Now since this post is dedicated purely to Dota, (considered adding in random stuff but I won't) lead me on a trip down memory lane. Going to be a nice long read that most people will find boring but owelz. I have time to write this at work right now. I'll start with my own brief biography of my life of Dota.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I still remember my first Dota match ever. I don't even remember what Hero my friend was using but being Rho and my first match, he let us 2 v 1 him in Dota. I had picked Anti-mage for being the model using demon hunter that looked kool, while Rho picked Vengeful spirit being the hero a the top corner of 1 of the taverns. Even 2 v 1, we got slaughtered since we had no clue what we were doing. It only took 1 game though to be addicted. My first hero me going WTF about was Lina Inverse, The slayer. She having all these crazy nukes was WTF for me. From their, my next hero was Nerubian Assassin. He could go invisible and come out with all these nukes. Looking back, typical nub heroes for players with no skill *piff*. After this came the huge phase of swapping from hero to hero trying them all out and never finding one that really stuck. Now the biggest spur for my blast from the Dota past comes from my first real hero I could say took some skill that I liked and dominated with and was starting to consider myself a decent player. Nevermore, the shadow Fiend. He had amazing nukes that took skill to land, and some insane damage from his skills. Even now I play him as his HoN reincarnation, Soul Stealer.
Now my 2nd hero I moved to that I remember the most was Morphling. I really loved him and they even have him on 1 of the posters released for Dota 2.
He was so good. Changing to exactly what you need for the fight. An extremely versatile hero that even had a nice nuke, a stun and an escape move. He was the best. Though all good things come to an end, it wasn't long after discovering him that he was deemed too good and nerfed.
Now comes to my final hero of Dota that was unshaken-ably my best and favorite hero even now, the Nerubian Weaver. Weaving in and out of the fight, perfect escape and chase move. Late game potential without the fear of death early game with his ult and run skill. The perfect mix of pure ownage. If only HoN would import him over.
Now starts my HoN phase. Now during my whole time in Dota (maybe not near the end) I played purely EM(easy mode or short mode) games. This is deemed by my standard and general Dota standard as broken and for nubs. (Though thats a whole new can of worms of discussion that would last few pages) With start of Hon, I struggled with the transition from em to non-EM games. Just simply lowering the free gold you gain and exp by a bit and the whole game changed drastically. I look back now on my EM days and just shake my head, I was clearly nub. Nothing major for heroes, I pretty much run the same top heroes as I did when I first started HoN, Moon Queen and Dark Lady. Both heroes top my list and even in a horrible team I shine through with these heroes.
Side Story: Used to play Moon Queen alot with maphack abuse on Dota.
Only noteable thing about HoN was we kind of ran a set team for a couple months of: Me, Rho, JonGhost (the Aeria gamesage, he was godly at playing HoN), Jolt (the GM from Megaten, which told us many insider things of MT), and Kiroshima (or sometimes another person I forgot. Either way they were both horrid and fed XD Kiroshima still plays HoN and is much better) We won alot back then running a set team even with a feed since Jon would run around owning, I would play the carry in case things drew out, Rho had the support, and Jolt flipped around with int and sometimes carry, Kiro would do whatever XD.
I can say though, comparing my skill when I was in that set team to now, I think I improved alot due to using the TSR mod. Giving a numerical comparison with my peers made me buckle down and focus on always doing good rather then just killing and getting random nice games where I dominate.
Thus ends my journey though the past.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Now first let me start off by bashing the fact of anyone comparing LoL to Dota, and much stupider to think that Dota 2 will instantly end HoN and LoL like that article writers title.
1) HoN and Dota are pretty much the same with same map and even a larege sum of the same heroes. LoL on other hand is nothing like Dota. It lacks even fundamental mechanics like denying or losing gold on death. Many fundamental things were removed to shift focus to team fights and removed many elements elsewhere. Examples like emphasis on laning phase, ganking, denying exp, and juking through woods. Learn basics of how game works is fine, but as a player that played both HoN and LoL, Hon Moving to LoL takes 1-2 matches to figure ropes. LoL moving to HoN would take minimum of a week, closer to month to even have any semblance of looking decent. Many more months if you want to be pro which many don't reach.
Tl:DR; LoL and Dota is completely different.
2) The thought that Dota 2 can snuff out all the competition is absurd. Thats like claiming Starcraft 2 will end all other RTS games which includes another 1 of blizzard franchise, Warcraft. First thing, if Dota 2 is monthly subscription, it is instantly game over. It won't even take off the ground. Players coming from free (Dota), or F2P (LoL), or 1 box cost of 30 dollars (HoN) would never accept paying monthly. The costs would be huge and no one would pay. Even assuming they don't follow that model, what incentive does it have to move players from the HoN community to the Dota one? I mean personally, I paid 30 dollars already for HoN, why would I pay again to play Dota 2 if nothing big is changed?
The Major issue with Dota 2 will be finding a player base. Sure they will have the hardcore Dota fans that won't settle with HoN, but you need to give a reason for people to move. Category 1 would be Dota players still playing Warcraft 3 version. These people are already to cheap to pay 30 dollars for HoN, many won't pay for Dota 2 either, with only a small sum moving.
Category 2 would be LoL players. These won't move since the game is totally different and they play LoL for the different gameplay. Category 3 is HoN players. Since no real large change, many won't move. The conversion from Dota to HoN already fixed the biggest issues like voice chat, maphack, bugs and faulty engine. Only real "new thing will be the AI in Dota 2 which I'll go more deeply in point 3. Category 4 will be random players. Obviosuly these people will flock and try it just cause and can't really account for how many. This and hardcore dota fans will be majority of playerbase which I don't think will compare to LoL or HoNs player base right now. (HoN has a good 20k players online at any point in the day meaning like a good 60-70k people log in daily. Pretty hard to compete with.
3) Now the new features coming with Dota 2 in all the articles about it combined are summed down to these points, voice chat, AI, better graphics, and just more stable platform. Of these, HoN already has all but the AI so that is the "major" point. Now it is said that this AI is suppose to provide a training tutorial which I feel is good way to at least learn ropes. Afterall, the Dota community is by far the most harass community to newcomers in any game out their. People will complain about even the tiniest mistake so walking in not knowing what your doing combined with voice chat means you can hear them scream at you and not just cap locked typing.
The problem with the AI is the 2nd feature. This would actually deter me from playing Dota 2, substituting players that leave game with the AI bot. Now a game like Dota requires way to many on the fly decisions to create an AI for. To know when to juke, when to chase when not to, who to target in fights, which order, waiting for perfect time to initiate or join fight, or when know have ganking sense tingle and run away. just tons and tons of things to program into AI that would impossible task. Like any AI, will be tested thoroughly by players and abused and killed over and over again. Substituting a AI in a match would be worse then running 4 v 5.
Overall even being a fan of Dota and missing many of my favorite heroes from Dota while playing Hon, I would not consider moving to play Dota 2. They would need something amazing to make me want to move over to it. (especially if they use the old Dota hotkey system which would totally screw me over now that I'm used to the HoN skill keyboard map system. I still press some of the Dota hotkeys by instinct for some of the heroes when I'm playing)
TL:DR; Dota 2 will be hardpressed to find a player base without somehow overshadowing HoN.
~Pearz
