Soapbox: LoL and HoN communities

Gamasutra ran an interesting article about these two communities: Heroes of Newerth Vs. League of Legends: The Communities
 
Its a not review for these games but rather of their respective communities.The community is the heart and soul of a multiplayer game so I'd recommend giving it atleast a glance if you're even remotely interested in picking up either of these titles.Inspite of the slightly passive aggressive tone towards the MOBA genre as a whole, I think its fairly positive press for League of Legends and the article was interestingly published on the same day the game goes live. Hmmm. Anyway, I agree with most of the points he made about the mellower, more fun-loving community that is LoL.
 
I must admit it makes the entire Heroes of Newerth community look like nothing but jerks. While that is certainly not the case, the stereotype does exist for a reason. Personally, I just find it hard to get into a multiplayer game where a significant portion of community is selfish and can't see the value in relaxing and having fun with others (if you think winning every match is the only way of having fun then YOU are the problem). 
 
I'm very new to MOBAs so I had some really harsh matches in both games at first. However, the way the community responded to me fumbling around during these initial matches made all the difference in my experience.In LoL, my teammates and sometimes even my enemies helped me pick items and character/laning strategies etc. and pointed out what I was doing wrong. Some even pointed me to helpful tutorials in the forums and it improved my enjoyment of the game. Whereas in HoN, I just got profanities and insults hurled at me.This eventually lead to me just giving up on the whole thing. It was doubly disappointing because I keep hearing that HoN has more gameplay depth but I just don't see the value of it all if the community continues to be so abrasive. 
 
Maybe someday I'll get good enough to graduate from my noob standard but I've to ask myself...why ? Why bother if you're a perfectly good alternative where you don't have to deal with as much jackassery ?

Gamasutra ran an interesting article about these two communities: Heroes of Newerth Vs. League of Legends: The Communities
 
Its a not review for these games but rather of their respective communities.The community is the heart and soul of a multiplayer game so I'd recommend giving it atleast a glance if you're even remotely interested in picking up either of these titles.Inspite of the slightly passive aggressive tone towards the MOBA genre as a whole, I think its fairly positive press for League of Legends and the article was interestingly published on the same day the game goes live. Hmmm. Anyway, I agree with most of the points he made about the mellower, more fun-loving community that is LoL.
 
I must admit it makes the entire Heroes of Newerth community look like nothing but jerks. While that is certainly not the case, the stereotype does exist for a reason. Personally, I just find it hard to get into a multiplayer game where a significant portion of community is selfish and can't see the value in relaxing and having fun with others (if you think winning every match is the only way of having fun then YOU are the problem). 
 
I'm very new to MOBAs so I had some really harsh matches in both games at first. However, the way the community responded to me fumbling around during these initial matches made all the difference in my experience.In LoL, my teammates and sometimes even my enemies helped me pick items and character/laning strategies etc. and pointed out what I was doing wrong. Some even pointed me to helpful tutorials in the forums and it improved my enjoyment of the game. Whereas in HoN, I just got profanities and insults hurled at me.This eventually lead to me just giving up on the whole thing. It was doubly disappointing because I keep hearing that HoN has more gameplay depth but I just don't see the value of it all if the community continues to be so abrasive. 
 
Maybe someday I'll get good enough to graduate from my noob standard but I've to ask myself...why ? Why bother if you're a perfectly good alternative where you don't have to deal with as much jackassery ?

As a member of the LOL community, we have our share of jerks. But then again, there are those of us who say "leave the jerkfaces to HoN and DotA. That's the way they like that community, bring your assholery there." And you can't blame us for being jerks either, when both games are filled with leavers and AFKers. People who are bad, we deal with them and try to make them better. People who leave or AFK, they are just a problem and we rage at them.

Try out demigod toooooo! We are nice pplz.

oh man, the first time I tried playing HoN (beta) I looked at the controls for a bit, got confused, so I joined a server that was for new players, and in the first couple minutes I got killed... and then my teammate explained to me how ****ing retarted I was, so I realized this was not how I wanted to spend my time and quit.  Gotta have some kind of tutorial mode :( 

Yeah, the online issues have really been ironed out so that I don't have any issues. Also, there's 2 new demigods in the works so that'll be fun. The game feels very different from LoL and HoN so be prepared!

Oh, you have your share of competitive retards in both games. Having a competitive streak myself, I get kinda irritated in team games when my teammates are bad. But then if I wanted to be able to carry my team with lots of skill and minimal teamwork, I'd play a LoL carry (a high damage character), or I'd go play an FPS I am good at. I play one of the more complex characters in LoL, but one thing I am good at is adapting to the playstyles of bad players. I may not win as much as I should, but at least I try to help new players out sometimes.
 
Also, playing in bad games can be fun too. One time we had two leavers in the first 30 seconds. We definitely stayed for 42 more minutes instead of surrendering, and both the enemies and I had fun; I was really powerful, so I was yelling "LASER BIRD IS COMING FOR YOU" and then just rolling over the opponents. They won; it's impossible to win that game 3v5 if we aren't the right 3 heroes, but everyone in that game stuck around in the chat room afterwards and friended each other. It's just getting lucky with the people you play with.

Huh, I never had the issue with getting cussed out in HoN. Probably because there was someone in there that kept pissing off everyone on the team.
 
It probably helped that I played DotA once years and years ago, so I had the basic concept of what to do. I mean, there was a guy on our team that kept telling people what to do, and occasionally would say "Purple, stop doing <insert whatever I was doing here>". Maybe it was because I wasn't an idiot and knew not to just stand in a group of other heroes and die, or something.
 
Of course, I only ever played it once. You kind of get overwhelmed in that game since there isn't any tutorial or any explanation on how anything works. You kind of just have to jump in there, which is just a recipe for disaster when you play with a community that is mostly full of elitists.

 HoN is alot more competitively based then LoL thats why the community is alot harsher, in my time playing LoL i had fun its alot more laid back, but it never gave me the competition that i craved. You also must remember that one is in beta stage while one is released thus there is no tutorial for HoN which makes the learning curve even harder. But all this also depends on who you get stuck with in game, i myself will help people out if they ask for help (also there are tons of guides on the HoN forums). There both good games but there geared towards different gaming communities, one is more laid back, while the other is more geared for more avid gamers.