Jake

A League of their Legends?

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List of Lords!

Entries of Enemies?

But seriously, all I think I know about this game is that it's being made by the same guys that made DoTA for WC3.

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I am jazzed about this game. All the impressions I've heard have been good, but they've also been from people unfamiliar with DotA. Not to dismiss Remo's opinions - it was still nice to hear a little about it - but I am really curious to see what the deal is with the persistent summoner nonsense.

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If you took DotA and put it in a new engine, with matchmaking and ranking built in, and an engine that didn't drop people 90% of the time halfway through a match, you would get LoL. And it will be awesome. When's the open beta start.

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Hello thread revival!

So I'm playing the beta and while I can see this as a game I would enjoy --oneday-- I'm still very new to it and the DoTA mechanics. Unfortunately, most of the people I've been playing with in the public games are jerk-faces and aren't helpful at all, which makes being new pretty frustrating. Instead of "Hey, newb, how about doing X instead of Y?" I get a bunch of, "OMG, useless. Just quit, blah blah."

If anyone would like to play or give me some pointers, my summoner's name is the same as my handle here. I usually get on in the evenings.

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The dota community is the biggest steaming pile of shit you will ever find accumulated in one spot, it's really newbie unfriendly and atleast here you have stat tracking and with the beta's being matured now you don't have as many pros just looking to stomp with smurf accounts. I mean seriously, if you took the worst people in the world, war criminals, murderers, rapists, etc. and had them sit there and spout shitty lolcat catchphrases until they collapsed under their own weight to form a shit singularity that's pretty much what the dota community is.

As for the game itself, I found the matchmaking and interface quite lacking and quite preferred Heroes of Newerth to it.

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If this game is anything like Demigod, I'm not interested. I tried the demo for Demigod recently and I don't like how I couldn't ever tell which side was dominant over the other. One minute, our side has all the control points, the other minute, the other side has all the control points. this last 2 HOURS because the bases are too heavily defended.

It's like a pendulum that starts standing still, then it starts swings back and forth, gradually more and more until it finally breaks off and lands on the winner. It feels like I have little to no control over the outcome of a match (even if I do). What a frustrating experience.

Okay, rant over.

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Demigod was pretty awful, I bought it just because I ran into the devs last year at PAX and I liked them so much that I bought it. Unfortunately, the game only has eight heroes and isn't as compelling to play as dota/hon. I actually just got a LoL key from a buddy so I don't have much idea on how it runs. Also, the p2p matchmaking killed demigod and made getting large games going impossible. In a 4v4 match, there would always be one person who wouldn't be able to connect to one other and that would basically not let the host start until the person was kicked. After that one person got kicked, for some reason the connections just got worse and worse.

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Jake, if you can hook me up with a beta key I'll be happy to play with you :D

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Just got into the beta for this. I believe there's an NDA still in effect so that's all I can say about that. My PVP.net name is Latrine.

As for other DOTA style games, I'll share my thoughts. I never played DOTA itself but I have played Demigod and the Heroes of Newerth beta which I hear is basically a carbon copy of DOTA.

I played Demigod first and I really like it, and play with guys from the gamerswithjobs.com community. There aren't as many heroes as in the other games but they all have greater depth with multiple possible builds, and it's the only game out there that doesn't go cartoony with its art style. Also I will say I love the ability to zoom way out in this game that isn't present in HoN. The main difference between Demigod and DotA is the existence of control flags and base improvements. Most games are basically won by the team that controls the majority of the flags for the majority of the match in order to get Catapults and Giants well before the enemy team does. However early game smackdowns and late game jockeying for portal flags does occur. I've gotten a little tired of Demigod because I've played it so much but it's still my favorite DotA style game and I'm eagerly anticipating the two new heroes they're going to release.

I played HoN after being exposed to a lot of Demigod so it was a rude jolt at first. The play field is zoomed in too close for comfort and hero vs hero combat is fast and unforgiving. The heroes are all simpler but there's more of them. There's a kind of novelty to trying a new hero every time but I never really felt attached to any of them. Also the item shop is a confusing jumble and your hero is very underpowered if you don't choose the right items off the bat. I got used to this eventually but it still doesn't feel right or fair. Also "juking" is much more common in HoN, having a bunch of people sneak up on and kill an inattentive hero. And I'm a little off-put by the "last hit" mechanic required to get gold and prefer Demigod's system of gold sharing as long as you do some damage to minions. Also games are more about pushing through defenses and winning engagements against enemy heroes instead of any sort of area control. However the basic gameplay is the same and I found it to be a fun, albeit sometimes frustrating alternative to Demigod.

One final note, while Demigod is "slower" and HoN is "faster", the time it takes to play a single match of either game is about the same, 20 to 60 minutes, and I find that Demigod games tend to be shorter on average because Giants are usually an "end game" button.

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Wow... all I have to say is that I was literally laughing out loud at the low-cost production of LoL by the end of my second game.

Heroes of Newerth is clearly more polished and a better game experience in my opinion in all fronts.

The UI in LoL is terrible: most of the account management and game searching is done in Adobe AIR and then it launches the game app when you connect. It seems really clunky transitioning from one another. And in game, the interface is so obtrusive, especially because the buttons are ridiculously large and it takes about 40% of the screen real estate.

The graphics are laughable. I was running at max settings (19x12, very high) and it still looked like ****. They went for anime-style cel shaded graphics and failed miserably IMHO. Then in my second game for some reason I couldn't select 1920x1200 anymore, it was capped at 16x12... which looked even worse. I understand the proposition of targeting the lowest common denominator to make the game available to the largest audience possible, but it looked like a Flash-based game to me. The same goes for the sound effects, bad overall.

And last but not least, the gameplay was disappointing. Everything felt so "mushy", while the responsiveness of HoN is crisp and tight. The game was clearly slowed down several notches to make it more accessible and I appreciate that, but it also makes it less exciting.

One major complaint I have is the talent tree mechanics a-la-WoW. It basically rewards people who play more and not necessarily who plays it the best. The fact that you get gameplay advantages that are persistent is ludicrous. It would be the same as accruing damage bonuses and health points in TF2 with the more you play.

Anyhow... I'll still try a couple more times, but I have to admit that HoN looks and plays better IMHO.

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I think I have some HoN keys lying around somewhere too if there's any interest, gotta go check how many.

After playing Dota and League of Legends I would really like to try out HoN.

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I have 5 invites left, if anyone wants one, just send me your email by PM.

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I played HoN and my god that was terrible. Not the game but the people playing the game. I had two guys just yelling at my over voice chat the whole game because I didn't get a spell they wanted me to get then followed by the guy calling me "garbage brah".

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I have had the beta for LoL for a while now and just got a key for HoN. I am enjoying LoL alot though I really wish they would add a new map(s).

I haven't yet been able to play a game of HoN but I haven't tried too hard. It reminds me of trying to join a game of DOTA. The few times I tried I got kicked(no clue why) or no one joined and it died. And from hearing about the noob treat you get I am not very motivated to try.

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NDA has been eased up, so we can talk but no screenshots/video.

LoL is very similar to HoN in my opinion but perhaps slightly better tuned, although that doesn't mean much since they're both in beta. Also while HoN is a carbon copy of DotA, LoL has some minor improvements and changes. Overall LoL feels a little more newbie friendly, it's still pretty easy to die but it's more easily avoidable. The item store is presented better by category, but what I find even more useful is the recommended item sets for each character which you can easily buy up as you go. They say that the recommended item set isn't necessarily the best way to gear your heroes but I find it works fine and doesn't make you think too much about it. There's no "denying" in LoL, killing your own minions and towers to prevent the enemies from getting gold, but you still need to "last hit" to get the most gold out of minions.

The biggest gameplay change in LoL are the Tower Inhibitors which replace the minion producing structures in your base. If you destroy an enemy's inhibitor then you are able to spawn super minions until the inhibitor is rebuilt after some fixed time elapses. The super minions have a lot of health so they're difficult to kill and they can eventually overwhelm defenses if left unchecked. They're kind of like Giants in Demigod but they're not really a threat to enemy heroes and they eventually stop coming if they're held off.

One other big change is the concept of the Summoner, who you play as the guy controlling the Hero. The Summoner has his own Spells of which you can select two at the start of a match. The spells don't cost your Hero any mana but they're generally on a long cooldown. Besides potions there aren't any usable items in LoL so the summoner's spells kind of fill that role. The Summoner also has a Rune book that you can fill with Runes that give minor bonuses to your hero. I'm not really sure how you're supposed to get Runes since currently you just press a button to get random runes right now in the beta. The Summoner also has Masteries which are basically WoW style talent trees to further buff your heroes or your spells. The three trees are Attack, Defense, and Utility. You gain levels as you play more matches so you have to earn points for the masteries and slots in your rune book.

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Soo anyone else still playing and/or excited that this is coming out of beta soon?

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Um, I'm playing!

Super late to the party... Never played DotA, or Heroes of Newerth, but I do own a copy of Demigod.

I'm not very good at this sort of game at all yet, but I'm learning. It's much more strategic than I thought it would be, and I seem to be swinging wildly back and forth between exultant "I'm getting better!" moments and being pasted like the newb I am. Still not really comfortable in the genre, but liking it better than traditional RTS, where I have multitasking and micro issues up the wazoo. Turns out only being responsible for, (at the most) two units helps a lot. I probably like the DoW2 campaigns for the same reason.

I have yet to spend a single red cent on the game, but I'm becoming tempted as I gain appreciation for the balance and effort Riot appears to be putting into improving the core mechanics of the subgenre they essentially spawned. Everything in the game, (save for cosmetic alternate skins) can be purchased through diligently playing for points, which I found pretty surprising. I guess people are impatient enough that they're doing alright on the sale of completely optional RMT points that would make the process of leveling up or purchasing characters faster.

I agree that the Adobe AIR/game client mash-up feels a little janky, and I'm not the biggest fan of the Blizzard-inspired art style, but this is definitely the kind of game I play for the mechanics as opposed to the aesthetics... It makes sense that it look somewhat like Warcraft 3 from a marketing perspective, they ARE trying to essentially capture that same player base/community they created and take a shot at monetizing it.

BOY do they ever need to finish polishing that second, smaller map for ranked play, though. Smaller, quicker games would change things up a lot, even though the wealth of characters and the team dynamics stay fresh enough to keep me coming back for now.

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Anyone else playing in this here League? I was really enjoying figuring out the mechanics and strategies (seeing as I hadn't played DotA it was all new to me). After getting past the fun of discovery I'm now in the 'trying to catch up' with people who are good / high level in the game... not as fun.

If anyone out there is looking for someone to group with, add me up. My name there is: "Zataar"

(a delicious spice mix)

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