A special mount will be given to players who make a real money purchase during beta

[Calamari]

Anyone else felt sick to their stomach reading the new alpha notes?

Participating in the beta testing is not reason enough to receive a reward mount, but throwing money at you during beta is? blizzard is not the kind of company I'd expect to see such blatant and ugly greed from, you guys used to have some integrity, and now you're pulling down your pants and soiling yourself in public like every other large publisher? Way to sell out your good name for a quick buck.

[Vintersol]

Thats Blizzard today... $$$

[loki504]

yea i was always a big fan of blizzard. but with the ingame store/boost and the insane exp prices for both wow and d3. i'm done for a while with them.

[Deleted]

It's pretty much same as it was in HS beta, when you got golden legendary for purchasing packs during beta period, so they seem to be using same model here(it's fine with me tho).
But what stood out to me from alpha walkthrough video, is that skins? will cost 15$, I don't know, but it seems bit too high just for a skin.

[Tziva]

I don't really care. They have to test the store interface, and anything you buy in the beta is going to transfer over into live anyway (well the gold equivalency) so basically getting upset over this is getting upset that purchasing something results in a cosmetic reward... which is the entire business model of free to play mobas. Why would you get upset over this particular "spend real person money, get a unique mount in-game" aspect when the entire game is built around that?

I don't agree with the folks who get upset over store mounts in WoW either, but at least I can understand their position a little better since it's a sub based game. This isn't. Purchasing mounts, skins and heroes is how Blizzard is going to make their money to develop and sustain this game.

[Nerraw]

So, this is the exact same thing as was happening during the Hearthstone beta. There you got a golden card, here you get a horse of some kind. What's the difference? Neither are required to play the game to its fullest. In Hearthstone you can still craft the noraml version of said card, and in Heroes you can just ride another horse.

The reason they're doing this is because of testing purposes. If there's some kind of extra reward, they ensure they get the load testing they need.

[Tziva]

Participating in the beta testing is not reason enough to receive a reward mount,

For that matter...

I don't really get why people act like participating in a beta test is something we're entitled to. For most people, whether they admit it or not, getting into the beta is something they really, really want. This is obvious by the amount of people who beg for beta access, furiously participate in key giveaways, and go as far as to buy access codes (sometimes for upwards of a couple hundred of dollars). It is not drudgery that requires compensation in the form of additional digital goodies, and probably anyone who feels that would should be handing off the keys to the people who are anxiously awaiting keys of their own.

I think we're fooling ourselves if we pretend like we deserve to be rewarded for doing something we want to do so badly that we'd actually pay real money for it.

[Deleted]

This doesn't affect anyone. You're not forced to buy this.

And like mentioned before, F2P games usually make money around cosmetic transactions. Blizzard is no different, so they need to test it while in beta too.

[Deleted]

This doesn't affect anyone. You're not forced to buy this.

And like mentioned before, F2P games usually make money around cosmetic transactions. Blizzard is no different, so they need to test it while in beta too.

Thanks captain obvious, no one was aware of this.

Note: I don't care about those beta purchase rewards and people whining how F2P games are selling everything trying to make cash.

[Myci]

anyone else feel an unbarable progression system coming along like hearthstone, that pay or crawl style?
dont get currency for champs till 5?
i guess we will see

[Tziva]

anyone else feel an unbarable progression system coming along like hearthstone, that pay or crawl style?
dont get currency for champs till 5?
i guess we will see

I mean, there will always be some degree like that because people need to feel encouraged to spend money.

That said, I don't think Heroes could really be like that to the degree of Hearthstone because of the game design. Hearthstone has a ton of cards, and players benefit the more they have. Most of Heroes cost is for skins and tints and mounts - cosmetic things. And even for the Heroes themselves, a player isn't going to fall behind because they haven't purchased a bunch of them. At best, they might want to buy or earn one or two Heroes get good at; there's not an advantage to collecing a huge variety of them. So if they get a couple and never get any more ever, they aren't going to be any further behind than the guy who buys two dozen.

[Deleted]

No different to them selling a mount in the store. Plus they need to test in-game transactions somehow, this kills 2 birds with 1 stone.

Expect it to be the Stormcrow that was datamined, the name is pretty much a given.

[Guyviroth]

I don't see a problem. A F2P game has to have some way to generate revenue, otherwise -- from a business standpoint -- it isn't worth the time and resources.

[Deleted]

The fact that you have to buy heroes has just killed all interest I had in this game.

"Oh but you can buy them with gold" or "Oh but its free" Is not a good argument for this type of game - its a poor business model - all parts of the game should be available at release - The only way this would ever been acceptable is if you could pay £30 - £40 and get all heroes forever when they are ready.

Valve have shown us that you can have a free to play game with 100% of the content available as soon as you start and still make plenty of money because people are more than willing to pay for cosmetics when they have nothing else to pay for.

In fact, they have done it twice.

[Deleted]

I like collectibles. I intend to play this game. I pretty much always spend a small amount of money on free to play games if I like them. So I'm fine with it. It's not going to make me spend money if I wasn't going to anyway and it's a nice perk for investing into the game early; just like hearthstone.

[Deleted]

I would buy cosmetics, and loads of them as shown with dota 2 and HoN (spent £400 or so on each) but i'm strongly against paying for an advantage in a game (Same reason I hate Battlefield now)

I mean you can earn them, which is fine, but if you don't play loads you get shafted - which is not something I can support, which kinda sucks cause the game play looks pretty legit.

[Radux]

What advantage is there exactly? It's not like you won't be able to play 0 heroes because no money was spent. There is still a weekly rotation of heroes that anyone can play regardless of owning them.

The gold system, like League of Legends, just encourages you to play the game. Watching through some alpha streams last night, some people were getting insane amounts of gold. I mean we're talking being able to buy a champion after a single game high amounts (which could just be an alpha thing). I really don't think playing a couple games without a neat looking champion is going to throw the balance of an entire game and make everyone lose for not owning said hero.

[Fencers]

Anyone else felt sick to their stomach reading the new alpha notes?

No, I think it is fine.

blizzard is not the kind of company I'd expect to see such blatant and ugly greed from...

They are historically, one of the largest and most opportunistic developers on the PC platform. That is how Blizzard got where they are- they are fantastic marketers and re-branders of game design.

This doesn't even seem like a plausible belief.

[Lesane]

Anyone else felt sick to their stomach reading the new alpha notes?

Participating in the beta testing is not reason enough to receive a reward mount, but throwing money at you during beta is? blizzard is not the kind of company I'd expect to see such blatant and ugly greed from, you guys used to have some integrity, and now you're pulling down your pants and soiling yourself in public like every other large publisher? Way to sell out your good name for a quick buck.

Participating in a beta nowadays is more of a privilege than a task. Nobody really sits there for hours trying to find bugs.

The mount is cosmetic anyway, so it doesn't matter. They did the same thing in Hearthstone with Golden Gelbin. The cheapest hero in HotS is like what, 4 bucks? Considering they charge 25 for mounts in WoW I'd say it's a good deal considering you get a hero and the mount is just an added bonus.

[Arrowstormen]

The fact that you have to buy heroes has just killed all interest I had in this game.

"Oh but you can buy them with gold" or "Oh but its free" Is not a good argument for this type of game - its a poor business model - all parts of the game should be available at release - The only way this would ever been acceptable is if you could pay £30 - £40 and get all heroes forever when they are ready.

Valve have shown us that you can have a free to play game with 100% of the content available as soon as you start and still make plenty of money because people are more than willing to pay for cosmetics when they have nothing else to pay for.

In fact, they have done it twice.

DOTA 2 is a special case that other MOBAs shouldn't be held up to, as Valve get all their money from Steam anyway, so they can make DOTA 2 and Team Fortress 2 completely free for all they care.