inGame footage of various games. In the future I hope to add reviews. ^_^

Heroes of Newerth:


(That's an older youtube vid I found. I'm not allowed to publish new material from the beta.)


A beta-leak video review of HoN (German). Shows you much of the lobby interface and other features.

 

League of Legends:


Gametrailers preview of LoL.

 


An official trailer for LoL.


A video review of LoL (english). Not sure if leaked or sanctioned.

 

DotA (Defense of the Ancients)

 


Some DotA video. I honestly couldn't find ANY good gameplay video for Dota. Most vids are simply my-dick-is-BIG demonstrations accompanied by some shitty trash metal soundtrack or something bombastic (like, US-marine corp recruitment orchestrals or Carmina Burana). Sorry. If you can recommend a good DotA video I'll put it up.

 

 

Demigod:


Demigod showcase video featuring Lord Erebus.

Demigod showcase video featuring Queen of Thorns. Probably not office safe.

 

For those that don't know what HoN or LoL are: Both are DotA clones. If you don't know what DotA is then google it.

First HoN impressions:

  • Graphics
    Looks like Warcraft 3 (i.e. old, cheap, candy colored comic look). Seems much smoother, though. Less jerky scrolling. Any comparison to Demigod would be unfair. It's like comparing Superman to Batman - both are great in their environment but if you'd match them up against each other Superman would wipe the floor with Batmans ass from two cities away.
    Has a limited zoom (i.e. you can zoom in a bit and back, but not out) and a functional minimap.
  • Interface
    Just like DotA, i'd say. Bottom quarter of the screen is occupied by artwork, skills, hero stats and the minimap. I'd call it functional but totally ripped of from Warcraft (which isn't necessarily bad). Very small icons and text. Hard to read and the tooltips have much text. Demigod is downright minimalistic in comparison.
  • Heroes
    A large selection of heroes ... too many to grasp the gist of them in the short time I played it. Not all heroes were implemented yet but it looks like they planned for a 60 heroes cast. Each hero seems to have four different skills you can improve as you gain levels, plus the ability to simply improve your attributes. The skills are either passive or active and have a cooldown timer similar to DG. But since some heroes can have several passive skills out of a set of four, that can mean that you are left with a meager single one active skill, like the tosser I picked (Magebane or something). Kinda like Oooze UB without foul grasp.
    However the skills some heroes have do things that are not seen in Demigod. Some manipulate the map (by planting obstacles(walls) and some move the enemy against their will. Some passive skills trigger a damage effect everytime you use an active skill.
  • Maps
    Think Warcraft again. Mazes with trees and rocks marking the boundary. Or think Demigod maps with boring graphics. They ain't really that different from the DG mazes ... just more "realistic" and much larger.
  • Players
    Lot's of open games in the lobby. Some fairly large ones, too (I think 5v5 is max). If you've played DotA before then you'll have no problems finding friends. If you only played Demigod before, then you'll think the HoN community is a bag of arseholes because you'll likely be taking your first stumbling steps with dota veterant that are not exactly renowned for their forgiving attitude towards noobs. Luckily there's a fuck-filter in the chat.
  • Economy
    Killing stuff earns you XP and gold. You can buy equipment in shops. No base building, but your base starts with several buildings that don't offer any interaction, though. Creeps spawn in certain buildings and run on lanes to the enemy base, which should sound familiar.
  • Death & Dying
    You get automatically resurrected after some time. You can, however, shorten the wait time by paying a moderate amount of gold, which is actually an interesting feature. Similar to DG, there's a Healing Crystal equivalent, something that had to be pointed out to me in the Demigod forum (thanks, dude).
  • Gameplay
    Weeeeeeeeell .... I sucked in my first game and got promptly verbaly punished for being a noob. This doesn't help endear you to the game, so my perceptions may be flawed. But my first impression was: I can't zoom out (I swear, after playing Demigod I think it's impossible to enjoy RTS games without a God-Eye-Zoom)!
    In addition to the fixed camera height you have a considerably larger map and a faster movement speed than experienced in Demigod and you can't help feeling confused and disoriented. The creeps are stronger in comparison to DG creeps (but then those puny heroes are no half-gods). There is no health crystal. I think the only way to heal up is to buy potions. At least you can buy more than three per slot.
    The game is fast paced but not so fast that you'll experience instant death right from the start. You'll have plenty of time to decide that a battle is a lost cause and run for the towers.
    And your job? Easy, kill and destroy. No flags, no warscore (although there are other gamemodes that might have something similar). The only thing you can do is find creeps or heroes and kill them. And find enemy buildings and destroy them. That's it.
  • Game Modes
    There are only custom games. No skirmish or pantheon. No single player mode and (currently) no bots to solo against. Many possible options to setup a custom game. And the features the lobby offers are something to be seen. Feels like a database browser (i.e. comfortable and powerful).
  • Replays
    They work. Take that, Demigod!
  • Community
    It's a new game so you'd expect the community to be new also. But it's not. It's mostly DotA veterans that got a bit frustrated with the aged Warcraft 3 engine and wanted something, er, newish. Someone in the HoN forums summed it up pretty much: "I'm actually pretty surprised by this community. So far it's been very hard to find nice people. Most players - particularly those with Dota experience are incredibly rude to all players."
    The Demigod community certainly has it's share of unfriendlies, but as a whole it's quite amiable. Maybe this will change with the rise of competetive play.

Bottom line: Graphically it's definetly a step down when compared to Demigod. But noticably better than DotA. It's really really running smooooooothly. If you consider the small DG roster Demigod's biggest drawback, then HoN might seem attractive. The complexity and detail of each hero is lower than that of any one Demigod. It's also extremely beginner unfriendly. And even though Demigod didn't have any kind of tutorial either, you grasp the gist of DG way faster than that of HoN. HoN is clearly aimed at DotA players. It looks so similar to DotA that fanboys might as well stay there.

It's still in beta so many things will change. The strongest point of HoN is it's large hero rooster. Apart from that I don't think the Demigod has much to fear.

But since it's an early test phase, I'll certainly give it another try. I can endure the "F*CKING _NOOB" for a time, hehehehe.

 


Comments (Page 14)
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on Aug 18, 2009

Aroddo
I wonder if the improvements of HoN over DotA are worth it in the minds of the beta testers. As far as I heard, the bulk of the improvements and changes are in the lobby - the matchmaking system. 

This sounds ... underwhelming.

HoN has one of the most advanced multiplayer systems I have ever seen.  The thing is that they host ALL games on their servers and the clients gets data only on a need to know basis (not fully implemented yet, but they say soon).  This makes bandwith use a lot lower and it makes hacking (even simple maphacks) absolutely impossibile as the client actually does not have the data of what is in the fog.  Add to that game reconnect on drop - which I already had opportunity to use and it fcking rocks, unbelivably stable and fast, Win, Linux and Mac OS X clients, advanced filtering of games by options... and those are just the improvements on the so to say backend. 

HoN also has a very very nicely implemented single draft and or random draft systems, full stats tracking, automatching (not yet implemented), ban lists and rock solid community features just to mention some improvements, so I think there are plenty of feautures that making it worth it.

How exactly are they planning on selling HoN, out of curiosity? I know LoL wants to use micropayments, which means I'll never touch the accursed thing.

They also just made a preorder available, 30$, can purchase from anywhere, lifetime server access.  IMO its a good value at that price - I already purchased just to support S2 cause they sure as hell deserve it.

on Aug 18, 2009

The game will be $30.  Preorder Today for these bonus:

 

Reserve your Beta Nickname and Account

Ability to Taunt in Game

Special In-Game Icon

Unique Chat Name Color

Beta Invites for your friends

on Aug 18, 2009

whoot ??????

 

30$ for Dota Reloaded  ????

 

ive thought the main game is for free and players can buy some goodies for real money ??

on Aug 18, 2009

DemiCom
whoot ??????

 

30$ for Dota Reloaded  ????

 

ive thought the main game is for free and players can buy some goodies for real money ??

You are thinking of league of legends, HoN is $30, LoL is "free".

 

I have been playing the HoN beta over the last week. Its a much faster and more team based game than DG. It only took me a couple of games to get the fee of it and there are always HEAPS of noob only games so you are never forced to play against people way over your skill level.

Yes the community is worse the DG and you always seem to get a 1337 dota-fag on your team but as soon as you remind them that it is a noob only game that they have joind they will either shut up or help you out so thats ok. Also it records your leave rate so people very rarely rage quit on you.

on Aug 19, 2009

i have started to play the beta just recently thanks to mr. haze who kindly sent me a key, and i must say, i have never played dota before, but the thing is, i dont need to play dota to see that HoN is a complete replica,  the interface is so wc3 alike, and often times in places where it actually not suited to this kind of game. now, it maybe was acceptable in dota, but if the devs wanted to go out of the wc3 engine constrains, why havent they done so?

just the smallest little example - your hero is not defaulted to hold ground upon reaching its place, i mean, in an rts its totally acceptable while you are managing several units, but in a game like this? why would i want my hero to chase creeps out of the safe zone and into the enemy hands while i take my eyes off my hero for a second? there are many more small unlogical things like this that makes you wonder what the hell they were thinking, or to be precise, why the hell havent they actually took the time think and just straight forward copied dota.

the graphics: well, its obvious that a game can be good even if the gfx sucks, see dwarf fortress for example, but hmm, its not about the quality of the gfx as a beauty factor that bother me here, but more like the gfx as a game enhancer, for example, in demigod, you can instantly distinguish the demigods from creeps and other demigods, thats beacause the true greatness in demigod gfx is not in the little pretty textures the demigods and creeps has, but in the smart concept art that created a unique silohete for each creep and demigod.

but the thing is, HoN is light years ahead from Demigod in terms of multiplayer options, and options that, i feel, are totally neccesary to this kind of game.

HoN has a lot more content, even tho the demigods themself has more freedom to mold your way, and there are citadel upgrades that add strategy, the actual thing is that there are only few ways to build a demigod that are the best builds and therefore takes the demigods complexity advantage from HoN with its many heros and items.

my conclusion is that in terms of potential, demigod has so much more potential to live up too, and if the modding community and the devs would add more content, along multiplayer enhancment, there will be no reason to play HoN.

and about that "no need to choose a game, and we could all just play along debate" - sorry, its Bs, only few has time to play these two similar games, and if i wanna jump between games i'd jump between demigod/HoN to a diff game like an Fps or an actuall Rts/Tbs.

it is a comptetion between demigod and HoN which only one can win, the two cant live peacfully side to side along each other.

and with StarCraft2 coming soon, which will probably spawn a new Dota based on that, i cant see any reason as of this moment to pay 30$ to a dota clone, but i can see a reason to pay 40 to a dota inspired game.

on Aug 19, 2009

just the smallest little example - your hero is not defaulted to hold ground upon reaching its place, i mean, in an rts its totally acceptable while you are managing several units, but in a game like this? why would i want my hero to chase creeps out of the safe zone and into the enemy hands while i take my eyes off my hero for a second? there are many more small unlogical things like this that makes you wonder what the hell they were thinking, or to be precise, why the hell havent they actually took the time think and just straight forward copied dota.

mate. that was in dota aswell. lol.

on Aug 19, 2009

mate, thats exactly my point, read again 

on Aug 19, 2009

Don't know why everyone is so confident about Starcraft 2 spawning a new dota.  Starcraft doesn't really lend itself well to dota type based games (or moba as they call them now) - no heroes, no experience, no items.  Tower defense, bunker defense...sure.  DotA SC...don't think so.

But most likely, someone will think of something new that will be the rage.

..or we're all just gonna stick to base gameplay

on Aug 19, 2009

well, the SC2 editor is supposed to be really advanced..

and check this out - http://www.starcraftzine.com/2008/10/starcraft-2-dota/

and.. if you have the time, patience and mental strentgh, check this - http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=11829509611&sid=3000&pageNo=1

on Aug 19, 2009

Misfortune
Don't know why everyone is so confident about Starcraft 2 spawning a new dota.  

 

Someone feel free to step in and correct my history lesson, but from what I understood, Dota isn't the 1st of it's kind. Dota is supposedly based on AoS (Aeon of Strife) which was created for Starcraft and is the grandpappy of our new spin off genre... TCG.

on Aug 19, 2009

Bloodsoda

Quoting Misfortune, reply 203Don't know why everyone is so confident about Starcraft 2 spawning a new dota.  
 

Someone feel free to step in and correct my history lesson, but from what I understood, Dota isn't the 1st of it's kind. Dota is supposedly based on AoS (Aeon of Strife) which was created for Starcraft and is the grandpappy of our new spin off genre... TCG.

This is correct. Moreover, DotA was not the first nor the only of its kind in WC3. There were several others, though they were all much less popular.

on Aug 20, 2009

Being as all of Blizzard's RTS games come with the World Editor suite, and the popularity of Starcraft, I'd be willing to wager the first Aeons of Strife remake or sequel would be a mere handful of hours after the launch of Starcraft II.

on Aug 20, 2009

2 days tops.

on Aug 20, 2009

I stand corrected then - didn't expect them to make levelling possible just to enable DotA style maps.  I guess it will play some role in the campaign.  I apologize, this most definitely means there will be a DotA SC

on Aug 20, 2009

ZehDon
Being as all of Blizzard's RTS games come with the World Editor suite, and the popularity of Starcraft, I'd be willing to wager the first Aeons of Strife remake or sequel would be a mere handful of hours after the launch of Starcraft II.

I read somewhere that IceFrog, the person maintaining dota currently, has beta access to the world map editor already.  Other people might get early access as well so a dota might be ready right at launch.

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