Quote:I just wanted to take the time to give a quick update on what is going on with HoN.

Server Hiccups - we realize we have been experiencing some hiccups with the servers which was causing jittery gameplay. We are aware of the issue, have put some fixes in place to help resolve the issue (you should see significantly less, if any, of these instances happening again) and a fully permanent method will be in place shortly. We apologize for the issues.

Map Hacking - we are aware that there is a map hack available for HoN. We knew this could be accomplished, as when we started beta we had not implemented the necessary code changes to block all cheating. However, this is now moved up our priority list and is being coded as I type. It will take roughly 2 weeks before we can patch it in. This will prove our ability to stamp out any possible map hacks as well as offer a significant optimization to the netcode. A side note, remember that every game of HoN is recorded and if any account is accussed and confirmed of map hacking, your account and IP address will be PERMANENTLY banned from playing HoN FOREVER. Please, do NOT cheat!!!

We plan to release the 1.30 patch this Tuesday, probably later in the day PST. A quick preview of the major points of the patch is below:

• Server Optimizations & Stabilization
• New Hero(es) - Valkyrie (potm port) & Maliken (hopefully makes it in)
• Basic Clan Functionality - clan creation, clan tags, clan management, reserved clan channel, clan buddy list, etc...
• Pub Skill Rating (PSR) - an elo based skill rating similar to chess
• Auto Team Balance - hosts can now auto balance teams in the game lobby based upon PSR as well as lock players to a team so people can play with friends and auto balance teams
• New Shop Interace - New smaller, streamlined, repositioned shop with cursor positioned tooltips (we're going to try and squeeze this in, hopefully it makes it, if it doesn't it'll be next patch)
• Game List Changes - you can now filter based upon no preference, show, do not show and we have added tooltips to the icons in the list
• Mechanic Clean up and balance changes - lots of small things that add up to a lot here

Hopefully everyone is enjoying their gaming with HoN and this patch should just make these even better. Thank you for participating in the beta.

Quote:We've got the patch 99.9% fully built and ready, however it requires another test before we roll it out, and as it's currently 2:10am we don't have the staff to do so tonight. We plan to be uploading the patch 7/29/2009 in the early afternoon (California time - PDT).