Heroes of Newerth Open Beta About To Start

You may recall last summer when we discussed Heroes of Newerth, a title from S2 Games that's based on the popular Defense of the Ancients mod from Warcraft III. We passed out some closed beta keys, and there seemed to be a ton of interest, in part due to the fact that they have a Linux client. Well, if any of you missed it or want to see how the game has progressed since then, now is your chance — the open beta begins tonight (March 31). There's a countdown on the sign-up page that shows when you can register.

Awesome!

[ezbo]

I have been one of the lucky closed beta testers, and I can tell you that the least people I've seen online was 38,000. ragequits and no-stat try-hards FTW!!!

Already a DOTA replacement

[Mutio]

Not trying to advertise but League of Legends [leagueoflegends.com] is a very solid clone of DOTA. There is no Linux (sorry slashdot) but it is fairly well balanced.

Re:Already a DOTA replacement

[KahabutDieDrake]

League of Legends is a superior game in most respects, and it's from the same people that made the original DOTA mod. It also has a better payment model with reasonable micro transactions. But no content is cut off from free players, they just have to play longer to get it.

Dare I say... shameless?

[billsayswow]

Really? I had to do a double-take, both to see if this was in Idle, and then to see if this actually Slashdot, and not some mocked-up promotional. I wouldn't be so grouchy about this if it wasn't for the fact that this hit the front page, and is, relatively, a minor game.

Supports Linux

[Andrioid]

I've been playing the beta for a few months on my 64-bit Linux platform that usually gets shafted by game developers. If you liked DotA Allstars on W3x, you will like Heroes of Newerth. Those who played the classic DotA will find this "flashy" and imbalanced, fun though. I also encourage Linux gamers to support those few independent game developers that do support our platform by buying the game.

Re:Be warned, the community is noxious

[Anonymous Coward]

same impression here. there isn't a tutorial to speak of, and the community will throw you out in 5 minutes when they see you will lower their performance statistics. The times you are kicked out also limit what games you can play, so unless there is a 'training' single player mode, I think I just bought it to support them developing Linux clients. Too bad.

Re:Be warned, the community is noxious

[Celarnor]

I had a closed beta invite early on, but the community is angry, rude and just spoil the game.

Echo this. I was lucky enough to get into the closed beta a few weeks ago, when one of my friends sent me an invite key. There was no tutorial when I started (though there's one now), so I just went into a no stats game. The people there, and in most HoN games, seem to be just generally mean, elitist people who votekick at a moment's notice when another player doesn't exhibit some tidbit of knowledge that they're supposed to have acquired. This is really bad in HoN, since those votekicks affect your ability to play legitimate games. So, if you know a lot about DoTA, good game. Otherwise, stay away from it unless you know other people in meatspace that can help you out.

Re:Heroes of Noteworthy..

[Korin43]

I'm definitely interested. I like computer games, but gaming isn't worth the pain of using Windows, or the annoyance of dual booting.

I don't really see why developers don't make more games cross platform. Aren't there OpenGL libraries that will work with no changes on Windows + Mac + Linux? I know I've seen sound libraries that do that, so take those two together, and don't write crappy code and your game will be cross platform by default.