I'm a Heroes of the Storm novice. I've always loathed MOBAs, their gameplay, their communities, their hype... generally, really, everything about them. Then I was offered a Heros beta key from a friend.

Hello, my name is Payce, and I'm a Heroes addict.

I logged on, played the tutorial, ran the Raynor practice game. It was pretty good fun, actually. My first thought was, incidentally, "This kind of plays like Diablo 3, but I wish I could invert the mouse buttons. I finished the practice game. I came to the hero select screen. I met Valla for the first time. It was love at first sight and we danced all night through the lanes, like invigorated lovers.

The next morning I logged on, to find the free heroes having rotated. I panicked. I threw my 3,99 at Blizzard. Then I hit level 6, and got my first daily quest - play six games as support. I picked Tyrande. Then everything changed. I started to cheat on Valla. More curiously, my performance increased, a lot, and with it, my understanding of what was happening. I started looking at my talents differently. Over a hectic series of games, my intense affair with Tyrande turned my relationship with the game around, it was a workd gone topsy-turvy.

These are the experiences I made during those early days.

When selecting your hero, there are many things to consider - preferrence, experience from other games, what you want to achieve. As the free hero rotation makes it a little easier for you to pick, here are a couple of things to look for in a first-time hero:

- If you think it looks cool, go for it. No matter how good or bad someone says something is, if you hate what you see on the screen, you'll likely be less inclined to invest your time, gold or money in that character.
- Run practice games. Lots of them. Never mind that they are easy as hell and clinically impossible to lose - you aren't there to win or lose, but to learn your character, your talents, the maps and mechanics, and more importantly, yourself.
- Whenever you encounter something you don't immediately get, look it up. If Diablo keeps ruining your burst with all his throwing you around, look up his talents and abilities. Even better, if he's in the free rotation, take him for a spin in practice games.
- Don't rely on net-builds. As much as that Rank 1 player tells you to do this and that, odds are that you haven't anywhere near the skill, experience and overview to pull off half of what he suggests. Instead, read his reasonings behind his choice of talents, and try to gain an overall impression of what your character can do. It is always better to learn and adapt, than simply copy.

Once you feel comfortable enough with the game mechanics, your own gameplay and the abilities and talents of your chosen character, it's time to head into match-ups against actual people. This can be a big step for some, and as natural as breathing for others - the important thing to remember is that no matter what happens, you will learn from it. If your team loses spectacularly and your stats are 4-19, you are definitely doing something (many things) wrong. Odds are you know it yourself as well.

To limit the "scare factor" of being an utter novice, here's a few tips and tricks that will help you along the way, regardless of map, character, team or skill:

- Always pay attention to the map. EVERYTHING you need to know about the situation of the game is on there. Look for where enemy pushes are, which one of your team-mates are alone and where, if there are any enemy characters you have vision on. The more you know about the map, the better you can assess the game, predict where you need to be, and improve your performance.
- Stay alive; don't be a hero. Running away is not anything to be ashamed of. When you are faced with a 3 against 1 scenario, you won't win no matter how much damage you can throw out - run away. Staying alive is always, always better than misplaced heroics.
- When not in combat, always stay mounted. Make a habit out of hitting that Z whenever you're not doing anything - the amount of seconds saved and distance covered over the course of a full game is bigger than you think.
- Grab ojectives and mercenary camps, but not at all costs. Objective and mercenaries will not win the game for you, but they will help tremendously. Keep in mind though, that abandoning a strong team rush to grab an objective might ruin the rush - always consider the effort of getting something, against the value of the current situation.
- Even when there are no enemy characters around, kill as many minions and do as much siege damage as possible in every situation. The more XP you earn your team, the faster you all progress.
- Did I mention to look at the map and stay alive? Look at the map and stay alive. Preferrably while mounted.

When you play a little, the game will start giving you gold coins. The rewards for levelling up your characters and your player profile are relatively limited and far between, but it's nevertheless a good source of income. It is, however, nowhere near the best or only way to earn gold.

- Earning gold is a grind. Get used to the thought right away. If you want your 10,000 gold Nova, be prepared to work hard for her.
- A good trick is to play all the available free characters up to level 5 in practice games. Not only will this net you 500 gold for the level reward, it will also give you player progression XP, multiple characters with their full talents available for daily quests, and a chance to learn more about your opponents. The reason I suggest running practice games are pure and simple because they are significantly faster than Quick Matches.
- When you hit player level 10, you get a free Stimpack. These things are genius, but can sadly only be purchased with real money and not gold coins (for now). When you get this, make the most of it - spam as many Quick Matches as your sanity allows - even losses will pay equal to a win without the Stimpack duing this period.
- Get used to the idea that some things aren't available for gold coins. A large amount of skins, mounts and the Stimpacks are there to finance this game - whining about it won't help. Either suck it up and throw your euroes and dollars at Blizzard, or accept that this is how the game works. The devs aren't working for free.

At this point, you've likely either become hideously addicted like me, grown tired of the game, or just find it to be another game in your collection. As such, this section is mostly for the hideously addicted.

There are thousands of ways to move forward with a game like this. Whether you decide to throw your beer money at Blizzard the second they release Sylvanas, set specific gold and/or XP targets every day, or slowly work towards having every single hero at max level, there's always SOMETHING to do. Here's a few of the things that worked for me:

- Challenge yourself. If you love playing ranged, try a melee. Even better, try a really squishy melee.
- Find friends, try and develop teamplay and class synergy. Learn to work with and around other classes, using their abilities to your advantage. Whenever you see a Tyrande, start leaning on her Hunter's Mark. Whenever you have a tank to carry you, try to push that little bit extra without jeopardizing your team.
- Try new builds. Learn to play your character in a completely new manner. Learn to adapt your builds and playstyle to whatever your teammates show up as.
- Most importantly, find new ways to have fun!

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did experiencing it. See you in the Nexus - GL, HF!