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About the lore, from a casual player's perspective

First poster here. A little nervous.

Two years ago, my boyfriend introduced me to Heroes of the Storm. It quickly became one of my favorite games, along with Starcraft, to play with him. We tried to play quick match a few times, but that ended fast because wow people can be cruel.

Brawls went the same way. People pinging me over and over when I died, and... Just, I know I suck. However, I don't play Heroes competitively. I'm here to play with my friends and laugh and have fun. So I stay out of ranked, out of Brawls for the most part, and out of the way of the competitive people. Now I exclusively play vs AI with my boyfriend, and usually with other AI teammates. If I do play Brawls, I tend to keep team chat turned off. Overall, I don't think I'm the only person that does this. There are sure to be lots of casual HotS players who just stay on the downlow.

When I heard about lore being added to the game, thanks to this sub, I dropped everything to look at all of it. The comic? I love the art style! While I'm disappointed the Raven Lord is a human, I've been theorizing, and I think he'll shapeshift into that giant raven we all know. Actually, this 'Chapter One' of the lore has me thinking a TON more about the game than ever before. The red background with eyes? It reminds me of Amon, but more sinister, more of a harbinger for more to come. I can't help but wonder what is next. Will Omega Swarm be tied into a story? Will there be map themes now? Will there be factions in a limited time event?

When I return to look at this subreddit, it disappoints me to see so many complaining about the upcoming lore. I write it off as... Well, I write it off because this subreddit seems prominently focused on the competitive scene and meta. I get it: hardcore players or those devoted to specific Blizzard games would not appreciate the rather minor lore additions.

But here me out -- I'm someone who has never played Warcraft, Diablo, and only dabbled in Overwatch (scandalous, I know). To be honest, most of the heroes I never cared about before. There are so many, too many. I love Starcraft heroes of course, but Leoric, Li-Ming, Lost Vikings, Auriel -- I have no idea who they are or what game they are from, and I feel little towards them.

Now that there's the idea of lore floating around, I'm paying more attention to these characters. I'm tracking ones with new skins, looking for signs of which might change sides next. I'm playing more, waiting for the next update. In general, I care more about the game. There's so much untapped potential that is finally being utilized. I'm as interested now as I was in 2.0.

I'm also playing new heroes -- no longer just sticking to Dehaka, Abathur, and all the zerg bunch. I almost want to buy Gul'dan just for his new skin, which looks wickedly cool. In fact, I'm planning on buying Warcraft 3 now, thanks to Heroes encouraging me to look into Gul'dan and even Arthas (please don't spoil anything). On the other side, while I don't think Diablo is my game, Auriel and Deckard Cain, as it turns out, actually have neater backgrounds than I thought. And from Overwatch, Junkrat is just adorable. He makes me want to play Overwatch every day.

If I saw a Blizzard developer right now, I don't care what game they're from, I'd hug them. Sometimes it's not always about the competitive field. While this subreddit seems to revolve around that sometimes, I truly think there are more casual players than competitive, as most games are. But I don't know the numbers. I only know my experience. From Heroes, I've learned sometimes it's just about having fun with friends, and having something to talk about with them. Thank you, Blizzard. Heroes and you will always have a place in my heart, right up there with zerglings. Thank you for lore.

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