Nigma HoN Q&A November 2010

Heroes of Newerth Community Manager Answers

Earlier this month, Icefrog released a Question and Answer post on Dota2.com.
Nigma, current Heroes of Newerth community manager will now take your questions.

Q: So what do you do? (by mpphan)
A: I'm the community manager and I make videos from time to time.

Q: Does S2 plan on doing anything to help people transition into this game? (by leeharris100)
A: I am constantly pushing for better tutorials and whatnot, but currently we just don't seem to have time to revamp it. Me and MsPudding are producing videos on YouTube to help players learn the game, but as you can imagine, not everyone wants to watch a Youtube video, even with the links in-game.

We are well aware of HoN's steep learning curve and I personally hope that the tutorial will see changes in the future, but honestly that could be a while off.

Q: How does S2 intend to make profit in the long term without a subscription fee? I understand that S2 jumps from game to game and makes a fat profit upon their release, but considering the X amount of resources needed to keep creating new heroes and maintaining the game, it seems like you guys would lose money and or hinder your profit in the long run. I'm not sure how much income you get from stat resets but i'm assuming it's not to much, the majority of players I play with aren't going to be resetting anytime soon. (by RYN30)
A: S2's main source of income is and will always be selling the game itself. We want to be able to offer you a solid, full, great product for a very reasonable price. I don't think anybody can debate the 30 dollars is chump change for what you are receiving in continuous patching, balancing and content

Q: How did you get into the Dota genre? (by pencildragons)
A: I got into the DotA genre by playing DotA :) I started out as a Starcraft 1 UMS junkie. I'm a huge Blizzard fan. Of course, years later, I got Warcraft III and my love for UMS was born again. Aeon of Strife and DotA were among the first WC3 UMS games I played and I played DotA for years and years before I heard about HoN.

Q: What kind of impact do you think DOTA 2 will have on the HoN community and how do you anticipate your company will handle it? (by cxeq)
A: Well, I think it's no secret that people have come to expect great products from Valve, with good reason. Here at S2 we want to be able to say we offer the same high level of quality. We don't want to give anybody a reason to leave, and we don't want to be judged by the size of our company, but by what we create.

Rest assured the future of HoN looks bright. We've recently taken on a new, much faster hero cycle, and allocated more resources to HoN. So, in addition to seeing new heroes much faster from now on, you can expect a lot of cool things coming soon.

Q: Are you planning on making epic HoN trailers like this?
A: Hadn't seen that video. Awesome.
Don't know if I'll be making something like that, but you can always expect more videos.
Check out the S2Games Youtube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/S2Games

You can expect more videos/guides soon :)
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See also:
Previous Interview of Nigma