Ask S2 Games Series 3

The much awaited 3rd batch of the Ask S2 series is here.

It's from S2 with much much love.

Let's get it on.

How will the 1TB+ of replays a day in a closed beta affect how S2 handles replays and storage? (awowa)

From KingKtulu:
Beta allows us to test at a high volume and estimate our needs for future capacity requirements. We currently plan to keep all replays after release and will extend our capacity as needed.

Are there any plans to introduce new, original gametypes (think capture the flag, etc) into the mainstream scene? (Tritan`)

From Idejder:
At this time, no, there are no plans to introduce these sorts of maps into the main game. This is very subject to change and a lot of things change when the map editor/SDK eventually get out there.

With the sucess of the 'Write a Voice Script' contest, will there be another? (Zejety)

From Idejder:
Deadwood's script was actually written by people in IRC over a weekend a while ago. I still make sure to involve people with the writing of them. I might or might not do another huge forum post but I went the IRC route again to get help on version 2 of Panda's script (done soon). Stick around in there to get in on that in the future.

Random note: I can actually think of one good hero we have planned I could do the forum contest for. Might happen!

What's the most important thing you've learned since making Savage 1 and Savage 2? While both games have a cult following their existence is unknown to most in the PC gaming community. Meanwhile, HoN, while still in closed beta, is already more popular than both games ever were combined. (Tomed)

From Jesse and Fielding:
The success of HoN isn't due to something new we've learned since making savage 1 and 2 but something we learned from the process of making savage 1 and 2 themselves. Taking the time to do things right and to constantly look back at what we've done and be willing to improve on our work is probably the most impactful change we've made. While we love savage 1 & 2 we were willing to let a lot of things slide as "good enough". In HoN we've done a much better job at isolating what is simply "good enough" and trying to make it be as good as it can be. This is where features like reconnecting to dropped games and polished, functional interfaces come in - there's always something more to be done, and always things that can be done better.

Are you going to implement something for players who want to play as a team, but only are 2-4 people? I heard about the "team ranked match" but I was also told it is only for teams of 5? (AwesomeAL)

From Idejder:
We can't release plans of this yet but as soon as we can we will let you all know. Sorry.

In the final/retail version will there be a Single Player Campaign or at least some more epic background information on the story of Heroes of Newerth? (Nebelfuchs)

From Idejder:
There are no plans for a Single Player Campaign but you might see some more lore/background story based stuff coming after release or in future products. We love the world we have created overall so more to come.

Will the new heroes to be added in the future be distributed into Legion and Hellbourne or will there be a Neutral side? (The_Choob)

From Idejder:
All heroes will be on either the Legion of the Hellbourne. It is much simpler overall and keeps our nice balanced interface look. Balance is important.

It's been a long time since runes in DotA were added. Do you have any future plans to possibly tweak or add anything to them? (Unnatural)

From Idejder:
It's always an option to tweak or add more runes, but right now we are happy with how they work and what options there are. Good ideas are never passed up, though.

Which was the first fully developed hero? What did you learn about your system by implementing it? (Dendo)

From Fielding:
The first 10 heroes or so were actually developed together at the same time. If we had to pick one as the first 'completed' one, it was the first version of Pyromancer. The learning wasn't so much as it was a trial. The code and engine was built up to the point we could do everything we planned with these 10 heroes from the moment we started on them. It was discovering how exactly things worked, figuring out interactions between mechanics, and sorting out the bugs.

The recent 1.63 patch gave the impression that you guys are trying to shift the metagame away from the current turtle favored metagame and push it more towards a gank oriented game. Is this the case and if so can we expect more balances that favor ganking and pushing in the future? (Senatic)

From Idejder:
We don't want to push the meta so far that only ganking strats are used. Ideally pushing, ganking, and turtle strats all have a place and we want to strike a good balance where it comes down to how you play it, not what strat you picked. Some lineups will give you advantages, but nothing should be unbeatable ever. We will say that we do feel the turtle idea is better than it should be right now and we are correcting that. You should see heroes and patches that try to get the game into a good balance between the three as time goes by.

Does S2 plan to release more new maps that feature games exceeding that of 10 people? If not, what are some of the innovations we can expect in future maps released by S2? (Raven206)

From Idejder:
We have a few cool ideas for upcoming experimental maps but official HoN maps that are for more than 10 people is something you won't see until a while after release if ever. Our servers are set up to handle a specific number of people and letting that go up a lot (cough, 14v14) makes servers cry. Crying servers are bad. They short out from the tears.

Will HoN support in-game stats display on the popular Logitech G15/G19 keyboards? (PhyzX)

From Idejder:
Very possible, but I don't think this is in our initial plans at all. It is something we could add in the future for sure but it's more so if we have the time to do it with everything else we want to do. Time is key and we spend our time directly adding to the ingame features more than anything.

Is there a reason you can't sell back a logger's axe if you bought one on mistake? I know you can't sell logger's axe back period, but there should be a grace period on EVERY item if something went foul. (kainen)

From Idejder:
Mechanically, it's because the grace only works when you can sell the item at all. When the item is set to not let you sell it back, the grace does not apply.

It's something we want to change for sure so you can have the sellback grace for ALL items. It just takes some code and as before really comes down to time. This will get done eventually though.

What is the biggest bottleneck in pushing out new content (heroes, items, neut creeps, etc.)? Is it the artwork? Sound effects? Balance considerations? Functional coding? Something else? I'm interested to know. (HClCaSaT)

From Idejder:
It's probably the artwork. This includes sounds effects, model, animations, concept, and final tweaks. The balance and design side is usually much quicker although there have been times where the art is waiting on the design decisions. Most of the time, though, it is a hangup on the art. We do it pretty quick and high quality. The team is good. (FALSE)

Will you make a mode called "Multiplayer Practice" or something? (Sephinator)

From Idejder:
Eventually down the line this will be very easily possible. Not right now though, sorry.

BONUS HoN Stuff:

Why the Gorilla head as a logo and and now the Boss in Heroes of Newerth? (RumpleMints)

From Idejder:
This is our secret. Only the few, the proud, the monkeys, will ever figure it out.

Are you a monkey?

What kinds of music do you guys listen to while you work? (RumpleMints)

From Idejder:
All kinds. Rap, Daft Punk, Epic Ballads, Rock, random Anime music, or whatever people link us off IRC/forums.

Or Bruce and Shippy singing. That is good too.

How much does S2 end up actually playing HoN for fun? What other games eat up their time? (Sabre)

From Idejder:
We play every day usually more than once in the office together. Random Steam games eat up our time as well depending on the deals available. We are bad compulsive buyers sometimes. We ARE buying video games, though, so it's worth it.

Ask S2 about their latest release in the DBG genre on the HoN forums.

Ask S2 Games Series 2

ASK S2 GAMES - CREATORS OF THE TOP-SELLING DOTA BASED GAME
HEROES OF NEWERTH

Heroes of Newerth Gameplay

Why is Blood Hunter's ultimate (Hemorrhage) different than in DotA in that it can be dispelled by Purge, Shrunken Head, Electrician's Ult, Arachna's Dispel, Jereziah's Protective Charm, Accursed's Fire Shield, and other debuff removal methods? (Wingflier)

This was changed back to it's unremovable form in one of our recent patches. This was mainly just a bug (it was in our eyes) that slipped through the cracks for a long time because we were always working on the next big thing and didn't have the time to fix it.

AoE dominates the current metagame with heroes such as Magmus, Tempest, and Behemoth as major picks. Do you plan on changing this type of metagame, and if so, how will this be done? (MarkyX)

The metagame is fickle and will often evolve without a single balance change being performed, as players learn to adapt to issues/play around them. This in turn changes the metagame even further. We have a lot of data and behind-the-scenes stat tracking that we use to evaluate the metagame constantly. We definitely understand the feeling everyone has had about the AoE teams. Banning Draft helped a LOT in this regard because people just removed the heroes they didn't want to play against. Some people thought heroes like Tempest were insane, while others thought he was super easy to counter. Some ban him, some don't. The metagame shifts and ebbs!

Really though, we understand the feeling a lot of players hold on all of the metagame issues. We are adding more gankers, roamers, support, and pushers into the game to balance out the roles a bit more--several DotA ports and some unique heroes of our own creation as well! Keep your eyes open for the Witch Slayer soon.

What is your opinion on the impact of Random Factors in competitive gaming? For example, one could say that Chronos is a heavy luck-based Hero, and the same could be said about Blacksmith. (BinAly)

In the most competitive of competitive games, randomness has it's place as long as it is very little and controllable, or if the factors can be altered to reduce the impact. The heroes that are used in the top competitive end of HoN usually don't have much randomness in them because the players would rather have reliability over a chance.

For general play, it's just fun sometimes. Sure, Blacksmith might not be reliable in the final round of a $10,000 tourney, but it feels great to kill someone from ½ life with a 4x multicast, doesn't it? Not every hero is going to be the most competitive in the world. Some of them are just because they are fun to play. Although we balance and design for competitive play, it's important to remember that in the end it is a game and fun rules all.

What are your current views on the voting systems ingame? There has been concern on the fairness of these systems. Some of the primary concerns revolve around both teams being involved in important votes like kicks and remakes, as well as a single player being able to veto a "gamewide" vote. (MrCanada)

Personally I feel like the voting system is a necessary evil. There are proper places and times that the system saves games and makes for a better experience for everyone. That's why they exist. We don't want kicks to be easy, we want them to be used in extreme situations where it's necessary. That's why both teams need to be involved. Letting only one side be able to kick would result in a LOT of unnecessary kicks as a whole. Remakes are also only for rare situations. In those situations, it's up to the players to be responsible and use the tools we have in place. The restrictions on them are there merely to stop abuse, which does happen. It would happen a lot more, though, if we did not limit them as we do.

This is a specific part of the game we are going to monitor closely and change as we need to.

HEROES OF NEWERTH COMMUNITY SUPPORT

What has been the most interesting thing you guys have seen/learned/observed from the community as it developed? (Sabre)

Personally I have been amazed at how quickly people wanted to step up to help. The forum moderators, people making in-game mods, people doing fanart even when we were under NDA and risking it anyway just because they liked the game so much, etc. All of the passion and love for the game that just exploded out of nowhere when we let more and more people in is fantastic.

We check the forums a lot for awesome and hilarious stuff from those creative people and from the people who care as much as we do.

HEROES OF NEWERTH FEATURES

How will custom-map hosting work; will some official servers be dedicated to hosting custom/popular maps, or perhaps will hosts be able to host servers of their own? (Phooxeh)

This will start by players hosting their own servers or using third party companies to host servers, etc. We will eventually release a version of the server software so you can run it as you see fit. They will appear on the appropriate game lists and people can play on them in the same way you hosted a map in WC3.

The most popular and well-made maps we may host official servers for in order to provide stability and some 'official' backing. Keep in mind no custom game, be it supported by us or not, will track stats like normal HoN games do.

Will weather effects be implemented? I'd love to see options to enable rain, fog or even snow. (Panimala)

The engine actually has full weather effects naturally in it. People who played Savage know this I bet. We just haven't taken the time to port this over completely. When we do, though, you can expect to see some maps with weather on them or weather options.

HEROES OF NEWERTH GAME DEVELOPMENT

Will the map editor be as powerful/more powerful than the WC3 editor while still keeping the user friendly interface and the whole "easy to play around with, takes a while to master it to it's full potential" attitude? (Ashur)

There are two parts to this. We are releasing a Map Editor and a SDK. These are two very different things.

The map editor will as easy to use as WC3's. It will be... well let's say very open and if a user takes the time to learn it in depth, they can do cool stuff. You won't be locked into those silly elevation levels either (a big thing I didn't like about WC3). So you could do rolling hills... for a tower defense! That sort of thing. The map editor will be mainly used for making HoN-type maps in the first version we are going to release. The detailed stuff like entity files and making new types of games comes with the SDK.

The SDK is going to be very, very, very strong for a user who learns how to work it. It will be not so easy-user-friendly when you first get it and is very complex, as it involves C++ code. The upside is you can do anything. Literally. You could take HoN and remake Savage 2 if you wanted. You could make Quake III if you missed playing it back in the day if you wanted to. You could make Devourer Wars in a third person camera with a tower defense going on around the edges so that the commanders of both team battle it out by playing a TD to get your Devourers upgrades! Whatever you wanted to do, most likely you could do it. I'm serious.

Who does the voices for the heroes? Do you get outside voice talent, or perhaps do you have your own? (Zavi)

I write the scripts and get professional external voice actors to do the voices. Arnej does all the effects, edits them, and puts them into the game.

What are your plans for the future of UI mods for HoN? Will they be a fully supported feature like they are in games such as WoW? (ParadoxCTRL)

We like the fact we have a moddable interface in HoN and plan to support them as we are now. Nothing official and no official support for one mod over another, but we will keep the lines of communication always open in the case there is a mod we might not want around.

HON BONUS

What does the S2 in S2games stand for? (Raspyn)

Some things will always be a secret. ;]

Ask S2 Games Series 1

S2 Games - makers of Heroes of Newerth will now take your questions:

HEROES OF NEWERTH GAMEPLAY

Will hero denial make it into the game? (JOTARO)
As you can see from the most recent patch, we have added hero denial into the game. This is something you guys have been bringing up for a long time and we knew that if we were to add it into the game, it would have to be from all targeted DoTs and not just the ones that were based on Shadow Strike like in DotA (an engine limitation).

Will HoN be following suit with DotA (especially given its recent, controversial changes) or go its own path on competitive balancing? (kewne)
We will be going down our own road as can be seen in the latest patch! We will always stick close to the DotA feel and gameplay, so don't expect that to change.

As development continues post-release, will we see any major gameplay changes, or just new heroes and items? (RTBardic)
It will mostly be new heroes, items, maps, gameplay modes, features, and the such. The way you play the game and the "feel of DotA" as a whole will not deviate greatly. Down the road though, anything is possible.

How are you going to convince people to play on maps other than Forests of Caldavar? (Temris)
To be honest, we won't. We will make new maps, tweak the ones we have, and if people enjoy them they will play them. When we make a new map, we really just want to expand on the current game and give players the option to experience something new and different while still keeping the same gameplay feel.

HEROES OF NEWERTH DEVELOPMENT

How long has HoN been in development? (hideinlight)
34 months, but the first 13 were spent on engine development. The entirety of assets, including maps, items, heroes, and art were made in 21 months.

What is the new hero creation process? Does one person create a concept and others weigh in, or is it a team effort from the start? (Ashur)
If it is a port, it starts conceptually with some development thoughts on the heroes we already have. We examine what roles they fill--for example, who can carry, who brings AoE teamfight support, and who can throw down disables--then we figure out what we are missing, then look at the DotA heroes and pick one that fits the role we need.

If it is a new hero, we adopt a more free-flowing process that revolves around a central theme for a hero from which we can buildon. We still consider the hero roles described above and how a new hero could fit into the current metagame, but designing the feel and gameplay of the hero is a very different process.

Once we’ve decided upon the basic concept, we pass it to the artists who brainstorm over the hero’s visuals. Once the central theme and look are agreed upon between the artists and the designers, a concept artist whips up a good-looking final concept.

If that passes approval, it goes to our modeler, who creates the model and unwraps the blank textures so it can be passed onto the next artist to do all the textures for the model. While those are being done we have someone else rig the model with bones and joints. Finally, it gets shipped to the animators who do all of the movements you see in-game.

During all of this, either Fielding or I must create all the entity files and make sure the skills work properly. At first we work with Mr. Teapot, but eventually the model gets imported into our internal client and we can start tweaking the abilities to fit with the model and animations.

Once all of this is done, effects are added onto the abilities that make them the flashy stuff you guys are used to seeing. Sounds are added after the effects are done, and then we patch it in for you guys.

The total process takes quite a few people and many long hours.

How much of an impact do community suggestions and input have on development? (SinisteRing)
We do listen to the community, as shown by several community suggestions being implemented into the most recent patch. You can see the ones we have put into the game by looking at the Hall of Fame forum after Nome updates it.

Other then suggestions, we listen to the community regarding inconsistencies with DotA as well as things they feel are broken or should change, including balance issues. You can check out the Balance or Mechanics forums for examples, as I post in both fairly often.

Are there any community suggestions being implemented in the future? (VenomKing)
Yep. The ones we decide on are a secret until they are released, though.

What are your development "goals" before you consider a release? For example, is there a set number of heroes, features, or functionalities you want to make the release? (G`Funk)
We do have goals we want to meet, including the matchmaking and completely filling the current hero board with heroes. The list is more extensive than that, but it is an internal list, available only for the developers. Sorry!

HON MATCHMAKING AND STATS

How will matchmaking incorporate the different modes, if at all? Will there be options for AP/AR/SD, etc? Will these statistics be kept separately? (Aeds)
At first matchmaking will be a variation of Captains Mode or Captains Draft. We might expand this in the future. Stats wise, we would like them to be separate stats. All of this is subject to change.

What statistics will matchmaking use? (Qwernakus)
Can't tell you yet. =] Secrets. We will release more on our matchmaking system when it's implemented.

Will players be able to access the stats of all games or just our own? What about global game stats like hero and item usage? (Fireslide)
You will be able to access stats from all games on the replays website when it becomes open to the public. You will be able to see all stats for every player, from their total playtime to hero usage. Global hero and item usage stats are already available on the website.

HEROES OF NEWERTH FEATURES

Has S2 given any consideration to drop-in spectating of games in progress? (Ekizel)
Eventually (this is a ways off) we want to let you request a game be Spectate Mirrored, which would allow any number of people to spectate any match they request to be mirrored on a minute or two delay. This allows anyone watch any match they want at any time without overloading our servers. Because you have to request it, the mirror terminates if no one is spectating, thereby saving network traffic.

Will additional hosting filters like K:D or PSR be implemented? (Kaneda).
I wouldn't look for a K : D filter anytime soon. A PSR one, though, will be implemented.

Will there be achievements? (Lucisama)
We actually want to put in achievements for events or really cool stuff you do in a game. No details about this yet, but it may be a feature we reserve for post-release depending on a lot of factors.

Will popular modes like CM, CD, WTF, and OMG make it into the game? (Redfiercare)
CM and CD will be coming in for sure. OMG, probably not for now. WTF is a maybe, so I can't say either way on that one.

Will unconventional gameplay types like CTF make it into the official game for ranked play? (Lucisama)
We want ranked play to be reserved for the official maps and the 'conventional' HoN gameplay. The custom maps are for fun on the side.

HEROES OF NEWERTH COMMUNITY AND SUPPORT

Will S2 Games be directly involved in the sponsorship of tournaments and leagues? (Emortal)
We will indeed. Look for more about this in the future.

Will there be any official S2 support for fansites? (NeoTKaze)
Yes, but the level of support will vary based on how close we are to release or other internal factors. Keep in mind we are a very small company. For now we have our fankit that fansites can use freely.

Will there be any exclusive or custom graphics/avatars for events? (Lucisama)
This is definitely something we want to add for events in the future.

HON BONUS

How many cans of energy drink does an average S2 staff member consume per week? (Anosou)
Anywhere from zero to eight. I'm talking about the large cans of Red Bull. Soft drink cups from local food places can also pile up on the side of someone's desk. We have a few people that have no less then two dozen cups on the far side of their desk and someone else with about a dozen empty cans of Red Bull around them in assorted patterns.

The programmer’s desk next to me has six cans, two 20oz bottles, and a 2 liter all empty sitting next to the monitor. I have three empty cups from food places, four different water cups, and two empty cookie boxes.