Posts Tagged heroes of newerth

And I’ll let you into a little secret, it kicks ass. Heroes Of Newerth is a modern version of the insanely popular Warcraft 3 mod, Defense of the Ancients (DotA), with most of the game being almost identical (that’s not a bad thing). It’s being developed by S2 Gaming, the guys behind the Savage series of games. The beta was released earlier this year and currently has around one million players, with 32,000 players online at any one time, quite an achievement for a closed beta.<

If you've never played the Warcraft 3 mod (actually, it was a map, or 'scenario), I'll quickly explain the premise. Two teams of 5 players fight on a map with a base in the bottom left and top right corners. Each player picks one hero from a pool of 60 (still increasing as S2 add more heroes), and then controls that hero throughout the game. The objective is to destroy the opposing team's base. To help with that task, AI controlled 'creeps' spawn every 30 seconds from each base and traverse across the map towards the opposing base, along three paths, called 'lanes', one going straight across the middle, one around the top, and one on the bottom. These creeps serve as the income for the players, as killing them gives gold which can be used to buy upgrades.

The hero pool from the current patch (0.1.61)

What really has me hooked to this game is the amount of teamwork involved. Even from the start of the game, at the stage where each player picks their hero, lots of teamwork is required because each hero plays a different role and the 5 heroes on each team need to synergize well with each other and also counter the opposing team’s lineup. Every game is guaranteed to be different, no two battles will ever be the same because of the sheer amount of variation in heroes, items, and abilities. The game is best played with a group of five players communicating with VoIP. S2 is also proving to be a great developer because they update the game weekly with new heroes, new items, and balance tweaks.

Now is a great time to get a beta key and start playing, as there is no indication of the beta period being over any time soon. S2 have said that they want to release the game with more heroes than DotA, which means adding at least another 33 heroes into the mix. To have a chance of getting a hero key, join their Facebook page, they periodically give out beta keys to all readers. Alternatively, ask somebody who already has a beta key for an invite, or post a comment here and I’ll try and sort you out with one.