We have specifically sought out and are working in close contact with a number of people who are very experienced and/or play in competitive dota leagues. We are also listening to the feedback of everyone else though, from the moderately experienced to the completely new, good suggestions can come from all angles.

We are fully aware of the implications of changing things. We are also fully aware of the importance competitive play has on the success of HoN. Everything we put into this game is a change that is well thought out, however, not absolutely set in stone. We are definitely going after the DotA market and we want to do all we can to please those gamers.

Understanding those 2 facts should help allieviate any anxiety you may have about the direction and decision making here at S2. Hopefully we can please as many players as possible with our decision across the entire spectrum of players. That, however, does not mean that every player, covering every facet, will be 100% behind every decision we make. We are well aware of that. Almost every good suggestion has a strong counter point. This is the complexity of designing a game and making decisions that affect so many different types of players.

With features coming soon like automatic match making arranged teams with built in ranked ladders, automated tournament systems and S2 contributed prizes, to automated league creation and administration and cash support, we plan to do all we can to bolster the competitive community.

My closing statement, we feel DotA is a wonderful game as it exists. We feel DotA was an excellent game 15 interations ago, and we feel DotA will be an amazing game 10 interations for now. What is funny, none of those 3 "versions" of DotA will be the same as the other. Does that mean that 15 versions ago it was broken, or it is imbalanced now, or it is going to be wrong 10 patches from now? Naw, I don't think so, and I hope you can follow my train of thought in that regard.

Thanks everyone for your input and helping us try to perfect this game.

HoN will be the next big game out there to play comp wise thats for certain with its amazing netcode and interface.

Game still rocks =] magmus is just silly though - carries every game ive played in since its release

Game still rocks =] magmus is just silly though - carries every game ive played in since its release

Game still rocks =] magmus is just silly though - carries every game ive played in since its release