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 6)
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on Jul 24, 2009

Aroddo
I played a bit more with HoN and even submitted some bugs ... and then I found out that they were features ..........

You know Demigod or any other RTS game, ok? Soon after release some balance changes happen, often leaving the cool parts nerfed.

Not HoN!

HoN is nerfed from the start!!

For example:

You have to destroy the enemy buildings, right? So it makes perfect sense to ... make buildings immune to hero spells. Got a fireball? Forget it, buildings can't be attacked with spells.

You got cool combat area effect spells? That's nice, but they don't work against certain units like ... catapults? Fire immune wooden catapults?

You managed to sneak into the enemy base and want to take out their critical buildings? Hah, silly you. Those buildings are invulnerable! At least until something happens (I suspect it must be hit by a normal critter beforehand).

Ok, there may be perfectly sensible reasons they had to make buildings and siege units magic immune (or whatever), but this just doesn't feel right.

Instead of coming up with a battle system that makes sense (in a I-hit---you-hurt kinda sense), it starts with a bag full of compromises.

 

The buildings and catapults can't be hit by spells because that's how DotA worked--because that's how WC3 rolled. It doesn't have to make sense as much as be totally similar to DotA.

Trying to sneak into the enemy base and blow up a couple buildings, a.k.a., Backdooring, is highly frowned upon by the DotA community. Thus, buildings are invincible until you have (in dota) killed the towers in front of them or (in HoN, as I understand it) killed all towers and troops in front of them. The reason for this largely dealt with characters who could move quickly and invisibly or teleport (weaver+pitlord could easily knock out your Throne in a long, drawn out game with all the towers stripped out) lurking until the enemy side pushed, and then rushing their Throne and breaking it a.s.a.p.

As for the camera... Demigod has spoiled me. I feel trapped every time I LAN DotA with my brother. Which, thanks to the wonderful community so many people have described, is all the time I spend on the game. Will not be checking out HoN.

on Jul 24, 2009

Agreed, Tactical Zoom isn't just a special effect or a dot point on the back of the box for me any more, it's a requirement of RTS games in general. The narrow viewing area that Dune 2 and all RTS games since then have used is no longer acceptable.

on Jul 25, 2009

pseudomelon

 
The buildings and catapults can't be hit by spells because that's how DotA worked--because that's how WC3 rolled. It doesn't have to make sense as much as be totally similar to DotA.

Trying to sneak into the enemy base and blow up a couple buildings, a.k.a., Backdooring, is highly frowned upon by the DotA community. Thus, buildings are invincible until you have (in dota) killed the towers in front of them or (in HoN, as I understand it) killed all towers and troops in front of them. The reason for this largely dealt with characters who could move quickly and invisibly or teleport (weaver+pitlord could easily knock out your Throne in a long, drawn out game with all the towers stripped out) lurking until the enemy side pushed, and then rushing their Throne and breaking it a.s.a.p.

Ah, that's why. It really is a consequence of simply copying DotA without any real change. Or rather: Demigod really IS a different game and not simply a DotA clone - just like GPG always had to say in their interviews.

ZehDon
Agreed, Tactical Zoom isn't just a special effect or a dot point on the back of the box for me any more, it's a requirement of RTS games in general. The narrow viewing area that Dune 2 and all RTS games since then have used is no longer acceptable.

 

yah, the camera is so awesome. And rationalizing the deficits of having to play in close-up zoom is simply backward.

on Jul 25, 2009

I am seeing alot of people who think some things are strange just because demigod does it differently. Flag capping is very important in demigod, and as such i feel a pretty big part of the strategy revolves around the capruting of flags. Where as in HoN i bet you just beat eachother up and hit a tower once in a while. League of legends does much the same (to no suprise)

 

But they are different games. Sure, the tactical zoom has spoiled us.. But not being able to hit towers with spells could simply be a thing of ballance. Since there are no flags, and creeps never really get a issue, if you could drop the towers in 3 seconds with your skills, the games wouldnt last much longer then 5 minutes. Is it fun? who knows.. Its still a beta, things may change (i mean, thats the reason to beta stuff). Personally i think i might enjoy all the games of this genre, as im not the kind of guy who likes one, and to do that hates all other games of its kind

on Jul 25, 2009

Ceeshond
But they are different games. Sure, the tactical zoom has spoiled us.. But not being able to hit towers with spells could simply be a thing of ballance. Since there are no flags, and creeps never really get a issue, if you could drop the towers in 3 seconds with your skills, the games wouldnt last much longer then 5 minutes. Is it fun? who knows.. Its still a beta, things may change (i mean, thats the reason to beta stuff). Personally i think i might enjoy all the games of this genre, as im not the kind of guy who likes one, and to do that hates all other games of its kind

They could also just have rebalanced the towers. I am no DOTA fan (anymore), but by no means do I criticize it just to flame, but this is just poor game making (in HoN I mean). Why copy DOTA all the way? They could have atleast redone the flaws of DOTA so that they are improved. I don't think not being able to use spells on a tower is a good thing.

As if a demigod or hero would think: "Hmm that tower is owning my ass, I must defeat it. I know! I'll just pummel it with my stick for 5 minutes!" Wouldn't it be much more logical for a hero or demigod to give the tower all its wrath of power and mana? I do not blame WC3 for this, that game was made for RTS not for a mod like DOTA, but HoN should have done it better.

 

Also, playing non-zoomable RTS's now makes me feel claustrophobic.

on Jul 25, 2009

Well, if they didn't just straight up copy DotA, how would the DotA veterans insult everyone else for not having been playing the game for 5 years already?

 

I kind of wonder if the devs actually want the godawful community there, or if they're just stuck with it and don't know how to fix it.

on Jul 25, 2009

Once again, I don't wanna sound like I'm flaming, but I think they just want to cash in, and let the community bitch at eachother. If they would have any passion for their own game they would've atleast changed a couple of things.

on Jul 25, 2009

MisterHankey
this game will suffer the same fate as Battle Realms.  Google the game if you don't know it.

DemiGod is a blatant rip off of Battle Realms and will die like it, 2 years after release.  Within 1 year of release date, numbers will decline due to publishers attention elsewhere (like UbiSoft killed BR).

 

 

Lolz. Apparently you don't know anything about Stardock...

on Jul 25, 2009

I played Heroes of Newerth,and League of Legends,but still Demigod is my favorite,HoN has a great connectivity,thats all i like about it,and LoL is better then HoN but not so fun like Demigod...if Demigod would have been free game,it was nr. 1 game with great community and 10.000 users at least online...

on Jul 25, 2009

To be fair, the HoN guys try to seperate the veteran and noob community by certain matchmaking restrictions (has something to do with successful players not being able to join games containing noobs or so).

 

By the way, how is LoL compared to HoN or DotA?

Graphics seem worse than HoN. Does this game improve in any way on the DotA gameplay?

on Jul 25, 2009

By the way, how is LoL compared to HoN or DotA?

the NDA says we cant give feedback, although we can tell you we are in the beta.

on Jul 26, 2009

StAcK3D_ActR

By the way, how is LoL compared to HoN or DotA?
the NDA says we cant give feedback, although we can tell you we are in the beta.

Ok. Would make sense if LoL does some things differently. HoN would be caught with it's knickers down.

on Jul 26, 2009

Primal Zed

I didn't read everything, just some quick browsing, but I didn't see either of them say that the games shouldn't be compared, simply that there are significant differences.  A lot of what I saw was more a review of the various games rather than conclusions drawn from direct one-to-one comparisons.

Yep, you're right. Missread the Superman/Batman thing and felt the other was implyed, but it wasn't. My bad

This is why skimming is bad kids

 

StAcK3D_ActR

the NDA says we cant give feedback, although we can tell you we are in the beta.

 

Good to know. Are we allowed to at least say "I am/am not enjoying it?".

on Jul 26, 2009

Good to know. Are we allowed to at least say "I am/am not enjoying it?".

hehe, better err on the side of caution.

S2 said it's ok to talk about HoN so they must feel confident by now.

Wouldn't be nice to let word out that LoL is worse than HoN before they have time to react to internal criticism.

on Jul 26, 2009

Inches

Lolz. Apparently you don't know anything about Stardock...

Except that it's GPG who actually creates new content for Demigod, not Stardock. There's some people (myself included) wondering what GPG is actually doing given the absolute silence from them since the networking stuff was fixed.

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