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CowboyNeal On Dota 2, Modern Games, and Software Development
CowboyNeal writes "Unless you don't care about PC gaming at all, by now you're aware of Valve's entry into the MOBA/ARTS genre, Dota 2. Despite still being in a closed beta, it's currently the number one game on Valve's Steam gaming service, and judging from Valve's earlier declaration regarding Steam on Linux, it's only a matter of time, even if that time be a year or more, before we see Dota 2 come to Linux as well as Mac. Valve has big plans for Dota 2, no less big than what happened with Team Fortress 2, even if it took them a few years to get to where Team Fortress 2 is today. What makes the current state of Dota 2 noteworthy, however, is that it has managed to displace Team Fortress 2 as Steam's most popular game, while still being tested in a closed beta." Read on for the rest of CowboyNeal's thoughts on games, and what it's like being a Slashdot poll option.
The term "closed beta" here doesn't really directly apply, either. Starting already last summer, Valve invited sixteen Dota teams from around the world to compete in a Dota 2 tournament, which naturally, featured the then-current state of Dota 2. What's interesting to note is that while Dota 2 at that time didn't sport all of the available heroes from its Dota All-Stars ancestor, everyone involved felt comfortable enough with the game to stage a tournament. Even if the game was lacking dozens of heroes at the time, players from the professional Dota scene were able to adjust to Dota 2 quickly, given that Valve had successfully recreated the nuances of the original mod within the Source engine. Following The International 2011, Valve resolved to open up the beta to more people, and sent out several waves of invites last fall, over the winter, and this spring. They gave out beta access as prizes during their Christmas Sale event. And now, for $39.99, or whatever that equates to in your local currency, you can buy an invite to the beta, directly from the Dota 2 store in-game. In this way, it's not very closed anymore, save for in name.
All of this is a long way from how games, and software in general, were handled in days of yore. In the before-time, the long-long-ago, one would go to the store or mail order some disks with the software on it, install it, and that was that. Patches were next to unheard of. After the advent of the internet, one would still likely go to the store and buy a game on discs, and then begin the process of downloading patches off of the internet, if one was so lucky to have their product see post-launch support. Today, it's not uncommon to see a game be patched once or twice in a week's time, especially so if it's a game with an online component to it.
With games like Dota 2, and recently-released Tribes Ascend, and the wildly successful Minecraft before that, the entire software development cycle gets hazy at best. PC Gamer recently asked its readers whether or not they should review Dota 2. There's still a list of things to come for Dota 2. There's also already a selection of purely cosmetic items available for purchase for your heroes, tying in closely to Valve's hat-based strategy for revenue. It's no wonder that reviewers are left wondering. Buyers are wondering too. There are plenty of people playing Dota 2, and presumably some of those players are having fun doing it. I think it could also be successfully argued that Minecraft was "done" long before Mojang slapped a 1.0 version number on it. On the flip side of the coin, it's been five years since Valve released Team Fortress 2, and the TF2 that players play today is very little like the one that was bundled with the Orange Box on release. Games developed, or even merely published by Bethesda are notorious for launch-day bugs, some of which are so egregious that they come perilously close to breaking the "sacred bond of trust between gamer and gaming mega-corporation." Sometimes Bethesda fixed up their games with a post-game patch, other times we have to just wait and bear it, and eventually at some point, like the days of yore, post-launch support just ends, and bugfixes are left to the community to handle.
I think that in the end, the "release early, patch often" approach is beneficial to consumers. It allows developers to get player feedback in an early and ongoing fashion, and adjust their product accordingly. In the long run, it makes it easier to decide whether or not it's worth plunking down our cash for a game. It does, however, make it much more difficult to decide to do so on launch day. It's difficult to see the future and know if and how a given title will be supported post-launch, which is now a reasonable issue to consider before purchasing a AAA title that can cost between $50 and $60. The hard part, of course, is waiting for our old ideas about game reviews to catch up, since a review doesn't get patched, unlike the games they cover. The best a review can hope for is to be revised during an expansion pack.
All of this is a long way from how games, and software in general, were handled in days of yore. In the before-time, the long-long-ago, one would go to the store or mail order some disks with the software on it, install it, and that was that. Patches were next to unheard of. After the advent of the internet, one would still likely go to the store and buy a game on discs, and then begin the process of downloading patches off of the internet, if one was so lucky to have their product see post-launch support. Today, it's not uncommon to see a game be patched once or twice in a week's time, especially so if it's a game with an online component to it.
With games like Dota 2, and recently-released Tribes Ascend, and the wildly successful Minecraft before that, the entire software development cycle gets hazy at best. PC Gamer recently asked its readers whether or not they should review Dota 2. There's still a list of things to come for Dota 2. There's also already a selection of purely cosmetic items available for purchase for your heroes, tying in closely to Valve's hat-based strategy for revenue. It's no wonder that reviewers are left wondering. Buyers are wondering too. There are plenty of people playing Dota 2, and presumably some of those players are having fun doing it. I think it could also be successfully argued that Minecraft was "done" long before Mojang slapped a 1.0 version number on it. On the flip side of the coin, it's been five years since Valve released Team Fortress 2, and the TF2 that players play today is very little like the one that was bundled with the Orange Box on release. Games developed, or even merely published by Bethesda are notorious for launch-day bugs, some of which are so egregious that they come perilously close to breaking the "sacred bond of trust between gamer and gaming mega-corporation." Sometimes Bethesda fixed up their games with a post-game patch, other times we have to just wait and bear it, and eventually at some point, like the days of yore, post-launch support just ends, and bugfixes are left to the community to handle.
I think that in the end, the "release early, patch often" approach is beneficial to consumers. It allows developers to get player feedback in an early and ongoing fashion, and adjust their product accordingly. In the long run, it makes it easier to decide whether or not it's worth plunking down our cash for a game. It does, however, make it much more difficult to decide to do so on launch day. It's difficult to see the future and know if and how a given title will be supported post-launch, which is now a reasonable issue to consider before purchasing a AAA title that can cost between $50 and $60. The hard part, of course, is waiting for our old ideas about game reviews to catch up, since a review doesn't get patched, unlike the games they cover. The best a review can hope for is to be revised during an expansion pack.
I thought he was a punchline on the surveys. He's actually a real person?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Just like polls don't have a CowboyNeal option anymore, the story doesn't have one either
Nobody gives a shit about an enthralling story or character development anymore. Developers have to give players multiplayer rewards for anyone to want to go play their 6-9 hour poorly written story now.
Im sure I am not alone in yerning again for the days where you got a real story that took a damn long time to finish it, 40-50 hours was considered to be short once now Its an "epic".
Because it's not a real RTS unless at least one has.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Bah, I regulatory work on HL7. and HL7 has been around sense the 1980's
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
This style of development is not a panacea for gaming. Some of us don't like MOBA's (A game with one map and the second coming of the CS crowd are not selling points), some of us hate what TF2 became (grind to unlock gear! buy stupid crap! deal with screaming 12 year olds! fun!), and from the looks of things Tribes:Ascend is hemorrhaging players like it was shot in the head (which is what you get when you ignore the playerbase and try and bait-and-switch the game into a gear grind).
There's still a place for a well developed game with a reasonable price point and attentive developers. Sadly, there's more money to be made in catering to the masses and begging for their pennies.
League has evolved the genre whereas Dota 2 is basically just a graphic UI and matchmaking upgrade of Dota. Dota is ridiculously unbalanced in low and mid tier play as well, although I'm not entirely certain about high tier play either way. League at least tries to maintain a consistent experience across all levels of players.
Really there is only a couple features which Dota 2 will have to compete with League. The biggest one is that you don't have to individually purchase each champion or just use the champions of the week. And the second is strongly related which is more selection in game modes, many of which have some impact on champion selection.
Overall, the market for Dota 2 players is existing Dota players (what's left of it) and maybe a few new people checking it out because it's on steam. Anyone who is heavily invested in League at this point has no real incentive to switch.
Fear is the mind killer.
Umm those Heros are all late game carries or tanks, and are all very vulnerable to chain disables early on. Int are early game pushers/gankers and late game support/disablers. Ever tried fighting Rhasta + Lion? It's not fun, you chain disabled for 30 seconds (and dead nearly every time). Good teams recognize the carries and kill them to prevent them from getting powerful.
In the summary and article, the name Dota appears about 15 times, but not once is it explained what it is. With all those words, why do I still have to follow a link to find out what it is? I'm an avid gamer (far far more than I should be), and play mostly RPG, RTS, TBS, Adventure, and similar games. So what is Dota?
4X games are generally Turn-Based Strategy (TBS). The Real-Time Strategy (RTS) genre is very different. I prefer TBS games but they're hard to find nowadays. Ever since Age of Empires and the Warcraft series popularized RTSes, developers just haven't been making TBSes, which is a shame.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
try 'endless space'
Which is kind of surprising, considering turn-based games are much easier to make. Unfortunately, most people don't like thinking about one move for hours and prefer a continuously-engaging clickfest.
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
Haven't worked on HL7 in a few years. Is it still as bad as it was? It was so convoluted that no one supported most of the elements, and every vendor stuffed everything useful into the catch all Z segments?
Ever since Age of Empires and the Warcraft series popularized RTSes
I'm positive you mean Dune and Command & Conquer
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
"Valve has big plans for Dota 2, no less big than what happened with Team Fortress 2, even if it took them a few years to get to where Team Fortress 2 is today."
They will never match the amount of hats TF2 has, their only chance is to add farm-able trousers.
The downside of TF2 becoming the top game on Steam is that TF2 doubles as Valve's guinea pig.
What do I mean by this?
Almost every new feature added to Source multiplayer games originates in TF2. If not originating there, they'll be ported to the Source MP engine and appear in TF2.
The most obvious example of features originating in TF2 are:
Achievement System unlocking in-game items. This was re-used in Portal 2.
Replays: A year out and replays still have problems where it'll crash the server on map change if replays are disabled via the server console (or remote console aka rcon) mid-game. Replays will, of course, appear in DOTA2 and CS:GO.
In-game Store: Also appears in Portal 2, DOTA2, and likely CS:GO.
Even if it didn't originate in TF2, it will likely be backported.
Left 4 Dead in particular has had a lot of system backported to TF2:
Glow system: In L4D, Survivor players have a glow based on their health visible to their teammates and enemies (in Versus mode). TF2 reused this for its sticky bombs, payload cart, and intelligence briefcases. TF2 also supports making player entities glow in the exact same manner that L4D does (this is used in the Freak Fortress 2 user mod).
Particle effects system. The L4D particle system got back-ported to TF2.
Different visuals: The L4D system that lets certain players see the world differently than others got backported to TF2 (although TF2 upgraded it and made it enable based on specific items being equipped).
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
DotA - Defense of the Ancients
This is a 10 player (5 per side), team game that pits the Sentinel (Now the Radiant) against the Scourge (Now the Dire).
It is based off of Aeon of Strife, originally a game mod for Starcraft.
There are 3 "lanes" in which creeps (low power mobiles) spawn every 30 seconds and march towards the enemy base at a set pace.
Each lane is guarded by 3 Towers of increasing power.
The team territories are split in haf diagonally by a river of more or less nuetrality.
The point of the game is to destroy the other teams source of power (World Tree vs Frozen Throne, Nexus if you're playing LoL) which is located approximately in the center of the base.
Your character gains levels similar to an RPG, by defeating enemies. You become more mowerful by purchasing in game items with gold earned by killing enemies and enemy creeps. Gold is also earned at a set rate of 1g/sec.
DotA has a long and sordid history with many people attributed credit for creation, modification, and stewardship. Icefrog, who currently works for Valve on DOTA2, is the one responsible for the updates and modifications that made it a worldwide popular E-Sport.
I've been beta testing for Icefrog for somewhere around 6-7 years (I should really make a /. account) and can tell you that this "Update often" strategy works very well for a game like DotA.
Because the metagame shifts often depending on player skill, playstyle, and strategy; a constant cycle of buffs/nerfs is esential to keeping it from becoming stale and one sided.
It also helps as new content is added periodically, most often this content is pulled directly from the fanbase's suggestions. This keeps the fanbase avid and active, as there is always a chance one of their ideas makes it into the game.
I would say Command and Conquer and Warcraft II, both released in 1995. Dune II is certainly established the "build stuff then attack" convention, and Warcraft increased recognition, but it was C&C and WC2 that truly popularized the genre.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
Uh, Valve uses the same engine for its games -- why wouldn't they "backport" features from one game into another??
I've played the DotA Allstars, Heroes of Newerth, League of Legends (briefly and for good reason), and currently play DotA2.
Uh, Valve uses the same engine for its games -- why wouldn't they "backport" features from one game into another??
You'll note that TF2 is the only game Valve has backported features into, despite 3 other Valve multiplayer games using the exact same version of the game engine.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Agreed. It is poignant on several levels.
The essence of these MOBA games is that they're a top down version of Doom-with-towers. 2 teams of 5 players each play a different hero, typically in 3 lanes. The heroes scale dramatically with XP and gold, both of which come from killing.
They are much more of a team-dependent game than BF 3 or similar. Teams typically have:
1. An initiator. Somebody who jumps in and hopefully temporarily disables the opposing team.
2. A carry. This is the guy who farms all game so he can one shot everybody by the end.
3. A support. Creeps and towers give vision, but since the game is so dependent on killing each other (ganking), support buy temporary vision items called wards and then go around the map placing them. Support heroes often have healing powers.
4 & 5 are more variable. You can have pushers (who try to take down towers), stunners, gankers and even old fashioned tanks.
The games are seriously competitive, and that's before the $1m prizes come in.
The graphics are quite good in both HoN and DotA2. The debates rage on as to whether DotA2 is better than HoN. I personally prefer HoN. Unlike DotA2, it has a player-friendly F2P model and can be downloaded here.
You also want to read this guide before playing.
By your measuring stick, all games are failures. ALL of them. Including real life ones.
I present that LoL is fine and your measuring stick is utterly absurd.
LoL had reconnect for ages.
"Unless you don't care about PC gaming at all, by now you're aware of Valve's entry into the MOBA/ARTS genre, Dota 2."
Unless you're a total douche-bag, you wouldn't even think of penning something like that.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
Both LoL and HoN was born with "reconnect" feature, nothing innovative about it.
- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
hehe...if you like taking turns you will LOVE endless turns...err space.
A lot faster than LoL, vastly better graphics, more indepth laning (creep denies), no pay-for-power..