4 ms·

Dota 2 came out 4 years after LoL Unless you mean the original DOTA mod for warcraft 3, in which case, yeah I mean why wouldn't you make a full game out of a m

Dota 2 came out 4 years after LoL Unless you mean the original DOTA mod for warcraft 3, in which case, yeah I mean why wouldn't you make a full game out of a mod that people loved?

gfody 5y ago
of course I mean the original. I agree making it into a standalone was a great idea and Heroes of Newerth was amazing. LoL remains a blatant low quality ripoff whose success is due entirely to the novelty of the genre.
- gamblor956 5y ago
  Literally millions of people disagree with you. LoL is still one of the most popular online games now than a decade after launch. HoN was a critical and commercial failure at launch.
  - Bigpet 5y ago
    Next you're going to tell me all the mobile free-to-play games are clearly the best games ever because they're "popular". Popularity and quality have a very tentative relationship at the best of times. When differences in barriers to entry and network effects come in, then quality has to at most just clear a watermark. So I'd say it's probably more likely "not bad enough to lose popularity" than it is "so popular because it's so high-quality"
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    So Solitair is the best game of all time? Cigarettes are more popular than cuban cigars and McDonalds is more popular that a Michelin star restaraunt.
    - gamblor956 5y ago
      HoN and a "Michelin star restaurant" aren't the same kind of restaurant, and don't target the same customers, so popularity says nothing about their relative quality. Plenty of people, myself include, like McDonalds. Not many people think McDonalds is the best restaurant ever. However, comparing the popularity of McDonalds to other similar restaurants like Carls Jr or Jack in the Box would be a good indicator of perceptions of quality. LoL and HoN are essentially different versions of the same game, so popularity is a good indicia of the market perceptions of game quality. LoL has been popular since it was launched over a decade ago, and remains popular to this day, outlasting dozens of other e-sports games, indicating that the player base thinks the game is still good enough to keep playing it even in the face of competition from newer games. DOTA2, similarly has a large player base, indicating that a large number of people also find the game to be of sufficient quality and enjoyment to spend years playing. Both Riot and Valve earned hundreds of millions from their respective MOBAs, and continue to make large amounts of money from these games. In contrast, the abject failure that was HoN almost bankrupt S2 games (their followup MOBA, Strife, finally killed them off.) On a further note, I find it quite humorous that the parent to which I was replying accused LoL of being just a clone of DOTA, despite Riot actually putting a significant amount of effort into differentiating the heroes and combat. At launch, the HoN heroes were just reskins of the DOTA heroes.
      - gfody 5y ago
        a lot of us og dota players got on the hon beta around summer 09 and appreciated how it faithfully preserved mechanics to the point that a lot of your skills just transferred over - the graphics were beautiful and it really felt like an upgraded dota experience. the attention to detail was absolute quality. I played it for years and it still holds a warm place in my heart. it started going south with the switch to f2p, lame in-game purchases, and generally trying to emulate LoL's pandering to the wider/younger market. I tried to like LoL and gave it an extended trial but ultimately hated how they simplified the mechanics and the casual nature of it all. they obviously made the right choices for making the most money possible but they made the shitty version of dota. it just turns out there's a bigger market for shitty dota than proper dota.
        gamblor956 5y ago
        So, you're basically admitting that HoN was just a reskinning of DOTA... IOW, HoN was entirely unoriginal and players might as well have just stuck with the original DOTA. And people did...DOTA on a given day had more players than HoN during its entire run. LoL may have simplified the mechanics of DOTA, but it did something new and fundamentally set the stage for e-sports as we know it. Complex mechanics in themselves aren't to be celebrated; a lot of what LoL did was to eliminate the pointlessly complex mechanics. Even the edit:[lead developer] of DOTA thought the mechanics had gotten too complex to be enjoyable for more than a very niche audience, which is why he streamlined a lot of them when given the opportunity to develop DOTA2 for Valve.
        gfody 5y ago
        it's not a scandal, we were invited to beta hon under the explicit expectation that it was dota remade on a modern engine - and that's what we wanted as wc3 and bnet were awfully dilapidated by then. it's more than a reskinning it brought modern match making and stats and nice community features, etc. and I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers but I recall bnet becoming a ghost town once hon started to get popular not to mention the quality of the matches. from what I can tell hon had decent run - won plenty of awards, made plenty of money, it's not league of legends but nothing is even close to that. and apparently there are people still playing hon - they just released a client for M1 a few months ago.
- wingerlang 5y ago
  If the genre was the deciding factor, why did HoN die and LoL not?
  - jjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 5y ago
    I can't speak to LoL's quality because I haven't played it, but I personally believe the largest factor was LoL's business model. League was free to play and attracted a huge player base because of it, while you had to spend ~30USD (?) to play HoN. They eventually switched to a free to play model as well, but it was way too late. I have spent thousands and thousands and thousands of hours in DotA, HoN and DotA 2—and HoN was a great game with a worse business model and sadly horrible leadership (CEO caught on several occasions dropping the most vulgar racist and homophobic remarks, banning people in-game if they upset him).
    - jnwatson 5y ago
      Free-to-play was by far the biggest reason, but other reasons are important. LoL is a far more forgiving game for newcomers. Easier return to base and self-minion hitting are the big differences. It also has a more cartoony art style which attracts a wider audience.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  HON was clearly superior in terns of art and style, and hero names actually made sence. Magmus, pyromancer and swift blade sound like what they mean, and do what it says. Wtf is Juggernaught? Something big? Wtf is sandking ability, quicksand?
  - gverrilla 5y ago
    lore, art and style are not that important for mobas because your mind gets completely emerged in the complexity of the gameplay very rapidly
  - gamblor956 5y ago
    We must have played HoN at different parts of its lifecycle. When I played it at launch, the heroes were just reskins of the DOTA heroes. The art style was less cartoony than LoL, but the graphical fidelity also meant that it was more difficult to pick out the HoN heroes from the background than it was in LoL, and the graphical clutter was a fundamental part of why HoN failed.
- void_mint 5y ago
  Ah, I didn't realize it was so easy to make a game so popular. I guess it makes sense, given how HoN, Dota 2 and a million others have been equal "low quality ripoff"s and had similar success.
  - gfody 5y ago
    Riot introduced lane pushing moba to the widest audience possible - their game sucks - the genre is strong. If those other award winning dotas were willing to make the hard choices and sacrifice hardcore gamers in favor of the larger casual market then yes they too could have enjoyed Riot's level of success.
    - void_mint 5y ago
      > Riot introduced lane pushing moba to the widest audience possible - their game sucks - the genre is strong. If those other award winning dotas were willing to make the hard choices and sacrifice hardcore gamers in favor of the larger casual market then yes they too could have enjoyed Riot's level of success. "I don't like a game so it is bad"
      - gfody 5y ago
        fair, honestly - I probably wouldn't be saying it sucks if I liked it, but then if it didn't suck I'd probably like it especially considering how much I love the genre. either way the fact that Riot has been this successful with such a low quality game is a testament to the strength of the genre and the vision of the original creators
        void_mint 5y ago
        > but then if it didn't suck I'd probably like it "I don't like it so it sucks"

Dota 2 came out 4 years after LoL Unless you mean the original DOTA mod for warcraft 3, in which case, yeah I mean why wouldn't you make a full game out of a mod that people loved?

gfody 5y ago

of course I mean the original. I agree making it into a standalone was a great idea and Heroes of Newerth was amazing. LoL remains a blatant low quality ripoff whose success is due entirely to the novelty of the genre.

gamblor956 5y ago
Literally millions of people disagree with you. LoL is still one of the most popular online games now than a decade after launch. HoN was a critical and commercial failure at launch.
- Bigpet 5y ago
  Next you're going to tell me all the mobile free-to-play games are clearly the best games ever because they're "popular". Popularity and quality have a very tentative relationship at the best of times. When differences in barriers to entry and network effects come in, then quality has to at most just clear a watermark. So I'd say it's probably more likely "not bad enough to lose popularity" than it is "so popular because it's so high-quality"
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  So Solitair is the best game of all time? Cigarettes are more popular than cuban cigars and McDonalds is more popular that a Michelin star restaraunt.
  - gamblor956 5y ago
    HoN and a "Michelin star restaurant" aren't the same kind of restaurant, and don't target the same customers, so popularity says nothing about their relative quality. Plenty of people, myself include, like McDonalds. Not many people think McDonalds is the best restaurant ever. However, comparing the popularity of McDonalds to other similar restaurants like Carls Jr or Jack in the Box would be a good indicator of perceptions of quality. LoL and HoN are essentially different versions of the same game, so popularity is a good indicia of the market perceptions of game quality. LoL has been popular since it was launched over a decade ago, and remains popular to this day, outlasting dozens of other e-sports games, indicating that the player base thinks the game is still good enough to keep playing it even in the face of competition from newer games. DOTA2, similarly has a large player base, indicating that a large number of people also find the game to be of sufficient quality and enjoyment to spend years playing. Both Riot and Valve earned hundreds of millions from their respective MOBAs, and continue to make large amounts of money from these games. In contrast, the abject failure that was HoN almost bankrupt S2 games (their followup MOBA, Strife, finally killed them off.) On a further note, I find it quite humorous that the parent to which I was replying accused LoL of being just a clone of DOTA, despite Riot actually putting a significant amount of effort into differentiating the heroes and combat. At launch, the HoN heroes were just reskins of the DOTA heroes.
    - gfody 5y ago
      a lot of us og dota players got on the hon beta around summer 09 and appreciated how it faithfully preserved mechanics to the point that a lot of your skills just transferred over - the graphics were beautiful and it really felt like an upgraded dota experience. the attention to detail was absolute quality. I played it for years and it still holds a warm place in my heart. it started going south with the switch to f2p, lame in-game purchases, and generally trying to emulate LoL's pandering to the wider/younger market. I tried to like LoL and gave it an extended trial but ultimately hated how they simplified the mechanics and the casual nature of it all. they obviously made the right choices for making the most money possible but they made the shitty version of dota. it just turns out there's a bigger market for shitty dota than proper dota.
      - gamblor956 5y ago
        So, you're basically admitting that HoN was just a reskinning of DOTA... IOW, HoN was entirely unoriginal and players might as well have just stuck with the original DOTA. And people did...DOTA on a given day had more players than HoN during its entire run. LoL may have simplified the mechanics of DOTA, but it did something new and fundamentally set the stage for e-sports as we know it. Complex mechanics in themselves aren't to be celebrated; a lot of what LoL did was to eliminate the pointlessly complex mechanics. Even the edit:[lead developer] of DOTA thought the mechanics had gotten too complex to be enjoyable for more than a very niche audience, which is why he streamlined a lot of them when given the opportunity to develop DOTA2 for Valve.
        gfody 5y ago
        it's not a scandal, we were invited to beta hon under the explicit expectation that it was dota remade on a modern engine - and that's what we wanted as wc3 and bnet were awfully dilapidated by then. it's more than a reskinning it brought modern match making and stats and nice community features, etc. and I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers but I recall bnet becoming a ghost town once hon started to get popular not to mention the quality of the matches. from what I can tell hon had decent run - won plenty of awards, made plenty of money, it's not league of legends but nothing is even close to that. and apparently there are people still playing hon - they just released a client for M1 a few months ago.
wingerlang 5y ago
If the genre was the deciding factor, why did HoN die and LoL not?
- jjjjjjjjjjjjjjj 5y ago
  I can't speak to LoL's quality because I haven't played it, but I personally believe the largest factor was LoL's business model. League was free to play and attracted a huge player base because of it, while you had to spend ~30USD (?) to play HoN. They eventually switched to a free to play model as well, but it was way too late. I have spent thousands and thousands and thousands of hours in DotA, HoN and DotA 2—and HoN was a great game with a worse business model and sadly horrible leadership (CEO caught on several occasions dropping the most vulgar racist and homophobic remarks, banning people in-game if they upset him).
  - jnwatson 5y ago
    Free-to-play was by far the biggest reason, but other reasons are important. LoL is a far more forgiving game for newcomers. Easier return to base and self-minion hitting are the big differences. It also has a more cartoony art style which attracts a wider audience.
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
HON was clearly superior in terns of art and style, and hero names actually made sence. Magmus, pyromancer and swift blade sound like what they mean, and do what it says. Wtf is Juggernaught? Something big? Wtf is sandking ability, quicksand?
- gverrilla 5y ago
  lore, art and style are not that important for mobas because your mind gets completely emerged in the complexity of the gameplay very rapidly
- gamblor956 5y ago
  We must have played HoN at different parts of its lifecycle. When I played it at launch, the heroes were just reskins of the DOTA heroes. The art style was less cartoony than LoL, but the graphical fidelity also meant that it was more difficult to pick out the HoN heroes from the background than it was in LoL, and the graphical clutter was a fundamental part of why HoN failed.
void_mint 5y ago
Ah, I didn't realize it was so easy to make a game so popular. I guess it makes sense, given how HoN, Dota 2 and a million others have been equal "low quality ripoff"s and had similar success.
- gfody 5y ago
  Riot introduced lane pushing moba to the widest audience possible - their game sucks - the genre is strong. If those other award winning dotas were willing to make the hard choices and sacrifice hardcore gamers in favor of the larger casual market then yes they too could have enjoyed Riot's level of success.
  - void_mint 5y ago
    > Riot introduced lane pushing moba to the widest audience possible - their game sucks - the genre is strong. If those other award winning dotas were willing to make the hard choices and sacrifice hardcore gamers in favor of the larger casual market then yes they too could have enjoyed Riot's level of success. "I don't like a game so it is bad"
    - gfody 5y ago
      fair, honestly - I probably wouldn't be saying it sucks if I liked it, but then if it didn't suck I'd probably like it especially considering how much I love the genre. either way the fact that Riot has been this successful with such a low quality game is a testament to the strength of the genre and the vision of the original creators
      - void_mint 5y ago
        > but then if it didn't suck I'd probably like it "I don't like it so it sucks"