Hmmmm,  I have to say I was incredibly impressed by my limited experience with HoN.

Sure for a lot of people games can coexist side by side like this, but I think you'll find for a lot of the serious population they want one great game they can be awesome at and put all their effort into mastering, not several.  They might give them a go, but then fall to the wayside.

HoN has won massive points in my books by ensuring it has a massive array of perfect team playing/matchmaking/lobby/hero features from the word go, instead of treating them as though getting them into a game is a chore, and "up to you to bring more friends to the game".

I personally prefer the demigod gameplay, I have my fingers crossed this game will eventually catch up, but that doesn't mean I'm not disappointed to see another game in beta with a bunch of features DG have taken arguably too long with to nurture the community this genre needs.

demigod was a real eye-opener for me, never having played a MOBA game before, i even got 5 of my friends hooked on it

but past 3 weeks i haven't played it anymore, i'm burnt out on it. there is nothing new, no balancing, no bug fixing (TB autoattack anyone? for starters)

it's a bit sad becouse i think games like these need to have constant patches to create fresh situations. i kind of miss the flavour of the month posts.  the transition from asassin to minion builds etc, now it's all dried up.. the maps we all know them by heath

the abilities they have all become the same

lately i have been playing LoL.. it's a decent game with already alot of content both in and outgame, the forums are very active, and i truly enjoy reading up on abilities, constant balance patching and introducing of heroes keeps it fresh. there's only one map. but it's big enough and filled with fun places, basically i'm sold

demigod still holds great esteem in my heart but, the absolute lack of developer involvement, well it just doesn't feel right in the gut, i actually have no desire whatsoever to start up demigod.exe anymore.. not even when my friends (RL might i add) ask me to join up for a game, and i predict they will get burned out soon aswell

well i'll miss demigod and it's absolutely professional aproach on characters (the voice acting is sublime) the demi's are very interesting, the map layouts are perfect, and the graphics although a bit german-budget-style looking (you know not exactly perfect looking) are very consistent on every level, nothing feels out of place

thank you startdock also for the great support and personal aproach to userassistance, it's a first for me in the industry

if an X-pack would come out (or even better a patch ofcourse) i'll buy it for sure, and enjoy some of the new content. but i'm most defenitely afraid not many players will be left by then, and they may not be as forgiving or rabid as me =D

have a good one guys, cheers

I will start with HoN: Basicly it is a 1:1 copy of DotA, same heroes, same map, same items. Heroes walk faster (imho bad). Some advantages in features that DotA can't have, because it is a mod for Warcraft 3. And the main problem for every DotA player: They changed every graphic and name (items too) So you have to relearn everything until you can play it at your level.

[br/] Now LoL: It is a different game. It is not Demigod, because there are no citadel upgrades and just one map. But it isn't DotA/HoN, because it has different items and heroes. The main feature of LoL is beginner-friendliness. Everything that everybody does after he/she learned it you get for free: town portal, no denies (it's just for noob bashing in DotA). In the shop you can buy "defense -> health reg" instead of "blabla of dummdi" in the shop "dradam" to get health reg. When you add the free2play to this you will know that LoL will survive.

[br/] Demigod: With it lack of support and updates it will die. Stardock did a nice support, but GPG do only what they have to do, because of Stardock. (I just want to mention "sedna bug" and the fact that 5vs5 is still next ti impossible, so you don't have to start argueing) Possible that the community will give Demigod a second life with the modding tools. But lets see when the mod features are relesead.

I'm sympathetic with the issue here but as far as the PR goes, it seems like I've seen him on dozens of threads like this over the last few months.  I know you're frustrated with the 'coming soon!' talk (and so am I) but with GPG is developing this and not releasing it until it's ready, what else is Brad going to be able to say?  If he commits to a date and they find a problem in testing, which often happens, we're just going to be right back here again later but with the added bonus of nobody believing a word he says.

The game's on the shelf until patch-time for me too but I think that we're well beyond the point of being placated by another update - unless it's given by GPG themselves with specific timetables, anyway.

Yes thats exactly it, so the 5000 basement dwelling nerds can play....hooray!

On a serious note, I'm curious to try HoN, but i looked at their heroes, and there seems to be well...a bit too many imo.

The main reason why so many more people are playing HoN is because it is free. If demigod were free I am sure there would be a lot more playing it. Lets see them charge $50 for it and see how many people are playing it. I played HoN for exactly 5 mintutes and got so frustrated with the interface I had to quit.

I recently got into the LoL beta and while overall it is the same game, I did like it more then HoN. People keep saying that there are so many more characters to play, but I must add that the characters in LoL and HoN are very linear. In a DotA type game each character only had a few skills and I would eventually max level each one eventually. Demigod may only have 8 demigods but each one has numerous skill tree paths that can be chosen that make each character different to play and play against. Just because someone is playing Rook doesn't mean you will see towers, or that you will get hit by hammer slam.

LoL and HoN won't be free. They already cost 30 USD. (pre-order)

According to wiki (yes, yes, wiki isn't written in stone):

League Of Legends will be free or $30 collectors Pack:

On July 14, 2009, Riot Games announced that the game League of Legends will be free with "no catch".^[10][17] There will be a digital copy for download, but there is also a Digital Collector's Copy that will be available to purchase that contains exclusive skins, $10 credit for Riot Points, and 20 champions to access without unlocking them normally via gameplay as well as 4 "special" runes; the Collector's Pack is currently available for pre-order for $29.99.^[12][18] Even though the game is free, Riot Games "plan[s] to continue to add content (characters etc...) with a full production team at very frequent intervals."^[19] With the game being free, they plan to make money in volume instead of ads.^[20]

Whereas HoN has been reported to be $30:

http://uk.gamespot.com/news/blogs/online-blog/909186734/27023477/we-just-played-heroes-of-newerth.html

"The game is scheduled for release later this year at a $30 price point, but beyond that, no subscription fees are planned."

One thing that does concern me (although I'm not going to lose any sleep over it) is the Collectors Pack of LoL contains $10 of Riot Points. Even though it seems microtransactions are not part of the business model, surely "Riot Points" which have a monetary value suggest otherwise .

I would have to disagree. The way I see it, content is slow to come right now because of the higher priority issues that GPG/SD has to first iron out. It's obviously unwise to develop new content before the game is stabilized post release.

In terms of longevity, as long as Demigod is moddable as promised, and has a healthy pool of modders, it will not die. Fan made content can usually keep a game alive a lot longer than a the developers can (Blizzard could because they're doing extremely well).

Also, I'm predicting (I won't pretend to be as sure as you seem to be on the state of things) that when all three games are up and about, they'll mutually support each other. Players will be introduced to one or more of them at a time, and may decide to give the others of this genre a try. It's also well possible that a good idea in one game might be modded into another. It'll be similar to how the other genres are right now.

I think those who are pitting the three games in some kind of imaginary inter-genre war right now are just overly passionate about one to see things more objectively.

For me, I'm just happy to see the genre finally taking off. It's about time the gaming industry had such a breadth of fresh air.

It seems to me that before they got around to fixing these issues, there were numerous fixes (or attempts at least) to stabilize the connectivity. So yes, comparing connectivity to the Sedna priest bug, I would rank the Sedna priest bug as of lower priority.

Regarding the 3 items, it cannot be any clearer in the patch log. They were removed to be fixed, not instead of. So it's 1 month since their removal and they're still at it. I'd rather they take their time to make sure the v1.2 patch (where I hope the items would be restored) gets things right instead of rushing it out. We can and will have to make do without them for now.

GPG/SD had a terrible start with Demigod, but they're clearly working hard to improve things, evident with the patches released so far. That's very far from "kicking their customers and Stardock in the teeth". Of course all these will probably sound like weak rationalisation to you. I only hope that your patience ran out because of the passion you have for the game. I'm also passionate about the game. We all wanted to see the game become great, but with such a rocky start, it's going to take time to get there.

Got a beta invite for LoL yesterday, so will try it out shortly.

I've gotten in a number of HoN games, and can't say enough about the match-making capabilities.  I'm not very far along the learning curve in terms of heroes and items, but am finding that the pace of movement and combat is a bit quick for me (i.e., it's real easy to get killed and wonder what just happened).  In Demigod, you can see a situation unfold more slowly and react accordingly.  Maybe I just need to get juiced up on a few Red Bull's before playing.

I gotta say the writing is on the wall as far as DG fate goes. They already said maps cost too much to make. People are already tired of Cataract and Prison. 4v4 is a hit or miss for lag, and 5v5 is mostly unplayable.

2 Demis coming (no real eta) but after that?

I played LoL its fun and very fast paced. Its free with huge updates that come often, so that's where its staying power is going to be. There's also lots of great features that Demigod can copy, like a player reconnect option after getting disconnected.

Just my 2 cents I got my money's worth from Demigod and had alot of fun playing and will continue to play till the bitter end.

Yup.  Just kill it and start working on DG II, with many (x3) lessons learned from this attempt.

Tried my first LoL game last night.  I think the match-making needs work to meet the new standard set by HoN.  The graphics, though cartoonish, were nice and smooth, and the combat was nicely paced to allow some time for strategic thinking, which I found difficult with HoN.  Improve the match-making, add more maps, and I think we've got a winner.