So how does one get into the beta now?

I'm sorry if this is meant to be super obvious. I already did the whole beta opt-in stuff for my battle.net account, set HotS Beta on my preferences. Do I literally just wait now? Will the access be sent to my email or just be there when I log into battle.net?

I think they're in kinda damage control mode unfortunately because initial word of mouth wasn't super positive, so I haven't heard much about them sending out more alpha invites. I think for now, they're content to play test it with the user base they already have. You've done everything you can do.

@bisonhero: That would lead to more alpha invites methinks.

They're not super uncommon as far as I know, probably 250,000 or so invites out. A hearthstone beta key was worth $250 at one point, I imagine a Heroes of the Storm one is worth maybe 5.

Nah it would mean they would avoid giving out more codes while they try and make the game more appealing, because if they gave out codes now people would get bored and move on, then wouldn't actually try it when they made changes.

This game basically was given the kiss of death when they let it get streamed on Twitch and it averaged like 100 viewers total. Seems they stripped out too many features from a MOBA in trying to make it more approachable. Ah well, at least they are in the money with Hearthstone, even if I think that sucks too.

@fredchuckdave: What would lead to more invites? Your meaning is unclear.

Anyway, do you have a link to anywhere that says how many invites they've sent out, and when the last time they sent out another wave of invites was?

My friend got a beta key on the 10th of July, so I can confirm they're still sending out invites.

No idea if they do them in waves, or in smaller increments though. With Hearthstone my friend and I both got one at the same time.

@bisonhero: If almost no one is playing and the game is uninteresting then eventually the playerbase will die out, so you have to send out invites. I'm pretty sure almost all of my bnet friends (40ish) have a key, though I may be the only one that has played it. Essentially if there's a 1% chance that people will play the game you have to send out 100 times as many invites to get testing done. Until recently about 95% of the players I encountered were complete novices as well, indicating that they had only recently picked it up before promptly putting it down again.

@fredchuckdave: But how many of your bnet friends got a key from the initial round of invites months ago? Anecdotally, I haven't heard of any big waves of invites since the initial round of invites when the alpha first opened up. If they're increasing the total issued invites, they seem to be doing it incredibly slowly.

@bisonhero: They only recently opened up the game to regions other than NA, which necessitated a very large key wave in tandem with that (there were instantly 4 times as many people playing, still not a lot though and it's back to around 2 times as much now). They've pretty much constantly been sending keys out this entire time to supplicate the miniscule, shrinking playerbase. Also a fairly large percentage of the people playing are testers that have to play it.

But if they had already put it down, how did you play with them?

Take is easy there pal, I was just trying to clarify what you meant.

At any rate, I think the evidence you're citing to claim that HoTS isn't popular is largely circumstantial. There aren't any numbers released at all, and I've got several friends who are even World of Warcraft players who don't have invites yet and are just dying to get ahold of a key. I don't have a key yet either, although I'm really not into mobas and probably wouldn't play one anyway.

@mb: Who are even or who aren't even? Most current WoW players are diehard blizzard fans, though WoW players being interested in it would definitely explain the skill level. Heroes can get popular in the future to be clear, they're just 2-3 years off which means they probably shouldn't have made it a public thing for a while yet. Their route to success is pretty clear: have a giant tournament that pays the winning team at least a million dollars; does not matter at all what the quality of the game is relative to XYZ other Dota clone (not to say dota 2 isn't a high quality dota clone). That would make the high profile players interested which in turn would make the people that pay attention to them interested, who are probably friends with the average players. I do think the game has all the standard elements of blizzard quality (i.e. extremely high production values), it just doesn't have much else going for it at present.

Twitch viewership is a pretty good indication of interest in a game, especially for MOBAs.

@fredchuckdave: Neither of those links indicate any hard numbers. It seems to me they are still sending out keys in very small quantities.

@bisonhero: The playerbase doesn't miraculously increase fourfold without sending out a proportionally large number of keys (nor does it make any sense for them to not have the largest key wave in concordance with the opening of the rest of the world's access to the game). You never, ever quote hard numbers when you're in a terrible position; I'd be surprised if we got any access (since they're not technically keys) numbers in the next 1.5 years.

When's the last time Blizzard announced the subscriber count for the US in WoW?

@fredchuckdave: One original launch invite wave, plus one international invite wave that all goes to internationals, doesn't contradict my position that they've been sending out very small amounts of invites in between.

I got in about 6 weeks ago (NA). I never got into any other MOBAs despite trying LoL several times, but it never clicked. I instantly got this one though and am excited for it to launch. I was hooked for about a week and the only reason I'm not playing more now is because it's in technical alpha and progress and unlocks will be reset many times. Also some of the people I'd play with don't all have keys yet.

@alanm26v5: My first screenshot is from April 25th, yet to have a reset since then.

I'm kind of completely uninterested in HotS (did they really have to use the same acronym as SC2?) until I can actually play it. I don't really care how good the twitch partners are, or about the esports teams.

They are announced every quarter, Activision is a publicly traded company. The numbers are not broken down into regions though.

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ACTI/3346339244x0x751916/7bac22b2-d240-467f-ad04-e48e50dd7dfc/Q1_ATVI_Slides_FINAL_5-6-14.pdf

Interestingly, Hearthstone now has more downloads than WOW has subscribers.

Also a story about HOTS just went live on Gamespot. Seems they're adding "a few people every week" to the Alpha.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/heroes-of-the-storm-dev-discusses-new-warcraft-her/1100-6421231

@lemonhead: Yeah that's why I said in the US, I forget how cheap WoW is in China but its nothing too pricey (accepting that $15 is close to trivial). I believe the split is 5.5-6 million subs in China to however many everywhere else.

Thanks for the responses guys, I went to sleep shortly after posting this, sorry if it looks like I abandoned this.

They just opened it up to people outside of the US recently. Bout all you can do is opt in and wait unfortunately.

I never got an email, but have beta access. I came to the forums, saw people talking about beta being open, so I downloaded the game and logged in. It wasn't until later that I found out it's still closed. =D