Blizzard are looking to introduce a new map to their latest venture, Heroes of the Storm the company confirmed in its latest blog post.

The map is called Garden Of Terror and it is a three lane battleground that features a very distinctive day and night cycle; when night falls monsters replace the usual mob camps. They are planning

to make full use of their dynamic lighting system, saying:

“Garden of Terror provides us with the opportunity to feature our dynamic lighting. During the night, we turn down the brightness of your hero’s vision, so the map becomes much darker. We recommend players to stay alert and keep your allies close, night is the perfect time for enemies to strike and take advantage of your reduced visibility.”

It would seem that the day and night cycles will also be controlled by player actions, changing only when all creeps are killed during a particular cycle.

Heroes of the Storm is presently still in alpha and it is a strong contender within the MOBA markets. Wondering what Blizzard will come out with next to keep you rooted to the game? Keep your browser tuned to Sanitarium.fm to find out!

For those of you who have played any of the main stream MOBAs you will know that they like to routinely release special game modes to mix things up a little for players, well recently Riot announced they would be releasing a game mode called “Doom bots of doom”. This game mode takes the standard AI and apparently ramps it up to 1,000 giving them new abilities and functions within the game mode. Sounds cool right?

As players progress within this game mode they will unlock increased difficulties making those doom bots even more menacing and for challenging them once Riot has said players will be given a special icon. According to riot at the higher difficulty levels these bots will take on qualities from champion’s including sometimes their ultimate’s. This seems like a nice little curve ball to throw into the mix to keep things fresh.

They will launch this limited time game mode reportedly on July 17th until the 27th.

Steelseries a popular computer product company has announced it is making a special edition DOTA 2 mouse. Steelseries make everything from headsets to keyboards -I personally own one of their headsets- and their products are in high demand.

The mouse is said to have been developed with the help of professional DOTA players from teams Na’Vi, iG and Team Fnatic. Along with up to 16.8 million illumination options, the special edition Rival optical mouse comes with an exclusive in game item for the hero Doom. The mouse is reportedly the only way to get this item. Steelseries have a reputation for making very precise and robust products and it seems this mouse is no different.

(Editor’s Note: I don’t even LIKE DOTA2, and this mouse looks awesome.  ~Digm)

Recently Riot, the company behind League of Legends,  has made a big announcement: they are no longer going to make skin codes. For those of you who play League of Legends you will be aware that Riot (like many other companies) create exclusive content that can only be acquired by attending conventions – in this case skin codes. Skin codes are rare, expensive and very difficult to acquire. Many people who play League of Legends and some of the other large MOBAs like to collect all of the cosmetic products in these free to play games, and there is a very high demand for the convention skin codes.

Skin codes and other similar collectables are big business and it would seem that this has attracted fraudsters. Riot have decided that the skin codes are causing a problem and have decided to end their production in the hopes of reducing fraud within the League of Legends community. We’ll see if this pays off, personally it seems like a step in the right direction. Riot has also announced that any skin codes that have been claimed will not be revoked. It is not a surprising move and Riot had this to say on the matter:

“”We are working with multiple payment processors to inform them of the situation and recommend they no longer process fraudulent payments from these sites, additionally we will be deactivating all previously issued skin codes starting today [July 11, 2014]. If you have a skin code that you acquired legitimately please send a request to Player Support and include proof of ownership. We’d be happy to help redeem the content to your account, but please note after 23/07/14 we will no longer be redeeming codes for any reason.”

Is it the correct move to entirely kill this market? We will have to see but it is certainly a very direct approach to the matter.

Behaviour Interactive posted up a ton of marketing/gameplay videos today, plus a HUGE FAQ for the game and Founders packs…

Lets start with the videos:

Now, onto the FAQ and recommended requirements are:

CPU: INTEL Core i5-750 / AMD Phenom II X6 1045T
GPU: NVidia GTX 660+ or similar video card
Memory: 8 GB DDR3
Hard Drive: 50GB Free Disc Space
OS: 64-bit Operating Systems (Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, SteamOS, MacOS X 10.9)

 

NOTE: This is just a predicted hardware setup. Details can change slightly over time as the game is still under development. More details to come.

Now, did everyone else notice that? 8Gb RAM?!? What game needs 8 bloody gigs of RAM?!?

You can see the rest of the FAQ here

and relax…

So yeah, the founders packs and initial store items…

Founder packs come in three varieties: Warrior, Sergeant or Captain. All of them come with a game key and four character slots ($40 value) as well as Founder program exclusives including Rogue Trader Points (RTP), Pre-Launch Game Access, Early Game Module Access, etc. And you can see them all here

Umm… Lets look at the top most Space marine pack:

Captain Pack

 

A Game key and 4 character slots ($40 value) with Captain Founder program exclusives including:

120,000 + 25% Bonus RTP to Spend in the Rogue Trader for a total of 150,000 points
Pre-Launch Game Access – First come, first serve!
Early Game Module Access – Initial Access – First Wave
Limited Edition Banner
Arkhona Vanguard Title
Exclusive Founder Lounge Access in Forum
Reserve Character Name
Reserve Guild Name

 

NOTE: For now, Founder packs will only be for PC versions of the game.

 

 

Now this is £70.80 or $120.00

Yes Captain pack owners start in the first of the three phases of Early Access roll out, but what else?
Well honestly, not much that I (or Digmbot) can see looking at the webpage

Now I admit, we’re AT LEAST a year away from release, but am I tempted to buy a founders pack?

Yes, but not the main factions, instead, I’ll be buying the £5.00 Ork founders pack instead

You can see all the founders pack options here

So, I’m still really interested in the game, I’ve been following Warhammer 40,000: Eternal Crusade for ages now and what Behaviour Interactive has shown so far is looking promising, but the pricing is a worry