quote:

There are 562 people online.
Really?
And one of the reasons it said was a crowded server of 2500 people...
Had a good laugh about THAT one...

quote:

Wall of text, incoming.
Your opinions may be different, but I feel these points need to be made.
Here's my look on what HeroSmash has been, is, and may or may not become.
If you feel the urge to flame in response to this, just leave now and save us the trouble.
I'm fairly inactive here on the forums, but I play the game itself frequently. These are my thoughts.


Being a non-alpha player, I can't have an opinion on anything that occurred before Beta began, but having started on the first day of such, I suppose I can claim that I'm a fairly "old" player of this game.
I came in a little confused, to be honest, it's a silly game. Large heads, tiny feet, very childish, I suppose. I was fairly sure I was gonna quit, the only thing that actually kept me were the players I met who were kind to me, most of which are still 'good' friends, so to speak.
Once you really look at the simple basics of HeroSmash, though, you can see where the true beauty is. The combat has so much potential it's ridiculous. You can customize every single slot with whatever ability you want, equating to endless possibilities when it comes to gameplay.
All went well for a while.
When Yercom was released, I was very pleased. Heck I remember when you guys dominated with the Park war, which also had a nice set of things to it. I enjoyed all of these, regardless of when they took place.
At about Friday the 13th, we had releases frequently, tons of new items... lots of things that just made the game great.
Movieplex item shops were amazing. Everything was amazing, actually.
Super Death gets released, which was probably HeroSmash at its golden age. Super Death, and all the missions/areas that came with it, truly made the game worth playing. It added something to do other than stand AFK in Overlook-1 looking cool for the others.
Then a little after we polished off the Super Death stuff, we got Pleasanton as the "start to a new story".
At first I was disappointed that it was so easy, but it's just the beginning anyways. It was a storyline, another epic tale for us to take part in that adds to the game.
Then it just stopped...?
We got Yergen's birthday. Halloween. Christmas. All the events you can think of.
When PvP was first released I freaked out, because it was what I always wanted. It was fairly balanced, too, which was awesome.
But what happened to Pleasanton? The Clock Blocker? They all just disappeared, those stories left unfinished. Leaving us, the players, hanging on nothing. Releases stopped.

Sure we got a couple new shops, fun. Cool gear in the movieplex. As early as January 13th we had the Friday the 13th event. But since then...? Nothing. At all. The game didn't even have so much as a design notes update in almost three weeks.
In addition, PvP has become the most unbalanced thing feasible to this community, but it seems that you guys refuse for it to be balanced. One move set ALWAYS has to be better than the others.
Yeah, okay, I get it, you farmed for your cool legendary powers. I have them too. Cool. But how about every single player uses Pandora's Grace, Fashion Sense, Ice Barrage, Pony Charge, and whatever other legendary they want in the last slot? Let's make those the ONLY way to be good to a point to where you are forced to use the exact same set in order to compare.
One of the things I was looking forward to the most... The leaderboards. They do not represent skill in any way, shape, or form. They show who could stay on the longest and spam legendaries. Those players who still have skill but can't log on twenty-four-million hours every day? They don't get any reward, at all.
I can say that, arguably, I am one of the most experienced, well-known players that is currently a part of this game's community outside of the forums. I say arguably because for me to make that claim is almost silly, despite how accurate I may think it is. Many may disagree, and that's fine. I know when things are wrong, and I don't lie to make myself better. Many players are evidence of that. The game of PvP is just a broken system altogether.
I have spent a very large amount of money on this game. In return, there are SC items. Membership has almost zero perks as of now. What's the incentive? Sure, I can't cancel, my membership doesn't end until 2014. But the new players may be scared away from it if there are no benefits. No money = no resources = no game.
To say that is generous. There is very little gameplay left for us end-game players. If you're not a fan of PvP, you're essentially stuck.
Beleen completely abandoned us here at HeroSmash, if anyone hasn't noticed. I'm not saying she's a bad person because of it, but we really have been left in the dust.

This is my favorite AE game, and yet we have about one AQW Server-full of players in our entire active playerbase. Why? Because the AE team is running this game wrong. None of you care anymore. Yergen sparingly updates his Twitter feed, let alone interacts with us on the forums...
My suggestion? Just do what you were doing before. Quit pawning off our developers to the other AE games, or pretty soon we'll have none left. The game is terminally ill, and only you guys at AE can do anything about it. Don't abandon us.

First things first, balance the legendaries. I don't care how difficult they are to get, good for the players who have them. One or two per set is more than enough to boost your abilities in PvP tenfold.
Second; More storyline. Please, just continue the Clock Clocker. Enough of this "only releases when there is a holiday" crap. Enough sporadic releases. We need a schedule, this game cannot be put on the high shelf or it will die, I guarantee it.
Third; "We'll be adding NPCs every week" <-- Right. Not even once a month, you guys should just shut the contest down if all the NPCs you're going to select are chosen randomly. When was the last time we had an actual contestant put in? Pre-July? I don't even know.
Fourth; Hire more people to work on this game. Heck, get volunteers if you claim that you (lie) can't afford it. This game has very few real developers left who work solely on this game. You already handed over one of our best animations artists to the AQ Worlds team. Don't even get me started on how disappointed I am in the story development team.
As for releases after long periods (20 days?) of waiting, you can do better than two half-tried pencil-drawn concept weapons. We all know the evil weapon is going to win, setting it to some huge war for two weapons that aren't too attractive in the first place is pointless and takes no effort on your part. (Opinionated, but you know most, if not all, of you agree)
Add some incentive to play this game, for cryin' out loud. All of your income is going over to AQ3D. You guys aren't even running this game correctly, don't start on yet another until this game is at least partially complete. We're still in beta!

Oh goodness the lag. The random server freeze-ups. The incessant "disconnects". These servers have less traffic than even the lowest populated AQ Worlds server. Seriously? Not even gonna elaborate on that because it's stupid and makes no sense.

Game moderation is complete crap since Venus left, as well. People are going left and right swearing their heads off with no repercussions. Trolls lurk the Overlook like an unstoppable parasite. Get more volunteers for this, please, the ones who actually receive reports, not just testers.

I suppose to finish this all off I just want to say I love Artix Entertainment. I'm not hating on you at all, and you've done well with every other game you've made.
Just please don't let HeroSmash die. Don't abandon the potential this game has.
Chances are this post will be ignored by most of you, but I don't care, it needed to be said. Hopefully somebody up top will see this and realize what it is they're doing, or more appropriately neglecting to do.

If that was too long to read, here's the summary:

Read it anyway.

Cheers. Here's to a better future.
~Anti