Director of Design and Development at S2 Games, James Fielding, held an open Q&A session today on the Heroes of Newerth Facebook page. Here are some convenient excerpts from the event so you don't have to search through hundreds of Facebook comments yourself.

Do you think Engi is a good hero now?

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We agree Engineer is a bit lackluster. We're playing around with some ideas for him (one of them involves removing tinker and replacing it with a pretty cool skill), but we're definitely not done tweaking Engineer.”

When will a new hero be coming out?

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A new hero will be coming out pretty soon. We generally spend a few weeks on each hero at least to give them the time needed to make sure they are fun (often times their design changes drastically over the course of development). Once the ball gets rolling, we usually end up with several heroes in development at once, which is what allows us to release them on a regular basis. We had to start back up at New Year's though, so there's a little bit of delay before you see the first hero - but it won't be very long after that hero comes out before you see another, then another, etc.”

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Will there ever be more servers? It seems to me that a lot of people don't have a choice but to use USA servers (South Americans). Will this ever be resolved?

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The only thing that stops us from putting servers up in a given region is costs. Our game servers have some beefy requirements, and in some regions, servers of that magnitude are just too expensive. We'll continue to add more servers and explore our options, as always.”

Are you afraid of DotA 2?

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Nope :). We welcome another game to the genre. I would hate to have to follow in HoN's shoes if I were them, but at the same time, it's exciting to see what they do with the game and what innovations they try to bring.”

Would you ever give the option when you Smackdown someone to have like 3 seconds of voice enabled after their death, so the person you Smackdown hears what you say?

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Allowing you to talk to the enemy team (or player) after a Smackdown is actually something we have talked about - we're a bit hesitant though, as it could lead to a lot of abuse (and there's currently no way to mute members of the opposing team). We don't want to sacrifice the quality and enjoyment of a whole team so just one player can have that extra bit of fun.”

What do you think of Marc DeForest? He's an ass, yes?

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Marc DeForest is awesome :). S2 (and HoN) is only possible through his passion for gaming and creating games.”

Can we please have an Alt Avatar for Wretched Hag, but instead of a hag, it would be an old grumpy wizard?

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We are actually working on an Alt Avatar for Hag...I can't say too much yet, though :).”

ETA on the big realignment balance patch?

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The realignment patch is at least a few weeks away. In addition to making the changes and compiling what should change, we're putting them through a rigorous testing process and iterating on those changes with the top competitive teams in HoN. It's a slow process, but it'll be well-worth the wait.”

Why don't you use the "Dev heroes" feature? That way you would not have to worry as much if a hero is balanced, and test him out more. Maybe an option for Dev heroes in MM? I've noticed you haven't used the feature in a very long time.

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The main reason we don't use "Dev heroes" that much anymore is that we've since adopted a more rigorous testing process, such that a lot of the initial iteration and balance that had to be done on our heroes upon release has already been done behind closed doors.”

Will we be able in the foreseeable future to use our images as icons next to our names (granted, of course, that you purchased the slot and all that)?

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Using custom images as account icons has been a pretty popular request. We're still considering the implications of this as a possibility - there are some details to figure out to prevent abuse, though.”

What is S2/HoN doing to increase its player base by way of marketing, tournaments, and friendly on-board game features?

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We operate under the philosophy that good games sell themselves. We do do some marketing pushes and events (such as this one), but HoN has thrived simply from the player base telling their friends. When you play a good game, you want to tell your friends about it - and that is a much stronger marketing force than buying a bunch of ads on websites. Plus, it leaves more resources for us to hire more people in order to make more heroes and content for you guys :).”

Why doesn't HoN have a mode where you can play against bots?

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We thought about working on bots, but the fact of the matter is it takes quite a long time and a lot of effort to make good AI (not good in terms of skill necessarily, good in terms of quality). We'd rather spend our time and attention on things that our player base will appreciate - only a very, very small percentage would actually benefit from the addition of bots.”

Defiler's nuke seems to have a much, much longer range than Pyromancer's wave, higher damage, and lower cooldown. Do you think you can increase Pyromancer's wave's range to compensate?

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We really don't like to compare hero skills on a 1-on-1 basis like that. There may be similar skills in the game in which one is better than the other, but you have to look at the whole hero and what they bring to the table, how they are played, how they interact with the team, etc...you'll find that Pyromancer and Defiler offer much more than a wave-based nuke.”

Why are you so focused on looks instead of game balance? The game actually needs to be balanced for HoN to be competitive, and all you're doing is making new avatars, cool.

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It's easy to understand why you might think that, however, the development of Alt Avatars for existing heroes does not in any way interfere with our ability to balance the game and add new heroes. The Alt Avatars are being modeled while the art team waits on us (the designers) to come up with hero designs and balance changes for them to work on.”

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Will any more DREAM heroes be implemented into the game? Are there some already being looked at by S2?

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DREAM heroes are generally implemented when we spot one that really jumps out to us as a solid concept that would be fun to play - especially if the community seems to like the hero. This is how Bombardier was created. We'll always look at the DREAM site, and when a gem appears and our time-table allows, we'll work with the creator of the hero to get it in the game. Even if we aren't directly using your hero, though, sometimes we'll like individual skills of heroes on DREAM and work with that to form a hero around a given skill. The bottom line is that the community's passion and care about the game is absolutely making it's way into the game development process, and I think everyone can benefit from that.”

Would you ever make TMM so that you wouldn't be able to play with people on your banlist?

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We really can't make TMM take individual user banlists into account. It would kill queue times and probably overload the server that's running matchmaking. I understand the desire for this feature, but it really would make matchmaking cease to function.”

If it's possible, I would like a nerf on Dampeer. He is way too op, really...

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Don't worry, we do plan on nerfing Dampeer a bit :).”

Where do you see HoN in 5 years?

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In 5 years, you will see HoN on a computer monitor :D. I fully expect HoN to be doing well in 5 years - with constant improvements and support. I can't really reveal our long term plans...but we have no plans of abandoning HoN, not while people still play it.”

So, regular new hero releases will be resuming soon, a whole lot of suggestions from the community are being considered, the giant "realignment" patch is at least a few weeks away, S2 does NOT spend all of their time making new Alt Avatars, and Dampeer is getting nerfed. Hopefully, this Q&A session answered some nagging questions you may have had. And remember to "Like" the Heroes of Newerth Facebook page to get notice of future events like this one.

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