Silkroad Online Forums

"DoP.Emperor/brized claims that IceFrog worked with S2 Games on the development of Heroes of Newerth for 3 years!

A well respected ex-professional DotA player DoP.Emperor (HoN: brized), who has since then switched to HoN, contacted SK Gaming with the idea of publishing information that is sure to attract a lot of attention from both the HoN and DotA communities. He says he was not happy with the negative and uninformed comments made by DotA players and fans with their claims that HoN is just a bad/stolen DotA copy, while they are not aware of what was going on behind the scenes of the development of LoL, HoN and DotA. Here is what he has to say:

"Basically, I'm getting sick of the zealous supporters of IceFrog who bash HoN, or label S2 Games as thieves for "stealing" IceFrog's work. My peak was during the ESWC livestream, where MadMortigan portrayed IceFrog as an amazing selfless developer who never accepted donations or money for his time on DotA, and slighted S2 for stealing IceFrog's work. Though I no longer play DotA, I still love and follow both games -- I just think it is time for people to know the real story.

In the Summer of 2009 I was called to the Riot Games (developers of League of Legends) office as part of an advisory panel of DotA players to give our input on making LoL a more competitive game. During my time spent at the office, as well as in private conversations with several high ranking Riot employees, I acquired a fair amount of info about IceFrog and what actually goes on behind the scenes.

During the early stages of 2006, Ice was fresh out of college and interviewed at Riot Games for the position of head developer for League of Legends. He wanted a few hundred thousand dollars, his share of profits, seat on the board of directors (next to several VERY highly renowned and experienced folks in the game industry, where as Ice was merely the developer of a single WC3 custom map), and 100% full creative control. While relations were cordial, I was informed that he was basically laughed out of the office for his ridiculous demands.

Shortly after this period, he secretly went around bidding the idea of developing a DotA clone to various game companies, accompanied by an agent who's name I cannot recall. It was not long before he was hired at S2 games. He worked there for a few years --based on the information I received from Riot Games, I believe sometime not long after his interview at Riot (2006) to sometime before the 2009 beta launch at which point he and S2 split ways due to unknown complications.

Given my experience as a beta tester and the fact that IceFrog would be on the beta forums all day long working on and releasing DotA beta patches, it is not hard to speculate that he was paid a significant amount of money to work on HoN and to continue developing DotA in the meanwhile. It was hardly a "free project" for him if he got anything close to what he wanted from Riot. If this is indeed the case, DotA would not be the game it is today without S2's employment and funding of IceFrog. Mind you, Ice reassured his beta testers that he was not involved in ANY other projects(blatantly false). His involvement in HoN went WAY beyond simply the blessing he gave to the game in a post on his blog back in the Summer of 2009. HoN was developed by IceFrog to be the next-gen version of DotA for the community, not some cheap copy made by developers trying to cash in on the game's popularity.

Several other details about IceFrog were also shared with me during my visit, including his real name. I have no interest in revealing the private information of someone who has his own reasons for long staying under the radar, but considering how ridiculous the HoN vs DotA argument has become, I felt I should shed some light on it."