But my first impression was: I can't zoom out (I swear, after playing Demigod I think it's impossible to enjoy RTS games without a God-Eye-Zoom)!

Agree with you. But SC2 is not going to have zoom either, last I heard.

I could be misunderstanding you but I was under the impression that each hero had 4 skills. Unless you mean some of those skills are passive and don't count. If so, do you not count the passive skills of the demigods as skills?

I will say this, after spending weeks (possibly months) with HoN, I really do wish that there was more of a skill tree ala Demigod. Seems like the last few games I've played I hit l've hit lv 25 maxing all of my skills and even tho I haven't played every hero, I would like to play the same hero with a different spec. I guess that's where the items come into play... oh well

Well the earlier posts clarify that a bit more and speak about active skills. So yes, passive skills are not counted in this regard.
Why not? Because you can't really 'use' them and do not need to take them in consideration much, let alone decide in the heat of battle if you should 'use' spell x or spell y, because if spell y is passive then you, as mentioned before, cannot use it at all. Why is this bad? Because it takes away depth from gameplay. There is quite a big stretch from chosing which skill to use, minding your mana pool and his capabilities and countering them appropriately and just spamming the one active spell you have whenever you can. You very much become a one trick pony.

I played a game of DOTA again after I bought demigod and was very much disappointed by the narrow choices you had once you've picked your hero. You are stuck with the same spells for the rest of the game, which at level 25 you will have all maxed out anyway. It's just a matter of which spell you upgrade first. The biggest downside for me about this is that the enemy also knows which skills you have. When I encounter an enemy demigod I have no idea what skills the enemy has, and even if I find out by getting massacred, his build might have taken a different path later in the game. That, to me, is a lot more fun than "Oh, he picked that hero, so he has skill x and y and he's going to <insert only working strategy for that hero here>"

wait wait..there are tons of active items in HoN/Dota, in demigod yes you get to select new abiltities every level, but most of the time you just rank up the same stuff you already have, so your still just as limited, the bar still has 4 buttons on it just like in dota/hon

demigod really is a noob game in comparison, you have ALOT less to learn, its nowhere near as complex, its slower gameplay, i honestly eat food and watch tv while i play demigod cause of how slow paced it is

you play HoN/Dota, you gotta be on your toes, you gotta know what 60 heroes can do, and what all those items can do as they also add more active skills as well

I guess demigods better for casual fans of this type of gameplay, who want an easier game...i know that all the casual gamers i know dont go near anythin like dota

that's nowhere near to being correct. dota is muhc more simplier. yes it has far more heros but the gameplay is simplier. if demigod is too slow for you jsut nicrease gamespeed.

DotA is not a complicated game. There is just nothing to ease you into learning the mechanics of the game, it's all trial by fire. Demigod is also not a complicated game, however due to my previous experience with DotA I can't really comment on the learning curve as there wasn't a learning curve so much as an adjustment curve for me. Both games are multi-layered, thanks to the RPG aspects they employ, and create a great arena for some truly imaginative tactics to be employed. However, calling either one 'complicated' is a stretch, in my opinion.

The faster nature of DotA is complimented with the narrow viewing field, as a fast game keeps you on your toes and alert at all times; the old expression "a fast game's a good game" certainly applied here. As a result, it's far more reliant on your second-to-second movements and tactical playing style than your over-arching strategic plan, albeit both are still important. I find Demigod to be quite the opposite; the second-to-second tactical movements are not as important as the over-arching plan and this is complimented with the much larger viewing area. It's not that one game uses tactical gameplay and one strategic, they both merely emphasis different approaches. For me, Demigod is the better as it appeals more to my strategic thinking. DotA is more about stun locking and ganking, and while a lot of fun, has run it's course for me.

If you'd like my thoughts on HoN, replace the acronym DotA with HoN and re-read the above comments.

i like both

in concept i would play both, unfortunately demigod's netcode is complete garbage.  No one can deny that the game is laggy as hell.  I mean i tried the game this weekend after not touching it for 3+ weeks, and some guy was lagging so bad that everyone else got popups non stop about desync errors, popups that prevented the clicking of actions

As for demigods 'feeling slow'...when i play demigod i dont really have to try, i dont hve to pay as much attention, theres something very wrong with that.  Whether things are actually moving fast or not, the game doesnt take any effort atm.  With HoN/Dota i still do.  So whether thats due to the zoom out function or not, its still very easy im comparison.  (I like the zoom out though strategy games should start using that)

I also like how Demigod has more than one game mode, not just fortressing. 

And to the above comment about having 4 active skills + passives, that is true.  But lets be realistic, it doesnt take a whole lot of brain power to control anythin more than maybe, 8 abilities.  Coming from strategy games, and MMO's like AoC/WoW, i can safely say using 4 buttons isnt hard. Both games have simplicity when it comes to abilities.  The difficulty of this gameplay type is in teamwork, communication, timing, picking the right items for the right situation, and anticipating your enemies move.  This is where demigod is a failure.  Reguardless of actual movement speeds, reaction time is rather irrelivant in this game because theres always going to be that one 400+ ping player that obliterates any chance of a decent game as Demigod has terrible netcode.  

The creeps in demigod play no role at all until giants really.  You dont interact with them, you just stand there and farm.  Last hitting/denying is something that is rather fun in HoN/Dota, something i missed in demigod as you just need to stand there and do nothing to profit. 

As to another person reguarding the stuns.  Alot of people who are inexperienced in dota/hon will complain about that.  There are items to prevent that, and you have a team with you as well to help deal with it.  Also when choosing heroes you tend to go for a balance. 

Those are just some random thoughts but my final thought is that demigod is always going to be a backend near-dead game.  Here is why.  Its development is REALLY slow, for a company thats charging for this you think things would move quickly, but its not.  Theyre still trying to make a release quality game, and they are clinging to faulty netcode that in theory makes lag better, but its clearly not lol.  The interface is limited.  HoN is being built around this gameplay style, all the features ppl have been dying for in Dota are being added to HoN, such as banlists. 

When you look further at development, demigod has been out since april 4th, or 14th i cant remember.  I preordered it.  It was god awful on release, couldnt get a game going because someone wouldnt have a port forwarded or whatnot.  Since then, theyve made it so people can play even though its still laggy.  Theyve added concede, big fixes, redid the UI a bit, and thats about it.

In HoN, ive been playing 3 weeks.  Ive seen CLAN support added, concede, vote to remake, new heroes added, balance changes, UI changes, a functional rating system(demigods is still broken), team auto balance, and every few days theres a patch with noticable changes. 

Theres something very wrong here, 3 weeks more was done to a free beta than to a game people have paid for, where the company has income.  Seems like theyre takin the money and taking their sweet time doing anything with it. 

So conclusion, i would like to play demigod when it is release quality.  Currently it still feels worse than a beta, but has promise.  I think if they got the game to not lag i would play more often.  The new demigods will definitely make me try this again.

yup and on mac too i believe

One thing I can say for certain about HoN: I hope in the future, other games will learn from its AMAZING matchmaking.

Exactly. S2 Games are one of the few companies that actually have multi-platform games. I bet their games are far more stable and bug-free than most game developers just because of that. I played the game, it's very competitive, as someone said, Demigod is more casual, while Newerth is too much on the expert DotA player end for me.

I'd bet you'd see this message all the time due to the glitch

Gametrailers just released a preview to LoL.

I must say, even these info tidbits look quite interesting.

Let's change this thread to HoN/LoL/Demigod/whatever discussion.

Also check out the alternative Demigod videos in the main post if you haven't seen them yet.

These, more than anything else, demonstrate the absolute superiority of Demigod over any other RTS game currently available in regards of artwork and graphics.

( wants LoL beta key )