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Heroes of Newerth Open Beta About To Start

Posted by Soulskill on from the getting-closer dept.

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.

14 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. Awesome! by ezbo · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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!!!

    1. Re:Awesome! by dunezone · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There are three games out there right now that follow the original gameplay style of Defense of the Ancients from Waracraft 3

      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.

    2. Re:Awesome! by devnull17 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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 anywhere else I've seen it. The game's lack of a proper matchmaking system is partially to blame, but as the OP said, a lot of it does fall on the community.

      For people who have never played HoN, it's a very complex game. There are almost a hundred characters to choose from, each with a unique set of stats and abilities. Compounding this, there are dozens of different items that you can purchase over the course of a game, and each character has its own "build order"--what the community considers to be the optimal strategy for playing a given character. Learning this for even a handful of characters is a massive undertaking, but many types of matches don't let you choose which character you'll end up playing, or even restrict the options that much. The rules of the game also very heavily punish a team for having one sub-par member--if your opponents figure out where you're weak and exploit it successfully, the balance of the game will tip very quickly.

      The result of all this is that the game heavily rewards people who spend the time to learn it, and by the same token, severely punishes people who haven't invested that level of commitment. Which is great if you think HoN is your life's calling. But for those of us who play casually, well, you can only have your sexual orientation questioned in Portuguese so many times before you decide there are more constructive things you could be doing with your free time.

      Long story short: HoN's community is unusually hardcore and unfriendly, and will certainly be an impediment to the game's mainstream adoption if certain issues are not addressed.

  2. I've joined the beta .. by PIBM · · Score: 2, 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 :)

  3. Already a DOTA replacement by Mutio · · Score: 2, Interesting

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

  4. Be warned, the community is noxious by Rix · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

    1. Re:Be warned, the community is noxious by malakai · · Score: 3, Informative

      There's a tutorial now, and an auto-matching making service for solo players ( you get dumped with 9 others into a 5v5).

      --
      -Malakai
      A Dragon Lives in my Garage
    2. Re:Be warned, the community is noxious by Celarnor · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

    3. Re:Be warned, the community is noxious by Zironic · · Score: 3, 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.

  5. Supports Linux by Andrioid · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  6. Heroes of Noteworthy.. by Martian_Kyo · · Score: 4, 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.

  7. Re:Dota based game that already exists... by sortius_nod · · Score: 3, 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.

  8. Re:DotA legacy by caeos · · Score: 2, Informative

    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 casual friendly, my advice is don’t bother playing alone, play with 1-2 friends at all times, that is what I do and I find it far more enjoyable.

    I am not a developer, but as a long time competitive multiplayer gamer I feel some of the most interesting aspects of HoN are the overall frame work of features it has:

    Full match statistic recording of every game played. (Can be viewed in game or via the web).
    Full demos that are automatically recorded that anyone can simply 'fetch' within the game and watch with full camera functions - complete media player type control over the demos.
    You can join the chat channels and stay in the channel while moving seamlessly into a game lobby and now even while the game loads in the background you can remain talking in the channel. (I have been wanting a feature like this for so many years, why must every multiplayer game force you to sit through a loading screen with no ability to communicate).
    I feel the user interface overall is fairly well designed and you can modify it to suit your taste.
    If you drop from the game you have a 5 minute window that allows you to reconnect and retain everything you had without penalty. After 5 mins you are considered kicked and your gold/items are distributed amongst your team.
    People can easily see your stats on how many games you simply disconnect from so they can make informed decisions about allowing you to play in their game. No system is perfect but this sort of thing is a nice deterrent to stop people simply bailing on every game they are not winning within the 1st 10mins.

    There are many more features, overall it just feels really well polished, game play balance will of course always be an issue that requires constant tweaking, but as far as I am concerned this is the case with most games.
    I think some game developers could learn from what the S2 team have done with HoN. Multiplayer game features seem to be going backwards, I don’t understand why a lot of what is in HoN is not simply standard for any decent multiplayer game.

    For me personally I find it a breath of fresh air that the developers actually seem to care what the community is looking for and don’t just tack everything on as an afterthought or simply ignore features altogether.

  9. Re:Dota based game that already exists... by sortius_nod · · Score: 3, 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.