tl;dr: What do you think of the DotA genre?


too short; more info:
So I was talking to a mate (he studies game design) and he mentioned that some people find it hard to think of DotA as a genre, and although he thinks it is, he says that because HoN, LoL, DOTA2 and DotA are the same game just reskinned, it has so little diversity that it is not useful to classify it as such.

Personally, I have been a Warcraft 3 modder since back in the day, so I know a bit about the history of DotA. The history starts back in Starcraft, with a map called Aeon of Strife (AoS). AoS is often called the grandfather of DotA - the first ever game of it's type, and for 10 years the WC3 gaming community referred to DotA and DotA-like games as "AoS's". To us, AoS is very much a genre. However AoS did not have many things that modern DotA games have - there was only one team, the 'heroes' did not level up (you got gold from killing things and could buy upgrades and units such as siege tanks), and the enemy waves constantly grew stronger. Flash forward to Warcraft 3's release and we have the legendary Enfo's Team Survival (ETS). In a nutshell, it was basically AoS, but competitive. Two teams would both fight off waves of enemies and whoever lasted the longest won. The concept of heroes was introduced, there originally 8 or so heroes to choose from, and you could level up your abilities (traditionally two skills available from level 1, one ability available at level 6, and one ultimate available at level 10. Additionally each hero has an innate ability that is unlocked at level 0 and is unlevelable - a sort of flavour ability often integral to the hero). Later we have the advent of the first modern DotA game - Tide of Blood (ToB). ToB has hero leveling, a map setup much like modern DotA's, and you had towers and you could fight the enemy heroes. ToB was enormously popular - equivalent to 2009 DotA. However ToB broke due to a WC3 patch, and until maybe 3-5 years ago, was unplayable. DotA also emerged quietly during ToB's heyday. DotA originally had around 8 heroes, and was very basic. After many years of being a decent but not amazing map it was abandoned. ETS was also abandoned around the same time - a time when many old modders gave up modding and moved on. ETS was picked up by the MT Team, who developed Enfo's Team Survival: MT Edition (ETS:MT). The number of heroes ballooned to around 40, and the balance was dramatically improved - so much so that it is often compared to Starcraft, a masterpiece of balance, in fact, the motto of ETS:MT is "Balance is everything". DotA was picked up by a long series of devs, and became DotA: Allstars (simply referred to as DotA). DotA's hero count grew to an amazing 90+, and being worked on by low level skiddies the map size ballooned to ridiculous proportions (often when a WC3 map is badly made and badly coded it is jokingly referred to as a DotA-like). DotA achieved massive success due to aggressive hosting efforts on Battle.Net and on other networks.

If one were to compare AoS to DotA and ETS:MT (the two most prominent descendants of AoS) then ETS:MT would be the more similar of the two. However, ETS belongs to a genre lovingly referred to as "hero survivals" - a genre that encompasses any game where a team of players attempt to defend a location against hordes of enemies, from Horde mode in Gears of War, to Killing Floor. And DotA will forever belong to the AoS genre.

Of course, for financial reasons each of LoL, HoN, DOTA, etc each want to invent their own genre (hero arena, moba, hero defense, action real time strategy, derp herp derp) - funny that these guys who are trying so hard to stand out and be different are selling reskinned copies of the same game...

Even more funny is the one guy who actually owns the DotA intellectual property is Blizzard, and they have been forced to rename their game to Blizzard All-Stars. AND they are the only ones not making a DotA clone!
> Not making DotA clone
> Owns the DotA name
> Forced to not call their game DotA
Crazy stuff right? But then again the AoS genre is all about the money!

IMO: Blizzard DotA All-Stars will be great for the AoS genre. It brings something that is a non-clone in to the spotlight! I know there is Demigod which is far from being a clone, but it didn't get a big enough playerbase, and didn't have enough accessibility (this may have changed due to steam integration).

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MOBA is an artificial term that was first used 15 years after the genre emerged. For 15 years the genre was universally called "AoS".

The term "MOBA" was invented as an attempt to steal power from other game devs and try and create dominance in the AoS space by separating the clone from the original.

Renaming genres as a political tool is a terrible terrible idea, and I will never refer to an AoS as a MOBA.

ok
what
So you're saying blizzard all-stars isn't a clone ONLY on the basses that they technically own the "rights" to the name Dota? The fuck?
Valve has icefrog and icefrog IS Dota. He took it from the shit smear that guinsoo left when he left to start riot.

Also what

EDIT:
fixed my sucking at quoting

No, that's not what I'm saying.

Blizzard /do/ own the IP. But Blizzard DotA is based on DotA Allstars, where as DOTA2 is a clone of DotA Allstars, which Valve do not own the IP for.

Guinsoo also was not the one to create DotA Allstars, furthermore Allstars wasn't even the first game of it's type - for example it is a clone of DotA!

Claiming that Icefrog or Guinsoo are entitled to any IP is a joke, neither of them even designed the one game they both maintained. Besides that Blizzard /actually/ does own the IP according to the EULA.

Its funny how pleople who enjoy playing the most popular moba games like LoL and HoN insult their grand father Dota.

Actually dota was inspired by AoS (Aeon of strife) a game was made on Starcraft map editor (very old).

So did minecraft, its inspired by dwarf fortress

who the fuck plays HoN anymore?

and the thing with Dota and LoL. the rage goes back and forth. it's just a bunch of people whining that their game is the better one. even tho it's solely based on their own opinions.

personal preferences always comes in front when a discussion about something appears when it comes to these 2 game.

also, minecraft was also more or less inspired by garry's mod just as much as the one you mentioned.

Minecraft's core inspiration was infiniminer though.

I kind of need to agree with your friend's mates there, cow. The same core game with small changes in its meta counterpart (such as more or less characters, the whole rune business LoL deals with, all of that stuff) is hardly enough to classify DOTAs as a genre. I started playing since All-Stars but my brother is a Starcraft guy, and the small amounts of ch

Know what, let me try again. I believe that there is more than enough space to be explored in the DOTA spectrum for it to become a legitimate genre, but nobody is exploring it. They are all mirror images of each other with the largest apparent distinction being in something like Super Monday Night Combat, and one could argue that that is just a regular multiplayer fps. For anything to become an established genre it first needs some extent of variety, and I'm hoping Blizzard can deliver that. Otherwise, I still see it as a glorified game mode.

You forget that LoL, HoN and DotA are not the only aos's out there. ToB, DoE, SotiS, AotZ, DotZ, Demigod, etc

Actually LoL has different heroes not just skins.


I wish that games would stop trying to emulate WC3 though, they really aren't advancing the genre at all.