Blizzard's Heroes of the Storm alpha: characters cost between $3.99 and $9.99

Blizzard has launched the technical alpha for its upcoming MOBA Heroes of the Storm, and invited the first wave of people to play the game in its early development stages. Did you get in?

The game follows a purchase model similar to League of Legends, in that the game rotates through a pool of free heroes but players can permanently add the character to their roster by spending real money or in-game gold. BlizzPro collated the prices.

23 heroes, plucked from StarCraft, Warcraft, and Diablo, are available in the current version of the beta, and Blizzard has opted for three tiers of pricing--the cheapest heroes cost $3.99/2000 gold, whereas the most expensive heroes go for $9.99/10,000 gold.

Blizzard has mentioned a couple of important caveats: the pricing right now is being experimented with, so they are subject to change between now and the game's eventual release. The other thing is that players in the alpha will have their accounts wiped in the future, losing their purchases and in-game gold. If you spend real money during the alpha, the money will be credited back into your Battle.net account when the servers are wiped.

But, out of curiosity, just how much would it cost to buy all 23 heroes right now? You're looking at $160.78, or 135,000 gold. Best get playing.

League of Legends, meanwhile, currently has 118 champions, with pricing tiers set at 260/585/790/880/975 Riot Points or 450/1350/3150/4800/6300 in-game currency. Riot sells its Riot Points currency in fixed bundles, with the cheapest (650RP) costing $5, so at that rate its champions range from roughly $2.00 to $7.50 when buying with real money. Valve's Dota 2, on the other hand, does not charge for access to characters--it makes its money purely by selling cosmetic items.

The hero pricing tiers for the Heroes of the Storm technical alpha:

$3.99/2000 gold