Heroes of Newerth an online strategy
game, which is based on DOTA and developed by S2 games.
According to the history, the rumours about
Heroes of Newerth standard on July 2008 when a forum member found a website with a S2 game logo saying "Heroes of Newerth" and post it on there forum.
Heroes of Newerth is currently in Closed Beta, however more than 30,000 active users can be playing the
game, with over 700,000 users registered.
In a questionnaire answered by S2's Idejder on the Beta forums, he states that Heroes of Newerth has been in development for around 34 months. The first 13 months consisted of further developing S2's K2 Engine used by previous projects for Heroes of Newerth, while the remaining time was spent developing maps, items, heroes, and art.
The game comprises two factions that battle against one another in every game. The factions, the Hellbourne and the Legion, offer players a wide variety of unique heroes that the player controls in the game. The heroes of each faction are organized into three categories; strength heroes, intelligence heroes, and agility heroes.
Currently there are a total of fifty-seven heroes consisting of twenty-nine on the legion side and twenty-eight on the hellbourne side. Every hero comes with their own unique style of play and their own animations and sounds, much like in DotA. Slots in Heroes of Newerth’s current beta indicate a total of thirty potential heroes for each side. Although many of the heroes were directly transferred from DotA, there are a few new heroes that S2 has added that were not previously part of DotA.
Another feature that S2 has provided is the addition of different maps. Aside from the most popular and standard DotA map (Forest of Caldavar) that most are familiar with, there are two others currently in beta. The first map is called "Darkwood Vale 3v3", a small two lane map which is best suited for team sizes of 1, 2, or 3. The second map is called "Watchtower", another 5v5 map that differs slightly to the original "Forest of Caldavar". In this map lanes run from top to bottom with the main base's being at the top center and the bottom center, another significant difference is that it does not have the familiar "Roshan" or "Kongor". Instead it has two bosses called Transmutanstein and Zorgath.
"Creeps" are very weak computer controlled units that spawn from the barracks in the bases, usually spawning in groups of five. "Creeps" push the lanes (usually 3 but sometimes 1 or 2) on the map that connect the bases together. Players controlling the heroes push the lanes with the creeps and players using their hero can kill the opposing faction creeps or other players heroes for gold, which they then can use to buy valuable items at their base that improve their own heroes' power. Between the lanes players will discover a river, which contains power-up runes and a forest area where neutral "creeps" await that anybody can kill for gold. Also, among the neutral "creeps" on the map there are creep "bosses". On the maps "Forest of Caldavar" and "Darkwood Vale 3v3" there is a neutral boss creep called Kongor, whereas on the map "Watchtower" the neutral boss consists of Transmutanstein and Zorgath. The bosses usually take more than one hero to kill. The most popular style of playing is five vs. five.
Each unique hero has four special abilities that help them with their conquest of the opposing factions base and all heroes start the game at level one but can eventually reach level twenty-five, depending on how long the game lasts. Each faction has its own base on opposing sides of the map and these bases each contain numerous buildings, with the most important buildings in the base being the barracks, towers, and one guardian building in which if it is destroyed by the opposing faction, the game ends. The guardian structures, however, are heavily guarded by "creeps" and numerous towers. To destroy the opposing teams guardian structure, a team must “push” through at least one lane and destroy all 3 towers in that lane. Once all three towers in a lane are destroyed the team has the option of destroying the ranged and melee barracks. If the ranged barracks of the opposing team is destroyed, then your teams ranged “creeps” (in the lane in which the barracks was destroyed) become substantially stronger. The same occurs for the melee “creeps” if the melee barracks is destroyed. If all the barracks of one team is destroyed, then the opposing team receives “mega creeps” which are extremely powerful “creeps” that usually end the game soon after. After destroying all the towers in one of the opposing teams lanes, your team has the choice of attacking the barracks or attacking the two towers that directly defend the guardian structure. It is only after you destroy the two towers that defend the guardian structure, can you attack the guardian structure itself.
SOURCE/CREDITS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroes_of_Newerth
Official website
here