SteveWinwood
Member
What is a MOBA?
It doesn't cover everything, but I think it's a decent view on how convoluted this web is ranging from "real games" to mods, back to developers, to mods to you get the picture. It's really hard for any of these to exist in a vacuum as so many share so many of the same influences, similar mechanics, and in many cases the same creators so I think this is a nice way to visualize it instead of just listing them off. Point is there are a lot of them and once you understand one fairly well you'll understand 80% of the basics of another (you won't be any good, but you'll at least be able to follow it for the most part).
The real center and explosion point was the community mod for Warcraft 3, Defense of the Ancients or DotA for short. It became very popular with a series of different creators all having a hand in it. It basically wrote the bible on how MOBAs work and is the largest source of inspiration for most of these nowadays.
They're hot right now because they're popular. You can play them for a long time and not get bored because of how deep they are, the most popular ones are free so there is a low barrier there, twitch and livestreaming makes following the pro scene easy and entertaining. It's a perfect storm for a super competitive scene to pop up and it did.
So what is it, what do you actually do?
Okay I saw your silly map, but what are some of these MOBAs all the kids are playing
Riot
2009
OT: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=781406
From most of the data we have, it's far and away the most popular. You probably know someone who plays it. It's (like all of these) heavily inspired by DotA. It took a lot of it's mechanics and "streamlined" it (you can usually spam your skills a bit more, the map is smaller, there is less going on with items and where you buy them from). When you see nerds arguing on message boards it's probably about that streamlining.
It's free to play but you have to purchase heroes with either in game experience or real money outside of a free weekly rotation. You can also purchase cosmetic skins.
There is a very large pro scene that Riot sustains directly through sponsored teams and tournaments all over the world that fill stadiums.
Valve
2013 (out of beta)
OT: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=787049
Dota 2 (note the lowercase a) is a direct port of the original Defense of the Ancients. Most likely the second most popular of the later generations of moba (it's really hard to tell how popular the original DotA is because of all the pirated servers) it's the most played game on steam every day. Most will say there is a very large learning curve relative to other games.
It's is free to play with all heroes available from the start and the only monetization coming from completely optional cosmetic items.
It has a large pro scene where only one, the very large annual International tournament, getting any money from the developer. Everything else is seperate.
S2 games
2010
OT: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=394849
About half direct DotA port and half everything turned to 11. Some will claim that many jumped ship to Dota 2, but apparently it's player numbers are only increasing.
It's completely free to play with all the heroes free and only cosmetic skins costing money (it has gone through many different models in the past).
There is a pro scene. I don't know much about it.
Hi-rez
2014 (out of beta)
OT: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=788843
Finally something a little different! It's much more action oriented and played from behind the back.
It's free to play but you have to purchase heroes outside of a rotating free set. There is an optional one time fee that unlocks everything, even future content.
There was a pro tournament for it's launch party but I can't say too much about it.
Romino
2012
OT: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=472389
Originally billed as a new player friendly moba, it's a 2d sidescrolling moba. Also only 3v3 as opposed to the standard 5v5.
You have to buy the game but then you get all the heroes. There is an expansion as well that introduces a new map and some new heroes.
I don't believe there is any pro scene, and I can't speak to it's online health right now.
Blizzard
Unreleased (in alpha currently)
Heroes of the storm is even further streamlined, the most so of almost all of these. You share experience with everyone on your team. Plenty of people who usually aren't too into mobas seem to be somewhat excited for this. Dat Blizzard name power.
It will be free to play, with purchasable heroes with real money or in game currency outside of a rotating free set and also cosmetic skins.
It's unreleased but there will probably be some sort of pro play.
Here are some others that I don't know enough about to post anything about!
Boken's special corner:
So which one do I play?
Okay so now I know everything about mobas what's the point of this thread
Well it's a genre of games. It has many names (Dota-like, ARTS, Lords Management, hero brawler) but MOBA is the most common so we'll be using that. It stands for multiplayer online battle arena, but that's pretty vague so I just like it as an overall title. It's mostly a mix of real time strategy and role playing elements. It's existed for a while now, but in the last few years it's really picked up steam as a "hot new thing" like tower defense and rogue-like-likes their design decisions are slowly seeping into all sorts of things, so it's probably in your best interest to at least be a bit knowledgeable about it.
Well okay where did they come from? Why are they hot now?
I made a quick and dirty run down on the bloodline of the games as generally recognized that also covers a good number of current offerings and where they mostly draw inspiration from.
It doesn't cover everything, but I think it's a decent view on how convoluted this web is ranging from "real games" to mods, back to developers, to mods to you get the picture. It's really hard for any of these to exist in a vacuum as so many share so many of the same influences, similar mechanics, and in many cases the same creators so I think this is a nice way to visualize it instead of just listing them off. Point is there are a lot of them and once you understand one fairly well you'll understand 80% of the basics of another (you won't be any good, but you'll at least be able to follow it for the most part).
The real center and explosion point was the community mod for Warcraft 3, Defense of the Ancients or DotA for short. It became very popular with a series of different creators all having a hand in it. It basically wrote the bible on how MOBAs work and is the largest source of inspiration for most of these nowadays.
They're hot right now because they're popular. You can play them for a long time and not get bored because of how deep they are, the most popular ones are free so there is a low barrier there, twitch and livestreaming makes following the pro scene easy and entertaining. It's a perfect storm for a super competitive scene to pop up and it did.
So what is it, what do you actually do?
In most of those you're basically playing an rts (think starcraft) except you only control one person with no real base management. You play a character on a team vs a seperate team. You run around with a limited set of skills specific to the hero you pick and level up (making your skills more powerful) and collect gold (to get items that change your hero in certain ways) by killing either opposing players on the other team or groups of neutral ai controlled "creeps".
I stole that from wikipedia. It's the basic cookie cutter map that's going to cover a majority of mobas out there. Some basic features would be lanes (the yellow lines connecting the bottom-left and top-right corners), towers (the blue dots), the jungle (the green between lanes), your base (the orange), and the river (the dotted black line down the middle). Not every game will follow this to a tee, but it's a good blueprint.
It's hard to give a real answer to this question as plenty of them are different enough (some have 2 lanes, some have a different kind of jungle etc.) but the best answer is you're goal is to destroy the enemy base. That's it.
I stole that from wikipedia. It's the basic cookie cutter map that's going to cover a majority of mobas out there. Some basic features would be lanes (the yellow lines connecting the bottom-left and top-right corners), towers (the blue dots), the jungle (the green between lanes), your base (the orange), and the river (the dotted black line down the middle). Not every game will follow this to a tee, but it's a good blueprint.
It's hard to give a real answer to this question as plenty of them are different enough (some have 2 lanes, some have a different kind of jungle etc.) but the best answer is you're goal is to destroy the enemy base. That's it.
Okay I saw your silly map, but what are some of these MOBAs all the kids are playing
Here is the quick and dirty on some of them.
Riot
2009
OT: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=781406
From most of the data we have, it's far and away the most popular. You probably know someone who plays it. It's (like all of these) heavily inspired by DotA. It took a lot of it's mechanics and "streamlined" it (you can usually spam your skills a bit more, the map is smaller, there is less going on with items and where you buy them from). When you see nerds arguing on message boards it's probably about that streamlining.
It's free to play but you have to purchase heroes with either in game experience or real money outside of a free weekly rotation. You can also purchase cosmetic skins.
There is a very large pro scene that Riot sustains directly through sponsored teams and tournaments all over the world that fill stadiums.
Valve
2013 (out of beta)
OT: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=787049
Dota 2 (note the lowercase a) is a direct port of the original Defense of the Ancients. Most likely the second most popular of the later generations of moba (it's really hard to tell how popular the original DotA is because of all the pirated servers) it's the most played game on steam every day. Most will say there is a very large learning curve relative to other games.
It's is free to play with all heroes available from the start and the only monetization coming from completely optional cosmetic items.
It has a large pro scene where only one, the very large annual International tournament, getting any money from the developer. Everything else is seperate.
S2 games
2010
OT: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=394849
About half direct DotA port and half everything turned to 11. Some will claim that many jumped ship to Dota 2, but apparently it's player numbers are only increasing.
It's completely free to play with all the heroes free and only cosmetic skins costing money (it has gone through many different models in the past).
There is a pro scene. I don't know much about it.
Hi-rez
2014 (out of beta)
OT: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=788843
Finally something a little different! It's much more action oriented and played from behind the back.
It's free to play but you have to purchase heroes outside of a rotating free set. There is an optional one time fee that unlocks everything, even future content.
There was a pro tournament for it's launch party but I can't say too much about it.
Romino
2012
OT: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=472389
Originally billed as a new player friendly moba, it's a 2d sidescrolling moba. Also only 3v3 as opposed to the standard 5v5.
You have to buy the game but then you get all the heroes. There is an expansion as well that introduces a new map and some new heroes.
I don't believe there is any pro scene, and I can't speak to it's online health right now.
Blizzard
Unreleased (in alpha currently)
Heroes of the storm is even further streamlined, the most so of almost all of these. You share experience with everyone on your team. Plenty of people who usually aren't too into mobas seem to be somewhat excited for this. Dat Blizzard name power.
It will be free to play, with purchasable heroes with real money or in game currency outside of a rotating free set and also cosmetic skins.
It's unreleased but there will probably be some sort of pro play.
Here are some others that I don't know enough about to post anything about!
Boken's special corner:
So which one do I play?
The one where you have friends to play with. Mobas can have some painful communities, mostly due to the nature of their design. To ease the transition into playing these games - play with friends! It's always more fun playing together.
Okay so now I know everything about mobas what's the point of this thread
Well people who play these games are a wryly bunch. They're usually heavily invested in one game or another and instead of derailing random announcement threads or their respective OT's why not just have a giant melting pot where everyone gets to discuss all of it! I think it's pretty fun to discuss all the differences between them and how relatively minor changes can have massive repercussions on how the game is played.
Why do you think there is the general opinion that the playerbases of this genre are rude and toxic?
How does Heroes of the Storm's passive xp and gold sharing impact the game?
How do certain payment models effect the actual gameplay and balance?
What is your favorite moba and why?
Do you make fun of your kid cousin for playing this junk all day and not riding his bike outside?
Just some fun things to start us off. Also... please be nice and respectful
Also any suggestions on the OP are welcome!
Why do you think there is the general opinion that the playerbases of this genre are rude and toxic?
How does Heroes of the Storm's passive xp and gold sharing impact the game?
How do certain payment models effect the actual gameplay and balance?
What is your favorite moba and why?
Do you make fun of your kid cousin for playing this junk all day and not riding his bike outside?
Just some fun things to start us off. Also... please be nice and respectful
Also any suggestions on the OP are welcome!
