By Kieron Gillen on August 27th, 2009 at 4:31 pm.
…just for one Beta period. Matt Coddington gave us the heads up on this. Heroes of Newerth are giving 30,000 keys away via Facebook. There’s 27K odd left at the time of writing, so time for you all to get into this videogame thing. If you don’t know about it, it’s another of the Defence of the Ancients derived games which are appearing this year (See also: Demigod). Anyway, go get your code here or watch some manner of footage below…
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27/08/2009 at 16:37 Kerotan says:
I’ve been a the beta a while, and having not played DOTA, this game is great fun 5v5, but I expect that it could start to grate a little for DOTA veterans, and also, if possible, play with friends, since pugs have a habit of being dumb as hell.
27/08/2009 at 16:38 Scorpi says:
I’ve played it – it just doesn’t seem quite as “user-friendly” as League of Legends is so far, so for now, LoL is going to be getting my cash-vote.
27/08/2009 at 16:41 Butler` says:
I reakon HoN is going to be a big deal. The WoW community are getting wind of it and everyone I’ve given a key seems to love it — from DoTA pros to people who’ve only played a few RTSs.
It really is pretty well done. I myself am not a DoTA fan (I played it about once) but, strangely, HoN has me and a bunch of buddies hooked.
27/08/2009 at 16:47 l1ddl3monkey says:
I’d rather vigorously bang my cockend with a hammer than sign up for Facebook.
Social networking should involve actual socialising.
27/08/2009 at 16:49 Mike_in_the_USA says:
that would leave a mark for sure.
27/08/2009 at 16:50 KikiJiki says:
@Scorpi League of Legends is by all accounts from people I know in beta a horrible mess, and the servers are run by GOA in the EU, so I doubt they are going to go anywhere fast.
Regarding HoN, been in the beta a while and am loving it coming from a Dota inhouse background. It’s a little bit of a disservice to compare HoN to games like Demigod or even LoL as although they take elements from Dota they are pretty different. HoN is a direct Dota clone/successor with a lot of reworks and new heroes.
27/08/2009 at 17:05 abhishek says:
Yup, I’ve played the beta as well and I’m quite impressed with the game.
27/08/2009 at 17:18 Zenanon says:
If I wanted to play DotA I would go play DotA. This “genre” is doomed from the start if the best people can come up with is a direct clone.
27/08/2009 at 17:31 JonFitt says:
I’ve signed up. Will report back.
27/08/2009 at 17:39 Xocrates says:
@l1ddl3monkey: As far as I can see, no facebook registration is needed.
27/08/2009 at 17:40 Lafinass says:
Played it, but went back to League of Legends. I think the biggest issue for me is that it’s basically Dota. It’s not a spiritual successor, it’s a clone on a new engine. Which would have been great for me, but they also renamed all the heroes, spells, and items. So while it has almost the identical setup, it has the learning curve of learning it all again.
If I’m going to have to learn all that stuff over again, it’s going to be in a game that has made improvements beyond the graphics.
27/08/2009 at 17:43 Lafinass says:
@KikiJiki Been playing League of Legends for a while now and would heartily disagree. Though I can’t speak to how it’ll be in the EU market.
27/08/2009 at 17:46 Butler` says:
There’s plenty of improvements beyond the graphics, but I can see your frustration as a DoTA player.
The ones I know, however, have got used to it pretty quickly. It’s certainly easy to learn a few name changes than learn DoTA from scratch…
27/08/2009 at 18:05 rei says:
Looks potentially fun, but I’ve never used these Facebook/MySpace/Twitter things and I don’t want to ruin a good thing now :\
27/08/2009 at 18:10 rei says:
Addendum: No use of Facebook actually required.
27/08/2009 at 18:25 Lollercaust says:
I’m still confused as to why anyone would play this over the original DoTA let alone pay for it? HoN replicates almost everything from that game down to the exact viewing angle and viewing size (to the pixel!), similar HUD, same heroes with same abilities.
What am I missing out on other than pretty graffix and having to re-memorize hero names?
27/08/2009 at 18:30 Bossman says:
There are plenty of new features such as better matchmaking, better anti-cheat, new heroes & maps, stats and ability to reconnect to a game if you get disconnected.
27/08/2009 at 18:33 Shalrath says:
Why would anyone pay for Halo 2, when it simply replicates everything from the origina- ok, bad example.
But frankly, people would buy it because it probably has more levels, new stuff, new characters, etc.
This is coming from someone who has both never played DoTA, nor this game itself. I will check it out though, as the art is gorgeous. I hated WC3′s ’3d models’ that managed to be worse than the old sprite portraits of Starcraft, but htis game actually looks quite pretty.
Basically Warlords Battlecry 3 if it was made today.
27/08/2009 at 18:42 Vinraith says:
Am I correct in remembering that (unlike DotA itself) there are no AI opponents/allies in HN?
27/08/2009 at 18:57 l1ddl3monkey says:
@ Xocrates: Don’t interrupt me when I’m hammering.
27/08/2009 at 19:03 GlobalFrequency says:
@Vinraith – There is no AI yet, but its planned. Also planned is a customizable practice mode where you can play offline, adjust starting gold, heroes and such, so that you can, for example, see how well a particular character handles himself in the jungle at level 1 or whatever.
27/08/2009 at 19:16 Bigfoot_King says:
i’ve played one game and so far its a thumbs up. There lots of little changes from dota that makes it seem fresh but still has enough of the original to not seem radically different but there is a few fixable things about it one is that fact the same sound for moving your hero is played over and over again and when you click over 1000 time and with only 2 sounds files it can get annoying and there no offical online list of heroes so i can’t read about them and build up a tactic
27/08/2009 at 19:20 Feintlocke says:
Great Success! (according to the signup confirmation at least).
Always wanted to give DoTA a whirl, Demigod was fun so I’ve got high hopes for this and LoL.
@GlobalFrequency That’s the kind of game mode I can get behind!
27/08/2009 at 19:31 Tei says:
“League of Legends is by all accounts from people I know in beta a horrible mess, and the servers are run by GOA in the EU”
Thats bad news here.
27/08/2009 at 19:38 KikiJiki says:
@Lollercaust – Except that the UI is vastly improved and simplified from the clunky WC3 one, and there are very few ‘direct’ Dota ports.
Poor troll is poor.
@Lafinass I think I see HoN as a closer spiritual successor to Dota than LoL, in that it’s not mixing things up too much, but it is changing how the core gameplay works. What I’ve heard of the LoL gameplay doesn’t really interest me but I could see why some people would prefer that to a more ‘straight up’ Dota clone.
27/08/2009 at 19:41 Bigfoot_King says:
I think i would buy this game for £5 maybe £10
27/08/2009 at 19:44 Xocrates says:
Just played one game. And yeah, it’s dota with slight improvements (and sometimes not) and most of what I hated about it.
I’m probably going to stick with the more casual friendly Demigod.
27/08/2009 at 20:08 The Pink Ninja says:
DoTA?
DO NOT WANT
And I say that with over 300 hours on WC3 custom map mode.
Also, I’m just speaking from the concept art, but this game looks identical to Warcraft (World of or otherwise) right down to the logo.
27/08/2009 at 20:13 Eplekongen says:
First match I play I get yelled at for being a “noob” and told to “stfu”, then I’m told to leave. I ask how it would help the team that I leave, I get told to “just SU”. After several minutes with a lot of back and forth – people trying to votekick me or just yelling at me – someone finally says something to me using more than just 2 words and an abreviation. And I’m explained I’m feeding the enemy (xp and gold), so I leave.
Not returning.
27/08/2009 at 20:35 Sagan says:
Is this by IceFrog? Because if not, that is a very brazen rip-off. It looks exactly the same. It looks so similar even, that I think IceFrog could sue them for compensation.
27/08/2009 at 20:38 St4ud3 says:
The developers said, that IceFrog is ok with them making the game.
@Eplekongen: That sounds like a horrible experience. Maybe you should try a noob only game :D
27/08/2009 at 20:39 abhishek says:
Eplekongen : Sadly, that’s the downside of these kinds of games. I haven’t run into any in this particular game, but Dota is filled with whiny, abusive people who ruin others’ experiences. And it seems it’s this particular sub-genre of RTS that attracts those people who ultimately make the communities look bad.
If at all you thought the game was interested, I would suggest trying again. It’s a pretty nice game that can, unfortunately, be spoiled by the players. If you do try it again, in the server browser, right at the left side before the server name, there is an icon which shows whether noobs are allowed or if the game is specifically for noobs. If you join those games, you are usually met with a slightly more tolerant bunch of players.
27/08/2009 at 20:40 Lollercaust says:
@KinkyJinky
Vastly improved? They took out a few buttons that were leftovers from having to make a custom map based on WC 3.
Poor shill is poor.
27/08/2009 at 20:46 Sporknight says:
Never tried DotA, due to fear of people screaming at me for being a nubtard. Still, I’ll take a crack at this I suppose.
27/08/2009 at 21:25 rivalin says:
I’m reticent about even trying games in this genre, as almost everyone seems to note the unpleasant types who populate them.
Is there something about dota esque gameplay that such people find particularly appealing?
27/08/2009 at 21:26 Soogan says:
After being in the Beta for a few months now, I’m in the thumbs up category. HoN is very much a DoTA clone, be that what it is. It has pros and cons like anything else.
I’ve been fairly captured by the gameplay in DoTA, having played it for a number of years. It’s like a good board game in that the layout never changes, you have a limited amount of options for in game variation, but you have a wonderfully dynamic game, given the human element. (Unfortunately the average maturity level of your standard DoTA player is somewhere between a salmon and a monkey in most PUGs.)
I think that HoN as a commercial venture is an improvement in a few areas. Mentioned before is the UI, persistent stats and matchmaking improvements. These are certainly a boon to usability, and a area of frustration that is uncontrollable by a custom map in WC3.
Another area that has improved due to a pay model is having s2 host the games. One area of much bickering in DoTA games stems from the reliance on the host of the game to have a decent connection, and be able to host a low latency server. Taking this out of the hands of the players and into the hands of the hosting company makes the playing field more even, and quells the cries of “lag pwnd me omg”.
Another benefit is the support team behind the software. DoTA is an amazing accomplishment, and a wonderful example of a the versatility of Icefrog, and the W3c engine. But with little to no profit involved, it’s a part time endeavor. I can see that an actual development house being involved in the upkeep and revisioning of the mechanics and game, and adding new content and new heroes, it will allow the “genre” to continue to stay fresh. (i know it’s too small to be really called that; and yeah, I know that an exact gameplay clone in inextricably meshed with it’s progenitor.)
In reality, DoTA is hardly free either. If you were interested in playing it, you have to at least pick up the Battlechest for War3, and until a few weeks ago that was still going to set you back 40 bucks.
(though someone told me that a pretty cool RTS came bundled with it)
27/08/2009 at 21:32 Waku says:
Same thing that turned me of from Dota in WC3 is happening again in here. The people are just vile, unhelpful and pretty rude to anyone that hasn’t spent 300 Hours on this Game allready.
Kick Votes are handed out like kinda. How are you supposed to improve if you are getting kicked after 5 Minutes? :/
27/08/2009 at 21:34 Vinraith says:
I only ever played DotA coop against AI with friends. That was always enjoyable, and nicely avoids the general nastiness of the wider community.
27/08/2009 at 21:38 Tei says:
I have played with myself, in a server with only me. To learn and stuff.
Well.. is very.. warcraft3-ish, I suppose already everybody know this. Is playable, and has AAA quality. I don’t buy the “sides”. Seems theres a “Necro” side, and a “Nature” side.
I have not played with humans, but I suppose is doable. With my experience in coop vs coop games where If you feed, you are killing your own team, I suppose I could survive to a DoTa-ish community.
My problem is that this feel like limited. Every character has like.. humm… 3 or less skills, maybe 2. Or is me?
Demigod have much more skills and flexibility.
But having “”played”" this thing, I think I respect Demigod more.
27/08/2009 at 21:46 cyrenic says:
@rivalin
I think it’s not so much the people finding the gameplay appealing as the gameplay itself prompting abuse. In DotA type games, dying helps the enemy team quite a bit, so you’re actually hurting your teammates if you’re new and die a lot.
It’s not as big of a deal in something like TF2, where if you die you’re just setting yourself back, not buffing the other team a bunch.
Not that any of that excuses such ridiculous behavior in a video game. I’m just guessing that’s one of the main reasons why the communities for DotA type games tend to be so toxic.
27/08/2009 at 21:59 Xocrates says:
@cyrenic: Quite frankly I think the reason is because DoTa style games is both competitive AND team based. TF2 overall is an exception because the in the regular pub based experience the teams are so large that it’s hard to pin the blame on someone specific.
On the other hand I stopped playing L4D with unknowns because I was getting vote-kicked within a couple of minutes of joining a game out of ludicriously small mistakes
I admit that Dota clones can be a bit worse mostly because it’s extremely hard to play well so the skill gap is often very evident.
@Tei: I think the true advantage of Demigod is that it actually tried to do something with the “genre”, as opposed to LoL and HoN which seem/are essentially comercial Dota versions (hence the huge number of heroes with few skills). On top of which Demigod at least tried to be somewhat noob friendly (not losing money on death helps a lot. That really annoys me on Dota because not only am I getting cumberstoped as I’m also unable to save to buy better equipment)
27/08/2009 at 22:58 Butler` says:
The community does kinda maks Counter-Strike’s seem tame. The fact that it’s in beta doesn’t really help matters as most people in it are DoTA/quite hardcore, but it should open up – especially post retail, withhopefully more room for noobs.
It’s a product of the highly competitive game design / scoring system.
27/08/2009 at 23:09 RyePunk says:
It is DotA, given a new engine and name changes. That is all. I like it, because it is DotA, but it is not even trying to even differ from it. Its like they wait for Icefrog’s patch notes and then do that.
LoL at least takes the concept and runs with it for a bit, introducing new features, (like ability power and cooldown buffs so casters core spells do not become useless against late game tanks), and created their own heroes.
As it stands now HoN is a carbon copy. That they want money for. Its not bad. But you can get the exact same thing, albeit not quite so pretty, by getting Warcraft III, and then you get Warcraft III as well.
27/08/2009 at 23:46 Jules says:
the playerbase are largely a bunch of autists that have learned a routine and repeat it game after game. if you try anything new dummies are spat. this is why new players are ripped to shreds. you’re causing very real distress just by being there. so, be kind and learn to play before you get into anything but a noobs ONLY game.
27/08/2009 at 23:50 Anon says:
There has been an error in your submission!
Please fix the following issues and re-submit.
Limit: Invite limit reached. Sorry, only 1 per IP address.
I guess that’s a disadvantage of using an ISP that shares a few IP addresses among a whole bunch of people.
27/08/2009 at 23:51 Xocrates says:
@Jules: That’s not nearly enough. In every noob game I played people complained if you sucked.
27/08/2009 at 23:52 Railick says:
I remember playing N00bs only games back on Starcraft and WC3 there were always at least some leet players in there slaughting everyone else lol.
28/08/2009 at 00:12 jarvoll says:
As well as a [NOOBS ONLY] tag for games, there should be [DECENT FOLK ONLY, SWEARING JERKS BANLISTED]. The idea for DotA is great, but the community completely ruins it. I’ve been reamed out for being a noob IN A NOOB GAME. I didn’t enjoy being around mindless, testosterone-poisoned 12-year-olds (or 18-year-olds, for that matter) in high school, and that hasn’t changed.
28/08/2009 at 00:26 Railick says:
I’ve always found it odd to be called a n00b when you’re playing a game that is less than 15 days old.
28/08/2009 at 00:46 St4ud3 says:
Ok, I think I played about 7 rounds now. I think I played Dota maybe once or twice, so I’m not really good at this game. I only played in the noob only games and I had quite a good experience. I got some kills some assists and many deaths and ended up with a total K/D ratio of 0.6.
Even with me playing that badly, nobody ever kicked me and the only people that were commenting on my playstyle at all were some Italian dudes, who said, that I should try not to die that often.
If you like the concept of the game, but didn’t have a good experience on your first games you should really try the noob only games. The people in there are generally quite undestanding.
28/08/2009 at 00:53 salejemaster says:
in all honesty, I already bought one game from this developer, I’m not going to make that mistake again, gg
28/08/2009 at 02:33 Gutter says:
@Railick : Most of the game I tried started with “Who here is god at DOTA?”
They mean “noob” at playing a DOTA style game is seems.
28/08/2009 at 05:26 lePooch says:
Been in the beta for three weeks now, and coming from a person who played DotA casually, I must say that it scratches the same itch that DotA did. Of course, relearning is frustrating, and right now some heroes are still unbalanced (hence why it is still in beta).
For anyone new to the game:
Start a private game with only yourself, pick a hero you like and learn the item shop. The item shop is EVERYTHING in this game. Hero abilities are easy to pick up in-game, but if you do not know what item counters a specific enemy build, or what your guys needs to shine, you are in trouble.
For the first few games, stick to the ‘easier’ heroes (Don’t think I am allowed to disclose hero names).
Ask your team for suggestions. Usually some heroes work naturally well with another hero. Additionally, some heroes are excellent counters to heroes your opponent picks, so your team might ask you to pick those.
28/08/2009 at 06:04 Sporknight says:
@lePooch:
The problem is, unless there’s some sort of guide out there that I’m missing, I have no idea what those counters/compliments actually are. How am I supposed to tell what heroes are ‘easier’ to play? What makes an item a good counter?
The game would certainly benefit from at least a tutorial mode or something. Maybe that’s planned for the future? Or maybe they’re just building it off of DotA’s playerbase and that’s it, and dont feel the need to cater to us nubbins…
28/08/2009 at 06:40 Andreas says:
Having played the HoN beta for a few weeks now, these are the obvious issues I can see in the game:
- The learning curve is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to steep.
- The community is horrible.
- The whole team is punished for playing with beginners (and idiots), possibly explaining the above point.
- Sort of lacking in content to be a unique title.
Hopefully these points will be addressed by release, or they’re going to scare away far more players then they will pull in.
Everything else aside, it’s a brilliant game, and I love it to bits.
For new players, I suggest starting out playing with friends, and avoiding public games until you’ve learned something of the game. If you don’t have that option, at least filter out all servers that aren’t “noobs only”.
I also suggest reading some of the great guides that are posted on the HoN beta boards, if only to avoid being flamed by the above-mentioned horrible community.
28/08/2009 at 07:16 The Great Wayne says:
Worst. Player community. Ever.
And I’ve been around for a while. Never seen such a bunch of morons gathered in a same game.
Problem is: this is a beta, you’re intended to test things and the more testers the better, who cares about some former leet DotA players getting and e-peen boost ?
Dev team needs to police their testing playerbase.
28/08/2009 at 07:20 idmmao says:
What I kind of don’t understand about the learning curve is that it is absolutely intentional how steep it is. I mean, nevermind the 30-ish heroes all with 4 abilities you’re supposed to pick from and learn how to identify in combat and counter, the item shop alone is insane. Does there really need to be 150 different items? Do half of them really need to be made up of other items, which are in turn made from other items? As far as I can tell, this kind of item complexity exists just to let experienced players screw over new players as thoroughly as possible. I guess I could spend a good hour sitting there charting out all the items and the dependencies and which ones can be bought at which store and which order to buy them in so I can hold them in my inventory, but on the other hand, I could also just stab myself in the eye with a fork and then go do something that’s actually fun instead.
Of course all this dovetails nicely with the official death messages being “PlayerA has pwned PlayerB’s head”. I could hardly believe it when I saw it. Aside from not making any sense at all, you’re using a word deliberately engineered to be as aggravating as possible, in every death message?
As for the “testosterone poisoned, horrible playerbase”, I could not agree more. The mechanic where the enemy players are made stronger for every player they kill really reinforces the mentality that all “noobs” should be ridiculed and kicked at the earliest opportunity. For a game without an AI, this playerbase is seriously a dealbreaker for anyone who isn’t planning on playing it strictly with friends.
28/08/2009 at 07:21 RyePunk says:
One other thing for new people trying. Learn to get good at last hitting.
That is just attack to make the kill on the grunts. Damage dealt doesnt help get more gold.
More so, kill your own units when they are in the red (or orange later in the game) You’ll know it worked because a gaint “DENIED!” will pop up in your color. By doing that you can give yourself a slight edge early game by limiting the experience and gold your opponents get.
The game is extremely punishing for deaths though. You are worth alot, hence ganking heroes is quite viable to win. Stick together once you have your main skills maxed (usually around lvl 8-10, although some heroes need all of them)
When in doubt go for items that boost your HP, at least you’ll hold up slightly longer in a fight.
28/08/2009 at 08:16 TotalBiscuit says:
It’s DoTA, it’s going to inherit the same problems that DoTA has. If you don’t like DoTA, there’s no way you’re going to like HoN. Those of us who do like DoTA though (and there are several million of us), like HoN.
Anyone with any sense avoids pubbie games in DoTA, so why believe it would be any different in HoN? Play with friends, have fun and maybe play competitively every once in a while with a team of friends.
28/08/2009 at 09:22 Andy says:
“I guess I could spend a good hour sitting there charting out all the items and the dependencies and which ones can be bought at which store and which order to buy them in so I can hold them in my inventory, but on the other hand, I could also just stab myself in the eye with a fork and then go do something that’s actually fun instead.”
QFT
I joined one game and was immediately swore at and called a noob. I explained that yes I am a noob as this is my first game! Everyones a noob the first time you start. I followed my buddies to help them but they screamed at me to go somewhere else so I did, and died a lot then left.
I’m sure its fun if you have the time to invest in learning the game, and some good buddies to play with. but not all of us have that luxury.
28/08/2009 at 09:33 Tei says:
It could be that DoTA is not my tea cup.
But this game is something so we all have to congratulate.
Here we have a mod, that is spawning a genre, a mod community that grow to a professional one. Dreams made true, and the will of the community fullfulling.
This *is* a better DoTA, how the purist want it (I may hard, anyway, to move these purist, since all purist want is status quo, and zero changes). Better has in, the interface slighty enhanced for this purpose, with all the decoration of the original warcraft, and more.
These of us that started playing videogames before the words RTS, FPS where invented, remenber a time where (other than platformers, shot en up and clones of other famous games) there was no genres. All games where original, and a genre at itself. Some of us hate that gamming has been reduced to a set of gameplay types “RTS”, “FPS”, “RPG” … The permasive (?) mod community could be our savior (??) that will demolish the wall (??) eroding his base (?) spawning a infinite variation of genres.
Or to use my mother lang:
¡OLE!.
28/08/2009 at 09:43 KikiJiki says:
The people that are struggling with the learning curve, but who do want to continue playing should check out the beta forums. There is an entire subforum devoted to guides on how to play heroes and on other aspects of the game like rune grabbing and juking (running away through the trees). The hero guides will usually tell you the best combination of items to grab for that hero too, which you can apply to all similar heroes (there are only about 4 ‘roles’ a hero can fill).
The tutorial is in the pipeline, but not done yet and I can completely understand why it’s not been implemented from the start.
28/08/2009 at 12:00 Andy Johnson says:
I’ve been on the beta for a while now, and I’m impressed. I’d never played DotA (don’t even have any Warcraft games to hand), but it hasn’t taken me too long to get used to this. One of the nicest things is the visual ability effects, which add quite a lot to the game – the vocal cues are often quite funny too, though bizarrely they seem to be missing for a few heroes.
The one obstacle really is the aggressive DotA players who have migrated over to HoN. They insist on calling everything/one by their DotA name, and viciously abuse everyone who doesn’t exactly stick to their idea of what should be done – a lot even bark out orders to other players as you would to an unpresponsive RTS unit. You’ve also got to be wary of team balance – often hosts will quickly start games as soon as ten players are in the game lobby, despite the host and his team having an 87% win chance or something – real noob harvesting for the unawares. Always have to keep the cursor hanging over the “disconnect” button.
All that said, it’s really enjoyable, especially with friends that you know won’t insult you incessantly. Given how busy the beta is, I suspect this may take off in a big way.
28/08/2009 at 13:28 Jayt says:
Cheers for the heads up, just signed up myself and a mate
28/08/2009 at 13:34 Shaun says:
I’ve played dota for over 5 years and have been participating in the HoN Beta for a little over a month now.
One great feature of Hon is the ability for users to create mods. Only mods that don’t directly affect gameplay are allowed in HoN.
A few such mods address the fact that a portion of the players coming from DotA don’t want to relearn all of the Heroes / Items.
One mod in particular replaces all of the pictures and names of 1 for 1 ports in HoN to their DotA counterparts.
Another mod simply places the DotA equivalent item name beneath the HoN item name.
If you are already in the beta, but don’t know where to find these mods, simply jump on the HoN Beta forums (beta.heroesofnewerth.com), navigate to “Interface Discussion and User Mods” and click on the stickied post entitled “The Modification Repository”. The mods are super easy to install (just need to save a single file to the game directory in most cases) and may improve your HoN experience.
The ability to create user mods is just one of the ways that S2 caters to their community.
28/08/2009 at 15:26 army of none says:
Ehhh… It’s alright, pretty well made it seems, but I didn’t seetoo many reasons to get it if you already have Warcraft3+Xpack. I do like all the statistics it keeps though, which is pretty awesome.
28/08/2009 at 16:39 WantOn says:
Been playing for about six weeks, having crossed from playing DotA casually for a couple of years. Yes, the learning curve is steep. Yes, the community can be harsh. But remember this; if you were to ebay a WoW character (or any other MMO), at top level, join a group and try to do an instance/raid or somesuch, having never played the game before, you would still get aggro from people. Possibly a bit less than in HoN, but only because its sometimes feasible to carry someone through an instance/raid without it screwing up everyone else’s experience.
If you join games having done no reading, no offline practice and having made no effort to learn anything, then its hardly surprising if you get flamed when you ruin the game for the other four players on your team. Because you will ruin the game for the other four; make no bones about it.
28/08/2009 at 17:51 The Great Wayne says:
@WantOn:
It’s absurd. Apples and oranges here.
Cheating the learning curve in said game by buying a character, and expecting to be accepted if you try to play above you real skill level in highly challenging environment is obviously wrong – and even that wouldn’t justify to be treated without respect.
On the other hand, in this case we’re talking about regular games, even tagged “new player”, were a bunch of primitive anthropoids are throwing virtual dung at anybody doesn’t meet *their* expectations.
All of this not even considering it’s a beta, so it’s overall harming game development by reducing testing coverage and detection of various bugs.
Hell, let’s try reverse thinking: tag some games to “leet hardcore morons only” and let correct and educated people of various game skill sort the rest by themselves.
I’m an utopist so I’ll not request that the said morons choke on their own tongue, just that they don’t pollute other people just trying to, well, beta test the thing.
28/08/2009 at 19:54 Starky says:
The lerning curve is Steep? More like an impenetrable brick wall. The community harsh? More like a bunch of anti-social elitist arseholes who’d rather spit on someone than help a new player (for the most part).
Any game that requires you to trawl through a forum trying to figure out how to play the game isn’t worth the time frankly. Single player practice would be fine, if there was such an option in this beta. There isn’t that I could find (no bots in the create a game).
Don’t get me wrong I’m more than willing to put some effort into a game, read guides and instructions but not BEFORE I play the game. I spend hours trawling the diii.net forums for guides, advice and such, testing builds learning the math behind D2.
Any game worth it’s salt should be easy to blunder into and only require that kind of study, and that is what it is, study – once you start to get a feel for the basics and want something more advanced.
Everything about this game is utterly bewildering for a new player – If they hope to actually sell copies to people who are not former hardcore DotA players they have a long way to go.
There’s also a bunch of things that this game has clearly taken from the WC3 engine, which you’d think they might have improved upon.
The ability to zoom out, or rotate the camera being a damn big one.
I guess I shouldn’t be too harsh given this is clearly labeled as a direct clone of WC3 DotA, not a game that is taking that gameplay idea and expanding on it.
It just seems a missed opportunity to modernize the game making it more accessible to new players (which doesn’t mean dumbed down – well only in the small minds of elitist idiots). A tutorial is all that’s needed, a good, step-by-step in game tutorial to get new players familiar with the goals of the game, how the mechanics work and such.
29/08/2009 at 11:39 Spaceghost says:
The game is great but only with friends: it has the same ‘toxic’ community as Demigod, DOTA, and to some extent WoW arena. I played with the friends that introduced me and I really had a lot of fun. But even in games labeled as ‘noob friendly’, a five-game veteran like myself gets a torrent of abuse and votekicks.
29/08/2009 at 11:57 Heliocentric says:
DOTA’S (as a genre) community problems are rooted in the game. Its about micromanaging 1 unit, but with literally thousands of options. This creates 2 classes of player, those who do the math/read the math and those who don’t.
I was always a math player, after playing a dota on wc3 i’d load it up singleplayer and check out all the heroes and explore the maps. Then after finding 4 or so strong builds (often up to an hour of pondering) i would go back and kick arse, it was such a massive difference.
Of course, before long i discovered faq’s and boards. But i’d watch people play game after game and still never really get the maths.
And the hate they recieved was monumental, all because they didn’t rtfm.
29/08/2009 at 12:16 Kalkyrie says:
The problem with DOTA needing people to rtfm, is that it doesn’t have a manual.
29/08/2009 at 12:24 Heliocentric says:
Don’t get me wrong but these games are impossible to properly document because they are such a crapstorm of mathematical models.
On one dota i saw a player avoid killing anything because his class (builder/hero) gave no xp at level one. He would freak out if you killed anything near him, but in turn he could deploy healing shrines off the main route and was a massive boon to his team without ever offering the enemy xp.(despite dying so much the actual game mocked him). The manual would need 20 pages of tables just to offer half of this information.
29/08/2009 at 12:53 Jayt says:
First impressions are, getting face stomped by everything. Read some more, face stomped some more.
The learning curve is a headache
29/08/2009 at 12:55 Jayt says:
Side note: awesome community full of “lol u newbz why so shit?”
really feels like playing with a bunch of hardcore elitist teenagers, which it probably is. Can’t wait for my two mates to install and play so this game can become slightly enjoyable for me.
29/08/2009 at 19:41 Jahkaivah says:
What bothers me, is that Savage was about combining the accessibility of fps/hack n slash with the depth of rts.
This would have been the perfect opputunity to do the same thing for the DoTT formula, your already controlling just one guy, why not do so directly?
29/08/2009 at 21:35 Cutman says:
The only nice person I met on this game couldn’t speak English. Which actually spoke a lot of his character that he would try as best he could to communicate with me on top of being nice. Instead of going “y u suck lozl”
29/08/2009 at 22:27 Tauquebb says:
it looks to be yet another game rewarding the choice of one hero, and one chain of items, I kept getting insta-killed again and again, but if i copy them, choosing the same characters and weapons, well, then i pwn, not tactical…
31/08/2009 at 09:34 Name (required) says:
The beta seems to be more oriented to testing the balance of the heroes rather than finding bugs in the client itself (which is pretty solid). So if you’re not a DoTA player, or not willing to do a bit of reading before playing, you might want to avoid this one. I myself was one of the latter; went into a couple games, got owned hard, got flamed by my team, was pretty close to uninstalling. But then I read the forums a bit, lrn’d2play, and now I’m absolutely loving this game. Hopefully the final version will have a tutorial.
I recommend starting with:
http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=737
Then read a hero guide:
http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=520
Not sure which one to play?
http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?t=3814
23/10/2009 at 19:57 misa says:
please send me a beta key….ive been dieng to play this game please…if i need to beg you i will do it just for a beta key sir…
11/12/2009 at 00:58 Jeff says:
please send me a beta key for HON or invite me please……i really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really want to play this game….
thanx and more power….
btw my e-add is JF466@yahoo.com….