The Heroes of the Storm Technical Alpha phase is over, and Blizzard is prepping to move into the next stage of testing.
On Monday, September 29, Blizzard will be concluding the Technical Alpha phase of Heroes of the Storm.
“After we fully transition to production hardware, the final phase of the Technical Alpha for Heroes of the Storm will commence, and we will invite even more players from around the world to test the game,” Blizzard announced in a blog post.
“At this time we are targeting the game to be patched and playable again in North America, Latin America, South East Asia, Australia, and New Zealand on October 7, and in Europe on October 9.
“We anticipate that Korea, Taiwan, and China will be available again for play in the weeks thereafter, and as always, we will ensure we keep players informed of any updates on this extended downtime.”
As part of the transition, all Technical Alpha accounts will be wiped.
Any player and hero progress, gold, and shop purchases will be reset, and those who made in-game, real money transactions will be refunded via Battle.net Balance.
Blizzard won’t wipe any real money or gold purchases from the next patch on.
Because the upcoming patch would move players to their home Battle.net regions, they will lose their Technical Alpha friends list.
Players who wish to keep in touch with their new found Battlenet buddies will have to manually add them by making BattleTag or Real ID friend requests, a procedure which Blizzards explains in a helpful guide.
In the new patch, players will be able to watch replays of their matches, play custom games, and get to try out two new Heroes, Anub'arak and Azmodan.
Blizzard notes that because their matchmaking rating system will be reset, players may not be matched with other players of similar skill, at least for a short time after the patch goes live. After that, “the new matchmaking system will quickly learn the skill of the players actively playing games and we'll soon return to a period of harmony and balance where players will again be matched against players of similar skill.”
The upcoming patch should be released in more than a week’s time.
Those who wish to be part of the testing process need to have a Battle.net account, and then opt in via the Beta Profile Settings page.
Blizzard did not say if Heroes of the Storm is still in Alpha testing post patch, or whether it will be considered as a Beta phase.
