Posts Tagged ‘beta’

Banning pick is here

Patch 0.1.66 came out today. The patch includes various hero buffs/nerfs, bug fixes and a new mode!

The long awaited “Banning Pick” mode is here. Similar to Captains mode from dota, each captain will get  3 bans per team then each player has 60 seconds to pick a hero from the pool , taking turns alternately.

It might sound similar to banning draft, however, you can pick from the full list of heroes.

With this new mode aimed at competitive play, there have been a few hero changes:
Zephyr has largely been remade (for the umpteenth  time). His ultimate now a Typhoon that reaps destruction to enemies the closer they are to the epicentre. This definitely synergies well with Tempest’s ultimate, making zephyr a useful hero now.

Electrician has been buffed, his ultimate having its cool-down reduced and the ability to jump to multiple targets if in possession of Staff of the Master. Other changes are viewable in the change-log on this site.

Personally, as a dedicated Valkyrie player i was glad to see that her ultimate has been improved(cool-down and mana cost reduced), enabling me to skill prism earlier without concerns about mana consumption.
The sound that Valkyrie’s arrow makes has been quietened, making it harder for enemies to hear that distinctive sound. Although minor, this can mean the difference between winning/loosing a gank/battle.

These are just a few hero changes, other heroes including Pyromancer (new DoT effect on fervor), Jeriziah(repel nerf), devourer, Madman and more have been updated.

Lastly, most heroes with aura’s now gain the ability to toggle them on or off. We think this is a nice idea especially when some aura’s effect lane control, namely pushing the creeps too far into enemy towers making it difficult to farm or gank.

How to record replays manually

It has emerged there are console commands which enable us to record our own Heroes of Newerth replays manually. We have tested these commands and they do indeed work – the quality is remarkable and we recommend their use however there is no interface, it is literally just your screen and the action. Here’s how to do it:

When you’re in a game go into the console (Ctrl-F8; same to exit) and type “replayrecordstart <filename>” (filename can be anything, for example replay1.rep)

Once you’re done recording type “replayrecordstop”. It saves the replay into your user files folder, under linux it’s ~/.Heroes of Newerth/game/replays. Under windows it puts them in ‘Application Data’ or ‘My Documents’, so you have to move the replay file into your root game folder where the HoN executable file is (hon.exe or hon-x86).

After that, to play the replay you have to go into a practice game and type into the console “startreplay <filename>”.

Acknowledgments to zdd on this one. We hope you capture all of your epic triple kills from now on!

Exciting Developments in HoN

S2 has recently revealed what it is focusing on in its next patch – along with the development of new heroes, there are a number of new features they hope to include in the next round of beta-testing.

They hope to include a new spectator and replay-watching interface, with detailed information panels and loads of options to enhance the viewing experience.
Every HoN match played will be available to view as a replay; also all the match statistics will be viewable; however to view those games played in beta, you will need to pre-purchase your account.

Heroes of Newerth will soon have automated match-making systems using stats and PSR to put together teams. Only individual and 5-man team play will be enabled, however. There will also be a tournament system made with loads of amazing features.

There will be a new shop incorporated into the HoN gameplay interface: recommended items. No longer will we see incorrect builds on people who don’t know how to play their heroes!

There are 4 heroes currently in the process of being incorporated into HoN. These include:
Sand Wraith: Mercurial (Spectre) port
Panda dude: New hero based on a panda
Diseased Rider: Lich port
Necrolyte port

So we have all of this to look forward to!

Heroes of Newerth open beta ?

This last week S2 games announced that Heroes of Newerth will be moving to the next stage of testing very soon.
So with Open beta around the corner and already over 4.2 million… yes million games played,any doubts about the future success of HoN start to dwindle. Can anything can stop this monster ?

Well… yes,

Starcraft 2 :  Release date first half of 2010.

Diablo III : Release date 2010, quarter unknown.

League of Legends : In closed beta.

Along with others…

So what will happen to our community when these, unquestionably bandit title’s get released?
We are already seeing growth of the LoL community, regardless of the fact the majority of them are under the age of 12 and couldn’t tell the difference between a good RTS and their elbow. But that’s just my personal opinion.
The hardcore Starcraft and Diablo fans among the HoN community will be beyond any doubt buying and exclusively playing their respective titles, unless they turn out to be somewhat of a blunder.

Where does your loyalty stand, will you be playing playing Heroes of Newerth in a years time ?