Heroes of Newerth Open Beta About To Start 118
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! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Awesome! (Score:4, Insightful)
League of Legends
Heros of Newerth
Demigod
League of Legends is by far the easiest to start with if you havent played the original DOTA. Easy matchmaking system, the ingame item system is very friendly to figure out what does what and how to scale items, way better then Heros of Newerth or Demigod. The developers have been very supportive of the game, theres typically a new hero added to the game every 6 weeks or so. Unfortunately on a hero release the character is usually over-powered but fixed within a week or so. Theres complaints about balance issues but thats because League of Legends is based on teamwork and not that one man Rambo which is seen in HoN or DOTA. A team that works together can easily take out the 5 man team that act like Rambos.
Demigod has fallen off the face of the map since the game was extremely buggy and multiplayer didnt work for several weeks after launch. Also, I believe the developers have only added 1 single hero to the game so far in about a year and a half of release? I gave up on this game after the developer wrote a four page paper about how they fixed the multiplayer and the steps they took, it was posted on Slashdot some time ago. They never really fixed it and it was still laggy and performance would drop late game when the creeps would over-take the map causing games to go to a crawl, crash, lag out.
Heros of Newerth is definitely not for those who have never played the DOTA style of gameplay. The crowd that plays HoN is extremely serious and will eat you alive if you screw around or suck. This is the games main problem because it really turns people away from playing it and its not the developers fault its a community problem. What I like about HoN though is that the game is way more stable then LOL (LOL uses a launcher which can crap out a lot) and its built on the foundation of competitive gameplay with features lacking from the other games, Observation mode, blind pick, one by one pick, etc.
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The people who get into and play betas tend to be the people most interested and devoted to the game--they have probably played a lot of DoTA--Basshunter is probably happily playing away. The rush of noobs won't hit until the launch (although there will be more people joining in tonight).
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How exactly can you make sweeping generalizations about the crowd that plays HoN when the game is still in a relatively small closed beta.
"Heroes of Newerth is currently in Closed Beta with over 1,000,000 users registered."
This is pulled from Wikipedia which source is linked directly to the HoN forums. 1 million users is not a relatively small closed beta.
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I got a HoN beta key a few months ago and played for a month or two. Based on my impressions, the OP is spot-on in his observations about the community. It's actually most of the reason I don't play anymore.
To put this in context, I led a fairly hardcore WoW raiding guild for a couple of years, and played Magic Online semi-seriously for a while. I have a pretty thick skin. I'm very familiar with the concepts of nerd rage and sexual frustration made manifest over the Internet. It's worse in HoN than any
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I agree, the community sucks, but I think the other problem with HoN is that they seem to have identified the worst elements of DotA, and then magnified them. I got into the closed beta, played about 7 games, and gave up. DotA started to go downhill a few months after TFT came out. I was hoping that a brand new implementation of the game might return to the core elements which made it so good, wihout any of the crappy 'pro' stuff which just made in unplayable, and it hasn't.
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Are there internet a-holes? We all know the answer is yes, but I've only had about 5 games out of all those played where it was an issue. I also am not one to rage personally, so maybe that helps. In those rare cases, the game gives you t
I've joined the beta .. (Score:3, Informative)
bought it to support them, played a while but stopped for 6 months since it was too unbalanced and not buggy enough to warrant beta testing, and just came back to it a few days ago. The game has progressed a lot and it's very fun to play :)
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What do you think when should unbalancedness be fixed?
I hazard a guess, it is beta testing with a relatively large number of actual players.
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Yes, they had a little trick on their website where you could simply gift yourself a copy of the game to get into closed beta.
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bought it to support them, played a while but stopped for 6 months since it was too unbalanced and not buggy enough to warrant beta testing
So, although it was unbalanced, the game was too bug-free for your liking?
just came back to it a few days ago. The game has progressed a lot...
I take it they introduced sufficient bugs that you now consider it buggy enough?
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Jackass ? Idiot ?
I did my share of testing, made known of my concerns and took a stand on the forums. I did a few suggestions, but by then I was not enjoying playing the game at all. I was mostly hoping to help find bugs, which was not really possible anymore. Every idiot could then complaint and flame on the forums...
So I did what was best for both me and them, I stopped it at that, but not before encouraging them by buying a copy of the game. Early monetary support is often much more important than one mo
Already a DOTA replacement (Score:2, Interesting)
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League of Legends is a superior game in most respects, and it's from the same people that made the original DOTA mod.
When you say original, do you mean the real original, or the horribly unbalanced piece of crap that was made by people that had nothing to do with the original that came after that?
That's right, mod competitors "offtopic" (Score:1, Offtopic)
I fail to see how, in a thread about HoN, mentioning the fact that its #1 competitor also *exists* is offtopic.
While I'm here, I might as well mention that LoL is a fun and innovative game, with some seriously talented industry players (Tom Cadwell, for example) working on it. I wasn't in the HoN closed beta, but I popped in here to see if people liked that, too.
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Not sure what game you've been playing, but I've had great experiences with this game.
The whole point of these games is to have an imbalance, you work together rather than soloing it... maybe that's your problem.
I do recommend LoL if you're interested. Not sure what HoN is like, but it almost looks identical to LoL apart from some minor interface differences.
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in my experience HoN has little to do with individual skill, it's just about having the right hero for the opponent - it's classic rock-paper-scissors balancing, which doesn't work in a game where you pick your hero at the start and have to use it all the way through. It's like playing best of 3 rounds rock-paper-scissors where you have to stick with your original choice for all 3 rounds.
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It's like playing the best of 30 rounds of rock-paper-scissors where you have to stick with your original choice for all 30 rounds but get to swap places with your neighbors between rounds if you see their opponent making the throw that you know you can beat.
Be warned, the community is noxious (Score:5, Insightful)
I had a closed beta invite early on, but the community is angry, rude and just spoil the game.
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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 (Score:4, Informative)
There's a tutorial now, and an auto-matching making service for solo players ( you get dumped with 9 others into a 5v5).
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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 abi
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Wow, that's the complete opposite to LoL. No vote kick, just a vote surrender.
If you bail from the game, you can't reenter a new game until the one you initially entered has finished. You can reenter the game you were in though.
Seems a bit elitist for me, I think I'll stick to LoL then.
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I had never heard about LoL until after this thread--probably something for me to look into. I like the 'dungeon crawler' feel, but as the GGP said, the community is quite noxious, and it's not really the type of game one can learn by soloing everything on the map in practice mode
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Re:Be warned, the community is noxious (Score:4, Insightful)
The reputation is well deserved, and it's not in "good fun". The problem is that DotA is designed in such a way that if one team get's a few kills in the beginning, they're almost guaranteed to win. It's impossible for the other 4 people on the team to compensate for the 5th bad player because he's feeding the other team such an extraordinary amount of gold and xp.
In most games playing 4+noob vs 5 is basically like playing 4v5, but with DotA it's more like playing 4v6 once you account for all the extra stuff the other team gets. And since people don't like losing, they get very hostile when they realize that they're in such a situation.
You used the example of a 5v5 basketball pickup game, I used to play those all the time and it didn't matter if one of the players was a noob, what's the worst that can happen? You're never worse off in basketball by playing 4+noob rather then 4 and eventually the player will learn. I've never heard of such a thing as someone insulting new players in conventional sports and if that's the norm in your neighborhood you should really consider moving somewhere where people aren't pricks.
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In a sense you're both right.
The nature of the game really punishes a team with a bad player, and good players understandably don't want to put up with it.
However, that also gives you an environment that most new players won't want to play in.
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I had the same experience. I stopped playing because the players were douchebags.
I think the game lends itself to that kind of behaviour though: their score is based on how well the team does, and if you die a lot the team suffers and therefore they suffer. It is very unfriendly for noobs, even on "noob games".
The game seemed cool enough, but the people were the worst I've ever experienced. It was simply pervasive.
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You might want to h
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The DotA and DotA clone communities make Xbo
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Eve's community (at least the forums) is pretty legendary for being jerks. People are encouraged to quit and give up their stuff. DotA (and its clones) make Eve look like a bunch of cuddly bunnies that give free hugs.
Dare I say... shameless? (Score:1, Interesting)
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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.
Just a glance at, say, the Apple section of the website shows that stuff like the release of a MINOR browser on the iPhone gets its own article [slashdot.org]. Why shouldn't the release of a game get a quick front page blurb, especially because the Warcraft map that this
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I did a double-take to check that it wasn't either a World of Warcraft clone or expansion. From the website graphic design to the gameplay video, it's not hard to guess where their inspiration came from.
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Supports Linux (Score:3, Interesting)
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Co-insides with Multiplay I39 (Score:1)
Heroes of Noteworthy.. (Score:5, Insightful)
This worth the news simply cause this is one of the few decent looking games for linux.
Any linux purist (i.e. someone who has no dual boot) who likes computer (as opposed to console) games should try this, yes all ten of you.
If not for any other reason then to encourage more developers to do this.
If more developers do this it will indirectly improve code quality, cause programming a multi platform game/software requires a certain level of code quality.
I hope linux and windows client here are developed separately.
I still prefer League Of Legends, mainly for it's more lighthearted design.
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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.
Mod parent UP (Score:1, Troll)
This guy doesn't deserve a Troll mod at all. He is just presenting a his position and view of the current state in a polite way.
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Answer me just one question first: is this a true port or did they "port" it using WINE? All due respect to developers who even acknowledge Linux (then again, in this day and age, how can you *not* acknowledge Linux?), and to the WINE developers, but I'm not willing to run some half-assed, DirectX l
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If you can stand the LOL graphics.
Beleive it or not, LOL is more geared to casual gamers. It's not really for the super-competitive demographic HON is geared towards. Last hitting in LOL gets you about 1/2 the gold you would get in HON. Also, LOL gives more gold per tick. Honestly, LOL is like HON with bad graphics on EM (easy mode).
So, LOL is you want an easy learning curve, HON if your willing to put in the time, or you already know all the DOTA characters.
Re:Dota based game that already exists... (Score:4, Insightful)
And this attitude is exactly why people will play LoL over HoN.
Elitist attitudes are never welcome in any game. It's why I will play TF2 & DoD but not CS:S.
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And which of those games currently has over 66000 players online [steampowered.com] (combining both versions)?
It seems that your stance doesn't extend to the gaming community at large.
Re:Dota based game that already exists... (Score:4, Insightful)
I never said it did. Your attitude seems to echo exactly why I don't play. Your taking the amount of players as the quality of the game.
WoW has much more players than CS:S online, but I still rate WoW as a pile of dog shit because of elitist attitudes.
The more you struggle to justify the reason the play a game the more you reinforce mine (and many other's) stances toward games taken over by elitists.
Thank you for doing my job for me.
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Let's go over your contribution to this discussion:
I disagree that the attitudes of the userbase will drive players from one game to another in huge numbers. As evidence I present the relative player numbers for CS and TF2.
It may be true for some people but it certainly isn't a general rule.
Where did I say that
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WoW has much more players than CS:S online, but I still rate WoW as a pile of dog shit because of elitist attitudes.
What you are trying to say is that you are too good for WoW? Or perhaps that you are too elite for it?
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I'm bemused to see WoW described as "elitist" - it's a popular game because it offer something easy that your average guy (or occasionally girl) wants. Most of the millions of players are rather casual.
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I once did play it back in beta, many moons ago, but left after 1.5 due to it turning into a hang out for pre-teens and elitist dickheads.
My argument isn't that the game is superior, it's about the community. I dare say that any game that's name includes "promode" would attract a large number of elitist, not that I've played it.
You know, games are meant to be fun, not having some whiny 12 year old tell you that you fucked up because you're not a twitch hound (I'm getting on in the years now).
This is highly
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> other than betraying your desire to troll.
I had had the impression he jumped on the opportunity to post something which is written in a language graphically closer to Kvikkalkul and whose contents are almost totally opaque except to hardcore gamers (maybe even only hardcore FPS gamers).
Mod Parent Up (Score:2)
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Last hitting in LOL gets you about 1/2 the gold you would get in HON.
Then it's still too much. The giant gold bounty you get for killing an enemy hero sets up self-reinforcing success and severely reduces the chances of a given game staying competitive for any large proportion of the total duration.
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HON if your willing to put in the time
I have to say, and this echoes to others comments, that if you DON'T know DOTA, HON may not be the place to put in your time.
I have had a beta key since last summer (when they were being given out by /. [slashdot.org]) and the community has made it so I have not played in 4-5 months. In HON, matches that are flagged for noobs are loaded with assholes that will trash you mercilessly when they realize you in fact are a noob. I had heard of DOTA, but not owning or having interest in buying W3, I never played it, thus I had n
DotA legacy (Score:2)
HoN is a game which refused to change the game to something new and instead decided that every single decision made by the creators of DotA was sacred.
Does things like last-hitting your own minions an not scaling casters in any meaningful way with money really improve the game?
Heck, they don't even let ranged heroes get life-steal.
The most annoying thing is that getting killed still makes you not only be denied experience, give the opponent team money and experience and increased lane control and increased
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Well, it's hardly surprising. A lot of those mechanics were due to how the core WC3 engine worked, and HoN is made by people who when realizing that their own games arn't very popular, wanted to make an exact copy of the rather popular DotA.
League of Legends on the other hand is intended to be a sequel and the developers seems to hope to create something better then DotA rather then just making a clone of something they already did.
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uh, there are plenty of changes to this game. Orb stacking change, new heroes, new unique abilities never seen in DoTA (Zephyr), courier abilities, reconnecting, stats, matchmaking, maps, new graphics for well known models, lots of balancing with items.
None of those are significant gameplay changes. The closest to a real gameplay change in your list is that orbs stack, and probably the only reason they never did in any Warcraft III maps is because that's how the game engine worked and there was no way to change that.
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Have you even played HoN? It doesn't seem like it... or maybe just a couple Easy Mode games?
"Does things like last-hitting your own minions an not scaling casters in any meaningful way with money really improve the game?"
What? I'm not even sure what you're trying to say. Are you saying denying against a caster enemy is pointless because they aren't as gold dependent? If so, that's not true. While it may not hurt a caster as much as a carry, it's far from pointless.
"Heck, they don't even let ranged heroes get life-steal."
Huh? There are numerous items that grant life stealing to ranged heroes. In fact only one of the life stealing items is melee only.
"The most annoying thing is that getting killed still makes you not only be denied experience, give the opponent team money and experience and increased lane control and increased ganking opportunities, it also makes you lose money."
If the penalty for dying was any less tha
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League of Legends rewards 45 minutes of farming, and then seeing whoever is the better Ashe player.
This reeks of a player who hasn't gotten into the higher brackets of LoL's ELO system and probably has tried a few low level games. At higher ELO levels (which essentially is the rating system that LoL's matchmaking system uses to ensure that matches are as even as possible), the gameplay becomes very competitive and most of the teams you fight are premade teams with voice comms and everything.
-This gives all heroes certain roles, it allows for different strategies that must be executed right or you will lose the game.
The thing about HoN is exactly what the parent said -- the strategies must be executed right or you will lose the
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Beta tester since release, played it fairly casually however.
I don’t want to get into a big discussion on various game play aspects, all ill say is that many aspects of DotA/HoN that seem tedious are in fact fairly core parts of the game play that add depth. I think there is room for a few games that are not streamlined/simplified to appeal to the widest audience possible.
As for the community, elitistism is definitely rampant, but I don’t believe DotA was any different. These games are not casua
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Well, when you don't have to spend any time on game design or art direction because you're ripping everything off I suppose you have quite a lot of extra time to spend on networking features. A lot of the features also comes from the fact everything is centrally hosted which is not something most companies want to pay for.
A lot of popular multiplayer games were at their core designed for singleplayer, the game engines of Counterstrike, Call of Duty, Bad Company etc get most of their sales from people that j
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Last-hitting your own creeps is something that adds strategic depth and skill to the game. It makes laning much more competitive.
The reason casters don't scale late game is because they're extremely powerful early game. A hero like Pyromancer or Thunderbringer can kill half the heroes in the game with their spell combinations early to mid game. If there were no late game downside to picking heroes like this none would pick anything else.
And rang
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HoN and DotA on high levels means standing around behind your opponents reach and shooting your own minions, games just drag on and on since no one dares make a move or they will lose what little cash they have scrambled together.
The more you play the hon, the more aggressive it gets.
Rage on! (Score:1)
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Seemingly this game is what happens when trolls actually participate in the community.
No, you've just stumbled onto a community of trolls. I've been playing the closed beta since early last year, and while I give mad props to the developers for supporting Linux (even 64-bit!), I don't feel motivated to buy the game. HoN isn't fun unless I'm playing an in-house game with people I know, because the rest of the HoN community is too worried about their precious e-peens.
Epic LoL vs. HoN War! (Score:2)
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(And I do say that as one of those spoiled LoL players.)
Client download? (Score:1)
heroes of newerth great for linux (Score:1)
Savage from S2 Games is still available (Score:2)
HoN is a GREAT game - easy to play, hard to master (Score:1)
Never played DOTA.... (Score:1)
I didn't get into Warcraft3 (that's where DOTA is from, right?) because of the "heroes" or whatever they had that made gameplay immensely boring.
How does DOTA compare to say, Starcraft? That's my favorite RTS to this point... does it have a high learning curve?
I'll check it out if it's worth checking out. S2 made Savage2 and I really love that game.
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For new players (Score:1)
Linux Client (Score:2)
You know, I downloaded this last night. Even though my Linux machine has hardware perfectly capable of gaming (it's my fastest machine right now, as I use it for all my desktop use), I normally keep a Windows machine seperate to play games on. Seeing this have a Linux client peeked my interest though. I downloaded it to my Ubuntu 9.10 machine and spun it up.
And it worked great. Downloaded as a single .sh installer. Sadly Ubuntu apparently by default associates .sh with gedit so I had to drop the a term