Bay 12 Games Forum

vOv is a sad clown.

vov would be a sad non-clown.

Turkish oil wrestling is a sport. Playing DOTA2, or any video game, is not. Despite popularity.

That's a helluva' claim considering there's not really meaningful difference between them. Competitive game requiring practice and physical skill. DotA's as much a sport as target shooting. Moreso, I'd say.

And while I'm here the server will be down for four hours. don't wait up for it.

More than four hours, ha. Still down as of this point, harrum.

E: And the mount is ensconced behind yet another devil gimmick. Damnit, game.

It was a pretty great time, really. For all that I rag on games being a WC3 custom map knockoff these days (because damnit, it's been a decade people! You could be stomping on a decade old engine's achievement's by now!), people were doing legitimately amazing things with that engine, and trying all sorts of really neat stuff. Riding along while new games were popping out, variations being experimented with, etc., so forth, so on... the SC/WC3 custom map days were what I'd genuinely call some of the most interesting days I've experienced in my gaming lifetime. S'just, y'know, it was a decade ago, and the oneupmanship I was hoping for after all that never seemed to show up. I've yet to see something that captured the feel of the old SC LotR maps, or the more expansive AoS games, or some of the better battleship maps... hell, they're even pulling out Night of the Dead stuff nowadays, finally, but I was hoping for... more, y'know? Eh.

I'll have to look into strife* -- just remembered I nabbed a closed beta key as part of recent bundle. As for the early commercialization stuff, there's been a good three or four I've noticed (and probably a good handful I haven't) that were explicitly WC3 Arena maps (Like bloodline champions, which SG mentions) that, naturally enough, did deviate from the AoS formula 'cause they weren't AoS-style games, heh. Even if they were still calling themselves MOBAs.

SMNC, from what I heard about it (never played -- crap rig, so I usually don't even try to run FPS-type stuff that's even remotely recent), was a nice deviation in the same sense Awesomenauts is -- and that's definitely something I can appreciate. And gods know I've craved variation in the AoS style long before the commercial ones started showing up. But for every one that does, maybe, try something notably different, we've been getting two-four ones like that recent superhero one that's pretty much just more of the same, reskinned and maybe with a little map-variation. At least so far as I've noticed.

*Though initial looking at the website and a review and such is pinging my knock-off radar hard. E: Though a disproportionate amount of that may be because of the observatory things. Love of scrag there were like six AoS maps that had that feature seven+ years ago and the review I hit seemed to be calling it innovative waaaaaaaaagggghhh

And there's really no reason for it.  The core defining features of the genre are team-based action-rpg combat over opposing objectives in something like an arena.  There is a huge amount of space to fill out there.

Hrrg, I'd argue that's not the core defining features of the AoS style, of which DotA is a subset (though DotA does, largely, fit inside the MOBA umbrella fairly handily), though. It's more about automation and tactical influence of a strategic level (or at least, broader tactical level) conflict -- basically handing off all the fiddly force building and resource gathering and whatnot of an RTS over to the computer and letting you play general and/or hero. S'pretty much always been my major issue with DotA and its influence is it pretty much explicitly scaled things down instead of up, sticking things into an arena and making it about champion vs. champion instead of bringing out onto a battlefield and making it about army vs. army. That's where I'd love to see things go, m'self, and that's never going to bloody happen with 5-10 critter creep waves and three lanes and all that malarky *crotchety grumbling*

Silly PoH. At that point, the normals will be nothing but bots playing against each other and spectators unable to tell that anything has changed. Attempting to play a normal match just stealth moves you into a co-op game. It will be another decade before anyone notices anything is amiss, and by that point the LoL/DotA/HoN/<Every other AoS knockoff on the market> merger will have made the entire charade pointless.

Also much easier to throw a stick than a sword! Seriously, I'm not talking about a spear or whatever, just knock off a tree branch, strip some twigs, and whack someone with it. Then chunk it at someone, sure. Plenty more sticks hanging around.