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RaSzTaH #3501 úgyse történik a fórumon semmi érdekes úgyhogy beillesztem Wall of text incoming... érdemes elolvasni...
I'm sure pretty much all of you are aware of recent rumours that have been going around the internet regarding Icefrog and his potential involvement with HoN. If not then here is first a quick history.
On or around the 15th June 2009, the Heroes of Newerth beta was announced to the general public.
On the 16th June 2009, Icefrog defended HoN and the fact that the game was apparently a copy of dota with this statement:
Quote:
"They contacted me a few years ago to ask if I had any objections to them doing a game heavily based on DotA, which I didn't. I don't really mind all these new games (6 total now I think), competition is a good thing in the long run. I will still work hard to develop and improve DotA on WC3 for everyone that is still interested in it."
This single statement pacified a few players, but the majority still cultivated hatred for S2, dismissing HoN as nothing more than a copy/paste dota.
All went quiet from Icefrog until, on the 5th October 2009, he issued this statement:
Icefrog working at Valve
Needless to say people were excited. A new standalone Dota game made by Icefrog, what's not to love? "It'll definitely be better than that shameless copy." Was the general consensus.
So the months went by, irrational hatred of HoN grew, until on the 20th July 2010, Emperor (Brized) came out with this statement:
Icefrog actually worked for S2
Now of course people were sceptical. Why wouldn't they be? This is a big statement to make from a person who didn't appear to have much to lose, and by itself would most likely have been dismissed as rumour. Pendragon changed that.
A letter from Pendragon
Now, anyone who followed the whole Dota Allstars/Playdota story, would know that there is no love lost between Icefrog and Pendragon. However Pendragon, unlike Emperor, appears to have a hell of a lot more to lose if it is discovered that these statements are not true. He is putting, not just his reputation, but also Riots reputation on the line by making this statement. As such, from what I have gathered, the large proportion of LoL players believe Pendragon to be telling the truth.
After this statement was made, another rumour came out that, apparently, Icefrog made a donation in 2007 to Ron Pauls election campaign. In the process, listing his employer as Marc Deforest. Maliken to you and I. This could very well have been false, but this is still the history section so needs to be mentioned. I will not however post the link to this information as, if true, it gives Icefrogs real name. He's wanted to remain anonomous all these years for a reason and I'm not about to ruin that for him.
Right up to the present day, neither Icefrog nor S2 have commented on these rumours outside of a single 'joke' post and info outside the forums which were all removed very quickly.
Finally on the 6th and 9th August, respectively, both Valve and Riot Games have filed for ownership of the trademark, DotA. As to who will prevail in such a claim? It is still up for debate.
Now to my musings. From this point onwards these are my own thoughts, I could be completely off the mark here, and I do not expect that S2 will comment on any of this. Nor do I expect to convince anyone else, your thoughts are your own, so I encourage you to make up your own minds. Nor is this an attempt to flame Icefrog. He has garnered a lot of respect, I know, and I apologise right now if any of this comes across as an attack.
I personally believe at this point that Icefrog worked for S2 games in and around the period of August 2006 to July 2009.
He didn't just give S2 games permission to develop HoN. He was hired by them to make it into the true successor of Dota. A standalone game, not limited by the WC3 engine.
During this period of employment, Icefrog continued to develop Dota at the behest and funding of S2. It's no secret that S2 are big fans of Dota, so this is understandable. I also believe that this was part of his contract, including that his employment be kept a secret.
On the other side of the coin though, S2 games then gained the rights to a period of Dota's development. In particular the 3 years he worked for them, most likely even stretching a little before and after he left. Hence why S2 can so confidently port over heroes, but yet cannot port Tundra's new aura...it is outside the period that they can rightfully copy.
For those who haven't noticed, it has been many months since S2 actually copied the latest changes made to dota. When in beta, these changes would be introduced, sometimes even before, they went live in Dota. Something has changed, and I believe that the reason is not because Icefrog asked them to stop, but rather the period from which S2 games can copy changes has been passed.
As to why Icefrog then left S2 games at the start of the beta, the reasons are mostly conjecture, but the one that makes the most sense to me is that he didn't work well in a team and grew frustrated over not having complete control over HoN's development. 3 month's later he is working for Valve heading up a team to make a new DotA. Complete control in the job description.
Moving on to Valve and their attempts to trademark DotA. I believe, and this is purely based on impressions I have gotten from people who very clearly want to say something but can't, that Valve want more than the ownership of the name. They want ownership of the heroes, items, etc. This I also think is largely in part to Icefrogs involvement. He worked on HoN for 3 years, but now that he's left he wants to take back everything which he sees as his. Contractual obligations be damned.
As such, I also believe that they have recently contacted S2 games requesting/demanding that they stop porting heroes/items from DotA and challenging their right to even do so in the first place. Hence why Furion has suddenly been shelved.
We all know how much money is required to develop any hero (be it port or original). For those that don't it's about 30k. So to suddenly stop developing a hero, mid way through, possibly even close to completion is very strange, and financially not sensible. Unless if they are awaiting certain clarifications and judgements before they can continue with the work.
Now if all of this is true, then technically S2 games could own at least 3 years of Dota development as one of their employees was working on it during that time. Which means that if anyone has a right to the heroes it is S2 and not Valve. It is even feasible that some of the changes made to DotA in that period were actually ideas put forward from other staff members, not just Icefrog.
If this is true then S2 is owed an apology from the DotA community that they will likely never receive.
I cannot stress enough how this is what I believe to be happening. I could be well off the mark but getting it down allows me to clear it up in my head and at least here we can debate and pick it apart.
One thing I can be certain of however is that S2 games are contractually prevented from speaking about any of this. Any time any info from S2 staff is released regarding this matter it is swiftly erased. The employees desperately want to tell us everything, but cannot, so it is up to us to 'join the dots' so to speak.
As a final point. I do not see S2 as the bad guys in any of this. They have worked incredibly hard to deliver a game which has given me more value for money than any game I have ever played...and at half the cost of regular releases. It saddens me to see how they are constantly vilified and I hope that one day the truth about all of this may come out. HoN is a great game and it, nor S2, deserves the baseless bashing that a lot (even on these very forums) give it on a daily basis.
TLDR: Read the full post you lazy sod!
ETLDR: Only joking. Icefrog worked for S2 games, S2 owns rights to use atleast 3 years of dota's development however they wish, Valve/Icefrog is trying to claim these rights for themselves.