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Heroes Of Newerth Review: It Could Be a Very Good Game - Edit
5.8
| Pros |
 Large number of heroes Rotating heroes is a good idea |
| Cons |
 Casual-friendly features lacking Lack of maps Too many heroes to choose from |
MOBAs, or Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas, are the new hot trend in the MMO market. This becomes very apartment when a certain fabulous website dedicated to MMO's would post three reviews of very similar games in a sub genre within a few weeks of each other. Based off the “Defence of the Ancients” fan made game type from Warcraft 3, MOBA's such as Heroes of Newerth involve teams of players attacking each other’s base while waves of NPC units run to their deaths. You choose a character, level them through combat by being near skirmishes, buy armour and items, place skill points, and once the battle ends you do it all over again from the start. With the market quickly becoming over saturated, does Heroes of Newerth have what it takes to stand out?
Released in spring 2010 as a downloadable retail title, a bit over a year later HoN switched to the free to play cash shop model of its peers. I did not play HoN during its original inception so this review will only cover my experience during its F2P run. With 85 heroes, HoN comes with a massive selection of heroes that you are not allowed to access! Not allowed that is, without unlocking them first. At all times 15 heroes are rotated weekly for access for basic and verified accounts. Those who bought the game before it went F2P have Legacy accounts, and have access to all heroes at all times. If you do have a favourite hero and would rather not wait for it to come back into rotation, you can always buy it for permanent access with “goblin coins”. There are two ways to get goblin coins, the first, and quickest, is by paying real money. Heroes constantly go on sale and waiting around for the one you want may be the best choice, but there is no way to know when you're hero of choice will show up on the list. 420 coins will cost you $10 and will get to one to three heroes depending on their price and how the sales are at that moment. You can also get 1575 coins for $30 or 2415 coins for $40. There is another slower way to get coins which simply involves playing. As you play games you will accumulate coins, which does make the game truly free to play, but don't count on unlocking everything any time soon this way.
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Even if you pay the massive amount of money to unlock every hero, depending on your game type you may still not be able to play your favorite one. Forced experimentation with heroes is one of the core principals of HoN with only one game mode, All Pick, allowing you full access to choose from all your available heroes. 15 random heroes are available in each rotation, plus any you have bought. There are also two different draft types, Banning Draft, where teams take turns selecting heroes that will not be allowed to be used this out of a random selection of 10 (3V3) or 14 (5v5), and Single Draft where one hero of each type (Strength, Agility and Intelligence) is randomly allowed for each player to pick from. Rounding off the game modes is Banning Pick, which involves removing heroes from a much larger pool than Banning Draft, and All Random, which of course randomly assigns heroes. All the game types work well together allowing a little bit more variety, plus is a great way to force players out of their comfort zone. Banning Pick does feel a little redundant with Banning Draft being a very popular option.
Setting up or joining a match is easy enough, with a quick play like option labelled as a big green button, “Play Now” will give you a bunch of boxes to check or uncheck so you may quickly find a match that suits your play style or mood for the night. From the map, to the number of players to what game type, everything needed is neatly laid out in this menu and easy to go through. Alternatively you can look at public games and scroll through a list of all unfilled games currently looking for players, or create your own game, making it public or private depending if you want it just for you and your friends, or are fine waiting for random people to join. In the create a game menu you can also set up a practice match, which will be covered more later in the review. If you want a quick summary though: I find the game very lacklustre, if not completely pointless in its current form.
Aesthetics: 7/10
Well set up and easy to navigate menus are always a good thing, and while the menus in HoN can load a bit slow at times, the initial presentation is very good and doesn't leave much to be desired, at least when it comes to the look and feel. Once you are into the actual game though, it’s more of a mixed bag when it comes to aesthetics. Even though there is a massive amount of heroes, there is a great deal of variety and creative design between them. Along with that the animations for each hero is very good also. Every movement and ability is fun to look at, and a skirmish can be quite a joy to watch, however, that is juxtaposed by the fact that anything that isn't a hero just doesn't look good.
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The maps are small and uninteresting with no imagination behind them a problem made even worse by there being only a few maps to choose from. There is a map editor, but the created maps can only be used in practice mode and in the end it makes absolutely no difference in the game. While a lack of maps isn't always a bad thing (TF2 launched with three maps and obviously did very well), the fact that they are all basically the same, with only very minor tweaks can cause one to grow bored of the visual aspects of the game very quickly. The game has sound, but there isn't much more to say about it besides that.
Gameplay: 7/10
If you have played a DOTA type game before, you have played Heroes of Newerth. The fundamentals are there, and they work well. If you have not played a DOTA type game before, then be ready for a steep learning curve, especially with the half baked tutorial and lack of bot-matches. The basics are easy to pick and play; you click to move, use your four skills with hot keys or clicking, and try not to die. It’s the final part that is hard without someone there to hold your hand. The practice mode is useless because the lack of other heroes does not accurately represent the game as a whole, and the tutorial does not tell you anything about the met- game that feels like 90% of the player base has already mastered.
There is also a casual mode in the game, but not much is changed in it. You start with your hero at level three and gain experience and money faster, but besides that it plays the same as the normal game type. It is really only there to save people five to fifteen minutes, but seeing as no one ever plays it, you can take that long wait for a match to start at times.
Innovation: 3.5/10
The original DOTA came out over 8 years ago in the form as a fan made mode from Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne. HoN has many more heroes with many more abilities than was in Warcraft 3, but besides that not much else has changed. Again, griping on the lack of bots in Heroes of Newerth, Warcraft 3 had bots. HoN just doesn't do anything that hasn't been seen before, and some missing features really hold it back from shining in a quickly crowding genre.
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Polish: 5/10
Though Heroes of Newerth is not a graphics-intensive game, good luck playing it on an older machine. Heroes of Newerth uses over 1.4GBs of RAM while running. For comparison I booted up Mass Effect, which used half that at about 800MBs. The game runs well, frame rate stays high and S2 works very hard to keep balance between heroes as smooth as possible. The fact remains though that the optimization is terrible and if you have less than 3GB's of ram, good luck having back ground programs running while you play.
Longevity: 6/10
Heroes of Newerth is over a year old now and still has a strong fan base, so any arguments about the longevity of the game are moot; its longevity has already been shown. The rotation of heroes is a nice touch which can give more reason to keep playing, just to see that hero you haven't tried yet show up, but the lack of maps and their repetitive nature can grow tiresome. The amount of hardcore players allow you to dig in deep to really find the community to play with discuss the meta-game, but as a hop in and play experience for casual players it leaves much to be desired. Besides unlocking new heroes, or new costumes for the ones you have, there isn't really anything to drive the compulsive playing either with the trickle of reward being so slow.
Social: 4/10
You can join clans, chat in game, and make matches to play with specific people, but ultimately, the social aspects of a game like this are what you make of them. Most of the clan involvement will take place outside of the game, and taking to random players in matches could go either way. Mileage will vary. In terms of what the game offers to facilitate a social environment, the basics are there, but nothing that really goes above and beyond.
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Value: 8/10
Value will vary with HoN. If you want access to all heroes at all times get ready to drop a lot of money into the game. However if you are happy with the random selection that comes for free you can go a long way without paying a dime.
Ram issues and lack of casual options severely hurt what could be a very good game, but in its current form, unless you want to dive head first into the meta-game Heroes of Newerth does not offer much in the way of casual player satisfaction. There is a new patch on its way though, with map customization to boot and there has been talk of bots thrown in with that also. If that is the case when it lands on the live servers then Heroes of Newerth will elevate its standings with everyone just a bit higher. It’s a shame that over a year had to pass before the game caught up with the options offered in Warcraft 3.
i agree you up to a point.. but...
really ?! when this became a bad thing in moba games ?
Battlegrounds and instanced PvP is a trend - a trend that continues to upset players again and again.
This is the reason an MMO site should not be reviewing a genre that is actually thriving. Saying too many heroes is a negative is pretty retarded....I get that in MMOs too many classes can be a hindrance because of class balance, but in the MOBA genre the devs actually know what they are doing, especially in HoN.
As for the score itself, I was pretty baffled because aside from Dominion in LoL, I see no point to play any other MOBA title but HoN. Quick updates, great server support, tons of characters to play, best graphics, and competitive stats. I guess if you don't like having people see how bad you suck then you wouldn't like stat keeping but to each his own...
Killed your review from that on, mmorpg shouldn't review moba games if they don't understand anything about them.
This game is horrid compared to LoL. HoN is a game for 1 type of person, the hardcore elite. LoL is waaayyyyyy more approachable for someone who just wants to have fun. And I am saying that Pre-Dominion. Now that Dominion is out it's even MORE approachable for casual players. LoL has better models, terrain, balance, and scaling. Granted, LoL's models are more cartoony, but they still look better. Oh did I mention LoL has better lore and backstories? Yeah, there is a reason LoL is flourashing right now and HoN isn't.
Don't bring that in here, man. Try to actually come up with a valid argument?
"This becomes very apartment when a certain fabulous website dedicated to MMO's would post three reviews of very similar games in a sub genre within a few weeks of each other."
C'mon guys, proof-read your work before you post it. It's hard to to take a review seriously when there's glaring mistakes like this that could have been easily avoided with a quick review.
Tryp
"MOBAs, or Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas, are the new hot trend in the MMO market."
NO.
the review oh wel...... ><
Sir, u have to play HoN for 1.5+ years to really know how good the game is... im serious...
(hon veteran since alpha alpha beta alpha)
cpcraft
I played HoN from the very beginning... Hell, I even used to give LoL players crap for being noobs...
I then gave LoL a chance and I came to realize it is a much better game. HoN has been a close DOTA clone since day one. LoL really tried to take from DOTA the best elements but create a NEW game. They didn't copy all the exact same items, heros, and abilities with a few minor new additions. Yes, all games have direct damage and damage over time abilities... So if you use that logic every RPG game is a clone of every other RPG game.
Anyway, LoL offers a much more enjoyable experience for all players. I've come to realize (as stated by other members here) that HoN is only for the super elitist e-peen groups. People who want to share their KDR stats with everyone, people who think that having an A.D.D. condition giving them the need to last hit every target on the map for hours upon hours of play time is a good thing.
PvE farming (and last hitting) is not an enjoyable aspect of MOBA's and that's exactly why LoL removed it completely. They wanted to focus on hero usage, skill usage, and team gameplay.
The fanboy arguments are just as invalid here as they are everywhere else. Many of us have played both games and found one or the to be more enjoyable or flat out better. To reference a similar subject... You can hate on WoW and flame WoW fanboys all you want, but the fact still remails, WoW is/was the biggest for a reason. LoL is the biggest for a reason... More people enjoy it = more people play it = it's generally considered better.
Dude, go play League of Legends <3? HoN is harder, more heros, the merrier! You have know what does every single champ in order to play competitive matches. Therefore, fail review.
Yah....agreed. LoL is where it's at, for both casual and competitive/pro players. LoL is also much easier to pick up but hard to master.
I bought this game a long time ago and it is better then any other moba game I have played LoL is just bad. There can never be to many heroes it is boring to play the same person over and over again. This review is bad.
I have to reiterate what is said above. Posts and comments can be forgiven for typos, but reviews should be proof read.
I'm going to have to agree as well. When I post stuff here, I usually read it after I post it. So I end up editing typos (instead of proof reading before. It's a bad habit I guess), but when I post on my blog, I proof read it before posting at least once, usually twice, depending on the length.
I'd let it slide, but this isn't the first time I've seen typos in a feature. I don't think it's this specific person posting features, but it's just most of the feature posters on the site as a whole that I've noticed recently.
Bad review. really bad!
Too many heroes?!
And yeah, LoL might be number 1 but there are still many people who like and prefer HoN.
As the guys above said HoN is for the super hardcore elitist players and DoTA was that kind of game so naturally me and my friends and many people from my circle relate to that so we choose HoN. It simply is an improvement of DoTA, you could even say for a year and a half (before we found out there is actually gonna be a DoTA 2) it WAS the DoTA 2 just because it's the same thing we all loved just made BETTER. Better graphics better sound better gameplay etc. LoL is a whole different game trying to approach casual players who like to jump in for an hour and then play again the next day or even more rarely. And that's it. I don't really care which is the best because I play them both and I enjoy both. LoL with some of my friends and HoN with other friends.
I play both HoN and LoL, yet the authors lack of knowledge leads me to the conclusion he is a big LoL fan, with baised opinions. Each game has their ups and downs.
Lets get into ripping this thing apart, shall we?
Im going to make my points short and simple, as there are alot of them.
"MOBAs, or Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas, are the new hot trend in the MMO market."
LoL, DotA, HoN, BLC... none of these are MMO's. They are MOBAs, simple as that. S2 personally describes their game as a Action-RTS... but whatever.
"There is another slower way to get coins which simply involves playing. As you play games you will accumulate coins, which does make the game truly free to play, but don't count on unlocking everything any time soon this way."~~~~~ Same with League of Legends.
"In the create a game menu you can also set up a practice match, which will be covered more later in the review. If you want a quick summary though: I find the game very lacklustre, if not completely pointless in its current form."
This shows a lack of journalism, the author is unable to string a coherent article together, seemingly putting in a "tl;dr" just out of nowhere, with no lead into or general justification. (Yes, he goes into aspects of the game further down, but it is still out of place.)
"There is also a casual mode in the game, but not much is changed in it. You start with your hero at level three and gain experience and money faster, but besides that it plays the same as the normal game type. It is really only there to save people five to fifteen minutes, but seeing as no one ever plays it, you can take that long wait for a match to start at times."
Honestly, did you even play casual mode? It isnt dominion. Queue times aren't that much shorter, you DONT start a level three, and is less hardcore and elitiest. No gold loss on death, no uphill miss chance, more gold for hero kills, faster xp gain... Seriously, how can you even write a paragraph without playing the mode. Because thats what you clearly did, OR your retarded and somehow thought you started at level 3.
"HoN just doesn't do anything that hasn't been seen before, and some missing features really hold it back from shining in a quickly crowding genre."
Missing features... HoN has added:
Vector Targetting
Pause and Remake function, (still remember at dreamhack when the professional players laptop crashed, causing him to lose his lane)
In-Depth stats (LoL has this, but not to the same depth)
New innovative heroes (LoL designers are starting to pick up on this, orginall their new heroes were the same stuff, but orianna and talon are completly different to all others)
BALANCING. Thankfully, unlike LoL's comunity theres no FOTM, and at the moment i think is in a balanced state. There are heroes who need buffs and nerfs, but there are no blindingly OP heroes. Poor Riot designers, every 2 weeks there a new hero the masses cry about: See GP, Orianna, Morgana, Akila.
REPLAY/SPECTATOR. Nuff said.
Map Editor: However, s2 still havent released multiplayer mad editor, so maps can be made, but not played. Some maps you may know from WC3 have been made, such as Pudge Wars, Element TD, Efos. BUT WE CANT PLAY THEM.
Social, 4/10, checks LoLs rating, 6.5/10.
Yet that article talks about a lack of guild system, and buggy chat, neither of which are in HoN...
MOBAs arent social games, yet HoN has more of the in-game social area, yet it scores lower...
HoN does use alot of RAM, which causes alot of people to crash, but atleast they're not using the prehistoric Adobe Air, which has many many problems.
"...the lack of maps..."
HoN: Forests of Calvadar, Darkwood Vale, Grimms Crossing, Watchtower.
LoL: Crystal Scar, Sumonners Rift, Twisted Treeline.
DotA: Just the 1 standard map.
ITT: Author things 4 maps is a lack compared to 3 and 1.
Very biased review.
Should be redone by someone who does not love LoL.
BTW what is this?
Pro: Many heroes
Contra: Many heroes?
Am I missing something?
This review seems incredibly biased, and in numerous cases factually incorrect and in some major ways too. 'Monovax' summed up a lot of it so just read his post i suppose. I am also baffled how lots of heros is both a pro and a con, and yet theres apparently not enough maps (of which there are the same amount of dota & LoL combined). I wonder what the magic perfect number for both maps/heros is..
I'm actually fairly disgusted by this review. I won't even touch on the too many heroes is a negative.. enough people have already. I've played both LoL and HoN for quite some time. I still laugh at the fact that LoL doesn't have a functional spectator mode or the ability to review demos within the game. HoN has been doing this pretty much since launch, and while it was a bit rough in the beginning, everything was functional when I was playing. In fact the features were extremely impressive. It is true that HoN may not be for the newest of newbies if they aren't willing to take some time to learn the game. A lot of hardcore players from Dota went straight to this game.
Which now touches on your review of innovation. I don't think you understood the fact that this is what Dota players were asking for. A more polished stand-alone version of DOTA that had all of its features and more at the touch of a button instead of typing in commands. A functional rating system, various game types, on-demand demos, and functional spectator mode. It was supposed to be like Dota. Now I haven't played the F2P version. I don't personally think I would like it, as when I played my 'legacy' account, there wasn't anything I didn't have access too. I also thought that was amazing compared to LoL. I promise I have spent wayyy more money on LoL than I ever did in HoN.
As far as your 'nothing else out side of the hero is all that interesting' statement. I found the hilarious sound packs, and other addons and modifications to be extremely entertaining. Not to mention the addons people were making for the game. Very useful, and very fun.
The only thing that really sucked to me about this game was the community. Pretty much everyone was an a-hole from the 1400 to the 1700+ brackets of play. It actually surprised me how many people abused voice comm (yet another feature which is freaking amazing that LoL does not have). So many people would rage and cuss other players out in the 1400 bracket who were new and trying to learn this game. This was fairly disgusting to witness, and would pretty much kill most new player experiences.
LoL is fun, and easy going. While it too is competitive.. I always found the challenge in HoN to be much greater. Please have someone else who has actually played the game do a decent review.
Pros
Large number of heroes
Cons
Too many heroes to choose from
wait, what?
"There is also a casual mode in the game, but not much is changed in it. You start with your hero at level three and gain experience and money faster, but besides that it plays the same as the normal game type. It is really only there to save people five to fifteen minutes, but seeing as no one ever plays it, you can take that long wait for a match to start at times."
are you sure? last time i played it (about an hour ago) you started at level one, and im also pretty sure people do play it since ive been playing only cm for last 5months and never had problems finding a game.
i wont bother reading any further since its obvious that the whole article is full of garbage.
What is it that makes people defend a 'game'? :P
While I don't agree with some of the points, some of the existing playerbase left due to how the F2P conversion was handled.
It was a $60 retail game initially but now, those people who paid those $60 have to wait a month before getting access to the new champion that comes out. That is unless they pay more.
I can't recall any game that did that and it really turned off a lot of people.
If you are on the fence, give it a shot. It is F2P so nothing to lose.
For first time MOBA players, I'd recommend League of Legends; mainly because LoL has more beginners (x10 the playerbase).
It was $30 not $60, and the players who paid still get that hero for free just not straight away.
$30 not 60.. and there were many times where they would sell accounts for $10. The reason people are 'defending' this is because this article is rubbish, and most of it is inaccurate. Such as your $60 statement. I'd be surprised if you've even played the game at all.
A lot of it was subjective. But I felt the reviewer is reviewing it from the 'DOTA-WAR3' player point of view.
Perfectly valid point of view and while I didn't agree with everything, I can see why he would have that opinion.
Actually I paid $60 since I'm from down-under. :P
What has this article to do with "from the WC3-DotA players perspective?"
Most of what he wrote is just biased and untrue on the top of that.
He also rates things that HoN did way better than LoL or DotA as worse than both even
though theres no doubt that S2 did a better job with it than any other game.
Most ridiculous is that LoL which has almost not social aspects gets praised for it while HoN
does the same way better but actually gets bashed for it.
Reading this article makes me wonder if the guy actually played the game.
PS: If someone really wants to make a review of this game he should at least spend 6+ months playing it.
Everything else is rubbish and uneducated opinions.
6 months would seem like a good amount of time to give such a game a decent shake. I've been playing since beta and am certainly not afraid to point out the games flaws. This review however just picked on things that were either completely made up or subjective. When also compared with the LoL review the things HoN was slammed for just doesn't make sense.
I would think MMORPG.com of all places would understand why certain games need more time playing them to be able to give a full and accurate review.
We wouldn't expect this kind of inaccurate biased reviewing of an MMO so why should we accept it for an ARTS (screw the MOBA term :p )?
What a load of, pardon my french, bullshit this review was. But it's not the first time this happens.
Holy shit.... This review. Maybe it was a huge mistake to take seriously any mmorpg.com review in the past 'cause this one is absolute garbage.
I did a quick comparison between their LoL and HoN review...
HoN Aesthetics: 7/10
LoL Aesthetics: 9.5/10
Except that HoN has a proper out-of-game UI with a nice shop and design and that smoothly transitions into the ingame enviroment and that HoN DOES have both stronger and (in my opinion) better looking graphics, then ok... oh wait, in that case HoN should get the higher rating here. LoL is pretty lackluster in it's GUI and the ingame heroes are like moving gif images. Seriously, 9.5?!
HoN Gameplay: 7/10
LoL Gameplay: 8.25/10
Except that the only thing the reviewer does is do a SHORT comparision between HoN and Dota nothing more is said about HoN... The fact that the game play very much the same as Dota is NOT a valid point to lower the score, the logic: "wow this game plays similar to a game that is very very good, let's lower the score"... In the LoL review they do a proper explanation of the game.
HoN Innovation: 3.5/10
LoL Innovation – 10
Wait WHAT?! a full score?! In the HoN review he also bashes HoN for lacking extra features... The extra features is what LoL is lacking and HoN does have. All the things we take for granted like a good spectator mode, kick, rmk, pause, guilds, bla bla bla is pretty much crap or non-existent in LoL. LoL is pretty much Dota without juking (grass instead), different jungle creeps and no deny and it gets 10 in inovation...
HoN Polish: 5/10
LoL Polish – 7.0/10
"There is no official replay, spectator, guild, or pause system" in LoL he states. He even criticize LoL on the GUI. But he does seem to forget the CRAZY LOADING TIMES everytime you join a freaking game because you have to wait for everyone to fully load all rescources every game, but anyway... In the HoN review it's just stated that the game takes some ram-memory and thus gives it a 5/10, much lower than LoL, seriously it's the ONLY thing that he criticizes...
HoN Longevity: 6/10
LoL Longevity – 10
Again, properly going thru LoL but just quickly brushing the surface on HoN...
HoN Social: 4/10
LoL Social – 6.5
What?! LoL doesn't even have a guild system, I'm not even sure it has a proper chat channel system and it does NOT have VoIP-function. Despite this fact the thing that lowers HoNs score is the guildsystem, WHAT?! They even state some of the things LoL is lacking (that HoN has) in the LoL review and still they give LoL a better score in social. How is this possible?! They are not even graded on the same scale obviously!!! This is the one thing LoL should have a score of like 2-3 and HoN should be in a 8-10, 100%.
HoN Value: 8/10
LoL Value – 6.0
woot? Well, I... what?... eh... *reading both sections again*, I think that... well... maybe... eh. bye
- MrPomac
Really bad review. It's hypocritical, biased, and idiotic. And I don't even like Heroes of Newerth anymore.
First off, having "too many heroes to choose from" is a mistake. League of Legends has almost as many characters as Heroes of Newerth. Unlike League of Legends heroes, HoN heroes generally do not stagnate or go by a generic formula (though there ARE exceptions: Midas, for instance, feels like a bad copy of Pyromancer or Myrmidon). There is even a Single Draft mode to limit your choices and force you to learn heroes, effectively holding your hand in hero selection.
How exactly do you rate the social aspects of the game? Your experiences with the community are based on your luck (as in the personalities of those you happened to be matched with), your skill, and your own patience and personality. Your mileage WILL vary. This is no fault of the game if you got raged at by your teammates or taunted by your foes. This kind of terrible community exists in every single game in this genre (actually, every single online game ever).
The fact that HoN even offers a clan system is a bonus. To my knowledge, no other AoS game does this.
Honestly, longevity is subjective. The game HAS proven its current longevity, but this is a quickly crowding genre with major releases on the horizon. Their mileage will vary, for better or worse.
The innovation score was missing the point. HoN was originally meant to be what DotA2 is now becoming- DotA on a better engine with more features. This is why over half the cast are ports or semi-ports. They did, however, make skill changes to a number of ported heroes to adapt them to their liking. Torturer, for instance, has a skill that is much different in function from Lezrac's. Kraken is very different from Tidehunter.
Later on, issues between S2 and Icefrog resulted in legal action, preventing future full ports of any DotA heroes. From this point, all new HoN characters were either semiports or new inventions. I would argue that this is where the game started going downhill, because, let's face it.... S2 can't design a good hero concept to save their lives. Now Amun-Ra destroys any enjoyment that can be gained from pub games and the meta was forced to change from DotA style to this hideous gank-happy tower-diving style that effectively leaves one team in the dust and keeps them there.
I would revise the score to 6.5..... it USED to be 7.5-8 worthy...
I love how wrong he got all the fact in here, and for the latest post i can tell the only reason more is playing LoL is because it was made by a much larger company which had a lot more advertising than HoN. The only players who would see HoN would be players playing DotA which followed DotA on a forum.
LoL has lasthitting aswell and a friend of mine agree with me (hes a LoL fanboy) that HoN is much harder than LoL which of course is a "pro" in terms of a game since easy games become quite boooring
Is there any way to ask for a MMORPG.com editor to review this article. Taking the biases and fanboyism apart the reviewr made seriously inaccuarate statements that proved he did not know exactly what he was doing.
In short the quoted post points out most of the flaws with this review.
Oh and btw, ex-HoN player here, iam not defending HoN over LoL or anything but there are so many things here that are just not true, they cannot remain like this.
There is also a casual mode in the game, but not much is changed in it. You start with your hero at level three and gain experience and money faster, but besides that it plays the same as the normal game type. It is really only there to save people five to fifteen minutes, but seeing as no one ever plays it, you can take that long wait for a match to start at times.
This is HON not LOL, trash review.
NOOBS
Holy shit this must be the most biased and worst review ever seen in this site.
Sir, u have to play HoN for 1.5+years to really know how crappy HoN became.... i'm serious.
Seriously, yes HoN was great in beta, or at least at his start.
But in the last month HoN became such a crappy game.
S2games is a bad compagny. It's a complete shit compagny. Their Free to Play model is real crap. Their update are like some of the worst I could ever see. Or I might tell, the lack of update ?
Now it's all about making cash and don't care about balance and such. HoN is dying. Period.
I signed up just to let you know how absolutely horrible this review was. The author doesn't really seem to have played the game at all, and to be quite honest I would recommend to have this article rewritten by someone who is not a LoL-fanboy.
MOBAs, or Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas, are the new hot trend in the MMO market.
- Oh really?
You start with your hero at level three and gain experience and money faster, but besides that it plays the same as the normal game type.
- Come on. Did you even play casual mode?
a big green button, “Play Now”
- Actually, the button is red. Red | Green , just in case you were confused.
I could go on and on, but I suspect that others will point out the numerous other flaws in this article. And oh yes, do you feel that a large number of heroes is a pro or con? Both is not an option here.
(Also, why does the Andromeda in the screenshot have two staffs of the master?)
I have to agree 100% here. I played both HoN and LoL for over a year, and stopped playing both when I became bored of them. But the amount of bias here to LoL is amazing. It's like not only did Riot pay them to promote LoL with a huge rating, Riot also payed them to give HoN a bad review.
It's just amazing how certain parts of the LoL review were given MUCH higher grades than they deserve, and the exact opposite here. I'm sorry to say, but this review is pretty much garbage in all aspects.
I never saw the LoL review, but if the values you give here are straight from their review, most of it is clearly biased. And when put side to side it is clear they are not only bias to LoL, but also hateful of HoN.
I can't believe that not only they let this review out in public, but the people who publish out the review couldn't even look it over. If they even looked at the review before they copy and pasted it here, they would have at least seen the typo at the start! Just wow.
And this, ladies and gentlement, is why people don't trust profesional reviewers anymore.
This is probably the worst, more uneducated, biased review I've ever read. This needs to be removed from your website ASAP, what a joke.
Guys, disagree or agree with the review as you like, as long as you keep your responses civil and posts have some actual content to them.
Examples:
Okay: This review sucks. I played for 6 months and x,y,z .I think the gameplay is better than that.
Not okay: THIS GAME SUCKS!!
Amana, the problem is that the review is full of false information.
If I had a website and people posted review on them I sure wouldn't be happy if some of them we're bashing a game with uncorrect information, would make me look bad.
Care to explain further?
Would it be 'full of false information' if the gameplay score was 8? Or 8.5? Or 9? Or 9.5?
Technically nothing that was said in that review was 'false'.
Someone can say Mozart's music is really bad but that does not mean that person is 'factually wrong'.
It was a review, how the reader takes the review of one person on the internet is up to that reader.
Pretty disappointed in this review. Really gives a bad image of HoN with is probably the best MOBA game out at the moment. The points people are making about it being an elitist game are not %100 true. It takes time to get good and fully understand the game, unlike LoL which is targeted at casual players.
Wouldn't say the diffiiculty of HoN is a negative, people just bash at it because of bad experiences playing it (people who only play it a few times and are complete trash so quit and move to LoL).
I do dislike the f2p change, but it was pretty neccesary. Fortunately I have a legacy account, but for new players only having limited heros, it would suck.
There is also a casual mode in the game, but not much is changed in it. You start with your hero at level three
You start with your hero at level three
level three
Not only false information, but the majority of this article is very misleading overall feels very negative.
This game's community makes LoL's look fantastic.
Think about that for a minute...
'Technically' saying that you start at level 3 in casual mode is false.
'Technically' saying that all the maps are small and are very similar is false.
This isn't a review, it's a libel piece.
The score doesn't even matter. I personally don't care what it is, but it's how this reviewer came to it that makes no sense and has caused most here to be frustrated. Even if the score here had been a 9 and the reviewer had said that you can fly around the battlefield on a pegasus, carpet bombing opponents with maniacal glee. I would still voice my concerns that the reviewer is essentially lieing to justify his score.
It makes this site look incredibly bad.
I'm sorry that for some reason you don't see this, but maybe just try to understand where everyone else here is coming from.
Amana, there is no agreeing or disagreeing with this 'review'.
Your website has posted a biased article with outright lies in it. I highly advise you get someone to take this down before you likely get sued for libel.
Edit: Sorry for double post.
http://www.dramabutton.com/
Oh no I've been accused of being overly dramatic.
What ever will I do. :p
Go troll somewhere else if you have nothing useful to say.
So everyone has pretty much already explained how shitty this review is, i just got one question tho: 2 Staff of the master on Andromeda? Really? AHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA NOOB!!!!!
Why is someone that knows nothing about MOBA games reviewing a MOBA game?
Seriously, one of the cons being too many heroes...one of the worst reviews I've ever seen. I mean for christ sake League of Legends got reviewed and in the "cons" section they are game-crippling cons and it gets an 8.2?
How much did RIOT pay you Bill. Sell-out hack.
mmorpg.com is all about main stream mega corps, When smaller companies remake games that are already out or try to improve apon them mmorpg.com reviewers tell us these games are junk and that we should not play them.
we are the 99%
i got banned for discussing my discust with this website. but im back!
Something tells me that this review was supposed to be called: Heroes of Newerth; "A Newbie's look into the game".
Then, it all makes sense.
In the end, who cares ? Dota 2 >>>>>>>>>> HoN >>>>>>>>>>> LoL.
And, by alot.
But yeah, mmorp.comg are biased, Riot games like to pay, ALOT, for good reviews and publicity.
Ive played several years in DOTA, month or 2 in LoL, and playing HoN from beta
DOTA 2 in its current state is bad copy of HoN, honestly ... probably will be better then HoN later with polishing and improvments (less dinamic, wrong colors sets, still too little features HoN already has)
LoL is, imho, DOTA for dumb generation of 21st century with the generalg trend of being friendly to ...err idiots ? :), i mean new players who being too lazy to learn anything. Much less dinamic compared to HoN (imagine Counter-Strike in slow motion :), color setting is eye killing.
Still i think LoL has some pros like original heroes with unique skills, ofthen not trying to copy DOTA blindly. And bigger number of heroes with intresting skill sets to choose from is BIG pros for any MOBA game.
I do agree with previous post that LoL got its succes from good advertising and F2P model from start. While i think HoN is much better gameplay-wise.
Can someone explain to me something about HoN and LoL? I've looked at the websites but I'm still unclear. Is there any kind of character development in these games? Or do you start from scratch in every match? Is there any ongoing progress or aims?
LoL has an out game skill tree for character development.
HoN does not and neither will Dota/Dota 2.
Both however have currency that you can earn to buy cosmetic items in the shops.
Hope that helps. :)
agreed.
32 million acounts cause they have a great marketing model and a better game overall.
still its not a MMO dunno why we talking about it here.
Yes, thanks. I see that on Steam they boast that RoI is the first MOBA game to have persistent character progression. Is that an option or not considered as good as HoN and LoL. Not sure I'd be interested in a game without character progression of some sort.
to many heroes is a con is this guy serious and giving league of crap graphics/casual a 8 and hon 5.8 is such a joke. That review was wrote by some scrub that never played dota and neither has a clue about dota game.
This review was the biggest fail I have read thus far on mmorpg.com and am pissed regarding almost everything about it.
the pros and cons contradict each other... fail
"anything other than heroes fail to look good".. champions are designed to stand out among the creeps. Their art is of the same calibur, so I don't get it...
The game was a straight take from DotA so yes, the game will run like DotA (but don't mention the innovation when it comes to targeting and the like that were WC3 engine limitations)
the only thing I do agree with is lack of maps.. can't see any reason why all this time there has been only one main map. And yes, editor is useless because you can't even host a custom game on it.
the social scoring of 4: well I find trolls in online communities everywhere. But I've seen plenty of games rated on this website that have no more chat capability than HoN yet receive greater scores.
I'm off the HoN bandwagon (and MOBAs in general) so needless to say I'm no angry fanboy, merely pissed off at the lack of credability any of these reviews seem to have. Yikes, might soon turn elsewhere for future reviewing purposes.
Phil Bickle, you're nothing but a fan-loving LoL player. Please don't ever do anymore biased reviews.
Seriously, quit being a "writer" and find a different career.
I played HON for a while and it is a good game. For people who like moba they should try the game. Someone would say its more for hardcore players but that is nonsense. And yea, for moba there is never enough heroes.
This review is just outright biased and has plenty of false information. Why is this allowed? Big paycheck from RIOT or something?
I have played plenty of HoN in both lower brackets while I learned (yes, it's a steep learning curve) and high brackets as I got better. The game is essentialy Dota with new features. Replays, pauses, kicks, spectator mode, mentoring, guilds, etc. That's what Dota players asked for. That's basically what Dota 2 is trying to do now.
Stating thing like casual games start at level 3? That's just a blatant lie. Obvious contradictions in the pros/cons? That's just not professional.
I'll happily admit moving to a free to play model was a bad move. Perhaps they felt it was necessary, but it hurt the game. That's an actual downside. New players get a severely gimped hero selection pool each game unless they play thousands of games for silver coins or spend obscene amounts of real money.
I'll also happily admit the attitude of most players is absolute trash. They're very very unforgiving towards new players, or even vet players who make a mistake. If you're on the losing side in any game, I garuntee your team is playing the blame game.
Apart from that, the game is great. I'd love to know why the review is so obviously biased, and why outright lies are allowed.
I ve been playing HoN for about one year and I must say it s good game but it has definitely the worst community I could see. Bunch of kids insulting all around them just because their whole life means playing games so they feel pro and there isnt anything in real life they can do well so they feel satisfaction when insulting the others in HoN. That s the reason why I have to say that LoL is far better game because community in LoL is nice with lots of kind ppl.
Who writes these retarded reviews? I have yet to see a review that's objective and well written.