Hell on Newerth

Having just spend the last hour and a half trying to mix and match my papers for next semester i thought it was time for a little Starcraft II action. But alas, i find the ladder system to be down... again. Unfortunatly i've done my daily Zaishen quests on Guild Wars and effectively burnt myself out of GW for today with a few vanquishers this morning, i think it is time for a little Heroes of Newerth, one of my other passions. But before i do have a few games, i thought I'd share my views on what HoN is at the moment and where it maybe heading.

To start with, HoN is NOT League of Legends, they are completely different games that carry similar concepts, but again, they are completely different and should not be compared in my opinion. I've never played LoL, but having watched several videos and commentaries i have come a simple conclusion, the games are perfect examples of how to take a single concept, and deliver it in completely different ways. That is all i am willing to say about LoL and it's comparisons to HoN, i'm sure you can find many bias comparisons throughout the internet.

In HoN, the Legion and Hellbourne are locked in a never ending battle over the world of Newerth. The player will pick from several heroes to join four others on either the Legion or Hellbourn and must work with his/her team to destroy the enemies main building (Tree for Legion and Heart for Hellbourne). There are towers, creeps and enemy heroes that stand in your way, as the other side is trying to destroy your base at the same time. HoN is a mixture of careful planning, tactics and a little bit of twitch gaming, which should appeal to anybody who is looking for a very competitive gaming experience.

The problem for HoN is that its competitive nature has led to a very nasty approach by the HoN community. There are no warm welcomes for new players of HoN, there is an expectation that you know exactly what you need to do, and if you don't do it... you cope a rather large amount of needless rage and name calling. Even 'noob' games are watched for and joined by regular players, they just love to feel good about themselves by smashing new players into the ground. In a recent experience, a good friend of mine and myself took a little time to try and teach a few friends how to play, so we added 'noobs' into the server title when we created. What we got, was an enemy team of 5 players that were excessively better than the players we played with/against when we joined the usual games, hmm, your penis must grow with each newbie you destroy.

So if you were maybe thinking about getting into HoN, my recommendation is simply, don't. Don't waste the money, it is seriously not worth it with the community as it is, you should either get in to LoL for a little bit or just wait until DotA2 is released, that is what i'll be doing. As soon as DotA2 is out, HoN will be quickly uninstalled from my PC, the community has just worn me down, and the sudden influx of unbalanced heroes was the final straw for me. I won't be at HoN's funeral, and i assure you, all my friends that play, feel the exact same way. Good gaming.