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On June 02 2010 22:29 mlbrandow wrote:Show nested quote +On June 02 2010 10:01 positronix wrote:
Heroes of Newerth - basically a mirror of Starcraft 2. It's the second iteration of a wildly popular game which is a complete copy of DOTA. Nothing was changed except the addition of content which wasn't really gamechanging.
Oh, and the entire interface was upgraded with every feature the DOTA community was demanding.
Seriously, the HoN interface is so conducive to both tournament and casual play (even if the game itself isn't for casuals) that you just want to weep when you go from that kind of environment back to bnet 2.0
Anyone else think Blizzard should just copy S2? I stopped playing Heroes of Newerth after the beta, because even though all the tools are in place, none of the functionality is there and they released an incomplete game. Maybe when competitive league play comes I'll start playing again. Until then, every game in retail is just varying levels of me constantly yelling at retards on my team.
Also, a bit off topic, but I have never seen a more self-contradicting post before.
1. Tools are in place but the functionality is not there. What the hell does that even mean. Can't just go spouting such stuff without examples.
2. You stopped playing after beta, yet every game in retail is varying levels of you yelling at retards on your team (sucks to be on your team, but even more interesting is you not playing and yet somehow happening to be in a team).
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I updated the first post with screenshots of HoN interface for those who haven't played the game.
One of the things I missed while writing on those pictures is the autoconnect feature. You see it just above the list of players in the chatroom, if you click that box you will autoconnect to the channel every time you log on.
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I would also like to add that Follow does not require authentication from everyone involved in order to start a game. When you follow someone, you automatically join whatever game they have joined even if you are afk for 10 seconds while getting a drink. Bnet 2.0, on the other hand, demands that all players in the party accept in order to host a game lobby, and will not allow parties to join custom games which have team sizes smaller than the party. If you try to join a turret defense as a party, and that turret defense was made so that all 8 people are on separate teams, you cannot join that game. However, if they implemented Follow like in HoN, that problem would be alleviated.
My solution for Bnet 2.0 - Hire the guys from S2 to design the new Bnet, and scrap the current version.
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Wow. I'm at amazement at how much more powerful and streamlined it looks. But I don't think blizzard is gonna implement anything like that - It has way too much useful information on the screen for an average console gamer to comprehend. Plus there's way too few empty space around taken up by bloated UI and that's just cries for a misclick if you're using controller instead of mouse.
Clearly, it was designed for a computer game unlike b.net 0.2
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On June 03 2010 16:44 InRaged wrote:
Wow. I'm at amazement at how much more powerful and streamlined it looks. But I don't think blizzard is gonna implement anything like that - It has way too much useful information on the screen for an average console gamer to comprehend. Plus there's way too few empty space around taken up by bloated UI and that's just cries for a misclick if you're using controller instead of mouse.
Clearly, it was designed for a computer game unlike b.net 0.2
What? Since when are SC2, Diablo 3, or WoW console games?
The screenshots in the OP don't do the HoN interface justice.
The person complaing about savage servers is just... lol. They are a tiny company and didn't have the playerbase or money to spend on srevers. HoN servers have been quite reliable and more importantly, the latency is hardly noticeable. I live in Hawaii and I have had much better experiences with the USWest servers on HoN than the sc2 servers so far. 
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HoN is very decent when compared to B.net 2.0
First thing off, I can play with players from around the world, no problem! All in one client.
Match Making is fast and brutal.
Chat channels for all!
Buddy List and easy clans, sure have them?
In game voice chat that works perfectly since beta opened? have that too.
Almost all our complaints, except LAN, is done by S2 in HoN, and its offered for 30 dollars.
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I've actually had this same thought, OP. I really praised the HoN interface for being very user friendly (save for a few easy to make adjustments, like not putting "leave clan" button under "view stats") and being able to reconnect to a game... oh my what a godsend this is for a game like HoN. Since Blizzard is so keen on hosting all of our battle.net games, that would be an incredibly nice feature to have. I don't know what kind of system requirements or coding is required on Blizzard's end to implement that, but damn think of how much it would help.
Especially in important tournaments. Imagine if one player disconnects when the outcome isn't certain. The observers can pause and allow for the player to rejoin, and all the issues of having to regame are dealt with forever. Will players be kind enough to pause in 1v1 ladder games? Probably not. But i bet it can still happen in UMS games (like a SC2 DotA clone lol).
But yes OP, I wish Blizzard would take some advice from S2's production team and make an interface similar to HoN's. I thought it was immensely easier to use and nicer than Bnet 2.0
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United States758 Posts
Group chat might end up being very similar to channels.
I also feel confident that the custom map menu will change.
HoN definitely looks amazing though 
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On June 03 2010 16:53 fnaticAugury wrote:Group chat might end up being very similar to channels. I also feel confident that the custom map menu will change. HoN definitely looks amazing though
I really hope so, I hope they fix all the problems, but honestly most of these features in the HoN interface were there from the start of closed beta while Bnet is lagging behind dramatically.
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On June 03 2010 16:47 Butigroove wrote:Show nested quote +On June 03 2010 16:44 InRaged wrote:
Wow. I'm at amazement at how much more powerful and streamlined it looks. But I don't think blizzard is gonna implement anything like that - It has way too much useful information on the screen for an average console gamer to comprehend. Plus there's way too few empty space around taken up by bloated UI and that's just cries for a misclick if you're using controller instead of mouse.
Clearly, it was designed for a computer game unlike b.net 0.2 What? Since when are SC2, Diablo 3, or WoW console games? The screenshots in the OP don't do the HoN interface justice. The person complaing about savage servers is just... lol. They are a tiny company and didn't have the playerbase or money to spend on srevers. HoN servers have been quite reliable and more importantly, the latency is hardly noticeable. I live in Hawaii and I have had much better experiences with the USWest servers on HoN than the sc2 servers so far.
Dude, I think your sarcasm meter is broken. But having played HoN, it's got an excellent and powerful interface that's designed to be newbie friendly because it's intuitive, and geared to the competitive gamer; it has all these bells and whistles that people like to drool over hidden beneath the basic set-up. Sure, you can play w/out minding your PSR and whatnot, but the OC progamers can dig deep into your profile, see your play-style, reliability and whatnot.
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Why is OP starting to sound more and more like a viral marketer for HoN ? Well, it's not a bad game at all, though personally I prefer League of Legends as a Dota successor.
And I'm pretty sure the problem is less that that Blizzard cannot implement such features as was done in HoN, but more that they simply choose not to. Hopefully, the recent upheavals here and in the battle.net forums will let them think twice of where they want to be, at least in the long term.
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On June 03 2010 17:02 Alphaes wrote:Why is OP starting to sound more and more like a viral marketer for HoN ? Well, it's not a bad game at all, though personally I prefer League of Legends as a Dota successor. And I'm pretty sure the problem is less that that Blizzard cannot implement such features as was done in HoN, but more that they simply choose not to. Hopefully, the recent upheavals here and in the battle.net forums will let them think twice of where they want to be, at least in the long term.
Yeah I actually own S2 thats the real motivation behind this post
Anyway as far as interface is concerned, LoL is lightyears behind HoN (I really can't believe they chose adobe air as their platform... seriously...) and I won't derail this thread by going into gameplay arguments.
But honestly I find it disturbing a company of Blizzards stature is getting outdone by S2 (at least from a functionality standpoint). Seriously, S2... what are they known for beside Savage? And did anyone even play that game? I sure didn't.
Also, the picture below is both an example of chat channels being tastefully done as well as a reason why I now loathe this thread.
![[image loading]](http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc258/positronstar/wtfditched.gif)
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OP is saying that blizzard should copy S2's social UI, which is an amazing idea since HoN's UI is leaps and bounds ahead of bnet2.0 yet took (judging from S2's low resources) less time and money to develop. Why is a company with such extensive resources falling behind in regards to a company with minimal resources, companies don't just "get lazy"... Someone needs to interview blizzard and be like ask why they are trying to market such an inferior system while blatantly lying and saying it is superior.
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Christ testie has sick stats in HoN
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On June 02 2010 10:01 positronix wrote:Heroes of Newerth - basically a mirror of Starcraft 2. It's the second iteration of a wildly popular competitive game. Nothing groundbreaking was changed except the addition and removal of some content. HoN : DOTA is the same as SC2 : SCBW, yet somehow Battle.net 2.0 is being met with hostility while the HoN interface has given players everything they've ever asked for. Seriously, the HoN interface is so conducive to both tournament and casual play (even if the game itself isn't for casuals) that you just want to weep when you go from that kind of environment back to bnet 2.0 Anyone else think Blizzard should just copy S2? Here are screenshots showing the Heroes of Newerth interface http://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc258/positronstar/HoN1-1.gifhttp://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc258/positronstar/HoN2-1.gifhttp://i214.photobucket.com/albums/cc258/positronstar/HoN3.gifI would also like to add that HoN is already released, was in beta for months, and the interface has undergone several major changes during that time. However, chat channels, "cross realm play" (there are no real realms in HoN), and custom game creation has been there from day 1.
HoN wasnt only in beta for "many months", it was in beta for like a year. I was in the HoN beta back in like May or June of LAST YEAR, as a friend had invited me to join. I dont know when the beta actually started, but yea... at least a year of beta. If you want, they can delay SC2 until around march of next year... but I kinda want to play the retail version.
I agree that the current iteration of bnet 2.0 is horrendous, but I am hoping they can get some key features in by release (chat and cross-region play).
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On June 02 2010 10:57 RyanS wrote:
You said HoN is a mirror of SC2. When you look in a mirror you see yourself exactly how you are. This makes no sense to me.
FFS mirror is a bad word, sure. What he is saying is "HoN is to DotA as SC2 is to SC:BW". It's an analogy.
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he is saying that hon=dota and sc2=sc:bw in the way they are so similar. however i think the comparison is mainly in regards to networking platform of it. i think he means that because all HoN did is improve Dota. this is what they should do with sc2.
thats what i believe he meant to say.
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On June 02 2010 10:14 susySquark wrote:
HoN - no LAN.
but it has chat channels!
Do you really need chat channels?
However S2 really does not need nothing too complicated..it just need chat channels and then it would be perfect
(i would like also not having bug every patch but...oh well..we can't have everything right?)
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Simply put, S2 is still at the phase where they're trying to make a name for themselves and therefore have to be "nice" to their playerbase, add features and be generally positive in every regard.
Blizzard has gotten large enough that they've decided to just live on their past reputation, remove whatever doesn't maximize money and shit on the SC community just because they can afford to. Typically the point where a company starts stifling innovation and freedom for its customers rather than promoting it, and where they start being a negative influence on whatever markets are theirs.
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On June 03 2010 19:52 shlomo wrote:
Simply put, S2 is still at the phase where they're trying to make a name for themselves and therefore have to be "nice" to their playerbase, add features and be generally positive in every regard.
Blizzard has gotten large enough that they've decided to just live on their past reputation, remove whatever doesn't maximize money and shit on the SC community just because they can afford to. Typically the point where a company starts stifling innovation and freedom for its customers rather than promoting it, and where they start being a negative influence on whatever markets are theirs.
This.
Companies have a life cycle, and some will never reach the size of Blizzard, they will fail earlier.
Size prevents new management challenges for companies; they need to standardize stuff, reuse stuff etc just to stay competitive (as in, being profitable enough to attract investment). This means cutting the less profitable features of products or entire product lines.
Sure, while the original company creators have a big say in the company, they will continue with their initial vision. However, there is only so much momentum a person can generate during his/her professional life. After a while they start caring about other things. So they sell their shares and then the company focus shifts, because external stakeholders care about their financial investment, not the company vision (99% cases, just to be safe).
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EPT
