EPT"The Transformation of e-Sports" - Page 2
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theonemephisto
United States409 Posts
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MichaelJLowell
United States610 Posts
On November 19 2012 21:14 PrinceXizor wrote: I can't even begin to comprehend how you think dota is a dumbed down war3. the games have totally different goals, totally different methods of reaching those goals and are equally complex in terms of strategy and skills required. actually dota is probably second only to BW in terms of strategy and depth and evolution of play. The games both have the same goal: You kill the enemy base. The mere presence of discovering a game does not make it deep, and more importantly, it does not make it interesting to play. There is probably an entire school of game strategy dedicated to titles like Angry Birds, but that doesn't make the game deep, nor does it mean that I want to play them. On November 20 2012 00:34 targ wrote: Dota is really mainly a teamwork game. If you play it against someone one-on-one then yes it is a very dumbed-down version of Warcraft 3, but most of the skill lies in the teamwork and team strategies. As I pointed out above, Warcraft III had large-scale team gametypes as well, and those integrate "teamwork" into the more complex Warcraft III game template. Those team gametypes were fantastic and DotA became popular through 2003 and 2004 because (and I watched this first-hand) all the crappy Four vs. Four Random Team players got sick of losing and switched to the easier game. But this is all ancillary to the point, and I was hoping anyone had the slightest interest in what I think the actual problem with the DotA clones are as it applies to their marketing model. On November 20 2012 00:55 theonemephisto wrote: You only mentioned this briefly in a response, but man, I really wish SupCom: FAF was a real competitive game. It's just so interesting and deep, with a larger choice space than any other game out there. And it's the only RTS to really successfully pull off naval combat. It's only problem is that the massive scale makes it difficult to spectate. Small player base be damned, at least you can still play it online. A lot of the classic real-time strategy games don't get that privilege these days unless you want to go through the pain and suffering of setting up shop on one of the tunneling programs. Either way, the game's at the top of its genre, without question. | ||
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BurnedRice
59 Posts
http://www.twitch.tv/thebigonetv/b/326811752 Great thoughts about RTS design in general | ||
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Kupon3ss
時の回廊10066 Posts
If your argument that a game with just more elements has a higher management cap, then what are your thoughts on something like Spore, which has extremely dumbed down elements from almost every genre. Take the comparison between Go and Chess, Go is an almost elemental game with a total of around 3 functional rules. (there are several more for scoring) wheras Chess certainly has many more elements. Yet you cannot claim that Chess is more complex than Go, while computer scientists will tell you that Go is much deeper in computational complexity and harder to compute and calculate than Chess. Many games are competitive by their nature. The only recent game for whom the game makers are the primary supporters of the game as an esport are probably LoL and Shootmania. Remember that the BW and DotA competitive scene grew out almost nothing, wheras Blizzard had quite a hand in the Wc3 scene. It feels like your conclusion was a forlorn one when you wrote the piece and you spent a lot of time trying to piece a coherent argument together without too much success while never taking the time to doubt the validity of your thesis. If your point is that using ESPORTS as a marketing mechanism for games has some sort of inherent or moral problem, you could make a very well formed case; why jump the shark in making your argument aside from an attempt to stir up sensationalist fervor. At the end of the day, you fall prey to the very same trap that you accuse game makers of: using whatever means possible to promote popularity and increase interest. | ||
shostakovich
Brazil1429 Posts
Instead of random flame, what about discussing what DotA means for the gaming industry? | ||
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MichaelJLowell
United States610 Posts
On November 20 2012 10:15 Kupon3ss wrote: There are a lot of valid points, but you're stretching a lot of them pretty far if you're holding up warcraft 3 at some godlike combination of genres. I don't. I believe Warcraft III's strategy component is dreadfully primitive when compared with some of the better examples in the real-time strategy genre and I think there are some bottlenecks that become exposed as the level of play gets higher (particularly those involving unit composition in pretty much any game against an Orc player), and I think the emphasis on fewer resources as played out through modern league play is a very dumb thing. (If anything, the maps should be getting larger and larger.) I consider the game one of the better twitch real-time strategy games that I've played (along with Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, StarCraft (as played with Brood War), Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun, and Armies of Exigo). But the idea that Warcraft III "wasn't good enough" and DotA is good enough is just silly, and the idea that you strip away the mechanics and components in a game and end up with a more complex, deep version of that game is just wrong, and that's one of the lies that the game industry really needs to do away with. Notice that nobody is suggesting that the Tower Defense genre (which usually features far greater options for building placement than the Blizzard real-time strategy games that inspired them) is deeper than their progenitor, the reason being that Tower Defense is not the hyper-masculine team sport of tomorrow. This idea that "simplicity creates more depth or a more interesting game experience" only applies if the rules being removed were neither meaningful in the first place or detracted from the other available options in the game. This is how you end up with the people who think the bare-bones Nintendo-published versions of Tetris (as designed for the Nintendo and the Game Boy) are the best versions of Tetris and some benchmark for the video game industry that hasn't been topped, despite the fact there have been countless puzzle games (and later iterations of Tetris) which have all but blown away what Pajitnov accomplished in the mid-eighties. On November 20 2012 10:15 Kupon3ss wrote: One can claim that DotA is one aspect that exists in warcraft3 developed close to it's logical extreme (as far as what is possible for what a single hero can accomplish) and say SC2 is the other aspect (macro management and army controll, composition, and micromanagement). That does not make a game simpler. Elegance and simplicity of core design is sometimes beneficial to the complexity of a game. If that's the case, then you have to demonstrate to me how peeling away the real-time strategy model (base construction, large-scale strategy and tactics) and replacing it with a simpler variant has created a more complex, interesting, and ultimately more fun video game. I've already made my argument for how come the DotA clones are more shallow than the real-time strategy games that inspired them. On November 20 2012 10:15 Kupon3ss wrote: If your argument that a game with just more elements has a higher management cap, then what are your thoughts on something like Spore, which has extremely dumbed down elements from almost every genre. The game is a waste of time. Complexity (the size of the rule set) is not a direct determinant of depth, and more importantly, complexity is not a determinant of the pleasure you get from playing a video game. It's that those rules create fun interactions. On November 20 2012 10:15 Kupon3ss wrote: Take the comparison between Go and Chess, Go is an almost elemental game with a total of around 3 functional rules. (there are several more for scoring) wheras Chess certainly has many more elements. Yet you cannot claim that Chess is more complex than Go, while computer scientists will tell you that Go is much deeper in computational complexity and harder to compute and calculate than Chess. As I understand it, Go also has more pieces, a larger available board, and isn't bottlenecked by a small number of meaningful opening moves that largely dictate how the game can and should be played. But to follow on that point, Go and Chess move precisely in the direction that I am suggesting. Chess and Go are not defined by their simplicity, but that every single piece and rule of the game are absolutely essential to their character. If I flipped the Knights and Bishops around, or gave Pawns the ability to move two spaces at any time, Chess is a completely different game. In Quake III, you must master every single weapon and item, and also have firm knowledge of the movement mechanics and map designs in order to win, because every single weapon, item, and movement mechanic will likely be utilized over the course of that said game. Nearly every piece of the Quake III rule set functions within the typical Quake III match and those rules are absolutely essential to its character in every single match. If I removed most of the Champions and Items from League of Legends, the fabric of the game would remain roughly the same because the vast majority of the rules are not relevant to the current match or situation. The vast majority of items, Champions, spells, and systems in League of Legends are designed to provide an illusion of progress for weaker players, where the mere act of learning the game (along with a Mastery system that provides slight gains in character strength as you play) allows you to progress against other weaker players. League of Legends bears absolutely no comparison to Chess. It is the antithesis of Chess. League of Legends and the other DotA clones are currently the hallmark of bad complexity within console and computer game design. If I was given god powers to redesign the game, I would immediately reduce the number of Champions down to about 20 to 25 (on par with the number matchups you find in some fighting games) and then strive to make all of those individual matchups individually interesting. Every matchup should actually play different, just as they do in fighting games. But you can't do that, because not all of your player base has access to all of the available characters, and your entire business model relies on inserting new Champions that would absolutely break that delicate state of game design. Also, the Mastery System should also be removed outright, and items should be redesigned so their utility is immediately apparent. (Which is not to say that I want items whose uses are superficially obvious, but "Claws of Attack +6" means a hell of a lot more to me on first sight than "+40 Attack Damage UNIQUE Passive: +40% Armor Penetration". "More complexity" in numbers does not mean "more depth".) As I said earlier: Having large numbers of options is not inherently good. Having large numbers of options which all meaningfully build upon each other is good. As far as I can tell, people are completely confusing the discovery of the League of Legends and DotA 2 metagames with depth. Those games have been played, broken, and beaten out-and-out. There is very, very little new ground to be found, and that leads to the development of intricate strategies and tactics. That is not a measure of a game's quality. If ten million people were playing Angry Birds on a daily basis and people were being salaried to play Angry Birds in front of live studio audiences, Angry Birds would still be an absolute piece of shit. Games don't somehow become better because "the pros" are exhaustively discovering all the tactics in the game. The presence of a professional or competitive video game scene only allows you to more accurately judge the quality of the game. On November 20 2012 10:15 Kupon3ss wrote: It feels like your conclusion was a forlorn one when you wrote the piece and you spent a lot of time trying to piece a coherent argument together without too much success while never taking the time to doubt the validity of your thesis. If your point is that using ESPORTS as a marketing mechanism for games has some sort of inherent or moral problem, you could make a very well formed case; why jump the shark in making your argument aside from an attempt to stir up sensationalist fervor. At the end of the day, you fall prey to the very same trap that you accuse game makers of: using whatever means possible to promote popularity and increase interest. What is incorrect about the thesis? If it's "I think DotA is a good game, so you're wrong", then that doesn't work, because you never provided any evidence for that beyond a handful of generalities about simplicity and complexity. There is a point where subjective opinion falls dead in the face of overwhelming evidence. And if you actually think that having a low opinion of Defense of the Ancients somehow constitutes a form of trolling, then you'll be stunned to hear that a lot of people just like me think that the history of video games (as propagandized through game sites) is mostly a load of bull, where people actually think the best video games ever made include 3D Zelda games, the Final Fantasy series, the Japanese Role-Playing Genre at-large, the random indie or casual game flavor of the week, and just about any popular title for the Nintendo 64. That's not trolling, and if I was trolling, there would be much easier ways for me to get viewing eyes. I do this for the challenge of defending my opinion in front of audiences other than my own. On November 20 2012 10:51 shostakovich wrote: You ramble too much in your article. Dota being a dumbed down version of Warcraft III (it's not) has nothing to do with discussing the transformation of esports. Feels like you're whoring for attention and attracting flamers. If one believes (as I do) that the DotA clones are stripped-down real-time strategy games, then it absolutely does. On November 20 2012 10:51 shostakovich wrote: Instead of random flame, what about discussing what DotA means for the gaming industry? It means the real-time strategy genre is going the way of the shoot 'em up (i.e. "banished to extremely niche obscurity") because the custom games that once provided a lower "skill floor" for real-time strategy newbies are being supplanted by the genre where you only have to control one unit at any given time. Despite being a strategically-simple real-time strategy game, StarCraft II is currently viewed as a "super-hardcore" game with incredibly intense competition. That doesn't bode well for its market. | ||
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Kupon3ss
時の回廊10066 Posts
On November 20 2012 10:15 Kupon3ss wrote: There are a lot of valid points, but you're stretching a lot of them pretty far if you're holding up warcraft 3 at some godlike combination of genres. I don't. I believe Warcraft III's strategy component is dreadfully primitive when compared with some of the better examples in the real-time strategy genre and I think there are some bottlenecks that become exposed as the level of play gets higher (particularly those involving unit composition in pretty much any game against an Orc player), and I think the emphasis on fewer resources as played out through modern league play is a very dumb thing. (If anything, the maps should be getting larger and larger.) I consider the game one of the better twitch real-time strategy games that I've played (along with Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, StarCraft (as played with Brood War), Command and Conquer: Tiberian Sun, and Armies of Exigo). But the idea that Warcraft III "wasn't good enough" and DotA is good enough is just silly, and the idea that you strip away the mechanics and components in a game and end up with a more complex, deep version of that game is just wrong, and that's one of the lies that the game industry really needs to do away with. Notice that nobody is suggesting that the Tower Defense genre (which usually features far greater options for building placement than the Blizzard real-time strategy games that inspired them) is deeper than their progenitor, the reason being that Tower Defense is not the hyper-masculine team sport of tomorrow. This idea that "simplicity creates more depth or a more interesting game experience" only applies if the rules being removed were neither meaningful in the first place or detracted from the other available options in the game. This is how you end up with the people who think the bare-bones Nintendo-published versions of Tetris (as designed for the Nintendo and the Game Boy) are the best versions of Tetris and some benchmark for the video game industry that hasn't been topped, despite the fact there have been countless puzzle games (and later iterations of Tetris) which have all but blown away what Pajitnov accomplished in the mid-eighties. I actually agree that Warcraft 3 is a deep and fun game and that it shouldn't have been treated as "not good enough". But have you noticed that you're doing the exact same thing to a new genre that you happen to dislike and had a poor experience in one of the shallowest entries in that genre? I believe Warcraft III's hero management component is dreadfully primitive when compared with some of the better examples in the DotA genre and I think there are some bottlenecks that become exposed as the level of play gets higher. And I think DotA explores that component and develops it into a very complex and entertaining game. The tower defense genre is lacking the spirit of competition and human element that defines Esports, so the strawman here is even more laughable than the way you use LoL. On November 20 2012 10:15 Kupon3ss wrote: One can claim that DotA is one aspect that exists in warcraft3 developed close to it's logical extreme (as far as what is possible for what a single hero can accomplish) and say SC2 is the other aspect (macro management and army controll, composition, and micromanagement). That does not make a game simpler. Elegance and simplicity of core design is sometimes beneficial to the complexity of a game. If that's the case, then you have to demonstrate to me how peeling away the real-time strategy model (base construction, large-scale strategy and tactics) and replacing it with a simpler variant has created a more complex, interesting, and ultimately more fun video game. I've already made my argument for how come the DotA clones are more shallow than the real-time strategy games that inspired them. You haven't, because you still hasn't addressed how the depth of a game that takes an element of another game and develops it is "stripping down" unless you make similar arguments about how starcraft is a dumbed down version of warcraft 3 (the strategy aspect), oh and so is every rpg with leveling (the rpg aspect), and by the way every shooter is a dumbed down version of Deus Ex because they took the shooting part of the game and made it more complex! On November 20 2012 10:15 Kupon3ss wrote: If your argument that a game with just more elements has a higher management cap, then what are your thoughts on something like Spore, which has extremely dumbed down elements from almost every genre. The game is a waste of time. Complexity (the size of the rule set) is not a direct determinant of depth, and more importantly, complexity is not a determinant of the pleasure you get from playing a video game. It's that those rules create fun interactions. Games create fun interactions. Deep, DotA does that for millions of people, what makes you say the game is a waste of time, all i see is 1) a hate of lol 2) a general dislike for the genre, and 3) florid arguments with little grounding besides meaningless generalities. On November 20 2012 10:15 Kupon3ss wrote: Take the comparison between Go and Chess, Go is an almost elemental game with a total of around 3 functional rules. (there are several more for scoring) wheras Chess certainly has many more elements. Yet you cannot claim that Chess is more complex than Go, while computer scientists will tell you that Go is much deeper in computational complexity and harder to compute and calculate than Chess. As I understand it, Go also has more pieces, a larger available board, and isn't bottlenecked by a small number of meaningful opening moves that largely dictate how the game can and should be played. But to follow on that point, Go and Chess move precisely in the direction that I am suggesting. Chess and Go are not defined by their simplicity, but that every single piece and rule of the game are absolutely essential to their character. If I flipped the Knights and Bishops around, or gave Pawns the ability to move two spaces at any time, Chess is a completely different game. In Quake III, you must master every single weapon and item, and also have firm knowledge of the movement mechanics and map designs in order to win, because every single weapon, item, and movement mechanic will likely be utilized over the course of that said game. Nearly every piece of the Quake III rule set functions within the typical Quake III match and those rules are absolutely essential to its character in every single match. Dota has more pieces than Wc3, a larger map, and isn't bottlenecked by a small number of meaningful opening builds that largely dictate how the game can and should be played. DotA is not defined by its simplicity, but that every single piece and rule of the game are absolutely essential to their character. If I flipped the stats of two heroes around, or gave a new hero the ability to blink at any time, Dota is a completely different game. (See: half the major patches that have impacted DotA in this way) Do you how hollow your arguments on the basis of game complexity are? If I removed most of the Champions and Items from League of Legends, the fabric of the game would remain roughly the same because the vast majority of the rules are not relevant to the current match or situation. The vast majority of items, Champions, spells, and systems in League of Legends are designed to provide an illusion of progress for weaker players, where the mere act of learning the game (along with a Mastery system that provides slight gains in character strength as you play) allows you to progress against other weaker players. League of Legends bears absolutely no comparison to Chess. It is the antithesis of Chess. League of Legends and the other DotA clones are currently the hallmark of bad complexity within console and computer game design. If I was given god powers to redesign the game, I would immediately reduce the number of Champions down to about 20 to 25 (on par with the number matchups you find in some fighting games) and then strive to make all of those individual matchups individually interesting. Every matchup should actually play different, just as they do in fighting games. But you can't do that, because not all of your player base has access to all of the available characters, and your entire business model relies on inserting new Champions that would absolutely break that delicate state of game design. Also, the Mastery System should also be removed outright, and items should be redesigned so their utility is immediately apparent. (Which is not to say that I want items whose uses are superficially obvious, but "Claws of Attack +6" means a hell of a lot more to me on first sight than "+40 Attack Damage UNIQUE Passive: +40% Armor Penetration". "More complexity" in numbers does not mean "more depth".) Cool, every matchup does play differently in Dota, and heroes are far most distinct than they are in LoL, using a significantly inferior strawman to attack a genre is like saying. "The modern CoD has no depth, thus FPS as a genre is invalid". or "I played a terrible JRPG the other day, classics like sora no kiseki must suck" As I said earlier: Having large numbers of options is not inherently good. Having large numbers of options which all meaningfully build upon each other is good. As far as I can tell, people are completely confusing the discovery of the League of Legends and DotA 2 metagames with depth. Those games have been played, broken, and beaten out-and-out. There is very, very little new ground to be found, and that leads to the development of intricate strategies and tactics. That is not a measure of a game's quality. If ten million people were playing Angry Birds on a daily basis and people were being salaried to play Angry Birds in front of live studio audiences, Angry Birds would still be an absolute piece of shit. Games don't somehow become better because "the pros" are exhaustively discovering all the tactics in the game. The presence of a professional or competitive video game scene only allows you to more accurately judge the quality of the game. Not even angry birds has been exhaustively been "broken and beaten out-and-out". The DotA (and to a lesser extent) LoL metagames change on a monthly basis. But you know which games have? The ones without competitive human elements, aka the "3D Zelda games, the Final Fantasy series, the Japanese Role-Playing Genre at-large, the random indie or casual game flavor of the week, and just about any popular title for the Nintendo 64." Does that stop you from loving those games? If not, than what is the argument you're trying to make here aside from trolling and flamebaiting? On November 20 2012 10:15 Kupon3ss wrote: It feels like your conclusion was a forlorn one when you wrote the piece and you spent a lot of time trying to piece a coherent argument together without too much success while never taking the time to doubt the validity of your thesis. If your point is that using ESPORTS as a marketing mechanism for games has some sort of inherent or moral problem, you could make a very well formed case; why jump the shark in making your argument aside from an attempt to stir up sensationalist fervor. At the end of the day, you fall prey to the very same trap that you accuse game makers of: using whatever means possible to promote popularity and increase interest. What is incorrect about the thesis? If it's "I think DotA is a good game, so you're wrong", then that doesn't work, because you never provided any evidence for that beyond a handful of generalities about simplicity and complexity. There is a point where subjective opinion falls dead in the face of overwhelming evidence. And if you actually think that having a low opinion of Defense of the Ancients somehow constitutes a form of trolling, then you'll be stunned to hear that a lot of people just like me think that the history of video games (as propagandized through game sites) is mostly a load of bull, where people actually think the best video games ever made include 3D Zelda games, the Final Fantasy series, the Japanese Role-Playing Genre at-large, the random indie or casual game flavor of the week, and just about any popular title for the Nintendo 64. That's not trolling, and if I was trolling, there would be much easier ways for me to get viewing eyes. I do this for the challenge of defending my opinion in front of audiences other than my own. There's nothing to post if you're going to use LoL as a strawman to attack Dota2, the arguments against LoL has been made time and time again that it is already a stripped down version of DotA with a business model heavily dependent upon superficiality. At no point did you address the point I made about how taking a part of a game and developing it further is something utterly different than stripping it down. I don't think having a low opinon of Dota is trolling, but I think that if you have a low opinion of Dota because you have a low opinon of lol is trolling. With e-Sports™ evolving into little more than a career choice, it’s time to explain what went wrong. In the past, professional video game tournaments were an extension of long-term interest in select, excellent video games. But now, companies have discovered that they can use these tournaments to advertise new video games. From a company perspective, these tournaments are little more than a form of stealth marketing. this is valid, and like I said, is what a lot of your evidence suggests toward and you'd have a piece that most people would agree with here (hence a lack of views). However, these tournaments act as a form of mass media, exposing the flaws of these unproven video games on a highly visible platform. In tandem with the impatient and stubborn video game player of today, the outcomes of these tournaments create an expectation that companies will “fix their game” as quickly as possible, instead of allowing players to explore the game. This has hamstrung developers. In order to manage “fun to play”, “fun to watch”, and “fix your game”, companies pursue safe, boring design decisions in the pursuit of “balance”. The result has been a class of video game that neither lives up to its predecessors or relevant video game history, and are hardly the games worth broadcasting to the world. I think applying this to Dota because you hate lol and how casual it is is trolling. And I definitely think you're trolling if you cite warcraft 3 as a game free from these elements and basic problems. | ||
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shostakovich
Brazil1429 Posts
On November 20 2012 12:29 MichaelJLowell wrote: It means the real-time strategy genre is going the way of the shoot 'em up (i.e. "banished to extremely niche obscurity") because the custom games that once provided a lower "skill floor" for real-time strategy newbies are being supplanted by the genre where you only have to control one unit at any given time. Despite being a strategically-simple real-time strategy game, StarCraft II is currently viewed as a "super-hardcore" game with incredibly intense competition. That doesn't bode well for its market. Nope. Question: why is a developer investing millions of dollars in a game that possess just one level/stage? Please imagine a comercial game designer deciding to create a triple-A, action multiplayer game that has only one map. To say it's counter-intuitive is a severe understatement. To understand what DotA means to the industry is to understand how this is possible. | ||
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Kipsate
Netherlands45349 Posts
As far as I can tell, people are completely confusing the discovery of the League of Legends and DotA 2 metagames with depth. Those games have been played, broken, and beaten out-and-out. There is very, very little new ground to be found, and that leads to the development of intricate strategies and tactics. Either you and I are not watching the same games or you can't tell very far. The Dota metagame has changed an incredible lot over the past few years. How long have you been watching Dota and LoL to come to this conclusion?Or, what kind of games have you been watching that occured in the past?(while more stale even the LoL meta-game has changed quite considerably compared to a year ago). | ||
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MichaelJLowell
United States610 Posts
On November 20 2012 13:12 Kupon3ss wrote: I actually agree that Warcraft 3 is a deep and fun game and that it shouldn't have been treated as "not good enough". But have you noticed that you're doing the exact same thing to a new genre that you happen to dislike and had a poor experience in one of the shallowest entries in that genre? Absolutely. I already implied above that I'm cognizant of the more traditional strategy game player's gripe about the Command and Conquer and Warcraft-styled real-time strategy games when I mentioned that Total Annihilation players look down on the strategy component of those games. Now, if I was saying that Warcraft III was a paragon of strategic complexity within the real-time strategy genre and shaming down on DotA clones, I could understand the point you're making because my argument would be complete bullshit, but that's not the case here. As far as I can tell, you're trying to argue that I'm biased because I enjoy Warcraft III and view the subgenre spin-off as a series of lousy real-time strategy games. Of course I'm biased. Everybody is biased. I am biased towards tactics-oriented real-time strategy games and biased against DotA clones because that is the impression I have gotten from my experience with playing video games. There is no such thing as an "objective" game review. Everybody is going to have a different perception of a game or genre based on their gaming and life experiences. What's important is that one can present these subjective opinions and they stand to scrutiny against other subjective opinions. On November 20 2012 13:12 Kupon3ss wrote: The tower defense genre is lacking the spirit of competition and human element that defines Esports, so the strawman here is even more laughable than the way you use LoL. I don't care about e-Sports as a philosophy or a commercial endeavor. e-Sports is a bullshit marketing phrase and this community would be better off disowning it. The fact that Tower Defense games are not "competitive" does not invalidate Tower Defense games unless you're making the argument that versus multiplayer titles are universally superior to a "non-competitive" single-player experience, and I wish you luck in arguing that dozens upon dozens of our most esteemed genres are complete shit. On November 20 2012 13:12 Kupon3ss wrote: Cool, every matchup does play differently in Dota, and heroes are far most distinct than they are in LoL, using a significantly inferior strawman to attack a genre is like saying. "The modern CoD has no depth, thus FPS as a genre is invalid". or "I played a terrible JRPG the other day, classics like sora no kiseki must suck" Which goes back to the original point of the entire piece in the first place: DotA 2 is the superior game (an argument that I see no reason not to accept) and yet, all of the "skilled players" (the people who would be some of the first to recognize if one game is better than another) all stick around to play League of Legends. Professional gaming is now a career choice and one that has nothing to do with extended enjoyment of the games. On November 20 2012 13:12 Kupon3ss wrote: Not even angry birds has been exhaustively been "broken and beaten out-and-out". The DotA (and to a lesser extent) LoL metagames change on a monthly basis. That is because Riot Games has issued 74 (!!) balance or game updates since the game came out in 2009 and not because players are gradually improving. Defense of the Ancients have been patched dozens of times in that same period of time. That's why the metagames change. It has nothing to do with continuing developments in player skill. The changes in the metagame are completely dependent upon the changes made by the designers. You even admit this when you say that "half the major patches that have impacted DotA in this way", referencing major game balance updates. On November 20 2012 13:12 Kupon3ss wrote: But you know which games have? The ones without competitive human elements, aka the "3D Zelda games, the Final Fantasy series, the Japanese Role-Playing Genre at-large, the random indie or casual game flavor of the week, and just about any popular title for the Nintendo 64." Does that stop you from loving those games? If not, than what is the argument you're trying to make here aside from trolling and flamebaiting? The presence of an intensely competitive player base does not discourage my enjoyment of any video game. A game does not become "good" or "better" because it is being played at tournaments by salaried players, is an "e-Sport", or has "competitive human elements". The quality of the craftsmanship in the game code has absolutely nothing to do with the player base that is banging pots and pans on top of it, just as "originality" and "price" have nothing to do with the quality of a game. A game is either good or bad, and certainly, "the DotA clones are popular" does not make those games good, particularly when most standout works in modern popular culture tend to get worse as they appeal to more people. For every Serious Sam 3, Call of Duty sells another ten million copies. Do you honestly think that Defense of the Ancients exploded in popularity during late 2003 and early 2004 because the DotA player base (most of whom had below .500 records and were absolutely terrible at the melee modes) decided that "This is a harder, more complex, more satisfying game than Warcraft III, and I can't wait to test myself?" (You can make the same argument for Total Annihilation, which got to watch StarCraft run away with the financial success of the genre.) And no, I don't think you want to make the argument that Final Fantasy VII and Ocarina of Time have not been thoroughly explored by their communities, because I guarantee you right now that there's some idiot out there right now running around trying to max out his characters for the X'th time. On November 20 2012 13:12 Kupon3ss wrote: There's nothing to post if you're going to use LoL as a strawman to attack Dota2, the arguments against LoL has been made time and time again that it is already a stripped down version of DotA with a business model heavily dependent upon superficiality. At no point did you address the point I made about how taking a part of a game and developing it further is something utterly different than stripping it down. Because there has never been another genre where that worked. "Action-runners" (lol) like Temple Run, Canabalt, and One-Bit Ninja will never be as good as conventional platformers with actual movement capabilities. (Hell, those action-runners aren't even as good as Chelnov, and that game came out 20 fucking years ago.) Portal is not half as interesting as Quake and Half-Life because Portal takes compelling weapons and combat and replaces them with a single gun which is then used to solve rudimentary, simple puzzles built upon limited movement mechanics. (Not to mention that Unreal Tournament implemented the very-similar Translocator side-by-side with its fantastic combat.) And of course, Tower Defense games will never be as good as the real-time strategy games that inspired them. The reason that there is such a limited body of knowledge on this topic is that, until recently, video game designers were never stupid enough to say "Hey, let's take one small portion of an established game template and turn it into its own game! That will make for a more complex and immersive video game experience!" But now, it's not only profitable to do this, but when ThatGameCompany makes a piece of trash like Journey, a game which completely strips away any meaningful mechanics or design, people are calling it a Game of the Year candidate. It's not only profitable, it's critically successful! On November 20 2012 15:03 shostakovich wrote: Question: why is a developer investing millions of dollars in a game that possess just one level/stage? Please imagine a comercial game designer deciding to create a triple-A, action multiplayer game that has only one map. To say it's counter-intuitive is a severe understatement. To understand what DotA means to the industry is to understand how this is possible. Riot Games invests millions of dollars in a game that possesses one level because that game makes money and they are probably under some financial obligation by Tencent to continue making that money. In addition, the success of that game and its persistent nature probably make it difficult for the company to rapidly acquire staff in the production of a new game, just as the success of World of Warcraft caught Blizzard completely by surprise. Therefore, they continue to work on the existing title. I don't understand your point. If you're saying that DotA clones are special because they merit comparison to "real sports" that use a small standardized playing field, then you're basically saying that you're okay with regression in video games (some of which have featured hundreds and even thousands of "standardized playing fields") and I can't really help you. On November 20 2012 15:23 Kipsate wrote: Either you and I are not watching the same games or you can't tell very far. The Dota metagame has changed an incredible lot over the past few years. How long have you been watching Dota and LoL is my question to you?(while more stale even the LoL meta-game has changed quite considerably compared to a year ago). I just posted the Defense of the Ancients changelog above. The game has been significantly impacted by balance updates. That's why the metagame changes. | ||
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Kupon3ss
時の回廊10066 Posts
Gonna respond to what I feel is pertinent. Not staying up all night. You're going to try to answer the questions you can come up with arguments for, OK On November 20 2012 13:12 Kupon3ss wrote: I actually agree that Warcraft 3 is a deep and fun game and that it shouldn't have been treated as "not good enough". But have you noticed that you're doing the exact same thing to a new genre that you happen to dislike and had a poor experience in one of the shallowest entries in that genre? Absolutely. I already implied above that I'm cognizant of the more traditional strategy game player's gripe about the Command and Conquer and Warcraft-styled real-time strategy games when I mentioned that Total Annihilation players look down on the strategy component of those games. Now, if I was saying that Warcraft III was a paragon of strategic complexity within the real-time strategy genre and shaming down on DotA clones, I could understand the point you're making because my argument would be complete bullshit, but that's not the case here. As far as I can tell, you're trying to argue that I'm biased because I enjoy Warcraft III and view the subgenre spin-off as a series of lousy real-time strategy games. Of course I'm biased. Everybody is biased. I am biased towards tactics-oriented real-time strategy games and biased against DotA clones because that is the impression I have gotten from my experience with playing video games. There is no such thing as an "objective" game review. Everybody is going to have a different perception of a game or genre based on their gaming and life experiences. What's important is that one can present these subjective opinions and they stand to scrutiny against other subjective opinions. I'm saying that you have no clue what you're talking about. Have you played DotA to any meaningful amount? Total annihilation certainly had a lot of "strategic components" than say brood war, but brood war has a much higher mechanics requirement, you cannot make a categorical comparison that one game is "more complex" than another with either next to next knowledge and a bunch of vague generalizations. Or you run once again into the spore argument I pointed out before, Spore is a shit game, but it has a lot of elements, thus every game containing one or more, but not all of the elements must be a poor stripped out copy right? You can say "i hate game A", you can't say "Game B is categorically better than Game A because i think so" the same way I wouldn't be able to say "you an uninformed flamebaiting troll" even if I think it without providing proof, as I have done and intend on continuing to do until you start addressing some of your logicial fallicies with actual facts instead of sweeping generalizations based on uninformed opinon. On November 20 2012 13:12 Kupon3ss wrote: The tower defense genre is lacking the spirit of competition and human element that defines Esports, so the strawman here is even more laughable than the way you use LoL. I don't care about e-Sports as a philosophy or a commercial endeavor. e-Sports is a bullshit marketing phrase and this community would be better off disowning it. The fact that Tower Defense games are not "competitive" does not invalidate Tower Defense games unless you're making the argument that versus multiplayer titles are universally superior to a "non-competitive" single-player experience, and I wish you luck in arguing that dozens upon dozens of our most esteemed genres are complete shit. Of course, I've never said that a competitive game is inherently superior to one that is not. I'm saying the fact that you're using it as a inept strawman comparison just because they were both inspired in some way by the warcraft 3 mod scene is like saying Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines is the same as Counter Strike source because they're both made in the source engine. On November 20 2012 13:12 Kupon3ss wrote: Cool, every matchup does play differently in Dota, and heroes are far most distinct than they are in LoL, using a significantly inferior strawman to attack a genre is like saying. "The modern CoD has no depth, thus FPS as a genre is invalid". or "I played a terrible JRPG the other day, classics like sora no kiseki must suck" Which goes back to the original point of the entire piece in the first place: DotA 2 is the superior game (an argument that I see no reason not to accept) and yet, all of the "skilled players" (the people who would be some of the first to recognize if one game is better than another) all stick around to play League of Legends. Professional gaming is now a career choice and one that has nothing to do with extended enjoyment of the games. The Koreans do, mostly because Koreans did not have a game like DotA fill that niche due to the popularity of brood war and the korean WC3 map Chaos, DotA 100% sprang as a competitive community based on extended enjoyment of the games. The game was community driven to its logical extreme, without even the proper release, advertising and distribution venues of games like Quake or Brood war. Again, Teamliquid doesn't cover LoL, if you want to go flame LoL please go to na.leagueoflegends.com/forums (or something like that) On November 20 2012 13:12 Kupon3ss wrote: Not even angry birds has been exhaustively been "broken and beaten out-and-out". The DotA (and to a lesser extent) LoL metagames change on a monthly basis. That is because Riot Games has issued 74 (!!) balance or game updates since the game came out in 2009 and not because players are gradually improving. Defense of the Ancients have been patched dozens of times in that same period of time. That's why the metagames change. It has nothing to do with continuing developments in player skill. The changes in the metagame are completely dependent upon the changes made by the designers. You even admit this when you say that "half the major patches that have impacted DotA in this way", referencing major game balance updates. Are the below not your own words? (bolded for emphasis) As I understand it, Go also has more pieces, a larger available board, and isn't bottlenecked by a small number of meaningful opening moves that largely dictate how the game can and should be played. But to follow on that point, Go and Chess move precisely in the direction that I am suggesting. Chess and Go are not defined by their simplicity, but that every single piece and rule of the game are absolutely essential to their character. If I flipped the Knights and Bishops around, or gave Pawns the ability to move two spaces at any time, Chess is a completely different game. Again, I'm just pointing out the continuous stream of logical inconsistencies in everything you attempt to argue. Please start remembering the bullshit you continuous to spew out, because at this rate, congratulations, you just called chess casual, go bring your "uninformed flamebaiting trolling" to that community. On November 20 2012 13:12 Kupon3ss wrote: But you know which games have? The ones without competitive human elements, aka the "3D Zelda games, the Final Fantasy series, the Japanese Role-Playing Genre at-large, the random indie or casual game flavor of the week, and just about any popular title for the Nintendo 64." Does that stop you from loving those games? If not, than what is the argument you're trying to make here aside from trolling and flamebaiting? The presence of an intensely competitive player base does not discourage my enjoyment of any video game. A game does not become "good" or "better" because it is being played at tournaments by salaried players, is an "e-Sport", or has "competitive human elements". The quality of the craftsmanship in the game code has absolutely nothing to do with the player base that is banging pots and pans on top of it, just as "originality" and "price" have nothing to do with the quality of a game. A game is either good or bad, and certainly, "the DotA clones are popular" does not make those games good, particularly when most standout works in modern popular culture tend to get worse as they appeal to more people. For every Serious Sam 3, Call of Duty sells another ten million copies. Do you honestly think that Defense of the Ancients exploded in popularity during late 2003 and early 2004 because the DotA player base (most of whom had below .500 records and were absolutely terrible at the melee modes) decided that "This is a harder, more complex, more satisfying game than Warcraft III, and I can't wait to test myself?" (You can make the same argument for Total Annihilation, which got to watch StarCraft run away with the financial success of the genre.) So this argument is that casual games are bad, it depends on where on the spectrum you're from, personally I found FFVII and OoT significantly dumbed down compared to their 2D predecessors in terms of both difficulty and gameplay, mostly shouldered by their "shiny new systems and their graphics" That doesn't mean i'd dismiss them out of hand the way you seem to casually do just because you didn't personally enjoy lol. I think DotA exploded in popularity because it's a different type of game and a pioneer of the genre, it exploded in popularity because it filled a gap in places the same way brood war or counter strike did. It had an environment that fit the niche and grew, in this case a fun, contained game that was playable with multiple players. Most of all, it was new and interesting. I don't know if you played WC3 during 03-04 but that's when the multiplayer scene died. It died because metagame was dull and uninteresting. As a game designed for and balanced 1v1, forcing players who wanted a team environment to play an unpolished multiplayer meta, people didn't abandon it because they were bad at melee, they abandoned it because multiplayer melee was dull and boring and custom maps were fun and exciting. DotA emerged from that scene as the most competitive among the competitive multiplayer WC3 custom maps. Individually, Quake is more "complicated than counter-strike" but the fact that counterstrike was designed as a teambased game made it completely different in terms of execution and the skill at the highest level. Sure you can make some sort of silly "omg individual skill" argument, but you'd be completely disregarding the multiplayer aspect of game design. And no, I don't think you want to make the argument that Final Fantasy VII and Ocarina of Time have not been thoroughly explored by their communities, because I guarantee you right now that there's some idiot out there right now running around trying to max out his characters for the X'th time. The idiocy of this argument is incredible. The fact that there are people still playing a game doesn't mean that the game hasn't been completely figured out, nor does it preclude it from a good game, as you did in your original post. Somewhere out there people are playing tic tac toe too, but that fact proves nothing, which has been the lynchpin of your logic, citing poorly constructed strawman that prove nothing. On November 20 2012 13:12 Kupon3ss wrote: There's nothing to post if you're going to use LoL as a strawman to attack Dota2, the arguments against LoL has been made time and time again that it is already a stripped down version of DotA with a business model heavily dependent upon superficiality. At no point did you address the point I made about how taking a part of a game and developing it further is something utterly different than stripping it down. Because there has never been another genre where that worked. "Action-runners" (lol) like Temple Run, Canabalt, and One-Bit Ninja will never be as good as conventional platformers with actual movement capabilities. (Hell, those action-runners aren't even as good as Chelnov, and that game came out 20 fucking years ago.) Portal is not half as interesting as Quake and Half-Life because Portal takes compelling weapons and combat and replaces them with a single gun which is then used to solve rudimentary, simple puzzles built upon limited movement mechanics. (Not to mention that Unreal Tournament implemented the very-similar Translocator side-by-side with its fantastic combat.) And of course, Tower Defense games will never be as good as the real-time strategy games that inspired them. The reason that there is such a limited body of knowledge on this topic is that, until recently, video game designers were never stupid enough to say "Hey, let's take one small portion of an established game template and turn it into its own game! That will make for a more complex and immersive video game experience!" But now, it's not only profitable to do this, but when ThatGameCompany makes a piece of trash like Journey, a game which completely strips away any meaningful mechanics or design, people are calling it a Game of the Year candidate. It's not only profitable, it's critically successful! Quake started out as single-player focused game but gained popularity when that was stripped away and the multiplayer competitive side was developed. Portal is an acclaimed success and just because you personally didn't enjoy it says absolutely nothing about genre. Again your strawmans fall apart the second anybody informed looks over them and you're even having to resort your personal experience and views to try to prove "facts". For example, with your logic I can say, I personally believe that "you are an uninformed flamebaiting troll", and then write a bunch of random florid sentences, it doesn't make it concretely factual, or does it? No, I'd have to prove it my pointing out logical fallacies, attention-whoring, poorly constructed strawmen, counter-factual arguments, etc. etc. I'm doing that. On November 20 2012 15:03 shostakovich wrote: Question: why is a developer investing millions of dollars in a game that possess just one level/stage? Please imagine a comercial game designer deciding to create a triple-A, action multiplayer game that has only one map. To say it's counter-intuitive is a severe understatement. To understand what DotA means to the industry is to understand how this is possible. Riot Games invests millions of dollars in a game that possesses one level because that game makes money and they are probably under some financial obligation by Tencent to continue making that money. In addition, the success of that game and its persistent nature probably make it difficult for the company to rapidly acquire staff in the production of a new game, just as the success of World of Warcraft caught Blizzard completely by surprise. Therefore, they continue to work on the existing title. I don't understand your point. If you're saying that DotA clones are special because they merit comparison to "real sports" that use a small standardized playing field, then you're basically saying that you're okay with regression in video games (some of which have featured hundreds and even thousands of "standardized playing fields") and I can't really help you. Please hate on LoL by hating on LoL, not the genre, similarly, I don't hate on all bloggers who share their posts on teamliquid just because I think "you an uninformed flamebaiting troll". I'm not calling you biased, I'm calling you an uninformed flamebaiting troll | ||
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zMuffinMan
Australia23 Posts
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rabidch
United States20288 Posts
Basically, I now think that the e-Sports marketing model has become detrimental to the actual quality of the games and has become completely antithetical to its original purpose, which was to provide lasting enjoyment of various excellent games as they held to scrutiny over the course of years. Scrutiny gets harder every year for "e-Sports" games. You can't sell these games over and over again, and if these companies screw up the sequel (or don't even make it) well "lasting enjoyment" will die eventually, it's a symptom of the industry as it is now. The model evolved to make money, just as the video game industry evolved to make their titles more purchasable for the casual market. As it is now the trend of marketable e-Sports games is too new a development really, and most industry companies probably don't want to take a step into it yet. What you're describing is actually more endemic of the industry and consumer base at large, and has not much to do with e-Sports. You have to start with an interested playerbase first. as for dota comments, i can safely say a few things That is because Riot Games has issued 74 (!!) balance or game updates since the game came out in 2009 and not because players are gradually improving. Defense of the Ancients have been patched dozens of times in that same period of time. That's why the metagames change. It has nothing to do with continuing developments in player skill. The changes in the metagame are completely dependent upon the changes made by the designers. You even admit this when you say that "half the major patches that have impacted DotA in this way", referencing major game balance updates. Incorrect, though the individual skill ceiling has already been reached by many players around when Dota2 was released. teamwise theres still a lot of ground to cover. Another point is that as a patch game, it is inevitable that the metagame will change and many, such as me, welcome such a thing. And honestly the vast majority of fighting game meta for a single game gets stale, same thing with FPS. I feel it is not very useful to talk about how bad the meta is in Dotalikes if you want to bring up other kinds of staple genres that have changed through many sequels. | ||
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Tal
United Kingdom1013 Posts
MOBA games aren't dumbed down RTS games - they're something different. | ||
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MichaelJLowell
United States610 Posts
On November 20 2012 16:07 Kupon3ss wrote: You're going to try to answer the questions you can come up with arguments for, OK If it makes you feel better about yourself, sure. I'm picking and choosing which questions to respond to because my time is better spent dissecting the arguments that are not tedious, minutiae, or otherwise lead to pointless conclusions. So, for instance, I'm not going to acknowledge your colorful assertion "every shooter is a dumbed down version of Deus Ex because they took the shooting part of the game and made it more complex" because I'm not sure whether you have even played the game or understand what makes Deus Ex interesting. On November 20 2012 16:07 Kupon3ss wrote: Have you played DotA to any meaningful amount? Yes. I played it enough to understand it and what the problems with it are. No, I'm not going to amaze you with my knowledge of the metagame, because I don't and didn't play these games enough to do that. I believe the last time I played Defense of the Ancients was sometime in 2008. And no, I have not played the game at a "world-class" or "high level" of play. I have a large number of the fundamentally similar real-time strategy games, I have played them competently. And in the process of playing those games well, I was able to understand those games well and create a personal game design philosophy that allows me to compare those games to each other, and whether to assert that they are "good" or "bad". I am not precluded from commenting on the games because "LOL U SUK". On November 20 2012 16:07 Kupon3ss wrote: Of course, I've never said that a competitive game is inherently superior to one that is not. The tower defense genre is lacking the spirit of competition and human element that defines Esports, Alright. Just the Tower Defense genre? On November 20 2012 16:07 Kupon3ss wrote: I'm saying the fact that you're using it as a inept strawman comparison just because they were both inspired in some way by the warcraft 3 mod scene is like saying Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines is the same as Counter Strike source because they're both made in the source engine. Both come from similar origins, popularized through the casual underbelly of the same real-time strategy community, games which strip away the Warcraft III game template and then try to insert complexity elsewise. It's worth looking at, and the comparison is worth mentioning in passing. On November 20 2012 16:07 Kupon3ss wrote: The Koreans do, mostly because Koreans did not have a game like DotA fill that niche due to the popularity of brood war and the korean WC3 map Chaos, DotA 100% sprang as a competitive community based on extended enjoyment of the games. The game was community driven to its logical extreme, without even the proper release, advertising and distribution venues of games like Quake or Brood war. I did not lump Defense of the Ancients into that class of game, unless you are making some leap that DotA 2 is merely an "enhanced remake" and not a sequel. On November 20 2012 16:07 Kupon3ss wrote: Again, I'm just pointing out the continuous stream of logical inconsistencies in everything you attempt to argue. Please start remembering the bullshit you continuous to spew out, because at this rate, congratulations, you just called chess casual, go bring your "uninformed flamebaiting trolling" to that community. "Giving Hero X +100 damage to its special attack" is not essential to its character. "Giving Hero Y a Blink ability" is not essential to its character. They may lead to changes in the Tier Listsfor those games, but those Tier Lists are not essential to their character, either. When I talk about "essential to its character", I talk about changes that fundamentally redefine how the game is played. There is eventually supposed to be a time that you take faith in your work and let the game sit, and you let people explore the game. If the developer of the game must continue to make changes in order to repeatedly respond to imbalance, then it is probably not a good game and you're making those balance updates as a means to hide it. On November 20 2012 16:07 Kupon3ss wrote: So this argument is that casual games are bad, it depends on where on the spectrum you're from, personally I found FFVII and OoT significantly dumbed down compared to their 2D predecessors in terms of both difficulty and gameplay, mostly shouldered by their "shiny new systems and their graphics" That doesn't mean i'd dismiss them out of hand the way you seem to casually do just because you didn't personally enjoy lol. Final Fantasy VII was one of my favorite games growing up as a kid. I put a couple hundred hours into it. I now acknowledge that the game is awful, and I do not cede to the hive mind that propagandizes games like Final Fantasy VII as a high point of video game role-playing. The same goes for Ocarina of Time, a game which I never enjoyed at any point, a game which has absolutely laughable combat, a complete lack of difficulty, piss-poor dungeon design, and lays all of these things into a game overworld which is not only painful to explore, but poses no threat to the player, something that the Souls games and Dragon's Dogma have recently done very, very well. I don't really care what Game Journalism Consensus has to say about these games because most of those people have absolutely no clue what they're talking about. Just because IGN has given it a perfect score does not mean it is good, just because the randoms on GameFAQs vote the game as "BEST EBAR" does not mean it is good. On November 20 2012 16:07 Kupon3ss wrote: I think DotA exploded in popularity because it's a different type of game and a pioneer of the genre, it exploded in popularity because it filled a gap in places the same way brood war or counter strike did. It had an environment that fit the niche and grew, in this case a fun, contained game that was playable with multiple players. Most of all, it was new and interesting. I don't know if you played WC3 during 03-04 but that's when the multiplayer scene died. Warcraft III melee gametypes took a hit because of the new Matchmaking System (essentially a test run for what would eventually be used in World of Warcraft and StarCraft II) and all the players who were playing for a shiny icon or a pretty record all quit. The game recovered just fine and peaked in 2006, when advanced multitasking techniques and full utilization of the rock-paper-scissors model really began to take off, and then Orcs figured out around 2007 that they don't have to do much more than Grunt/Raider/Spirit Walker/Blademaster/Shadow Hunter. (But even today, you get variations on this, and there's been much more Witch Doctor play as of recent, and you got these changes in the metagame without having a single major balance patch in over five years. You eventually take confidence in what you have and you sit on it.) On November 20 2012 16:07 Kupon3ss wrote: Individually, Quake is more "complicated than counter-strike" but the fact that counterstrike was designed as a teambased game made it completely different in terms of execution and the skill at the highest level. Sure you can make some sort of silly "omg individual skill" argument, but you'd be completely disregarding the multiplayer aspect of game design. The "skill cap" for team multiplayer has no bearing on my ability as an individual to derive pleasure from the game's systems and aesthetics. Some games are more fun as single-player games and others are more fun as multiplayer games. The existence of a higher theoretical skill cap for a team-based multiplayer shooter has absolutely no bearing on there's more to versus multiplayer games than skill ceilings. On November 20 2012 16:07 Kupon3ss wrote: Quake started out as single-player focused game but gained popularity when that was stripped away and the multiplayer competitive side was developed. Doom multiplayer was already very popular at the time of its release and the Quake multiplayer was not tacked on as some random side-jib. The company had to create QuakeWorld because almost immediately after the game's release because people were complaining about the netcode, of which there was none. (They settled on the client-server model that the Apogee guys had used earlier in the year.) On November 20 2012 16:07 Kupon3ss wrote: Portal is an acclaimed success and just because you personally didn't enjoy it says absolutely nothing about genre. Once again, "the journlolists liked it" is not a measuring stick. You'll be surprised how many games don't hold up to scrutiny once you open your mind about them. On November 20 2012 16:07 Kupon3ss wrote: For example, with your logic I can say, I personally believe that "you are an uninformed flamebaiting troll", and then write a bunch of random florid sentences, it doesn't make it concretely factual, or does it? No, I'd have to prove it my pointing out logical fallacies, attention-whoring, poorly constructed strawmen, counter-factual arguments, etc. etc. I'm going to take it that you're mad I was critical of a genre that (looking at your post history) you overwhelmingly enjoy. On November 20 2012 16:19 zMuffinMan wrote: If you haven't played DotA competitively or at least at a high level in scrims then you probably shouldn't be making the comments you're making about the game. Just to note, I adressed this when responding above. On November 20 2012 16:19 zMuffinMan wrote: The claim that developers are transforming games to be popular esports and therefore harming the quality of the games is complete bullshit if you want to apply that to Valve since Dota 2 replicates DotA in every way possible and Dota wasn't developed to be a popular esport. And now Valve has placed direct financial incentive on themselves to create game updates which will maximize profit from the existing player base. They did the same thing with Team Fortress 2, and no, I don't think that having people running around in silly hats makes a video game more compelling or immersive. (I understand that DotA 2's cash shop clothes will all fit within the context of the game, but who knows what they'll come up with elsewise.) On November 20 2012 16:59 rabidch wrote: Scrutiny gets harder every year for "e-Sports" games. You can't sell these games over and over again, and if these companies screw up the sequel (or don't even make it) well "lasting enjoyment" will die eventually, it's a symptom of the industry as it is now. The model evolved to make money, just as the video game industry evolved to make their titles more purchasable for the casual market. As it is now the trend of marketable e-Sports games is too new a development really, and most industry companies probably don't want to take a step into it yet. What you're describing is actually more endemic of the industry and consumer base at large, and has not much to do with e-Sports. You have to start with an interested playerbase first. It goes an exceptionally long way in keeping a disinterested player base from going in different directions. Imagine if all the chaos that happened a couple of months back took place while the KeSPA Brood War were still going strong and those KeSPA tournaments had muscled out StarCraft II in South Korea. I feel pretty confident stating that there are a lot of players (both salaried and elsewise) who now stick with StarCraft II because "the scene is gone", and that the salaried players don't have a goal to shoot for in Brood War. On November 20 2012 16:59 rabidch wrote:And honestly the vast majority of fighting game meta for a single game gets stale, same thing with FPS. I feel it is not very useful to talk about how bad the meta is in Dotalikes if you want to bring up other kinds of staple genres that have changed through many sequels. Then if the game becomes boring, you move on to a new game instead of creating a potato chip comfort zone within the old game and its occasional, artificial balance updates. (And yes, there have been good sequels and bad sequels. While I'm no savant of fighting games, even things as superficially similar as the early Street Fighter II games have major changes and additions which improved the game beyond "new characters" or "balance tweaks". And even the balance tweaks were not done in the dead-ahead pursuit of 5/5 matchups.) You go play and enjoy other excellent video games, of which there are absolutely no shortage of. Whether the best players have completely explored all available strategies in a game is unlikely to have any bearing on your experience when you pick it up for the very first time. | ||
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Angel_
United States1617 Posts
The first is that the entire article comes out as a sermon, which you yourself are the firmest believer in the content of. The second, is that it is pants on head retarded. Comparing Warcraft 3 and Dota2 is like comparing Broodwar and Starcraft 2: In any context it is pointless. Your entire argument is constructed of points that have no actual relation to one another, that you've forced into sentences side by side to fit your logic. The newer games are certainly promoted in attempts to gain profit, there is no denying that. On the one side (while you are totally engorged in it) there is a bit more of a top-down model than there used to be. But the simple fact is that Dota 2 didn't explode because it had a pillar crafted for it and was placed upon it; it exploded because it was a giant anyway. It doesn't NEED a pillar and neither does Starcraft 2. Yes it's still developing. Yes you can argue that there should be more testing first. You can huff and puff till you're blue in the face that it should have to "earn" it's place; but it's not going to. It's not an indy game by some off-developer. It's a born giant from preceding leviathan parents. Yes it might get a leg up and yes it might help, but none of them have actually needed it; they are what they are. You're comparing to a reality that just doesn't apply to them. From the games themselves to the support their developers give them to the hype that community has for them before they're even out. What you genuinely fail to understand is that the current games you are so concerned about have developed and occurred as they have because they are extensions and offspring of Warcraft 3 and Broodwar and Counterstrike and everything preceding them, not in spite of it. | ||
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MichaelJLowell
United States610 Posts
On November 20 2012 19:52 Angel_ wrote: I have two problems with responding to you. The first is that the entire article comes out as a sermon, which you yourself are the firmest believer in the content of. What, you think I would have written and published such an assertion if I didn't believe it? Hey, at least that's an upgrade over the previous assertion that I'm trolling in this thread. On November 20 2012 19:52 Angel_ wrote: Comparing Warcraft 3 and Dota2 is like comparing Broodwar and Starcraft 2: In any context it is pointless. Your entire argument is constructed of points that have no actual relation to one another, that you've forced into sentences side by side to fit your logic. Two things: One, you can make a comparison between any games in any genres, so long as you know what you're talking about and have a reasonable thought process to back it up. You can compare Space Harrier to Grim Fandango. It may be nearly impossible to do it without sounding like an ass, but there's no reason it can't be attempted. By extension, a comparison of StarCraft: Brood War to StarCraft 2 is probably one of the easier high-profile comparisons that can be done. And second, I find it amusing that a couple of you have taken the angle that "you can't compare these games" when you have two separate threads in the General discussion forum which feature lively discussion of game-ranking across multiple dissimilar genres. And despite my own post in one of those threads pointing out how much effort has to go into any cross-genre discussion (let alone a ranking of all games), it seems like people don't have a problem with the idea until someone uses it to attack their favorite game of the month. On November 20 2012 19:52 Angel_ wrote: The newer games are certainly promoted in attempts to gain profit, there is no denying that. On the one side (while you are totally engorged in it) there is a bit more of a top-down model than there used to be. But the simple fact is that Dota 2 didn't explode because it had a pillar crafted for it and was placed upon it; it exploded because it was a giant anyway. It doesn't NEED a pillar and neither does Starcraft 2. I'm not going to dispute the notion that a sequel to a critically and financially successful video game necessarily needs the e-Sports marketing model (or any marketing) in order to find its target audience. Most of the marketing is already done. But marketing is marketing, and companies aren't pouring X number of dollars into these tournaments because "we love our fans so much and we're doing this for no reason other than charity". It's a very effective marketing model but it comes with a price. And also, I am of the opinion that Blizzard Entertainment needed to get KeSPA and their Brood War tournaments out of the picture in order for professional StarCraft II to become successful worldwide and for StarCraft II to become successful in the South Korean market. And even after being able to do that, I do not believe Gametrics has recorded a single day where StarCraft II was more popular in Korean PC Bangs than StarCraft: Brood War. If Blizzard had not done this, then the game was probably going to fail as a doctrine and business strategy for Blizzard intellectual property rights and Blizzard e-Sports. (It may still fail, but we have to wait and see.) On November 20 2012 19:52 Angel_ wrote: What you genuinely fail to understand is that the current games you are so concerned about have developed and occurred as they have because they are extensions and offspring of Warcraft 3 and Broodwar and Counterstrike and everything preceding them, not in spite of it. Once again, my perspective completely exists on the point of view that DotA clones aren't that good, and I hope it dwells on people that this is something I have given a ridiculous amount of thought to and I'm not going to change my opinion on it in the course of a single discussion thread. If I can't convince you of that, then it's pretty tough for you to say "Well, the newer crop of 'e-Sports' are kind of crap, so maybe he has a point here." | ||
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Tal
United Kingdom1013 Posts
The problem is they are probably right. You may have "given it a ridiculous amount of thought", but so have countless TL hardcore BW players, staff and progamers, and have found a lot to like in DOTA. Seems the odds are it's you who's wrong. To pick on one point: "valuing game balance over interesting unit design, by fixing “problems” with rash design decisions, you gut the depth of your games. As we’ve seen in StarCraft II and League of Legends, we have now gotten to the point where the development of playstyles is not centralized around improvements in player skill and the process of exploring a game, but around the game balance updates themselves, where the illusion of depth is created every time Riot Games creates a new Champion or recreates the skill set for an old one." I don't play SC2 (doesn't run on my computer), but playstyles in LoL often change because of a pro-teams unique style (see moscow 5 or CLG.EU), rather than balance patches. Also, can't depth be reached through different routes? Can't we have both the elegant simplicity of a game like Go, and the insane complexity of a game like Magic the Gathering. Why can't both kinds exist? To use sport, can't we have tennis and cricket? Or music - art songs and symphonies? Depth isn't as simple as you make out. Finally, your writing seems pointlessly abrasive, e.g "Woah, hold back on the butthurt, DotA fans. I don’t think StarCraft II is very good, either." | ||
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corumjhaelen
France6884 Posts
I haven't given much thought on the matter, but I'm clearly leaning toward's MichaelJLowell side. | ||
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PrinceXizor
United States17713 Posts
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