"Whatever you have in skill it does not matter if the team is not spiritually ready."
November 17, 2012 1:53 AM   Subscribe

 
What?...gamers have taken over the International?
Trotsky will be rolling in his grave.
posted by quazichimp at 2:13 AM on November 17, 2012 [10 favorites]


When are the Crack Olympics? I might win that one.
posted by phaedon at 2:15 AM on November 17, 2012 [1 favorite]


A Chinese kid with a Jewfro? Now I've seen everything.
posted by phaedon at 2:19 AM on November 17, 2012


A recent post about League of Legends championship, a similar MOBA/LOMA game. Is anyone of mefight playing these?
posted by jonbro at 2:30 AM on November 17, 2012


Quinton Smith from RPS says that Dota 2 is unlike anything that could be purposefully cooked up by a game development studio - and claims it could become the most played PC game of all time, and it is something that could never have been developed by a commercial studio because it's so insane - and that insanity is also precisely why it's been so popular.

He describes some why here: Dota 2: An Electric Valhalla

DOTA2 has been in development for a long time - it's still in Beta - but I've honestly never seen a game with as much polish and precision in its construction.

League of Legends, as mentioned above, was a development project by one of the original DOTA developers who went off on his own to fix what he saw as the shortcomings of the original game. Some key points he wanted to fix:

Normalize scaling and difficulty levels for heroes
Removal of some difficult mechanics that made it hard for new players to get into the game
Monetize the game by making players pay for heroes instead of allowing free choice

It worked very well to capture the casual player base - the original DOTA game was very much geared to the skilled playerbase, because of the very high mechanical and technical / strategic skill involved needed to play it. By shifting the focus of play towards the casual gamer and some good marketing, League of Legends managed to accumulate a very large playerbase in a short amount of time.

Valve's development of DOTA2 is going well: it will be genuinely interesting to see how it does once it goes live. Their business model is unique as well: players themselves can create alternate armor and weapon models in the workshop, and then sell them to other players, with Valve taking a cut.

There has been criticism of League of Legend's business model which is based on Zynga's Farmville model. In League, players start with no heroes and runes, and must slowly grind currency for them - over many hours. Every week they are given a limited run "taste" of a selection of heroes available. Given the choice between grinding 40 hours for a hero or skin, or paying $10 outright for them (say) there's a small portion - like 5% of the player pool - who end up repeatedly purchasing items and spending hundreds of dollars. This is likened to a company preying on the weak willed portion of its playerbase to fund its operations, much like gambling machines.

For those who play both games, a humorous comparison of the games are as follows:

1. In LoL, all heroes are balanced. DOTA2, the game is balanced around all heroes being overpowered.
2. In LoL, the towers defend you. In DOTA2, you defend the towers.
3. In LoL, you get ADD because you're spamming skills all the time, in DOTA2 you go into a nervous breakdown because you missed one skill
posted by xdvesper at 2:56 AM on November 17, 2012 [3 favorites]


Did you say Internationale?
posted by unliteral at 3:28 AM on November 17, 2012


Here's the complete final game with commentary.
posted by dazed_one at 4:32 AM on November 17, 2012


Hi, just dropped in here to ask about Halflife 3? Yeah, un hunh. No? Okay. *EXITS*

FROM NEXT ROOM OVER: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!"

Yeah, um, so? That game looks kind of fun. I need to....go now.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 7:14 AM on November 17, 2012 [1 favorite]


The starcraft 2 world championships is this weekend, too.
posted by empath at 8:03 AM on November 17, 2012


Everyone just looks so unhealthy.
posted by alex_skazat at 8:41 AM on November 17, 2012


I like how the entire team has a snazzy yellow uniform except for one guy. He has a pink shirt with a thin gold chain. Is that like the yellow shirt in the Tour?
posted by Brocktoon at 9:36 AM on November 17, 2012


It took me a while to figure out what the hell this was, mostly due to the 110% sarcastic tone of RPS. Kinda love the 100% sarcastic tone of RPS, tho. And all these glorious, brilliant nerds.
posted by es_de_bah at 8:48 PM on November 17, 2012


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