts to share with you that confirms this information.
Heroes will initially be in a locked state.
There will be a free to play rotation. Within the game client, there is a list which holds the name of the currently selected free to play rotation. We are not sure how often this is going to change, but we have seen it list 5 and 6 heroes. There are also three additional rotation slots available to be unlocked. They are appear to be unlocked for gold.
Again, this is still rumour until confirmed, but it seems to be fairly certain that it will be before long. The post goes on to say…
You will be able to test drive heroes, mounts, and skins in a single player game prior to purchasing them.
No need for “riotpls” here. Blizzard will allow players to try heroes and their various digital unlockables before they buy them in a single player game. Below you will find character voiceovers, for the current set of playable heroes, which are played when you click on the Try button, and strings which support the test drives.
I’m honestly a little disappointed with Blizz here. I realise that you have to make money from somewhere with F2P games, but buying anything other than aesthetic items tends to bother me. It brings with it the “Pay to win” argument when things important to the game are purchased. I was hoping for more of the DotA 2 approach.
Still, this isn’t confirmed yet, so maybe we all have it wrong? Wishful thinking I’m afraid, but we shall see. It doesn’t make me any less excited for the game though, I’ve loved Hearthstone despite it’s payment structure and I have a feeling I will love this title too.
Does this possible payment structure put you off wanting to play? As always, we welcome your opinion in the comments below.