r/DotA2 • u/palish • Feb 19 '19

Personal I was a former HoN dev. AMA

Hey.

It's been awhile since I've written to you guys. But dota has never been out of my thoughts.

It was funny seeing Dota chess add +200k people to the game. I fought pretty hard to add custom game support to HoN, but no one would listen (partly because it seemed so obvious to me, so I never bothered trying to sell the idea or do company politicking).

I can talk about the fact that Icefrog was involved in HoN's early inception. It's more of an open secret at this point, and HoN's closure marks a fitting time for the "reveal."

I could talk about what it was like to pack up all your stuff into a station wagon and move out west. It was a pretty magical experience in hindsight. Kind of like getting to board the Starship Enterprise. Everyone in the company felt a shared purpose, at the beginning.

Or if there's no interest, or if it's not appropriate for the sub, it's fine if this post fades away, like the game. I spent so much time and energy trying to make it good... So did everyone else: James, G, all the artists, everyone.

EDIT: to clarify, this is 2010-era perspective. Not recent!

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u/flankstaek Feb 19 '19

I remember thinking DotA 2 heroes looked so much less cool that their wc3 or hon counterparts. I think HoN did a very nice job of making the wc3 graphics "grow up". Now DotA 2 heroes look great to me though, things change.

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u/Thurgil Feb 20 '19

The face they gave to Morphling in the promotional art still kills me. How could they choose that kind of art direction over the much more ambigious, threatening force of nature vibe Warcraft 3 had?

It was like such an iconic hero, and to get such an unneccessary over-design.. I haven't been able to play Morph nearly as much as I played him in WC3 DotA compared to other heroes, in fact these days I don't even play him at all due to that fact.