ohyeaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

gotta get around to play more of this.

what's become of your coverage attempt on esr anyway?

is there some irc channel where you hang out to play hon?

hon has built in IRC no?

yeah but its limited to their network

what became of the coverage.. well.. i decided i would most likely get discussing if the game was suited for esports or not instead of actual game discussion..

i think there is a #cpm.hon but im not sure, i'm rarely at irc these days.

hopefully not. I currently dislike the sc vs. quake thingy that goes on at some threads, and also that some sc news are above quake tournaments and info since this was born primarely as a quake website and that sc threads have a lot less posts than quake related threads (more than 80% less).

filter it.. coverage among multiple games brings more hits from different areas and can indirectly cause someone to play quake for the first time :)

cba to read manuals on how to play

LoL (league of legends) gets similar and better updates about twice a month.
On the other hand it still lacks crucial features like integrated draft mode (now you have to use the chat to do the exclusive picks thing), replays, observers, more modes and maps (which hon also lacks but in which war3 is awesome), etc which will supposedly be live on the next 2 months. In general terms HoN seems more complete but it's just a better and more accesible version of dota.

the reason why I play it is I played dota for about 5 years then hon gets old really fast since it's almost the same game with better graphics (but on default you can't see anything just like q3 without picmip), features (about 3 months ago I played one game of dota and I didn't remember it lacked so much basic stuff) and worse char balance.
Actually I started playing LoL on october 2009 and not before because I thought the same as every dota player: looks cartoonish and you can't deny creeps. Once I started playing it all prejudices get by just by looking at their runes+masteries mechanics, maps and heroes (all new content), and the game is a lot more battle focused without creeps and towers denying.

(this is not shameless game promotion or something but just the point of view from someone who played dota and that got bored. Maybe it serves well to someone especially when season 1 gets released and the game catches HoN on what it is best)
edit: also it has a lot more player base than open beta HoN (I suppose hon has lots less players now that you have to pay for it. Thing is that even at open beta LoL had more players).

edit2: the most important thing: is free.

lol-list:

looks crappy

no denies

no tree destroying

gimicky invis forrest things

stupid rune things

no real way to keep enemies out of zone in early game

you don't lose money when you die

no awesome pulling into creep wave like there is in hon

rofl-updates à la "new skins for that hero"

its not really free as you say, you have these micro transactions and for more than the initial 3 heroes you have to pay or play alot

i prefer one time 30$ and then all content.

as I said that's the exact same I thought but dota players should give it a try nonetheless. The main attraction for me was that it's way different than dota (being hon an almost exact copy which is not a good thing for old school players), plus the runes+masteries+spells system is very interesting.

there's a judge prejudice regarding the microtransactions thing but in short it's not like that; most probably 5% or less of all players have payed for heroes (I haven't spend a single penny actually) and there are only 2 things that are "worth buying": skins/models and IP boosts (ip being LoL money earned by playing). Ofc you can buy an all content combo but actually I don't know a single person who did that because you don't have to play an awful lot to get the content.
Also there are not 3 initial heroes because there are free heroes for each week (about 15) and a static free heroes base. Because of this you can actually not spend IP (free money) at all in heroes and just focus on getting runes, which for a perfect set is more or less about a month depending how much do you play and win.
edit: actually that's the same it takes you to get to lvl30, in which all masteries and spells are accessible, so there's no need for micropayments at all due to getting everything needed in just one month. After that you can spend the later IP gains on getting all heroes and rune sets but that's not required really because there are worthless heroes just like in dota and hon (for example no one would get the sniper in dota if micropayments were involved).

about rofl updates.....nope. Updates are primarely about game balance and in the next couple of months a lot of content (hopefully. Season1 is one of those things that are promised eternally but it's "final deadline" is scheduled to be late july).

the idea remains the same: if you get bored of dota there are only 3 choices: play hon, which is almost the same thing therefore not the solution; quit mobas, not good if you liked the genre; or play LoL, which then becomes the only viable moba alternative nowadays (unless I finally get a BLC invite).

i've never played dota tbh.

i like hon because it's challenging.
i tried lol aswell, and in the first game i went 13-2 and the only thing i could think was "wow, this game is easy"

also lol seems very unfurnished, if you know what i mean.
the ingame font isn't really suitable for the resolution. i couldn't even read my hero's stats because the writing was so small.

i had the impression that on the hero selection screen, you couldn't really see which heroes the enemies are chosing, that seems to reduce the tactical element of the game(not sure if that is true tho).

edit: i tried lol aswell was what i meant

Blind pick is the only thing that exists at the moment, but doesn't everyone in hon just wait 'til the last second to pick anyway?

The reason I play lol over hon (although I shoudn't be playing either since they're SHIT) is simple: practise mode. hon basically gives you no way to just try shit out so trying to learn everything felt like way too much to be bothered with. Maybe if I'd had someone who knew what they were doing but I'm not interested now.

Edit: hon actually does have practise mode now that I think about it but no bots.

ya, no bots, but you have this test window, where you can spawn everything you want, give yourself money, spawn creeps, kill creeps, restore mana+health and so on.

that's a different thing. If I haven't played dota most probably I would be playing hon instead