DotA 2, by Valve
 

http://gameinformer.com/b/features/a...d-details.aspx

FYI, Valve officially announced Defense of the Ancients 2 today, along with planned updates to Steamworks.

So everything is exactly the same, except in a different, better looking engine.

Sounds more like a remake than a sequel.

It also sounds like much of this has already been done in Heroes of Newerth. Not excited thus far unless substantial changes are made.

I'm looking forward to this if only because Valve's involvement means it's more likely to have matchmaking that ISN'T hopelessly broken.

BTW I'm surprised to see DarkeSword posted this. Where were you when everyone was playing HoN? :P

Man, the site must be being completely hammered by Dotards; can't get a TCP/IP packet in edgewise.

I played two games of HoN and stopped playing for a few reasons. Mostly because it was difficult to figure out what to do and what to buy because the game didn't do much to actually explain anything to newbies, but also because I got the feeling that it was a game where there's a lot of pressure from teammates to not screw up, and I don't really like playing games where there's that much pressure. I like multiplayer games but I don't like it when they get really really competitive; I'm more of a "for fun" kind of guy, and DotA-type games are more of the former.

This I might play if the barrier to entry is lower and the community isn't hopelessly hostile, but it's also of interest to me because of the Steamworks improvements.

LoL is better anyways.

But yeah, I generally tend to not even play very much because I only play with my friends - the thing about MOBA players is that they all think that they are professionals, and they expect you to be as well.

It's encouraging to see that both Erik and Gabe explicitly refer to IceFrog as being really smart. I just imagined him as being some kid who decided to take something someone else made and make some l33t tweaks, but I'm glad that's not the case.

lol Windows server?

yeah pretty much

except for the matchmaking system

oh god the matchmaking system...

The DotA community is just as antagonizing as the HoN community unfortunately. The reason for this is how much you depend on your teammates. In TF2, I can decide to suck it up for a few rounds as Spy (which although I enjoy, I know I'm not very good) while Frogg and Vahn_Paktu more than make up whatever I bring to the table when I'm playing my good classes (Soldier and Medic).

In HoN, one guy sucking on your team constitutes a complete loss with no possibility of correction -- the issue of slippery slope is huge, as kills get you more items and more experience that is near-impossible to make up.

I finally got the page to load again; is anyone interested enough for me to post the article and images here?

YES

please do

Valve's New Game Announced, Detailed: Dota 2
feature
by Adam Biessener on October 13, 2010 at 11:59 AM


The rumors and speculation can cease. Valve is making Dota 2, we've played it, and it's already amazing even though it's not coming out until next year. And we haven't yet laid eyes on Dota 2's biggest innovation: a radical approach to integrating the game's community back into the gameplay itself.

What's a Dota?

Dota 2 takes its name from the Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients, a drastic change to that stock real-time strategy title, which pits two teams of five players against each other in highly competitive, 40-minute or longer matches. Unlike most RTSes, DotA has each player controlling a single hero who levels up and stockpiles gold to purchase powerful equipment and consumables. As computer-controlled armies continually spawn and rush the enemy's base, players are responsible for using their powerful heroes to turn the tide of the battle in their favor.

DotA quickly gained massive popularity on Blizzard's Battle.net service, with the growing community utilizing user-created channels and the rudimentary custom game browser to connect players. As mods tend to do, it branched into several variations as time passed. Eventually, one rose to the top: DotA-Allstars, originally created by Steve "Guinsoo" Feak (now employed with Riot Games designing League of Legends). Allstars is currently maintained and updated by IceFrog (who declined to give his real name), who was hired by Valve in 2009 and is now working on Dota 2.

http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/4...odseeke.th.jpg

DotA enjoys such unprecedented popularity for a number of interconnected reasons. The game has a skill curve as long and as wide as Counter-Strike or StarCraft; expert players dominate matches with lesser-skilled individuals solely through manual dexterity and hard-won knowledge. Extensive upgrade paths allow players to combine items into more powerful versions, gaining thousands of hit points or powerful life-stealing attacks. Team play is hugely rewarded; though the map is large enough for all ten players to spread out and fight creeps on their own without anyone engaging anyone else directly, late-game play is almost invariably centered around giant 3v3 or even 5v5 team fights.

The mod has benefited from excellent, long-running support in the form of constant updates that add new content or address balance issues. Said balance is good enough that no dominant team composition or strategy has ever taken hold for long. The heroes are varied enough that a match featuring different team rosters can take on an entirely different character from the last.

The enormous following generated by DotA's deep gameplay is unprecedented. Today, years after its release, a third-party site hosting an update can get hammered by more than six million downloads in a day. The mod spawned a new subgenre, commonly referred to as "action-RTS," that contains two successful commercial games in League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth (and the unfortunate flop Demigod) as well as DotA-Allstars itself. Valve Corporation, the company beloved for its Half-Life, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, and Left 4 Dead series as well as its outstanding Steam digital distribution and matchmaking platform, is making its entry into this still-growing genre next year with Dota 2.

http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/2...wranger.th.jpg

What Does Valve Bring?

Valve's approach to Dota 2 is unusual in that the gameplay itself is remaining almost entirely untouched. "Our first reaction is to assume that [design elements are] there for a reason," project lead Erik Johnson explains. "IceFrog is one of the smartest designers we've ever met. He's made so many good decisions over the years in building the product. He virtually never makes a decision that doesn't have some reasoning behind it and a way to pick apart the logic behind it." This approach means that Dota 2 basically is DotA-Allstars with new technology.

DotA-Allstars' roster of 100+ heroes is being brought over in its entirety. The single map games take place on is functionally identical to the one that you can download for free today in the Warcraft III mod. Items, skills, and upgrade paths are unchanged. Some hero skills work slightly better due to being freed from the now-ancient Warcraft III engine, but Dota 2 will be instantly familiar to any DotA player.

A few things will make significant differences to players making the transition. Dota 2 uses Valve's Source engine, so the game is much prettier. Source itself is getting a few upgrades, including improved global lighting and true cloth simulation. Dota 2's integrated voice chat is a huge step up from having to set up your own Ventrilo server, and the speed of voice communication is very nearly a requirement for a game as team-focused as DotA.

AI bots will take over for disconnected players, and will be available to play against in unranked training matches as well. However, don't get your hopes up for a full-fledged single-player game, though. Johnson says, "Our goal with the AI is just that their experience isn't destroyed just because one person couldn't finish the game."

The visual style is remarkable for retaining the somewhat cartoony feel that the Warcraft III version of DotA-Allstars is built around, while going in a few different directions. "I think there are functional aspects to the art that are pretty significant to the players," Johnson muses. The environment, particularly in the forests that fill in the map between the three lanes that the NPC armies follow, uses a desaturated color scheme to give the colorful heroes and abilities some visual pop. The sizable art team is putting a lot of work into making the shapes and animations of each hero distinct to the point that players will be able to instantly identify any hero they see and quickly gauge the threat level of any situation.

The game will also feature a ton of custom voice work. You'll get amusing lines from heroes as they deny the enemy team last hits on creeps, and champions who have backstory connections will trade quips when nearby.

The bulk of innovation in Dota 2, however, is ancillary to the gameplay itself. Valve is upgrading Steamworks (the company's backend technologies for matchmaking and other gameplay and community-related things) to allow them to create in-game rewards for participating in the Dota 2 community. The idea is to have everything a player does in or out of game tie back into their online identity. Like the improvements to Source, the Steamworks upgrades will be available to third-party developers who choose to use Valve's tools when Dota 2 launches in 2011.

At a basic level, posting useful feedback or participating in constructive discussions on the forums will contribute to your standing in the community in a visible way. Valve doesn't have the specifics on how this will work nailed down yet. Will you get points that contribute to a visible ranking, like a Gamerscore? Will your posts need to be recommended by other community members to count for anything? What counts as a constructive discussion? These questions are all being actively explored at the moment. Valve assures us that the designers have a slew of awesome ideas for how to implement rewards in a way that’s visible to the rest of the community, but there are no details to announce yet. "When we talk about this identity that exists inside and outside the game, we don't think we're anywhere near it with what exists on Steam right now," Johnson admits.

If this was just about getting points for posting comments, though, we wouldn't waste your time by telling you about it. Dota 2 goes much farther than that. Everything from unlocking new skins for your favorite hero to getting a unique title for writing a strategy guide is on the table. Valve has ambitious plans (for which, again, there are no specifics to share) to host everything themselves and provide the best framework for the community to interact with each other. The idea is to reduce the social friction inherent in having to dig around a bunch of different fansites and wikis to find what you're looking for.

Ultimately, two things will make Dota 2 stand out: the coaching system and interactive guides. Read on to find out more.

http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/4...eetlina.th.jpg

Riding the Skill Curve

Getting owned sucks. It doesn't matter if you're the victim of a headshot in Counter-Strike, corner trapped in Street Fighter, or swarmed under by Zerglings in StarCraft. Holding the short end of the skill stick in competitive games like these is rough. This problem is compounded in DotA and its clones by two factors. First, matches last around 40 minutes – that's a long time to spend getting your face kicked in. Second, dying not only takes you out of the game while your respawn timer counts down but also directly benefits the other team by giving a big cash bounty to your killer.

At intermediate and higher levels of play, having a poor player on your team who dies frequently is worse than fighting with a man down, as the opposite team gets gobs of gold for picking off the newbie. This has fostered a legendarily newbie-hostile attitude within large swaths of the DotA community. As fun and rewarding as the game is when you're in a match of appropriate skill level – and it can be one of the very best experiences in gaming, without exaggeration – finding those matches has always been a nightmare. It doesn't help that the game is so intense that Valve had to institute a "no talking about the match for an hour afterwards" rule for its internal playtests. The recent commercial titles that more or less cloned DotA have ameliorated this to some extent, but it is still often a huge problem.

Valve believes that the solution to the huge barrier to entry is threefold. The first, obvious solution is to have excellent skill-based matchmaking for both individuals and teams. Valve believes that the work going into Steamworks for Dota 2's release meets that requirement. Second, interactive guides will allow players to do more than just read a guide for their favorite hero that has been deemed helpful by the community at large. Valve plans to allow guide-makers to tie their work back into the game by doing things like highlighting suggested item purchases or displaying useful information during a match.

Finally, a coaching system is being deeply integrated into the game. By logging in as a coach, veteran players can do their part to help out newer folks. Valve hasn't entirely decided on the specifics of how newbies and coaches will be matched up, but once they're together a few things happen. The coach sees the pupil's screen, and gets private voice and chat channels to communicate with them. The coach probably won't be able to take control of anything directly (once again, the details are currently under discussion), but information is power in Dota 2 and having a mentor whispering in your ear can make all the difference in the world.

http://img256.imageshack.us/img256/3...rphling.th.jpg

Of course, the pupil will be able to rate the coach's helpfulness. Being a well-regarded coach will have explicit in-game rewards, just like writing useful guides, posting constructive feedback, or engaging in interesting strategy discussions. If the overwhelming response to Battle.net achievements is any indication, vanity rewards like these will be extremely effective in channeling the community's energies toward positive contributions.

Valve founder and boss Gabe Newell thinks that ongoing service and value creation over a game's lifespan is the new reality of game development. "IceFrog was one of the smartest people we've ever met about doing that, and he was doing it with both hands tied behind his back, so to speak," Newell says. The company plans on approaching Dota 2 with the same dedication that won it the fanatical devotion of the Team Fortress 2 community, pushing out dozens of updates that do everything from adding new hats to fixing balance issues to introducing entire new match types for free.

"I think the interesting thing is us adding a second layer where the community is a service to each other. That's the real shift that we're trying to build here. Valve is going to keep building software around Dota and around the community and around Steamworks for Dota, but we're also going to build this system where the community can bring service to each other and be recognized for it," Johnson proclaims. With a solid backbone of community-enabling systems and Valve's legendary support and technology behind it, Dota 2 has a chance to turn one of the most popular mods of all time into a full game on PC and Mac that compares favorably to any eight-figure-budget console blockbuster.

Nice dodge on the copyrite problems with Slayers by just calling her Lina

EDIT: here's hoping they stop calling drow ranger "traxex" as it comes out as "track sex"

and that is not a pretty mental picture

Haha, there's gonna be a LOT of copyright dodging with all the original characters using WC3 models and art (and Shadow Lancer being Kimahri).

actually

once my friend and I (both level 15) made an arranged team with the two of us and went into matchmaking

all of our teammates were level 6ish and all of our opponents were level 25+

Will be getting this for sure.

Also HoN is for like 90% the same game so if you didn't like that there's really no point in even trying this game.

Also, Bleck, about http://icefrogtruth.blogspot.com/

Anything with 'Truth' in the name is to be instantly regarded as bunk.

This applies to some of the OCR HoN crew as well and a good chuck of why I quit playing.

idc, I play DotA now, i plan to play this when it comes out.

I read the article. Honestly it doesn't even matter that it's essentially a remake. Giving it the typical Valve treatment with stuff like

is really all that's needed imo.

HoN falls woefully short when it comes to matchmaking, so I'm hoping that Valve can improve on that.

It'll be funny when HoN players start playing this and ask what the items and heroes' HoN names are.

Well the OCR crew is all but dead, but SHZ is still pretty active (Scytheful even switched to their clan). Join us!

I realize that, but seeing as though DotA seems to specifically attract worthless immature assholes, I believe it's fathomable that Icefrog is King Of All Assholes.

Also LoL is better than HoN because creep denial is a really dumb "mechanic".

I will likely be one of the people reeducating HoNfgts

also

Creep denial isn't a stupid mechanic. The strategy of laning falls into several decisions that you must make constantly; do you try to harass enemy heroes? Go for a kill? Try to get more xp/gold for yourself? Or deny the enemy xp/gold? It's fascinating, tactically. What sucks is the fact that denials and last-hitting is a rhythm game. In the past I've advocated something where instead of XP/gold going to the last hit, that you have to do, say, 25% of a creep's lifebar in damage (or more) to get that credit.

Creep denial is a thing that rose out of the WarCraft 3 engine being incapable of removing it without significant alterations to the game.

It is in the game and you have to work with it, so the strategy is there - but to argue that games aren't better off without it is just pandering to nostalgia. It's the same reason that this thread even exists - people who play MOBAs are too pedantic to maybe admit that some things need to actually be changed from what they know.

Saying I'm just nostalgic for DotA doesn't make sense, because I've never played DotA. I came into HoN (my first MOBA game) with a completely fresh perspective. I had no idea what I was doing. Also, the argument that denial was an unavoidable artifact of the WC3 engine IS true, but that doesn't mean that it's bad. Mouse control of your hero was also unavoidable, but even though we have more options now (WASD for example) that doesn't mean those other options are better. WC3 only had 3 stats, but that doesn't mean we need more or less than 3.

What people don't like about creep denial is that it's a timing game - a pointless, twitch-based mechanic interfering with an otherwise interesting tactical decision. The ability to attack your own forces thus depleting the opponent of XP/gold and drawing in enemy forces is great for strategy. Sometimes you want to do it, other times you want to push the lane forward. Creep denial isn't something that you should always do 100% of the time, because if you did, you'd sacrifice your own XP and your lane might be adversely affected (either due to creep positioning, or your lack of focus on harassing/ganking enemy heroes.)

So, what needs to be changed is how you EXECUTE the decision... in other words, it shouldn't be a needless twitch game-within-a-game where you have to estimate your attack power compared to a creep's remaining life and your own attack animation time. The entire decision or tactic shouldn't be removed just because it wasn't done that well in DotA/HoN.

Hopefully they can continue using the same kinda shop system that S2 developed for HoN because that was a huge improvement over the dota shops.

interested at what may come.

This is the problem, basically. The mechanic you suggested to replace last hitting sounds like a much better alternative - but even with that, I don't believe that creep denial is something that should be in place in any MOBA.

this also sounds like the argument of most players who never got denying down in general. it just sounds like laziness mostly. it is important to the game, and sound not be removed.

denying really isn't hard at all.

i'm not professional nor do i expect that of anyone else, but this is what separates average players from above-average.

Wow Bleck. Do you realize what your argument is really predicated on? You are basically continually saying "This is hard, therefore the mechanic sucks." And then when someone comes back with a reasonable argument, you just repeat yourself with different words.

I played DotA for a long time. I started back when 5.85b was the current version. As far as creep denying goes, I don't really like it a whole lot. I'm not going to paint it as something it is not by calling it a bunch of names. I just don't like it. More a matter of personal taste. As far as their apparent decision to leave that mechanic in DotA 2 goes, I don't care terribly. At first I hated it in DotA when people started doing it, but as time went on and as I played HoN more, I got to be OK at it, and now am fairly competent at creep denying. I still don't love it, but am more than willing to put up with it to play what I think is a very enjoyable game.

Edit: Additionally, I also didn't really like it when people started sniping enemy creeps. I was content to just miss out on most of the gold that creeps had to offer lol. But again, I latched on to the tactic when it became obvious that it reaped such grand rewards, and got to be fairly proficient.

Creep Denial is a relatively simple way of controlling the location where the creeps will clash in your lane (along with techniques that are much more 'advanced', like pulling neutrals into your lane). I'm not trying to sound like a pro here or anything, but it's seriously considered one of the basic techniques in HoN, especially compared to stuff like stacking/pulling etc.

I think removing it would make the laning phase a lot more boring, and it would screw over some heroes that are already mediocre anyway (Bloodseeker).

Actually, I responded as such because his argument is essentially "you just hate creep denial because you're bad at the game."

It's probably hard to read posts from all the way on your high horse.

Maybe it's just that difficult for MOBA players to not be elitist about things even if they try, but not once did anyone say that creep denial was really difficult.

zircon said it was irritating, and I agreed, which I guess can be interpreted as difficult if you're consistently trying to make yourself seem better at the game than everyone else?

so about dota 2

looks good eh

looks good yeah and that seems to be all they are doing