Hint! The new patch caused several new problems for some users. Here’s a short list with solutions:

• Update crashes at the white bar with black background
• White screens under Mac OS X
• Invalid Password Issue

When I read about Heroes of Newerth becoming free to play I was like: “Okay, let’s see what advantages paid accounts have in comparison to the free ones”. So I browsed to the official announcement on the forums, read the FAQ, the patch notes and tried stuff on my own. The following information is a summary of my view on these sources.

Account types:
S2 Games decided to implement three kinds of account types: Legacy, Verified and Basic.

So your paid accounts already got changed to “Legacy”. These legacy accounts cannot be obtained anymore and free accounts would have to either play hundreds of games or buy lots of coins to have access to all heroes and modes. While “Basic” can only play AP-games, “Verified” can play other modes too, but they have to use Tokens/Passes in order to play them and pick heroes they don’t own. Five of these Tokens will be given to you once your account becomes “verified”. More Tokens/Passes can be bought via the in-game store. Heroes can also be permanently bought for basic and verified accounts.
“Legacy” and “Verified” can choose to play “Verified only”-games, which cannot be accessed by “Basic”. This ensures to play free of griefers/trolls/leavers.

Early Access Program:
The Early Access program allows people, who are willing to spent cash/gold coins, to play specific heroes before anyone else can. Although everyone (whether basic, verified or legacy) can buy early access, this change makes me mad, because it offers an advantage for money. If you have the money and are willing to spend it on heroes, you could roflstomp matchmaking with possibly overpowered new heroes.
How can this be any good? I am totally fine with cosmetic upgrades, but selling gameplay advantages like specific heroes is exactly the opposite of what S2 Games was promising when they added the shop.

Image by Infiltrator
More contradicting statements by S2 Games can be found here.

Of course, Heroes participating in the EAP are disabled in tournament mode.

Competitive Scene:
The new patch brought some nice bug fixes and balance changes, but it also brought F2P. F2P wouldn’t affect the competitive scene at all, but the chosen model limits new HoN players to a small pool of modes and heroes.
Imagine a good DotA player switching to HoN: “Let’s play some scrims…OH WAIT! I don’t have any Tokens left!”.

I am curious how S2 Games is going to address this problem.

Conclusion:
I already knew S2 Games would go for the F2P model, but I didn’t expect them to switch so fast…and I didn’t expect them to punch loyal customers in the face. The Early Access Program is the only thing in the new patch which makes me angry and feel like Maliken and Co. where lying to us the whole time. Cosmetics my ass. If S2 Games wants to keep me as a player and customer they should remove EAP asap.

About me:
Maybe you already know me under the HoN-nickname “BASH”. I’ve been playing HoN since the closed beta back in 2009 and was always willing to support S2 Games in any possible way. For example I made suggestions, modifications (one got implemented into the game), spread the word about HoN, created about 2000 posts on the forums and became a support volunteer over a year ago (I am one of the few giving technical support on the forums…for free!). And now I am mad.

That’s why I decided to make a program, which let’s me read the replay information easily without starting the game.

Screenshot:

Old Screenshots:

Features:

• read replay information
• link to the detailed match site

Planned features:

• deleting replays
• hero icons
• player colours

Changelog:

Tested with:
Windows Vista Business 64bit  & Ubuntu 10.04 64bit
AMD Athlon X2 6000+
4GB DDR2
.honreplays up to 10mb

Download:
HoN Replay Checker (JAR)
Source Code (Netbeans Project)

Link to HoN.com

1. … du einen Affen kaufst, der dir dein Mittagessen zur Arbeit bringen soll.
2. … du auf russisch flamest.
3. … du am McDrive auf einmal “Choose Wisley” hörst.
4. … du Schuhe nur einzeln und nicht in Paaren kaufst.
5. … du bei einer Klausur den Lehrer die Lösungen weghooken willst.
6. … du deine Klassenkameraden in der Pause anflamest, dass sie dir keinen Schluck von der Bottle abgeben.
7. … du nach dem Schulklingeln erstmal Pause votest.
8. … du bei Klassenarbeiten deine Mitschüler von deinem Tisch wegscheuchst, damit sie keine XP leechen.
9. … dich wer verprügelt und du nur lachst, weil du noch ein Token hast.
10. … du beim Anschauen der Prüfungsfragen “Scheiße, outpicked” denkst.
11. … du im Turnunterricht “out of mana” murmelst.
12. … dich jemand anrempelt und du ihm einen Ninjastern gegen den Kopf wirfst.
13. … du zu Suizid bloß noch “Ragequit” oder “Deny” sagst.
14. … du unerwartet unerwünschten Besuch bekommst und bereust nicht gewardet zu haben.
15. … du dich wunderst, warum du durch deine neuen Schuhe nicht schneller laufen kannst.
16. … du ins Damen-WC gehst und “Missclick!” schreißt.
17. … du beim Würfelpoker fragst, warum es kein Multicast gibt.
18. … es schneit und du denkst, Glacius roamt hier irgendwo herum.
19. … dich jemand etwas fragt und du mit “No response from server” antwortest.
20. … auf deinen korrigierten Schulaufgaben “Bad Data” steht.
21. … du keine Freunde hast und dann auch noch meinst, “der Chatserver sei schuld.”
22. … du Russen auch im RL flamest.
23. … du bei Kniffel “Let’s Roll the Dice!” brüllst
24. … du beim Völkerball “Catch this!” rufst, wenn du den Ball deinem Gegner ins Gesicht wirfst.
25. … du Straßenlaternen für Wards hältst.

via hon-fans.de

Euch fallen noch mehr ein? Welches gefällt euch am besten? Rein damit in die Kommentare!

Das Bild wird über URL-Parameter generiert, man kann sich also verschiedene Kreationen erstellen. z.B.:

Vergleicht mal die URLs der beiden Bilder. ;)

Welche Stats angezeigt werden sollen, steht frei. Hierfür stehen festgelegte Tags zur Verfügung, die man nacheinander (durch ein Leerzeichen getrennt) eingeben kann:

Player Name: %playername%
PSR: %psr%
Gespielte Spiele: %games%
Wins: %wins%
Losses: %losses%
Win Ratio: %winratio%
Kills: %kills%
Deaths: %deaths%
Assists: %assists%
Kill:Death Ratio: %kdr%
Avg. Kills/Deaths/Assists: %kda%
Avg. Kills: %akills%
Avg. Deaths: %adeaths%
Avg. Assists: %aassists%
Avg. Creep Kills: %ck%
Avg. Creep Denies: %cd%

Download: TBA

0. Features

• Automatically downloads and installs the latest version of the set language
• Automatically updates itself
• Possibility to start HoN directly after patching
• Debugmode
• Can be used for any translation and language

1. Installation
1.1 Installation with GNOME

1. Download “language_patch.sh” and save it to your HoN-directory ( e.g. /home/user/.HoN/ )
2. Right click “language_patch.sh” and select “Properties”
3. Click “Permissions” tab
4. Check “Allow executing file as program” checkbox
5. Click “Close”
6. Double click “language_patch.sh”
7. Click “Run”

1.2 Installation with KDE

1. Download “language_patch.sh” and save it to your HoN-directory ( e.g. /home/user/.HoN/ )
2. Right click “language_patch.sh” and select “Properties”
3. Click “Permissions” tab
4. Check “Is executable” checkbox
5. Click “OK”
6. Double click “language_patch.sh”

1.3 Installation via terminal

1. cd <HoN> ( replace <HoN> with the path to you HoN-directory, e.g. /home/user/.HoN/ )
2. wget http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3593471/hon_mods/language_patcher/language_patch.sh
3. chmod +x language_patch.sh
4. ./language_patch.sh

2. FAQ
Q: The patcher doesn’t work, what should I do?
A: Open “language_patch.sh” with a text editor like gedit (GNOME), Kate (KDE) or nano (Terminal), set DEBUG to 1 and save the file. Run the patcher again, copy the output and post it here/send it to me.

Q: Is there a version for Windows?
A: Currently not. There is one for the german translation mentioned above, but it cannot be used for other languages or translations. Maybe I am going to write a new version, which will work for any operating system capable of Java.

Link: Heroes of Newerth Forum