Heroes of Newerth (HoN), League of Legends (LoL), DotA, Demigod - videos, facts, discussion

aroddoold

Join Date 04/2009

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Heroes of Newerth (HoN), League of Legends (LoL), DotA, Demigod - videos, facts, discussion

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.

demigod

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Been playing HoN for the last 2 weeks, I was a big fan of DoTA in WC3 so HoN naturally appeals to me.

DemiGod is simpler than HoN in terms of items and number of heroes which is both a blessing but also a curse. New players will find DemiGod much easier to pick up and start playing and get good. The simplicity becomes a problem when you want to play DemiGod more often and maybe play competitively.

Take a look at the item system in DemiGod, generally after playing a few games you learn that there is really only 1 or 2 mana items that you should ever get and then for the rest of your items you should stack hit points. In HoN, the item system is more complex, simply stacking hp items on each character is generally not the best tactical choice like in DemiGod.

DemiGod does offer some new gameplay elements such as citadel upgrades, but once again after a few games you learn that it is really only necessary to get the first gold upgrade and structure health upgrade. Then later in the game buy all the reinforcement upgrades at the same time (at least to catapults). So after a few games, both teams do exactly the same thing here.

DemiGod has capturable flags which increase its strategic depth somewhat as what flags you own can often determine the outcome of battles.

Connections: HoN hosts all games on their own servers. This architecture allows 5v5 games to be set up and played without any need to adjust your home network. You also are able to reconnect to games if you get disconnected for some reason.

DemiGod has better camera control.

Conclusion: If you don't play games that often and you really only want to play a few games casually here and there, stick with DemiGod - you'll be able to get good fast even with a limited playtime. If you play more or want competitive gameplay, you'll probably value the increased depth that HoN offers.

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Demigod will become way better, come back in a few months.

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Well the OP is completely ignorant. Stating facts that are completely wrong and innacurate. Especially when he stated you have to heal with potions....... Anyways I'm sure someone has stated this. HoN is like DotA. Has real bitch moments where all you can do is watch. That's what I love about Demigod. You don't get stunned for 10 seconds. The max is 3 and that is late game where you can atleast tank damage within those 3 seconds (usually) Typically I find Demigod less frustrating is what I'm trying to say. HoN is still a lot of fun though

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Quoting Rocky_Tooth,

reply 4

Well the OP is completely ignorant. Stating facts that are completely wrong and innacurate. Especially when he stated you have to heal with potions

Hehe, I learned here that you heal if you step in the pool. No one in HoN bothered to answer me in my first game.

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If you add last hitting/denies to the system, I won't be playing it. Does it make the game more 'skilled'? Yes. Does it make it more tedious? Absolutely.

If I wanna trash talk 14 year olds on voice chat, I'll go to LoL, but if I wanna have a decent time, I've always got Demigod.

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How's the LoL community, btw? Same as HoN?

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YMMV, but in around 35 HoN games I still haven't run into much shit by others. I've been into games where I was completely owning and in games where I was wandering how can I be so much worse than the others. Still people were decent enough for an online game. A lot less ragequits and bullshit in chat than Demigod.

Mind you, Demigod is not much better than what some say about dota people - for example I was kicked out of a game in DG just because host "didn't like my nick". There is still so much hatred and elitism both in games and on the forum in Demigod. It's just that the community is by far smaller and people get to know eachother pretty fast, so it's easier to form a group of "friends".

But the most important thing for me is that it HoN works exceedingly well and has a host of features that Demigod can dream of. The devs are also really communicative.

Demigod will become way better, come back in a few months.

HoN is already light years ahead of Demigod in features and it works. I really hope demigod gets to grow up to its potential one day cause the atmosphere and pace suits me much better (I'm old, what can I say...). But you really need to see HoN to realize what a game designed for real multiplayer looks like. Game filters, multiple channel chat from the get go, fully functional friends system - including IM, joining friends games and game invites, full stats viewable ingame, reconnecting to game on drop, overlay with chat, IM and stats accesible at any time, 90% of games are 5v5, lag is virtually non-exsistant, the game runs 40+fps with all options on max, very strong anti hacking measures. Replays are still not in, but they said they are coming soon and will be rewindable and backwards compatible. And it's still only a beta.

I havent played a real MP game in years and Demigod was a frustrating comeback. Now with HoN, the whole experience is much more enjoyable.

P.S. and in works on Mac OS X too

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Quoting Misfortune,

reply 8

Demigod will become way better, come back in a few months.
HoN is already light years ahead of Demigod in features and it works. I really hope demigod gets to grow up to its potential one day cause the atmosphere and pace suits me much better (I'm old, what can I say...). But you really need to see HoN to realize what a game designed for real multiplayer looks like. Game filters, multiple channel chat from the get go, fully functional friends system - including IM, joining friends games and game invites, full stats viewable ingame, reconnecting to game on drop, overlay with chat, IM and stats accesible at any time, 90% of games are 5v5, lag is virtually non-exsistant, the game runs 40+fps with all options on max, very strong anti hacking measures. Replays are still not in, but they said they are coming soon and will be rewindable and backwards compatible. And it's still only a beta.

that's exactly the point. i don't know HoN, but for a released mulitplayer game nearly all the above things are stadnard. it's a shame that so much time after release they all are missing or not really functional. for a pure mmo this is an absolutly no go. that's the reason why the com is "toxic", and they are right.

to hear stuff like "no matter what we do the comm will still complain" in such a situation is an infamy. but they are allways enough people begging for a cracker.

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Quoting Aroddo,

reply 7

How's the LoL community, btw? Same as HoN?

So far it's been pretty good; It's a shocker I know. The LoL community will probably get worse when it goes live and more people are playing for free.

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still looking for a key/invite if anyone still has one throw me a PM.

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Quoting Misfortune,

reply 8

I Like DG, but this quote right here? Damn true. HoN is all that and a bit more. About the community, well, about the same, the diference, 30k beta testers with tons of "pros", tons of guides on the foruns. Its hard to be a noob, but its cool to learn a new game.

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Quoting Aroddo,

reply 5

Quoting Rocky_Tooth, reply 4Well the OP is completely ignorant. Stating facts that are completely wrong and innacurate. Especially when he stated you have to heal with potions

Hehe, I learned here that you heal if you step in the pool. No one in HoN bothered to answer me in my first game.

Heh sorry I may have come across a bit harsh. If you would like to play a game just add me as Rocky_Felix I may be able to show you a thing or two

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Hello,

For any of you interested in Heroes of Newerth visit http://heroes-newerth.com.

HoN Items

HoN Heroes

and heroes of newerth strategy.

Enjoy!

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I wanted to write something about features and gameplay of HoN but I accidently closed the tab and the work of 25 minutes is gone now

I will short up everything.

Features

A nice UI (not really a feature, but it´s really nice ^.^)
personal banlist (didn´t some CEO promised us something like that for Demigod?)
clan management (again, I can remember some promise...)
the opportunity to let HoN send the stats of a match to an external server. nice feature if you´re running a page like gosu-gamers or something like that
a good server browser; you have some nice filters there
HoN is based on dedicated servers which means: you won´t have to fear playing with guys who are 2000km away from your place, if yomeone drops the guy has the chance to reconnect for 500 seconds

Gameplay

A big negative point of DotA for new players is the recipe system. In HoN, you have still the recipe system, but much more user friendly. In the shop, you can buy the single ingredient or you can watch the recipe and you´ll see directly what you need for this and you don´t have to click through 4 shops in order to find those items you can just buy them while you look at the recipe. Like this:
HoN is like DotA, so if you like DotA, you´ll like HoN. And not the way like if you like DotA, you´ll like Demigod
most of the heroes are 1:1 converted, some do have slightly changes, and some hereos are new creations from S2 games
I don´t like the "zoom in" in HoN, too. It´s not a good choice there

You can´t compare HoN with Demigod, like you´re unable to compare DotA with Demigod directly. I think both games are based on a very good idea, Demigod maybe needs a little bit more work to polish but SD and GPG are working on Demigod all the time

If you want to test HoN by yourself and don´t want to listen to some fanboys, I have some keys left. Just send me a pm

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I gave demigod a fair chance, i even give it a go every week or so

Heres my comparison with newerth to demigod

1.) Latency. The dev's of demigod are clinging to horrible netcode, and the fact of the matter is demigod has serious internet lag, in almost every game i see 60-100 pings with everyone, then one guy has 500+. The ENTIRE game becomes a slideshow as a result. They did this because they simply didnt wanna invest in servers, no other reason, as the host based system in war3 and others work perfectly, or nearly perfect. HoN is virtually lagless, no need for silly port forwarding, or proxies, or all the hoops the dev's here have gone through just to make the game work. HoN is in beta and its MUCH better in this reward...

2.) Graphics - Demigod Wins, but the jerky gameplay due to the latency nulls it

3.) Interface - Newerth wins without a doubt. Demigod's interface does great for the basic features it has, but people want more. Newerth has build in vote to concede/remake, vote kick(big feature!), and built in banlist. The HUD for friend management/guild management is FAR ahead of demigods, despite demigod being retail already and having money to pay for development. I find that SHAMEFUL, that a game thats been out for months is being developed that slowly. But newerth has a great UI, you can be in multiple channels all at once, view them from ingame, view stats, friend lists, clan related things, chat windows, everything. Its built in banlist is great, and its got a WORKING stat system that lets you auto balance teams, host games as private to get friends in first. The fact that a beta game has all this and demigod does not, kinda shows not much goes into demigod...and i mean that..a beta game is 10x better than demigod already...

4.) Action - HoN. Demigod feels really 'slow' after playing Dota/HoN. It feels like a noob game actually. With only 8 demigods, theres no complexity at all. There arent many builds for each demigod either. HoN has a ton more heroes, they release em alot quicker(one came out this weekend for exmaple)..None the less demigod is very point and click, reaction time is irrelivant with the horrible lag it produces.

5.) Communication - In demigod, people arent very talkative in multiplayer. Maybe because the game is so slow paced its not really necessary to coordinate things. HoN HAS BUILT IN VOICE CHAT. People are required to communicate by chat/voice in order to win. Strategy plays a big part.

6.) Community - Huge even for a beta, over 100 games hosted at all times, as opposed to demigod maxing at what..10?. More about the community below.

I could addmore, but my verdict for demigod is: stepping stone. Play demigod, get the basics of the gameplay, then when its time to play a game that has a future move onto Dota/HoN. Dont let ppl say "the community ruined dota/HoN"...theres people like that everywhere, who are intolerant of new players. In demigod ppl are deadbeats and dotn talk, its much worse in the end. HoN has a great pre-game setup screen that lets you view the abilities of all the allied and enemy heroes before starting. Hell in all-hero games you can go through and read them all

Newerth is very action packed, the creeps play a big role as you have to be skilled in last hitting them, and denying them from enemies. They arent useless pushovers like in demigod, where everyone waits for giants for the win. Coordination and communication add to it. The highly functional multiplayer allows you to play without lag, or desync errors(dont those drive you nuts in demigod), and everything a player could want is being added. Every patch they add more features than demigod has added since demigod was released.

demigod...will be forgotten soon, its not even popular now. Its already laughed at by most ppl who play dota/HoN because of how bad its release was, and how bad it is even today

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HoN is fast paced?

my first game i picked a melee character, anytime i got close enough to a battle to hit something i would get "OMG Noob get back just stay away from battle and get xp"

so after about 10 min a sitting back and watching all this amazing action I was bored out of my mind and came running back to demigod..

It did ease my mind about HoN really taking anything away from the demigod community. If anything when people play it, they will realize just how good demigod really is( and how great it could be with a few more community features).

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I don't have time to laugh through the whole list at the moment, but here are my top 2.

Quoting Neoauld,

reply 16

I gave demigod a fair chance, i even give it a go every week or so

Heres my comparison with newerth to demigod

1.) Latency. The dev's of demigod are clinging to horrible netcode, and the fact of the matter is demigod has serious internet lag, in almost every game i see 60-100 pings with everyone, then one guy has 500+. The ENTIRE game becomes a slideshow as a result. They did this because they simply didnt wanna invest in servers, no other reason, as the host based system in war3 and others work perfectly, or nearly perfect. HoN is virtually lagless, no need for silly port forwarding, or proxies, or all the hoops the dev's here have gone through just to make the game work. HoN is in beta and its MUCH better in this reward...

A: 500+pings in DotA would be unacceptable, and cause the same sort of ruined, jerky gameplay.

B: DotA is played almost exclusively in the US, and has enough players to where internationals do not mix. Thus, the netcode doesn't even come into play; it could be P2P and work just as well.

Newerth is very action packed, the creeps play a big role as you have to be skilled in last hitting them, and denying them from enemies.

That's really not a feature. Denies/last hits were a terrible idea in DotA that sucked away time and patience. They have been brought to HoN because it's a complete ripoff. Don't tell me it's more "skilled" or whatever; it's boring, tedious, and quite frankly, simplistic if you have a decent ping.

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30,000 Heroes of Newerth beta keys are being given out.

http://beta.heroesofnewerth.com/whoWehAw713saef/facebook.php

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Quoting pseudomelon,

reply 18

Agreed. In fact, last hitting and denying was a concept that was stumbled upon by accident; the 'feature' to attack your own troops was a residual benefit of the Warcraft 3 engine that was unable to be disabled for the DotA mod and was not included in the strategies of the 'pros' in the early stages of the mods life. If you look back at the original release of DotA, there was a discussion about whether or not this kind of play was intentional after this strategy began to circulate, however after the fans latched on to it no one cared. I'd prefer to play a game where killing your own troops and buildings is considered wrong, not standard operating procedure.

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6.) Community - Huge even for a beta, over 100 games hosted at all times, as opposed to demigod maxing at what..10?. More about the community below.

Well, HoN shows all the currently running games in case someone wants to participate as a spectator.

In Demigod running games are hidden. You can see them here, though. about 50-100 games average is my guess.

demigod...will be forgotten soon, its not even popular now. Its already laughed at by most ppl who play dota/HoN because of how bad its release was, and how bad it is even today

I'm quite sure that HoN will experience a rapid decline of players once people are expected to fork over 40-50 bucks for something they get for free right now. As opposed to Demigod, where the sales start prompted a server breakdown due to too many participants.

My personal estimate? Starcraft 2 comes out and everything else will be dust.

Newerth is very action packed, the creeps play a big role as you have to be skilled in last hitting them, and denying them from enemies.

Action packed? Apparently you spend 10 minutes camping near creeps to leech experience and are busy getting last hits on enemy creeps and denys on your own to earn gold. In demigod you get into duels from the start.

Sure, the DGs seem to move slower than the Heroes but that's only because:

You can't zoom out, which means that your Heroes crosses the screen within a second.
The maps in HoN are very large compared to the Heroes' size, giving the illusion of speed while Demigods are in fact moving faster when viewed in relation to the map size.

But it's true - you need more reflexes than in demigod to get last hits or denys ... a game mechanic which Demigod consciously omitted, so you can't compare that. What's left is the duel ... and in reflexes are necessary to interrupt certain skills. Some are easy to counter, some pretty hard. Don't know about HoN ... didn't get so far to recognize enemy spells or figure out which skills interrupt.

With only 8 demigods, theres no complexity at all. There arent many builds for each demigod either. HoN has a ton more heroes, they release em alot quicker(one came out this weekend for exmaple).

Yeah, but to many heroes there isn't much depth either. Point, click, press "e" occasionally. Mix in tactics and reflexes. Some heroes actually only have one active skill, which limits complexity and depth severely for each hero.

Demigod needs more Demigods. Sadly, developing demigods appears to be complex and expensive - mostly due to the awesome graphics. HoN looks like crap in comparison, which is it's strength because that allows S2 to fart out heroes on a regular basis with a minimum of effort and creativity.

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Quoting Aroddo,

reply 21

6.) Community - Huge even for a beta, over 100 games hosted at all times, as opposed to demigod maxing at what..10?. More about the community below.
Well, HoN shows all the currently running games in case someone wants to participate as a spectator.

In Demigod running games are hidden. You can see them here, though. about 50-100 games average is my guess.

The 100+ games are open games only. running HoN games can be thousands but its hidden.

The number of people logged in right now in HoN is 9000+.

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Just installed the beta, joined a noobs game, and hated it. Not being able to zoom out is incredibly frustrating.

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Demigod has an arcade quality that I like. And I don't want to have selfish rich kids call me a noob while I'm trying to relax.

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Quoting Aroddo,

reply 21

Some heroes actually only have one active skill, which limits complexity and depth severely for each hero.

That's not true. Find me 1 hero in HoN w/ 1 active skill...

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