The MOBA genre--that's Multiplayer Online Battle Arena--is a relatively new phenomenon in online gaming. It began with mods for Warcraft and StarCraft that eventually gave us Defense of the Ancients, the essential prototype for the modern MOBA game. From that wildly popular mod sprang bona-fide retail titles--Demigod being perhaps the best known, with a number of successors close on its heels. Two of those successors--League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth--have been at one another's throats since launch. LoL is more popular, with a bigger playerbase, while HoN prides itself on a smaller, more dedicated communtiy and more challenging, nuanced gameplay. Now, however, with the gap between the two games becoming ever more pronounced, HoN is shaking up its business model in an effort to draw in new players. The holdout retail MOBA title will now be free-to-play just like its hated rival.
Heroes of Newerth will be introducing a tiered membership system, with free players separated from paying customers. How does it work? The free account, Basic, has access to a rotating pool of 15 HoN heroes, with extra characters available via microcurrency. The next step up, Verified, is for players who've made microcurrency purchases or played the game for a certain amount of time. Verified players still have to pick and choose from purchased heroes or the free pool, but they're able to queue in their own matchmaking system that excludes those with Basic accounts, meaning they won't have to worry about froobs coming in to rain on their MOBA parade. (Incidentally, if you guys play any instruments, I'm looking to put together an actual MOBA parade at some point.) Legacy accounts, the highest tier accounts, are available only to those who purchased Heroes of Newerth prior to the free-to-play conversion. Legacy players will have lifetime access to all HoN heroes present and future and are also eligible for those Verified Only matchmaking queues.
If you're not yet on the HoN bandwagon, you won't be able to ascend to the highest tier--Legacy accounts are no longer available for purchase. You can, however, be Verified in a jiffy--or stick with Basic if you just want to try out the MOBA world. Me, I think I'll stick with LoL, but I'm sure some of you guys are hardcore HoN fans. Talk back and make your HoN vs. LoL cases in the comments!
Follow Josh Harrison on Twitter: @geekologized.
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