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Heroes of Newerth |OT| Free-To-Play [PC /Mac /Linux]

blitz64

blitz64

Member
4585626678_5f1b97741a.jpg


Developer: S2 Games
Platform: PC / Mac / Linux
Price: Free
Genre: rts / rpg
Release Date: May 12 2010
Where: Available online only at http://www.heroesofnewerth.com

About HoN:

In Heroes of Newerth, two teams of up to five players each take on the role of special Hero units. With the assistance of AI-controlled armies, each team sets out with the sole objective of destroying the other team's base. As a match progresses, players can earn experience and gold which can be used to upgrade skills or purchase items to make their character more powerful. The team-oriented design of HoN coupled with unprecedented in-game Voice-Over-IP controls and Clan Support allow for an incredibly deep, tactical team-based experience.

Features:
  • Dozens of playable Hero characters, over 100 items as well as regular content updates to ensure no two games of HoN will ever be the same.
  • Client/Server Architecture eliminates lag, cheats and map hacking
  • Quick reconnect feature allows players to jump right back into their game should they get disconnected
  • In-game VOIP for fast and easy communication with teammates
  • Game archives and replay support for all games played on official servers
  • Built upon the proprietary K2 engine to deliver enhanced graphics while maintaining low system specs
  • Powerful map editor and mod capabilities

Official Trailers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebD-3RVt_9g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8i2YCRBuo9g

Screenshots:
4588296496_1cb3c0acdb_o.jpg


4588296470_91700c5599_o.jpg


4588296446_e0e5b17fee_o.jpg


4562028104_1f0b54c2bb_b.jpg
 
C

cooljeanius

Member
Just downloaded the beta and tried it out. Only played DotA single player, so I still haven't really gotten used to this, either, even after doing the tutorial.
 
E

erpg

GAF parliamentarian
Hopefully I man up and start playing more once it hits retail. Not having to deal with SEA players will definitely help.
 
blitz64

blitz64

Member
Major patch 0.3.6 is out. New features I like are:

- Matchmaking is now BD
- Added Balphagore as a dev hero. Must host games with the dev hero option enabled to play him
- Matchmaking 2.0
- Double Tap returns


- Added "Hardcore Mode" advanced game option
* No passive gold/sec gain
* A creep/hero deny results in 0 experience for the enemy team
* A tower deny results in 0 gold for the enemy team
- "Item Drop" advanced game option now drops all items on death.
* Items dropped on death cannot be picked up by couriers, sold, or killed on the ground.
* Items dropped on death can be picked up and used by anyone.
 
M

Magicked

Member
Nice, it has a Mac and Linux client. I'm going to have to try this out.

I used to play a lot of Dota a few years ago, but I'm sure I'm very rusty now.
 
blitz64

blitz64

Member
New patch 1.0.0 is out with another new strength hero Gauntlet.
Today is release day so there are about 20,000 players online. Still a great number compared to beta.
 
J

JRPereira

Member
We don't have any plans for a Steam release currently.

Release day went about as smoothly as possible - bunch of sales, concurrent player count was much higher than I thought it might be. The latest code and commits I put together went through just about flawlessly and there weren't many issues with everyone else's stuff. Good stuff overall. Hope we see similar daily sales for the rest of the week - and a spike during the weekend.

We'll be patching whatever bugs exist and cleaning up whatever balance issues exist over the next patch or few, and obviously there's lots of extra content planned that we're still putting together/polishing/etc.
 
E

eosos

Banned
Why buy this with SC2 coming out. There will be better DotA based mods for it.
I kinda hate HoN. All of the units seem the same and I just can't get into it. I'm a heavy dota player though so I may be a little biased.
 
blitz64

blitz64

Member
eosos said:
Why buy this with SC2 coming out. There will be better DotA based mods for it.
I kinda hate HoN. All of the units seem the same and I just can't get into it. I'm a heavy dota player though so I may be a little biased.
Click to expand...

I will be buying both SC2 and HoN. If there are a good dota map in sc2, i'll play it but it can be months/years before something like that happens. Icefrog won't be doing it since he is working on his own game.

HoN has leaver protection, stats, and a balanced game (no pub stomps). You can never get these out of a mod.

I had no issue finding a game to play tonight, it felt just like closed beta. Any leaks on numbers sold? Idejer said a many thousand copies sold first day.
 
A

AbortedWalrusFetus

Member
I pre-ordered like a week or so ago. I've been playing since open beta started on and off. Once you get used to it it's a huge improvement over DotA. Some of my favorite DotA heroes are not in it though. Traxex and the Centaur Warchief guy both didn't make it. I use Pyro, Blacksmith, and Accursed now, mostly. I like Engineer too.
 
E

erpg

GAF parliamentarian
I'm glad the game is still pulling in pretty huge numbers daily. It'll only get bigger!

Now, I just need to man up and play. :lol
 
J

JWong

Banned
delirium said:
$30 one time payment.
Click to expand...
meh
eosos said:
Why buy this with SC2 coming out. There will be better DotA based mods for it.
I kinda hate HoN. All of the units seem the same and I just can't get into it. I'm a heavy dota player though so I may be a little biased.
Click to expand...
That's exactly why there isn't any point paying for this. The other game is far more diverse and progressive, and if you want to play DotA, just play Warcraft 3 DotA.
 
spootime

spootime

Member
AbortedWalrusFetus said:
I pre-ordered like a week or so ago. I've been playing since open beta started on and off. Once you get used to it it's a huge improvement over DotA. Some of my favorite DotA heroes are not in it though. Traxex and the Centaur Warchief guy both didn't make it. I use Pyro, Blacksmith, and Accursed now, mostly. I like Engineer too.
Click to expand...

Traxex pretty much made it, check out Arachna.
 
J

JWong

Banned
noisome07 said:
You were only playing for free because it was closed/open beta. 30$ is nothing. One time fee. No monthly fees or cash shop bullshit. It's awesome.
Click to expand...
There are games that are free and better than HoN.
 
J

JoeMartin

Member
eosos said:
Why buy this with SC2 coming out. There will be better DotA based mods for it.
I kinda hate HoN. All of the units seem the same and I just can't get into it. I'm a heavy dota player though so I may be a little biased.
Click to expand...

I have sincere doubts there will ever be an SC2 DotA - attempts will be made but I don't believe anything genuine will ever come of it. Icefrog is doing his Valve thing and porting the game would take a tremendous amount of effort (remember that DotA is the culmination of years of work, and that a good, balanced copy of DotA will take just as much effort as the original to fully come to bear). Not only that, it won't be the same game as it will be on an inherently different engine and will run into all the same problems that HoN has already overcome through millions of hours of testing (with the added benefit of having an actual development team). Just assuming that a meaningful DotA clone will materialize out of SC2 is completely naive.



JWong said:
There are games that are free and better than HoN.
Click to expand...

:lol Whatever fits your fancy. I've certainly got my $30 worth out of my hundreds of hours of play.
 
E

erpg

GAF parliamentarian
JWong said:
There are games that are free and better than HoN.
Click to expand...
Can't you just keep yourself busy in the League of Legends thread? I mean, you came around and shat over the Beta thread from time to time, but your HoN hating shtick is getting a little old.
 
K

kagete

Member
Actually Joe, I think the next Dota will be in SC2. I bet there are dozens of talented mapmakers who want to be the next euls, Guinsoo or Icefrog. There's no clear ownership and theoretically even euls or Guinsoo could go into SC2 and make Dota for it themselves. If all the rumors and insider talk about Icefrog focusing on his dota-steam port with Valve are true then I could see him ignoring SC2 completely and giving his blessing to the next talented mapmaker or S2-like company that wants to create the next dota-like.


JWong, what are these free and better multiplayer games you speak off? Do they have matchmaking, dedicated servers, community tools, and advanced statistics of HON? Are you referring to the SC2 beta? Or do you play Dota on a pirated copy of WC3?
 
M

Meeru

Banned
JoeMartin said:
I have sincere doubts there will ever be an SC2 DotA - attempts will be made but I don't believe anything genuine will ever come of it. Icefrog is doing his Valve thing and porting the game would take a tremendous amount of effort (remember that DotA is the culmination of years of work, and that a good, balanced copy of DotA will take just as much effort as the original to fully come to bear). Not only that, it won't be the same game as it will be on an inherently different engine and will run into all the same problems that HoN has already overcome through millions of hours of testing (with the added benefit of having an actual development team). Just assuming that a meaningful DotA clone will materialize out of SC2 is completely naive.





:lol Whatever fits your fancy. I've certainly got my $30 worth out of my hundreds of hours of play.
Click to expand...
Dude even Blizzard themselves were raving dota on SC2. How can there not be one.
 
J

JoeMartin

Member
kagete said:
Actually Joe, I think the next Dota will be in SC2. I bet there are dozens of talented mapmakers who want to be the next euls, Guinsoo or Icefrog. There's no clear ownership and theoretically even euls or Guinsoo could go into SC2 and make Dota for it themselves. If all the rumors and insider talk about Icefrog focusing on his dota-steam port with Valve are true then I could see him ignoring SC2 completely and giving his blessing to the next talented mapmaker or S2-like company that wants to create the next dota-like.
Click to expand...

valenti said:
Dude even Blizzard themselves were raving dota on SC2. How can there not be one.
Click to expand...

Who is going to develop it? The combination of HoN and LoL has massively raised the bar on what is to be expected from this kind of game. If it's going to again capture any meaningful audience from the DotA/HoN/LoL community x year(s) down the road from when it's actually in a playable state it's going to need to match primarily HoN feature for feature to get my attention. Disco reconnect/leaver protection alone has already spoiled me a little from what b.net "2.0" offers.

And again I maintain that recreating it in an at all balanced state will be a tremendous undertaking. DotA has been a labor of love for nearly 7 years now, and recreating it on a brand new, completely different engine isn't going to happen through sheer force of will from the DotA community. The issue of rebalancing everything aside, it's going to take a phenomenal amount of manhours worth of modeling/skinning/coding to get the whole thing going again.
 
S

Smash88

Banned
blitz64 said:
$30 is pretty low price for the average gaffer.
I bet most gaf members spends more than $30 on a weekend.

HoN is free if you live in South East Asia
http://hon.garena.com/

There will be ways to play HoN for free in the future through trial keys, demos, and free weekend plays.

There are more than 20 gaf members who bought the game. You can see who is online without buying an account
http://clans.heroesofnewerth.com/clan/GAF/members/lastOnline/DESC/1
Click to expand...

It is too much for an exact Dota clone, I mean most of the champions are exact Dota clones. If you want that just go play Dota. LoL is free to play, with microtransactions, and has a system where you can buy more champions (for free with IP you gain every match you play), so it has a nice reward system in place. It is constantly updating and a new take/fresh breath on the Dota style genre. Why would I pay $30 when there are better alternatives?

I have spent 400+ hours in LoL, and I'm loving it. Trial keys, demos, free weekend plays? Who cares, if you can't actually sit down to spend time with the game. At least with LoL I can play, while those that wish to purchase the game and get skins/champions/etc... for $30 can. I have the choice whether to purchase an exact Dota clone. With HoN, I don't, and what happens if it doesn't tickle my fancy after a couple of weeks? Then what? I spent $30 for something I don't care about. Now with LoL, after a couple of months with it, I'm willing to go out and spend a couple of $, because of the friends I've made, and the people I know already that play it constantly.

I've heard bad things about the community at HoN, where people scream at you if you even make one wrong move. I don't want to get yelled at by a 12 year old, because he thinks he has "pro skillz". With LoL, when I first started, I have never had that happen, and people are nice enough to give you tips. I'm sure there are some nice people in HoN, but reading the forums and the amount of complaints people constantly talk about new players that "ruin the game for them".....meh no thanks. Don't get me wrong, the same can be said for LoL/Dota, but the cons far outweigh the pros.

That being said, I'm sure HoN has it's little quirks and uniqueness, but for $30, when there are better alternatives, I just can't justify it.
 
N

NinjaBoyLao

Member
valenti said:
Wow just noticed this. Hunter_ resigns as CEO of esports..
http://www.mymym.com/en/news/18570.html
Click to expand...
WTF? I browsed the linked site and there is even an allegation that He's a Pedo?<_<


On topic: I'll probably wait for 2-3 months or around 3 patches before I'll decide if I will buy this game or not. I had a blast playing this game and it's counter parts(LoL and DotA). If the upcoming patches will be 80% copy pasta from any recent DotA changelog, I'll probably pass because I still play Dota in my office from time to time(yes we can play LAN games in my office) and just focus in LoL if I want something different. But if the coming patches doesn't take anything from DotA and S2 finally got the balls to make their own game, I'll definitely get this.
 
X

Xater

Member
Kapura said:
For the most part when you're new, yes. The HoN community is very rage-hard.
Click to expand...

And by that you mean for the most part the HoN community is a bunch of assholes. That's been my experience with the beta. The first time I got turned off by a game because of it's shitty community.
 
W

Won

Member
I enjoyed the beta, but playing a game takes so god damn long and now with SC2 "out" it is kinda hard to put money down for this. :(
Terrible community of course doesn't help.
 
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