Heroes of Newerth 2.0 comes after Starcraft 2 and League of Legends

[Reveras]

Here's where I can't comment at all. You see I'm a competitive player in HoN. I didn't pay for my account, I was a 1800-1900 PSR player during the entire beta and am now a 1750+ player after being given a account for free from a very good friend that bought one who lives in Pensylvannia. He bought that extra one to give it to me, so I can't comment well based on money satisfaction.

 

[Irishhoodlum]

LoL is much less competitive. HoN is cut-throat at the high tier. All depends what you want, to stomp some people with anime-ish characters or go play with Bubbles, the magic armor-throwing teleporting turtle of death.

They're both virtually the same game. Except LoL actually has some of the original developers from DotA working on it, while HoN is just an attempt for those guys to turn a profit for once.

Savage 2 was a far better game than either until they changed to a micro-transaction model, but unfortunately it never gained the popularity it deserved.

DotA wasn't even close to reaching its full potential until Icefrog took over, and Icefrog actually helped develop HoN. Honestly in terms of gameplay and balance, Guinsoo and Pendragon were fairly insignificant. And Hon and LoL are only "virtually the same game" the way AoE and Starcraft are "virtually the same game". I think you mean the same genre, because the gameplay is very different.

30 mins to reconnect? the hell kinda players u met mate? Never had a game in my HoN play time (and I have been playing since the beta barely began for like 3 weeks) where I had to wait for someone to reconnect more than 5 mins or so.

True I've seen a few leaver, but those will be forever present.

Exactly, so if it's only five minutes, why wait around? Just keep playing and he might be one level behind when he comes back...easily made up for with neutral creeps. Reconnect is a meta-game feature that doesn't really matter as long as it's present in one form or another. In terms of all the important stuff like gameplay and balance, casual and competitive audiences, HoN and LoL might as well be the same game.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you have to pay for HoN up front, yes? Well P2P does not guarantee that a game will be better than an F2P game in the same genre. It just doesn't. Besides, S2Games has eventually switched over every game they've made to a micro-transaction model, and I guarantee that HoN isn't far behind.

IMHO I'd rather just play my DotA clone of choice for free until DotA2 comes along and crushes them all.

Reconnect is an incredible feature, and the fact that you can still 4v5 with reasonable chances for success is not a good indicator of balance.

You have never played HoN I see, and I don't think you've even played LoL. HoN caters to a more (trying to keep this realistic) skilled/older audience while LoL is tapping the casual crowd (please name a serious game with microtransactions that benefit gameplay). LoL simply doesn't encourage much high level play, lacking punishment for mistakes, hero balance, game modes, replays etc.

S2 is still cranking out as many if not more updates than its competitors, and its customers have the luxury of only having paid once. Personally I prefer that to microtransactions where you have to pay money for each new hero that comes out, but that's your choice. And if S2 follows past examples they will make HoN free like they did Savage and Savage 2, but microtransactions are unlikely outside of purely cosmetic purposes.