Oh, for the sweet silence of Hearthstone
Boldly going solo in heroes of the st orm
The launch of the closed beta offered a good way back into the first MOBA for ages that I’ve felt might take my fancy, even if I do long to infect many of the players with something skin-meltingly toxic. Oh, for the sweet silence of Hearthstone.
It’s bearable. What separates HotS from the others out there, except maybe Smite, is that to play it is to feel like you actually can play it, rather than the slowmotion failure of approaching something like Dota 2 without a team. I like that I always know what I’m supposed to be doing. And I like that the game rewards people coming to help you out, and that you can go running to the wings of a better player without completely letting the side down. Maybe that will change once the floodgates open and everyone is expected to know what they’re doing. I hope not, because while I enjoy the tension of friendly play, being shouted at for being a crap wizard is never going to be my idea of fun.
It’s odd though, that despite me not really being a Dota 2 player, that’s the game that feels much more ‘important’. HotS, even when it’s going well, feels so much more throwaway, to the point that I tend to find more satisfaction in a Dota 2 loss than a HotS victory. Even playing solo, the two games are night and day in that respect. But the fact that HotS actually feels plausible to play like this makes it my pick for the moment. Until that SHODAN announcer hits Dota 2, anyway. At that point, I absolutely have a date with Drow and a gang of very angry Russians.
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