Pendragon confirms Icefrog’s S2/Heroes of Newerth Involvement, takes petty jab at Icefrog; Dota-Allstars.com site is discontinued
Pendragon left a post today on his dota-allstars.com site confirming Icefrog’s involvement with S2 Games. He also has discontinued the site which was basically a massive forum for DotA players. The site traffic had been dwindling for over a year since playdota.com (Icefrog’s site) made its debut.
Pendragon’s message (see below) is basically a stroking of his ego combined with a petty jab at Icefrog and a plug for his game, League of Legends (LoL). He tries to make his two competitors, Icefrog (Dota) and S2 (HoN), look bad while painting himself and his own game (LoL) in a good light. His spiel: essentially, he and Guinsoo created the “real” Dota successor in LoL, while dishonest upstart Icefrog and S2 designed the ripoff HoN. He says: “I chose to be transparent and honest about the project that I was working on, and the direction my career was going”, which is to imply that Icefrog is not.
Whether Icefrog and S2 were involved, while an interesting story, frankly doesn’t matter. Icefrog and S2 have been dedicated and honorable game designers and can do whatever they want with their money and ideas. No one can deny the quality of Icefrog’s contributions to the Dota map and no one is making anyone shell out 30 bucks for HoN if they don’t want to (though Pendragon loves pointing out that LoL is “free” except for micro-transactions). Pendragon tries to sell that S2 and Icefrog are guilty of collusion. Just because they didn’t tell us something doesn’t mean they lied to us, and if anything, the fact (if it’s true) that S2 consulted with Dota’s developer while designing their own next-generation Dota game only adds credibility to Heroes of Newerth, especially with regard to the whole popular “ripoff” debating point. Hey, look, Icefrog ripped himself off! Right.
Anyone above the age of 14 can see through Pendragon’s rhetoric, which sounds like something straight from the Jeff Hunter book of douchery and manipulation. What a fucking tool.
His message:
Some of you may know me; many of you probably won’t these days. This website was born on October 14th, 2004. It was a mere 2 months after I turned 18, and it was the first website I’d ever made. Guinsoo was the lead developer (before Icefrog), DotA had no competitive scene and maybe 5% of the players that it does today.
In the years that followed, the site turned from a small forum with only 30,000 users to a massive community with over a million visitors every month, a million page views every day, and a staff of over 100 volunteers. It’s been incredible discovering the generosity of individuals who selflessly donate their time to create a positive experience for others.
In the summer of 2008, I met Guinsoo in real life for the first time. He and his boss were in town and they wanted to meet up and go out for a steak, (how could I say no!?). I soon learned that they were working on a game based on DotA, free from all of the limitations of the Warcraft III engine and Battle.net. Several months after meeting them and after several trips to their offices to learn more about the project, I joined the Riot Games team working on League of Legends.
When I first joined the team in September of 2008, my original intent was to work on League of Legends full time and continue to build DotA-Allstars.com into an awesome thriving DotA community after Icefrog’s departure.
While I originally intended to leave this out of this letter, in light of the fact that this information is now out in the open, I think it’s important to set the record straight. Many believe that Icefrog left because I wanted to commercialize, and he did not. In reality – I had learned that Icefrog had been secretly working for S2Games after conducting a series of meetings where he was attempting to sell a full DotA game concept to a number of companies (including Riot). The differences of opinion that we had were merely that I chose to be transparent and honest about the project that I was working on, and the direction my career was going.
After working on and launching LoL, I began to realize that – in addition to having no free time anymore – with LoL available to play I no longer possessed the passion for DotA which once drove me.
The traffic on the website slowly began to decline, settling where it’s at now (about 50% of where it was a year ago), and I recently realized that I had a decision to make. I could either continue to say that I would rebuild the website as a strong DotA community, knowing that my heart wasn’t really in it, or I could archive the site, ending an almost 6 year chapter of my life that I’ve invested thousands of hours into. Ultimately I believe that the right decision here is to not trick myself into thinking that this site will be rebuilt into what it once was, and to shift my full focus and time to my new project, with an eye towards the future.
This website and the DotA community will always hold a special place in my heart. It’s been an amazing experience working with so many wonderful people and gaining so much insight about communities, people, and ultimately myself. There are more people deserving of thanks than I could possibly remember – so rather than leaving anyone out, I’ll simply thank everyone who has volunteered or contributed to this site over the last few years, and everyone who helped make it one of the premier DotA websites in the world.
The website will be offline for the next week or so while the database is moved to its new permanent home where its contents will remain archived and available to the public for the sake of historical preservation.
In the meantime, I hope some of you will join me and over 3 million other players for a game of League of Legends (it’s free!)
Should you wish to contact me, you can reach me at:
AIM: Gippis
MSN: DotA-Allstars@hotmail.com
Email: Pendragon@dota-allstars.comSincerely,
Pendragon
Tags: Dota, douchery, HoN, icefrog, league of legends, pendragon, petty jabs, s2
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The DRD Insult Generator says:- LOAF PINCHING CUNTSEWAGES ALWAYS GETS ME ALL HOT AND LITTLE.
Launders on 
JSA2422 on 
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Bert on 
Greetings,
What part of this letter is stroking my own ego?
-Pendragon
Start to finish
I have to wholeheartedly disagree with this.
I have known Pendragon as an acquaintance for years, and while he is at times of questionable character, I believe what he says here as 100% truth. In this situation, no matter how you look at it, there are no true winners, only losers. The real enemy is IceFrog. Riot Games, S2 Games, and the DotA community all attempted to trust him, but he turned his back on all three in an attempt to bolster his own standing. What Pendragon said is true–he spent thousands of dollars and thousands of hours on D-A.com, and for that we, as MOBA fans, will eternally be grateful. The only reason D-A.com fell into disrepair was due to his feelings of betrayal over IceFrog’s attempt to deal behind his back. It is IceFrog who is the liar and the deceiver, not Pendragon.
Pendragon is, at heart, a businessman. He makes decisions in the best interest of what he takes interest in. But to say he is a liar, or stroking his own ego, is simply stretching the truth. IceFrog, on the other hand, is also a businessman. But unlike Pendragon, IceFrog makes decisions in the best interesting himself, and solely himself. Please understand that.
I know little of the inner workings in the Icefrog situation, but as an outsider it’s as clear as daylight how incredibly shiesty a move Pendragon made by taking advantage of this spreading rumor by simultaneously dismantling his heavily-trafficked Dota forum to use it as a tool to direct those visitors to LoL and defame his rivals. Have either of you considered a career in politics? Or should I say just you Pendragon, nice fucking proxy IP (66.230.230.230) on this post, you shady fuck. I wasn’t kidding when I compared you to Hunter– you’re just like him; you think you can spin things any way want on the internet.
“I have known Pendragon as an acquaintance for years”
COOL STORY BRO! I bet you have! You ARE him!
Trust no one but yourselves people, all 3 games are good in their own right, I just prefer LOL due to me being a casual gamer…
If there is a chance that the truth is Icefrog did work for S2 Games at one point, then the irony of Dota elitism towards a game created essentially by the same developer is lost on all of us? That is a sad sad sad picture…
I have to wholeheartedly agree with this, I thought everyone know how much of a money grabber Pendragon_ was I mean after DA was moved to playdota.com he still kept the allstars forum up and why? because it brought him revenue and promote his stupid little LoL. The whole reason Icefrog made playdota.com was because he was tired of Pendragon_’s constant advertisement of LoL on a site dedicated to DotA
Why is League of Legends free? Because only a handful of people would actually pay money for that garbage of a game versus HoN, DotA (WHICH IS FREE!) and the prospect of Valve DotA incoming.
“I have known Pendragon as an acquaintance for years”
If I didn’t know any better I would think thats Hunter. The whole posts sounds like something he would say.
Icefrog worked on HoN? Wonderful, makes the game all the better.
Doesn’t really seem like Pendragon was jabbing at S2 at all in his letter, IMO.
I know how this went down. Pretty much Icefrog approached PD and asked him for a large percentage of Dota-allstars (so that he could use it as a promotional too for HON). That failed so he created his new website (strangely as many people pointed out at the time… the assets were very similar to that of S2′s).
Unfortunately HON fired him. He probably was just not effective in a team environment and made to many impossible requests.
Note that also Icefrog was originally interviewed at Riot and rejected because of what he asked for and because he didn’t make the cut as being able to work in a team environment. S2 only found this out later. I believe PD is being intentionally vague still in his thread.
Note… I’ve given details on this before. No-one listened (and the same folk still are not listening). What more evidence do you need. S2 and Icefrog are certainly not going to tell the truth. Pretty much calling PD a lier and not doing your own investigations makes you somewhat a puppet.
(Who am I… maybe I used to work at S2… maybe I’m just a friend of someone at S2… I can’t say without getting someone in trouble).
This post reeks of journalistic bias. how can you expect to be taken seriously if you are going to post like this?
1)At no point does Pendragon take a jab at S2Games. where did you see that? Sure, he talks up his own game. how could he not mention LoL when explaining the closing of his site? It’s the reason the site closed. does he ever say anything bad about HoN? No. He does not.
2)There is only 1 paragraph about Icefrog. The first half is a clarification. The second half, which you seem to take issue with, is below:
“I had learned that Icefrog had been secretly working for S2Games after conducting a series of meetings where he was attempting to sell a full DotA game concept to a number of companies (including Riot). The differences of opinion that we had were merely that I chose to be transparent and honest about the project that I was working on, and the direction my career was going.”
So, what is untrue about this? None of us knew what Icefrog was doing. Icefrog told us that prior to working for Valve, his was only working on Dota. This was not true. Pendragon however has informed what he has been doing the entire time. You could even say that Icefrog was secretive while Pendragon was transparent and honest.
Why do you take such issue with this?
I’m merely interpreting the rhetoric of his post. Someone claiming to be “transparent and honest” who then goes on a proxy to impersonate an imaginary acquaintance of himself in order to back himself up in a debate is clearly not so.
In my opinion Pendragon is an opportunist and a spin doctor. Take it or leave it.
That’s a pretty strong interpretation. You’ve already edited the title of the post, I think you should follow up with an editing for the rest of the article.
I don’t know much about proxies. Could you explain to me how you know both posters are Pendragon?
As a point of contention. I never posted on your blog anonymously. I don’t create/post under anonymous profiles on your site or any other site. If I have something to say, I have no issue saying it under my own name.
I play League of Legends under Pendragon, I make my contact information relatively easy to find as I like to be accessible. Feel free to hit me up if you’d like any additional information or clarity around anything that I’ve said.
I also disagree with the statement “The only reason D-A.com fell into disrepair was due to his feelings of betrayal over IceFrog’s attempt to deal behind his back”.
I’ll fully admit that I made mistakes and could have handled numerous situations better, I’m an open book!
-Pendragon
Pendragon’s post is utter nonsense. I agree with the article – he just randomly decided to take a swipe at S2/Icefrog, and stuffed in a plug for LoL. He brings up the question of why Icefrog/Pendragon split and refutes the “common opinion” that it was because Pendragon wants to commercialize, fine. But then he never actually says the real reason the split happened, he just says, “oh btw Icefrog lied to all of you!!111″. And then this guy “James” comes along, again with absolutely no proof, and gives his little paragraph on how Icefrog wanted to turn D-A into a HoN forum.
People need to stop hating on Icefrog, and stop spreading random rumors without ANY proof. Like this idiot “James”. I could make a thread saying the exact same things he did, and there’s no way to verify it or not. If you’re going to post something, give proof, or just shutup.
All Icefrog has ever said is that he is only interested in “dota’s development and future”. He never said he’s only interested in dota on the wc3 engine, or anything of the sort. There is also no proof showing that he specifically worked on Dota for pay – even if S2 Games hired him. Give Icefrog a break, he does a great job with dota, and if he did work on HoN, he must have helped make it the game that it is today.
Emperor/brized said in his post he “speculated” that Icefrog was paid by S2 games to continue developing Dota. This by no means makes it true. Everyone seems to interpret this as fact though – there is NO PROOF that Icefrog lied to the community about working on dota for free. He very well could have been working on dota in his free time.
Final note: I play dota and not HoN (which I played only in beta), but I am not a dota fanboy who thinks HoN is some shitty dota ripoff. I enjoyed playing it and I would have bought it if my friends were willing to as well, but they continued to play dota, so I followed suit.
Seriously I doubt that is even the real Pendragon_ who works for Riot Games, Wtf is Pendragon doing in a site that has nothing to do with LOL, its not like the author of this article is going to make his life a living hell? Fail author trying to get his site to get more hits, drama sells especially internet drama…
I think everyone has lost sight of the big picture: LoL, HoN and DotA are all fighting for their share of players. IceFrog, Pendragon, Riot Games, S2 and everyone else are NOT YOUR FRIENDS. These people are all politicians lobbying for market share. Any modern politician is going to promote his product while underhandedly smearing his competition.
That being said, is it any surprise that developers of DotA clones are sneaky assholes? Have you ever played Dota/HoN/LoL? There is something about mobas that bring out the worst in people.
Continuing with the politician analogy, the best way to sift through political rhetoric is to become informed. I’ve played DotA for years; played HoN for free and bought an account; played LoL for a good amount of time. No post accusing a game developer of being shady is going to affect my own experience with a game.
funny…. WC3:TFT is a dying game, as any old game would be, it been out for 7yrs GG IF U ASK ME.. And with the popularity of DotA we all knew when the time came there would be something along the line of a independent game on its on own engine.. And with the beef between Pendragon and Icefrog, so to speak, you knew something like this was bound to happen, a bash fest.. You guys make it seem like Icefrog betrayed everyones trust by “secretly” developing one of the games and getting paid, what he did was try and not be harassed as a traitor and everyone stop playing his game because he moved on… Its also kind of funny how a few days after Brized behide the scene article comes out Pendragon hops on the opporunity to try and make it seem hes the good guy.. Really all I dont care who the developed the game and everyones gonna agree to disagree because some 10yr olds like LoL and some 18yr olds like Hon..
Ignoring the Bios in the original poster… Lets break down what he said:
1) Icefrog worked with S2 and then left for whatever reason (fired, wasn’t happy with where the game was going, got a better offer.)
> Note I’ve seen Icefrogs linked in. He left long before the Valve thing.
2) Icefrog interviewed at Riot
3) Pendragon icefrog created a new site after PD didn’t want to give him rights to dota-allstars when he asked.
> Note that HON did help make Icefrogs site. They even use some of the same assets.
This makes perfect sense to me. Its totally plausible… if I didn’t already know it was true.
I like HoN a lot better than LoL, but I wouldn’t call this an attack on Icefrog or S2, simply because no one should give a damn if Icefrog is working for S2. The notion actually tickles my fancy a bit. With his ability, Icefrog’s kinda wasting his time developing for a neawrly decade old game (Warcraft III). His time is best served elsewhere, developing a standalone game, whether for Valve or S2, or whoever. The only thing I can say about Pendragon’s post is that Icefrog/S2 are portrayed a bit negatively regarding their possible (probable) working together without telling anyone. In any case, it shouldn’t matter…because it doesn’t.
Also, thanks for D-A.com, Pendragon. It was fun while it lasted.
Pendragon wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without me.
im a shady butt hole
^LOL
I’m the GOD. Accept that.