Heroes of the Storm players will get to ask the team anything in the next couple of days. The AMA thread on the game’s Subreddit will start on July 11, with Art and Animation being the first subject area.
The next question session will be on the week of Aug. 6, where ranked play changes and matchmaking will be the focus. On the week of September 10, hero balance and design will be discussed.
These threads give Heroes of the Storm players more insight into the decision of the development team, and let players give them direct feedback. Each of the three subject areas relates to a different part of the game’s development, as well, which will let the Heroes of the Storm team go more in-depth with their answers compared to past AMAs. Doing this would also allow specific developers, who have specialized knowledge, to dive deeper into certain questions and answers.
Last month, Yrel joined the Nexus, and CGMagazine went on a Virtual Press Tour, where we got to meet a few of the Heroes of the Storm developers. While the developers for the upcoming AMA haven’t been revealed yet, it’s nice to know that the game’s team is nonetheless dedicated to the game and loves it just as much as we do.
Take Kaeo Milker, for example. He’s the production director for the game and works closely with his team to shape Heroes of the Storm’s overarching development. He first started working at Blizzard in 2001, when he was a quality assurance tester for Warcraft III:Reign of Chaos. Later, he moved on to tackle the company’s staffing needs and helped build the World of Warcraft and Blizzard Cinematics teams. After becoming an associate producer, he took his passion and experience into game development as a game producer for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty and the senior game producer on StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm.
Outside of work, Milker enjoys playing games, watching movies, visiting his family in his homestate of Hawaii — including his daughter, who is named Kerrigan.
As for Matthew Cooper, he’s the lead content designer for Blizzard, and his primary focus is on Heroes of the Storm’s hero design, battlegrounds, balance, and reworks. Cooper joined Blizzard back in 2008 as a associate balance designer, and from there contributed to StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty and StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm. Early on in the Heroes of the Storm project, he started out on balance and hero design before focusing on talent talent design and game balance. Of course, in his spare time, he loves playing video games.
Another member of the Heroes of the Storm we met was Matt Villers, who is the lead hero designer. His role is to guide and support his team of hero designers who are responsible for the gameplay of new heroes. Whenever Villers gets assigned a new hero to work on, he coordinates with and supports other groups like Art and Sound. He began his career at Blizzard in 2009 as a customer service representative before working on Diablo III as a level designer. After transitioning to designing StarCraft II campaigns, he joined the Heroes of the Storm team. Outside of work, he enjoys playing a lot of imported Japanese games.
