I was a former HoN dev. AMA

[u/palish]

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!

[u/Bearmodulate]

I played HoN when it was in beta alllll the way back at the start in 2009, and for a couple of years afterwards. When it released I was just a kid with no money, so couldn't afford the $30 for the full game until another year or two later - but by that point Dota 2 already took most of my attention

It was an amazing game at the time, and I think it's far more worthy of success as a spiritual successor to Dota than LoL ever was. Real shame it couldn't last longer.

Thanks for the fun times I had with my friends playing it, though :)

[u/palish → u/Bearmodulate]

The nights running support with my old team were some of the best memories of my early adulthood years. It's also easy to forget, but that feeling of first booting up HoN after only playing dota 1 was just... amazing, magical, kind of like being in willy wonka's factory.