Support NeoGAF

[Imperfected]

If you ever go to one of the big game events (E3/Gamescom/PAX), stop by the Dawngate/Smite/etc. booths and see if you can find one of the following:

1. A professional LoL/DotA2/SC player being interviewed about the new game by the game's press team.
2. A professional LoL/DotA2 team actually playing an exhibition match of the new game as a part of the event.
3. A major LoL/DotA2 streamer who was flown to the event by the company promoting the game specifically to appear there at their booth.

Yes, they're all horrible monsters who are trying to "steal" players from other games. That, or they're reasonable adults who understand that most people do not have time to play multiple high time investment MOBAs, and to be successful they are going to need to convert some percentage of the existing (and extensive) player base of the genre to playing their game.

Madness.

 

[TharpDaddy]

Oo this thread just got some drama in it. I didn't like when HoN/S2 supported an employee like JonhnyUtah who straight up said anyone not good at the game should stop playing. This made me salty because i was not good at the game.

 

[Sigismundo]

2. A professional LoL/DotA2 team actually playing an exhibition match of the new game as a part of the event.

To be fair Hi-Rez paid TSM to stream Smite (hence why there was that contract a few months back that ended up getting rescinded)

 

[zkylon]

miwi, pls explain this money injecting business further

like honest i want to understand the difference you're pointing out

like from where i'm looking at it seems like the same shit, like they both sell cosmetics. league gates a lot of stuff under a paywall or time-wall? and that's kinda lame but is that it?

 

[Boken]

No. I am telling you that Dota 2 is the same game as DotA and that IceFrog joined Valve with the intention of improving the original game and work around the limitations of the WC3 engine whereas Riot basically took a proven concept and tried to monetize the shit out of it (and that worked out really well for them). Valve basically took the game and injected money around it, while Riot took the game and injected money into it. But I see no more point in trying to explain these things to you as you already seem to have made up your mind about this topic.

seeing how league of legends is not dota2, it seems like they did more than took a proven concept, non?

whereas dota2 is literally dota, the proven concept.

i dont think you understand.
theres nothing to make my mind about regarding what you said. im well aware that dota2 is f2p lvl 5 and lol is f2p lvl3

what i havent made my mind about is how biased you are if youre deluding yourself that valve did something more amazing than "taking a proven concept and injecting money into it" compared to riot

 

[Imperfected]

To be fair Hi-Rez paid TSM to stream Smite (hence why there was that contract a few months back that ended up getting rescinded)

That's what I mean. Everyone does it. The marketing arm of the games industry is this big nepotistic mess that's largely dominated by third-party mercenary companies and YouTube pimps. You should never be surprised to see that (for example) Star Wars: TOR is being shilled by a streamer who made their fame doing WoW podcasts, or that a League of Legends pro is being farmed for sound bytes to sell Infinite Crisis.

It's not some monstrous behavior done with a vicious vendetta, it's just the way advertising works. You find out who your audience is, you find out who and what they listen to when it comes to making their buying decisions, and you try to insert your game into the second part. Riot was trying to sell their game to people who played existing DotA-likes, so they found ways to get in touch with that audience and pitch their game to them.

It really isn't a big deal.

 

[zkylon]

someone should track that league banner ad

that was pretty embarrassing lol

 

[Shorty11857]

Lol basically took the concept of Dota and made a different game from it

Valve hired Icefrog who decided to just keep slowly refining Dota with massive non-gameplay improvements

I don't think there's anything wrong with either approach just really depends on your preferences

 

[Snowman]

seeing how league of legends is not dota2, it seems like they did more than took a proven concept, non?

whereas dota2 is literally dota, the proven concept.

i dont think you understand.
theres nothing to make my mind about regarding what you said. im well aware that dota2 is f2p lvl 5 and lol is f2p lvl3

what i havent made my mind about is how biased you are if youre deluding yourself that valve did something more amazing than "taking a proven concept and injecting money into it" compared to riot

you just don't understand man, valve really CARE about the SOUL of dota, not just the money like those riot scumbags, now shut up and go and buy some keys for dem chests

 

[Leezard]

someone should track that league banner ad

that was pretty embarrassing lol

The Garena ad that said "No more Disconnecters, Obnoxious something, T something, A something"? Yeah, really embarrassing by them.

 

[Karakand]

yesss

let it all out

tear each other apart

let the blood be spilled

http://hydra-media.cursecdn.com/dota2.gamepedia.com/d/d5/Blod_ability_thirst_03.mp3

 

[Kade]

Marry: Dota 2
Fuck: League of Legends
Kill: Heroes of The Storm

 

[Boken]

guys please leave the hate shaming to me

it feels excessive when u agree with me. im not here to encourage dogpiling

 

[Imperfected]

Go ahead, be negative - that's just my type. Etc.

 

[zkylon]

it wouldn't suck if league had replays doe

The Garena ad that said "No more Disconnecters, Obnoxious something, T something, A something"? Yeah, really embarrassing by them.

didn't know this was garena

good for riot then

i guess?

Marry: Dota 2
Fuck: League of Legends
Kill: Heroes of The Storm

lol

it's hard to say tho

league's got the best waifus

so you can't really not marry 'em

 

[Heavy's Sandvich]

All I know, Valve isn't some bastion of gaming decency as some love to pretend.

If they can add a micro-transaction element to their games, they will.

 

[ViviOggi]

tbh it's not really a rivalry, it's just doto dudes hating on league players for something rito did years ago

like whatever dude, you can hate on it whatever you want but league is a very different game now than it was before and it's actually cooler because it's went its own way from doto. it plays very differently from my short experience with doto2 and from reading league design shit you can tell they just branched on their own way design wise long ago

so like now you have two cool games and lots of happy people

yea guinsoo or whoever did some shitty things and so did rito (and continues to awkardly try to do, and fails) but that was like a million years ago

and like valve's monetization system is very scummy as well. keys and chests are like evil as fuck.

edit: but like actually if you think about it rito did a ton more with doto than valve did since they actually invented and streamlined shit rather than just update it. not taking merits off doto2, just saying

you just don't understand man, valve really CARE about the SOUL of dota, not just the money like those riot scumbags, now shut up and go and buy some keys for dem chests

Wasn't one Boken enough?

 

[Leezard]

didn't know this was garena

good for riot then

i guess?

Yup, that's the Garena ad. You can notice how it uses the chinese/eastern character art.

 

[Boken]

Wasn't one Boken enough?

please, im witty and measured and handsomer
i also have a 100% win rate with gyro

 

[Karakand]

Wasn't one Boken enough?

there's only 1 boken

 

[miwi]

miwi, pls explain this money injecting business further

like honest i want to understand the difference you're pointing out

like from where i'm looking at it seems like the same shit, like they both sell cosmetics. league gates a lot of stuff under a paywall or time-wall? and that's kinda lame but is that it?

To be honest I'm not that well informed on LoL's monetization model, but in Dota 2 everything that you might buy for real money has zero impact on the game or gameplay whatsoever. All heroes are free and available to everyone. The cosmetics Valve sells in their workshop is made by community members who all get their shares, same with pro tournament tickets, Valve does not take 100% off anything of the stuff that is sold around the game, except keys that are used to unlock chests dropped after a game is played, everyone gets chests that contain cosmetics and it's up to the player to decide if they want to pay to have a chance to get cool cosmetics for a small price or just keep playing games and earn cosmetics that drop randomly after each game.

Whereas in League (please correct me if I am wrong) if don't pay to unlock all heroes you can only play a set rotation of "free champions". This means that if you have a favorite hero you essentially are forced to pay money in order to play that hero when you're not lucky and have it in the free rotation. From my point of view, Riot is trying to get players to pay for champions while Valve is providing the opportunity to pay for cosmetics for your favorite hero, but they make sure that everything that is related to core gameplay is completely free for anyone to experience. This is where I don't agree at all with Riot's model as there might be a case where you play a game with a Champion you think looks really fun and you want to try out, but unless that champion is in the free rotation you must pay money in order to play it in your next game if it's not in the free rotation, you can't simply just try it out.

 

[zkylon]

for me the monetization thing is pretty even

like not having all champions right away sucks if you're already into the game and whatever but if you're starting out you really don't give a shit. the runes part is pretty bad but all f2p games have that ughhh thing about them, and that's league. could be worse, certainly a non issue once you're into it

the chests and keys thing tho i hate with a passion. i hated it in tf2 and will continue to hate it in doto. it's really nice to be able to like trade shit and sell the random crap you get when leveling up and all that but the whole microtransactions side of valve really soured my image of them. doto actually is 100% free which is awesome but i still think it's scummy as fuck to do the keys bullshit

so yea, who'd knew, both rito and valve want your moneys

Wasn't one Boken enough?

i'm just his support

adaggio, summoner!

Yup, that's the Garena ad. You can notice how it uses the chinese/eastern character art.

right

guess it's still rito's fault for going to bed with the garena people but at least it's not official rito stuff

 

[Heavy's Sandvich]

Everything is Riot's fault.

If you rearrange the letters in riot, you get Trio. If you can't do the math on that, I can't help you.

 

[Imperfected]

I've got two accounts for League. I spent some money on the first account (I bought the retail box and I think some rune pages, and skins). I've spent zero dollars on the second account and have 110 champions unlocked on it, 7 rune pages and as many runes as I actually care to bother with.

I do think the runes/rune pages should be openly available to all players without restriction, but the champion model is fine. If you play with a free champion during their rotation and decide you like them, you can use the IP you gained playing during that time to unlock them.

Maybe they could do "champion rental" or something for trying out champions that aren't on the free rotation. I'm not saying it couldn't be done better. The existing monetization certainly works, however, and most definitely allows you to play the game completely for free if that's how you want to go about things.

 

[Boken]

To be honest I'm not that well informed on LoL's monetization model, but in Dota 2 everything that you might buy for real money has zero impact on the game or gameplay whatsoever. All heroes are free and available to everyone. The cosmetics Valve sells in their workshop is made by community members who all get their shares, same with pro tournament tickets, Valve does not take 100% off anything of the stuff that is sold around the game, except keys that are used to unlock chests dropped after a game is played, everyone gets chests that contain cosmetics and it's up to the player to decide if they want to pay to have a chance to get cool cosmetics for a small price or just keep playing games and earn cosmetics that drop randomly after each game.

Whereas in League (please correct me if I am wrong) if don't pay to unlock all heroes you can only play a set rotation of "free champions". This means that if you have a favorite hero you essentially are forced to pay money in order to play that hero when you're not lucky and have it in the free rotation. From my point of view, Riot is trying to get players to pay for champions while Valve is providing the opportunity to pay for cosmetics for your favorite hero, but they make sure that everything that is related to core gameplay is completely free for anyone to experience. This is where I don't agree at all with Riot's model as there might be a case where you play a game with a Champion you think looks really fun and you want to try out, but unless that champion is in the free rotation you must pay money in order to play it in your next game if it's not in the free rotation, you can't simply just try it out.

remember this?

I will never support a company that basically did nothing but take a proven game/concept and just start marketing it with a giant pool of cash.

i feel like
you've changed what you were trying to say at the start. because you still havent shown how valve didnt do that, instead, you're just talking about how valve is doing pure f2p. okay, thats nice.

 

[Kade]

On the earlier topic of HoN and the river/water dude, what other map objects or mechanics can be used? Dota already has 3 or 4 heroes that rely on or interact with trees and Nightstalker for time of day. I can't think of anything that doesn't require the hero being confined to one part of the map (river dude, a shop hero, fountain hero, building hero) or let you control the mechanic itself like Darkness.

 

[Archie]

We finally devolved into League vs. Dota

gg go next thread

 

[zkylon]

To be honest I'm not that well informed on LoL's monetization model, but in Dota 2 everything that you might buy for real money has zero impact on the game or gameplay whatsoever. All heroes are free and available to everyone. The cosmetics Valve sells in their workshop is made by community members who all get their shares, same with pro tournament tickets, Valve does not take 100% off anything of the stuff that is sold around the game, except keys that are used to unlock chests dropped after a game is played, everyone gets chests that contain cosmetics and it's up to the player to decide if they want to pay to have a chance to get cool cosmetics for a small price or just keep playing games and earn cosmetics that drop randomly after each game.

Whereas in League (please correct me if I am wrong) if don't pay to unlock all heroes you can only play a set rotation of "free champions". This means that if you have a favorite hero you essentially are forced to pay money in order to play that hero when you're not lucky and have it in the free rotation. From my point of view, Riot is trying to get players to pay for champions while Valve is providing the opportunity to pay for cosmetics for your favorite hero, but they make sure that everything that is related to core gameplay is completely free for anyone to experience. This is where I don't agree at all with Riot's model as there might be a case where you play a game with a Champion you think looks really fun and you want to try out, but unless that champion is in the free rotation you must pay money in order to play it in your next game if it's not in the free rotation, you can't simply just try it out.

well you can buy champions with game-money you get from playing games, tho ofc it takes some games, specially for the newer champs. same with runes, tho runes can't be bought with real money.

so like there's no real benefit from paying real money other than accessing a bigger champion roster earlier than you'd normally would

i have like 40 champions and like 10 rune pages and tons of runes and have never spent a dime on anything that isn't a pretty skin for my champions. it took me a ton of games and i only have less than half the roster but i don't really want most of those champions.

i wouldn't mind if they were free but i don't mind. it also arguably creates a fun progression dynamic thingie in that you reward yourself with a new champion every so games which feels pretty good. but that's more me

 

[Heavy's Sandvich]

We finally devolved into League vs. Dota

gg go next thread

It's slightly more nuanced than that.

It's "I love F2P more than you do" now.

 

[ViviOggi]

On the earlier topic of HoN and the river/water dude, what other map objects or mechanics can be used? Dota already has 3 or 4 heroes that rely on or interact with trees and Nightstalker for time of day. I can't think of anything that doesn't require the hero being confined to one part of the map (river dude, a shop hero, fountain hero, building hero) or let you control the mechanic itself like Darkness.

You could do something with runes, high ground/low ground, and general vision range outside of day/night as an actual scouting hero. Would be a bitch to balance stuff like that I'd imagine, even for the almighty frog.

That being said I would totally play a shop hero

 

[Boken]

look, im the bottom line here.

lol, dota or smite - bokens unbiased analysis

lol:
-faster gameplay due to - direct control (no turn speed, long attack points/cast points) and lots of spells that require dodging/aiming
-biggest game in the world
-more streamlined and easier to understand than dota

dota:
-more systems to learn (complexity)
-newer graphics
-all heroes free

smite:
-3rd person, so if youre used to wsad movement but not mouse movement, this is good. makes u feel closer to the action
-lots of spells that require aiming
-smaller than the other two in community

 

[Karakand]

We admitted we were powerless over gambling via the purchase of purely optional digital keys in a F2P game—that our lives had become unmanageable.

On the earlier topic of HoN and the river/water dude, what other map objects or mechanics can be used? Dota already has 3 or 4 heroes that rely on or interact with trees and Nightstalker for time of day. I can't think of anything that doesn't require the hero being confined to one part of the map (river dude, a shop hero, fountain hero, building hero) or let you control the mechanic itself like Darkness.

Being in lane / not being in lane.

 

[Fine Ham Abounds]

So for some reason I got into the Heroes of the Storm alpha even though I didn't have a WoW sub for two straight years and don't play mobas, but I've been giving it a whirl lately and kinda like it on some basic level. My understanding is that it was real popular on streams for about a week until people realized it was baby's first moba or something. Not like I'd know. The game is clearly very simple, but since there's only like 700 people online most of the time the community is nice atm, haha. My only other moba experience was about two weeks of LoL about a year ago, just kinda stopped playing when some other games came out and never went back to it.

 

[Snowman]

it wouldn't suck if league had replays doe

didn't know this was garena

good for riot then

i guess?

I dunno this is pretty funny to me, advertising that takes shots at competition is always the best kind

 

[zkylon]

I dunno this is pretty funny to me, advertising that takes shots at competition is always the best kind

yeah that's 100% funny and tasteless

i love it

 

[miwi]

i feel like
you've changed what you were trying to say at the start. because you still havent shown how valve didnt do that, instead, you're just talking about how valve is doing pure f2p. okay, thats nice.

Valve hired the main developer of DotA and paid to keep developing the exact same game he had worked on for years but with a salary. Of course Valve want's to make some money out of it, so they figured out a way to do that without changing any of the core mechanics of the game. Dota 2 is DotA but in a new engine and developed by a real company. LoL is a game based on another game and ever since it's beta launch Riot has tried to make money out of it and with a huge marketing campaign tried to convert as many DotA players as they could. As it happens most LoL players today didn't play DotA, so it worked out for them anyway and it is a completely different game. Riots player base is clearly bigger than that of Valve/Dota 2''s but the fact that many DotA players are still salty about how Riot treated them and their game in the beginning is still very apparent. They are two almost completely separate communitys now and while most LoL community members don't know much about the history, people who played DotA since 2008-ish do. I've never said Riot didn't change/improve the game, but I do feel that League of Legends got a really big part of their game directly from DotA and their monetization model from the beginning was nothing more than a big investment campaign to make money from a free community driven mod. Valve has also never used any of the mudslinging marketing campaign to try and convert LoL or any other players from their game to go play Dota 2 instead (yes these existed when LoL was still smaller than DotA, but Riot now isn't really the same as Riot back then and they've been pretty successful in mopping up anything that might have resulted in potential negative backlash they would've gotten if all of these were still accessible on the internet today)

 

[danmaku]

edit: but like actually if you think about it rito did a ton more with doto than valve did since they actually invented and streamlined shit rather than just update it. not taking merits off doto2, just saying

My problem is that everyone is taking this approach to mobas: every new game that comes out is "dota made simpler, in one way or another". It's obvious why they're doing this, but personally I don't give a damn about simpler games. I want harder games, more complex, with more variables. Otherwise, I'll just play Dota 2. Fuck streamlining. But everyone is already acting as if Dota is an untouchable pinnacle of complexity that should never be surpassed or people will go crazy. Imagine if devs did the same with fighting games: "ok, there's this big hit called Street Fighter 2, it has 8 characters, a 6 button controller and a couple of special moves for each charater; but this is too complex, our game will have 4 characters, 3 buttons and no special moves". Say goodbye to KoF, Guilty Gear, Tekken, Virtua Fighter, 3rd Strike, etc.

 

[pompidu]

Dota 2 needs region blocking.

Nintendo should make pokemon moba.

Hereos of the storm looks boring and i hope it fails for blizzard.

 

[Imperfected]

PokeMOBA would be hilarious, but it's still going to be another ten years before anyone at Nintendo first hears about custom maps for WC3.

 

[zkylon]

My problem is that everyone is taking this approach to mobas: every new game that comes out is "dota made simpler, in one way or another". It's obvious why they're doing this, but personally I don't give a damn about simpler games. I want harder games, more complex, with more variables. Otherwise, I'll just play Dota 2. Fuck streamlining. But everyone is already acting as if Dota is an untouchable pinnacle of complexity that should never be surpassed or people will go crazy.

i dunno, i won't really pretend to understand why doto is the way it is but it feels to me like league trimmed a lot of the fat

and yea it'd be cool for devs to explore both ends of the complexity spectrum

i personally think of doto as a weird curiosity i like reading about so i can't imagine what fucked up shit some crazy ukranian moba developer can come up with

 

[Snowman]

Dota 2 needs region blocking.

Nintendo should make pokemon moba.

Hereos of the storm looks boring and i hope it fails for blizzard.

i would be a pro pokedota player and my pikachu mid would be unstoppable

 

[zkylon]

i would be a pro pokedota player and my pikachu mid would be unstoppable

i love everything about this post

 

[b&jy77VjiKn$#F]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2u1s8dZ2fU

Holy shit, it's fucking IdrA! :O

 

[pompidu]

i would be a pro pokedota player and my pikachu mid would be unstoppable

Nintendo could just lift zeus' skills straight from dota2 and paste it right to pikachu

 

[ViviOggi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2u1s8dZ2fU

Holy shit, it's fucking IdrA! :O

Oh how the mighty have fallen

 

[Snowman]

Nintendo could just lift zeus' skills straight from dota2 and paste it right to pikachu

i dunno i kind of picture him more as a cross between like that storm spirit dude and kennen

 

[Leezard]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2u1s8dZ2fU

Holy shit, it's fucking IdrA! :O

I can't watch more than 30 secondsor so. The mic that IdrA uses is so bad.

 

[sobaka770]

My problem is that everyone is taking this approach to mobas: every new game that comes out is "dota made simpler, in one way or another". It's obvious why they're doing this, but personally I don't give a damn about simpler games. I want harder games, more complex, with more variables. Otherwise, I'll just play Dota 2. Fuck streamlining. But everyone is already acting as if Dota is an untouchable pinnacle of complexity that should never be surpassed or people will go crazy. Imagine if devs did the same with fighting games: "ok, there's this big hit called Street Fighter 2, it has 8 characters, a 6 button controller and a couple of special moves for each charater; but this is too complex, our game will have 4 characters, 3 buttons and no special moves". Say goodbye to KoF, Guilty Gear, Tekken, Virtua Fighter, 3rd Strike, etc.

And you'll get SSMB, which is awesome and probably sells more than all of those fighting games combined.

Streamlinig is not always good but in the hands of seasoned devs who won't change or remove mechanics for no reason it is a powerful tool to raise mass appeal or shift the focus of the game.

LoL has no denying, but it makes the games faster and you're focused more on harassing during laning. LoL also has an additional layer of runes and summoner spells which make the game a bit more nuanced. There is a reason why ARAM is popular and it's because it's streamlined to boot, the essence of the genre where the premise is about hero fighting and not killing creeps for 30 minutes.

HotS doesn't even have last hitting or money so it's all about hero-to-hero combat and movement around the map. HotS also has 4 different maps and heroes who work only because there are no items or levels, which allows it to push boundaries of the genre in a different direction.

I'd say if you make the game about heroes fighting then bring on the fighting. I love DotA2 as well, but I saw some Chinese teams on stream... O.M.G....

 

[sobaka770]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2u1s8dZ2fU

Holy shit, it's fucking IdrA! :O

These videos (there are like 3 or more with IdrA) are so useless. They spend 10 minutes discussing the best build for a character when the game is in Alpha and only a few hundred people can play. The game where the talent system is under heavy revision and will definintely change or be balanced in a couple of months. Waste of time.

 

[b&jy77VjiKn$#F]

These videos (there are like 3 or more with IdrA) are so useless. They spend 10 minutes discussing the best build for a character when the game is in Alpha and only a few hundred people can play. The game where the talent system is under heavy revision and will definintely change or be balanced in a couple of months. Waste of time.

It's not the video that matter though. It's IdrA.