First Impression: Heroes of Newerth

I figured while I’m trying to figure out how to wrap my head around how to attack the Mabinogi article I’d make this blog a little less dead by filling it with more…STUFF!

So here’s a segment where I just make posts quickly. Any game I try on a mere impulse will be documented here. With that out of the way, let’s get started. Heroes of Newerth is one of those games in the genre of Defense of The Ancients (known as Dota for short). Now, before I heard the term mentioned I had no clue what this kind of game was. What it involves in a nutshell is you and your team rushing towards the other side of the map and destroying your critical structure before they do the same to you. I’m a CASUAL gamer, so I don’t really know about this genres history (and I plan to go into further depth once I decide I’m ready to cover League of Legends).

I saw this game a few days ago on the League of Legends forum and thought about trying it. Then I saw the fact you needed to pay $30 just to make an account on the game and I said “FORGET IT!” despite how interesting it looked. Then I saw it tonight for $10 (probably a bid to get new people) to make said account. I still didn’t want to try it. Then my silent partner offers me $10 to try it and I told them I might as well.

Now before I go further I should mention that what little experience I do have in the genre is in League of Legends. Some out their might not consider it a “true” representation of the Dota genre. If you feel that way that’s fine, I’m working with what I know.

My associate, Aron told me that he/she/it has tried that game, and warned me that the learning curb was far more vicious than what League of Legends had to go through. With League of Legends I had an in game tutorial to play around in, at least a couple of Champions to play with to try to learn the game. They people seemed fairly nice and somewhat understanding of the newer players (also it’s FREE).

Heroes, however…not too pleasant to say the very leas- Okay, no bullshit, it was TERRIBLE! First off I let my group know right away that I was a new person (the game even ANNOUNCES IT) I didn’t get any slack from my team. The map they use to show who’s where isn’t the most stylish. In League of Legends you could see who exactly was where as long as Fog of War wasn’t hiding them. In Heroes of Newerth  you get no such thing. You don’t know exactly who your enemy might be, so you could be running into a fight you got a nice shot at OR (like me) you end up running to assist in a fight you have no hope of winning.

My second complaint? A kick feature that could be easily abused. Sure, you could get rid of dead weight but if you’re like me, you’ll get people left and right trying to kick you from the game just because the learning curb is steep and you’re TRYING YOUR HARDEST NOT TO DIE BUT GET KILLED ANYWAY BECAUSE SOME CLOWN JUMPPED YOU FROM THE BRUSH! No, they don’t understand that, they just see you as a fucking bother! Telling you to STAY AT THE WELL! I got similar treatment in LoL, but there was a drastic difference. The first match I played in LoL, they at least waited about 20 minutes before they told me to stop fighting. Want to know how long it was in HoN before they told me…? FIVE FUCKING MINUTES!!! This is why I usually try to shy away from ANYTHING with a steep learning curb because these types of games tend to breed elitist fuckwads who seem to have forgotten that they were once scrubs/feeders/noob themselves!

The last nail in the coffin was a lack of an in game tutorial. A little something I could play around in before I get tossed to the lions would be nice, so I’m not dying so quickly. Everything happens so fast it not even funny. Sorry, there is an in game tutorial, but it’s busted and you need to close the client to get unstuck

Difficult to learn, hostile environment created by ass players and, oh yeah, having to pay for an account are major turn offs here. I hate games with a difficult learning curb. Who wants to go through all that abuse just to learn the basics? I should not have to read a textbook to get a handle on the basic workings of a game. When you got to do that much work it becomes a JOB! I also hate games where you are required to make a purchase before you can even try. Again, if not for my silent partner AND the sale I would have never paid it any mind. I also hate asshole “pros” who like to treat the new guy like crap since they aren’t automatically able to be ruthless killing machines off the bat (I can see why the Korean MMO model seems to be catching with some kinds. I mean who WOULDN’T want to consistently Player Kill some asshole who’s been making your E-life Hell?). Mix all three together and you got a recipe for disaster. Friends could make or break the game if you got people willing to work with you, but since you need to pay to go in, odds are I won’t be suckering persuading others in joining me in getting murdered online so we could learn together.

By the time this is posted I will have uninstalled the game. If you really enjoy games that merge RPG and RTS elements, then by all means, TRY League of Legends first if you have little to no experience in this field and if you enjoy it, go play Heroes of Newerth. I’m just saying that I will never play that game again. First impression is everything in games. It had its chance, and got my silent partners cash. So why do they need me around anymore anyway?