Is it just me..

[Cormag]

Or does every one of my fellow map makers absolutely hate DotA? I saw a few people talking crap about it, and I know I do. The reason why is because it's so popular, none of us can ever get our maps to be even slightly popular because DotA rules B.net. I've tried to place my map on Zion (Because I lost my WC3 CD case so I can't play on B.net... CD key is lost), and nobody joins it because it's not DotA. This makes me so mad! Anyone else have any comments on this?

[Prozerran]

Simple minds have simple needs. DotA, from what I understand, is just a lesser form of Diablo. In my opinion, War3 offers more than Diablo and Starcraft ever did. Essentially, War3 merged both games together, and so you'll have those players that lean more toward the Diablo/DotA side of the game and those that turn away from War3 altogether to go play Starcraft.

What you might try to do is come up with some equivalent to DotA using Starcraft units in the War3 engine. I saw one popular demo of marines battling zerg. It'd be cool to see some SC heroes with special abilities in a Diablo setting, and maybe a subsequent RTS beta of War3 with SC units, buildings, and maybe even heroes/generals/whatever. That would definitely juice things up and generate interest somewhere.

But get over DotA's popularity... it's really not worth worrying about. Be creative and think about the players out there that would go ape-shit over a Starcraft Arena. Hell, there may be a First Person Shooter engine that might be compatible with the War3 engine... if not, I think Blizzard should look into it. I would totally shit my pants if SC II incorporated minimal RTS, RPG, and FPS in the multi-player format. The technology to support that is available, from what my computer programmer friend tells me.

[Morkeliph]

I'm a fellow map maker, and I do not *hate* DoTA. So I guess it is just you...

No, I do not think that DoTA is the greatest map ever created, but I can definitely see why it is so successful. For one, it is very professionally made. The game both runs and looks great. Second, it is easy to pick up for most people. You don't have to mess around with base building and management. You don't have to worry about finding and protecting an expansion. You don't have to worry about scouting out you opponent constantly and always knowing exactly what he is up to. All you have to worry about is your 1 Hero. That kind of ease of management is very appealing to most players because they don't have to work so hard. Third, it offers a huge variety of options to the player. How many freaking Heroes are there to choose from? Like over 70 or something. And how many items can you come up with? The item recipes are a definite strength for DoTA because people like to be able to work towards something as long as it isn't too difficult. Additionally, the items are all very well made, not to powerful, nor too useless. Their costs are always approximately equivalent to their actual game worth. Additionally, the items are designed in such a way that different items and recipes are better suited for different Heroes, which further increases the subtle complexities and options available in the game. When you combine the number of different Heroes there are to choose from and the number of different item combinations you can use to essentially transform that Hero into something completely different, the possibilities are nearly endless. That perhaps is the biggest draw of DoTA. The game need never get monotonous if you really get into customizing you Hero and exploring the different possibilities of the game. Additionally, what DoTA does for a lot of players is improves the micromanagement skill in ladder games. It's a real chance to practice your timing and control of Heroes in a relatively forgiving situation. I know that is the one thing I come away from DoTA always having learned, is someway to successfully improve my micromanagement in melee games.

[PrestonBurke]

*Sigh* Map making, it's been so long. Whats that? I don't recall anything called map making... if so does it relate to slaying Diablo in any way?

In my year of map making before i brutally lended my TFT disc to a friend (and since that day, i have not seen it since) DOTA has never been a blockade in map making. I've had always been a RPG and LOAP fan (ah LOAP, my farm LOAP project is still in halt, it was going to be the most detailed LOAP ever made, but once again, *sigh* i couldn't finish it without my disc) and thus made many UMS maps. However i do believe once i decided to make a AOS, but since DOTA seemed to be the standards of all AOS maps i quit before the project even went on the white board.

So amongst this rambling, no i don't hate DOTA. I do however, hate those crazy hardcore DOTA fans that go "likze omgz! DOTA rocks your caps n00bs! real men play DOTA not melee. pfft. screw your NOTD, DOTA is here!"

[Blacker]

Aos is now based only on DotA.Someone make AoS map and it's played only once (on B.net)...

DotA Rules :rolleyes:

I hate too DotA's CRAZY fans...
Don't want talk anymore about DotA,ergg.......

[Dayoh]

I saw one popular demo of marines battling zerg. It'd be cool to see some SC heroes with special abilities in a Diablo setting, and maybe a subsequent RTS beta of War3 with SC units, buildings, and maybe even heroes/generals/whatever. That would definitely juice things up and generate interest somewhere.


U described one of my maps, striaght out, its one of my earlier works but heres the link anyway - http://epicwar.com/maps/8800/

I used to loathe dota, now i play it sometimes, its a "crap" map compared to some other maps, hero's and spells are not unique, imba hero's. But its a pretty faced paced game, i dont mind it now lol.

The game both runs and looks great.
The game runs shit, they have done some mapping errors that screw systems over, at the start of the map when the map creates all the units even my system hits 20fps and it ussually runs at a nice 70fps, and when several spells go off in one area if im there i can hit as low as 10fps, i have a good system btw lol. Before they "optimized" dota it used to take 30 mins even 1 hour to get past the load screen, its really dodgy in there, i swear if they add more stuff it will blow.

[h0bgawblin]

You don't have to mess around with base building and management. You don't have to worry about finding and protecting an expansion. You don't have to worry about scouting out you opponent constantly and always knowing exactly what he is up to. All you have to worry about is your 1 Hero. That is exactly what I hate about most games today and is why I don't play dota. I play games to learn thier complexities, and I want complexities to involve my actions, not just my decisions. The act of selecting an item, is so boring. Also, controlling 1 unit when it's an rts format blows my conch. I never understood solo hero strats, nor have I ever been entertained by solo hero custom maps.

People who like dota arn't stupid or anything. I just feel frustrated at the lack of games that support my idea of what's "fun" in a video game. I look for custom games that are unique, one of which is an AoS where you can choose to either micro and build units for the lanes as well as battle for expansions. Meanwhile your allies, are the heroes of those lanes. It's really cool. The game I am thinking of is unrefined and the heroes are imba, but I love the idea.

[uberfoop]

Overall, if you add up the quality of every aos ever, DotA would be near the top of the scale. DotA isn't really all that BAD to be honest...It just isn't that GOOD. The only reasons I ever play it at all are:
1. Try finding a ToB game late at night x.x
2. Everyone I know at school plays it, so in these late-night instances I find myself doing dota.
The thing is, it's gameplay is a joke and, well, you don't really do all that much. If you're on the side that won the rock/paper/scissors, you get a nice 3-second ability spam kill every few minutes (lol?). If you're on the losing side, you get to respawn, get permastunned, and die again to respawn in 70 more seconds. The people who play it hardcore are hypocrites to the point where they not only say it's perfectly balanced but also debate about which heroes are the best on their own forums.
DotA feels too much like a closed arena; it's open and yet there's small obstructions and fog of war EVERYWHERE, none of the cosmetics make any sense at all and just come up as cheap and flashy, the terrain is refined but boring, there's powerups, Quake 3 sounds (the most closed-arena-ish sounds EVER. At least use something cool like the Halo 1 announcer voice ffs), an overly dynamic gimmicky pick system, a game mode titled 'WTF?', and players being generally biaotchy. There's counterintuitiveness everywhere; kill your own allies to deny experience and gold to the enemy, destroy your fortifications for basically the same reason, try not to push because the enemy has the advantage if you're fighting by their tower (ToB fixes this by making building kills not grant xp, so you are encouraged to win pushes. It works out very nicely.), etc.
We need more maps with a battlefield feel like Tides of Blood where you play to win (in dota, if you attack towers and there's no creeps around, somebody WILL scream 'OMFG STOP BACKDOORING YOU GHEY NOOB**************'), push to siege (and there IS sieging because battles last more than 5 seconds and often happen at various bases), siege, etc. It also helps that ToB has a reasonable hero count so that the game isn't just 'rock/paper/scissors' renamed as '[something] of the [something]'. Mercs fit in, pirates throw boats, malph is a goat-riding tree, and, well, there's a billion other cool things that are appreciatable in ToB rather than just gimmicky crap. AotZ is pretty similar, though with a different style.
I'm going to just ignore AoM because not only is it offensive that everything in it is a direct ripoff of something in another map, but the balance between things makes absolutely no sense.



edit: If you think it;s weird that I said dota isn't that bad but still posted this massive textwall about whats wrong with it, I DARE you to post some crap aos from some random dl site so I can tear it up. My critisism is usually pretty overly-extensive when I do it hardcore.

[Blacker]

Nicely,I agree.

I was occupated by DotA few months ago.I tried every hero.I can say that ToB is better.I plyed with my friends yesterday and that's popular,now in game-room in Belgrade DotA FALLS!!!Good choose of ToB is some differences than other AoS's,which makes map perfectly."Choose random hero to spawn random hero or random races to all players get random hero (I'm not sure in this,but something like that).Perfect choise of spawning units and remake original Blizzard Heroes,like abillities.It's good to play map with towers like in ToB.You won't die(like in DotA) after 25 secs.DotA = BORING!

I already said,here's a lot of maps which are better than DotA.I'm begginer and I'm sure that I can make same map,we want something special,which I'll try to do something new,what anyone seen before(AoS)...First,I got to make some maps easy to effort,to learn more...

[Morkeliph]

To get down to it, I personally think both DoTA and ToB pale in comparison to just standard melee. But when you're a little sick of melee but still want something Warcraft related, DoTA isn't a bad option.

[h0bgawblin]

I played ToB and don't really like thier heroes too much. With dota, you have to watch out and counter those zomg 3 spell kill moves. In ToB you don't have that fear, which makes an AoS to me. ToB also has slim pickings in the hero item department, which is the one thing that makes any sorta depth in an AoS. Maybe I'm thinking about a different game, but that's my 2 cents.

You guys want a real game? Poke the angry ogre, uther party, DON'T MOVE THE PANDA!, now those are games that make you laugh and create good times...

[uberfoop]

I played ToB and don't really like thier heroes too much. With dota, you have to watch out and counter those zomg 3 spell kill moves. In ToB you don't have that fear, which makes an AoS to me. ToB also has slim pickings in the hero item department, which is the one thing that makes any sorta depth in an AoS. Maybe I'm thinking about a different game, but that's my 2 cents.

What, the undodgeable combos that you can't avoid no matter how good your micro is? Oh, yes, getting killed for no reason whatsoever and having to respawn for 70 seconds before another potential fight happens is all the fun.



You're looking at Tides of Blood wrong. It's not about mass slaughtering heroes because you have a ridiculously powerful spell combo of gg and are so awesome that you don't even need skill to win, it's about doing what it takes to push and destroy the enemy base. If you're basing your evaluation on watching people try to pull 1-man assassinations, you were probably playing some low-end pubby game full of dota nubs.
Besides, the fear is still there, it's just that if you are skilled enough you can actually avoid the bs. If you didn't get blink-dagger boats of 1200 dmg in your face from pirate while sin threw rocks at you, with you desperately trying to micro your dagger of spell avoid for the not death, you weren't playing a real game of ToB. I find ToB combat to be about 3.57 times more intense than dota combat, and covering about 5.6847356 times the percent of time during the game that you're fighting.
Killing in ToB is strategic; You don't kill because you can buff your hero into an unstoppable 4000 hp beast with 800 damage and an attack that slows people, you kill because otherwise you won't be able take out that tower.


The reason there aren't a lot of items is to avoid the stuff that makes dota gameplay so bloody boring. The difficulty to balance things increases exponentially as more content enters the map, and nobody intelligent can look you in the eye and say that they are capable of balancing the amount of stuff that's in dota.



You're right though; In tob you don't have to worry about getting snagged by undodgeable 3-hit-kill BS. But you DO have to micro and worry about...OMFG BLM IS KILLING MEH KNIGHT SPAWN TOWER!!??!!

[Blacker]

Some time before,I watched how some kind a 'kid' playing DotA.That was +450 dmg,+ around 3000 HP and +80 armor.He killed his opponent in 5 hits,I don't see any point in that.

Whatever to say...

[Dayoh]

DoTA isn't a bad option.

True, althoug the game has way too much hype.
Put it this way, if the fans didnt think of Icefrog as a god and the same goes for the map itself, it would be a better map.

[Blacker]

Icefrog made DotA,but he's not better of any mapper in WB...

[uberfoop]

Icefrog made DotA,but he's not better of any mapper in WB...
We prolly shouldn't stress that.
Icefrog's mapping skill isn't TOO bad; His score only really drops when you consider that he's pulling an Eric Bauman and credit-whoring.
And for this corner of the internet, that's bad.
^
From the general point of view of people over here:
Anticopyright, good. Owning the MPAA and/or RIAA, you are teh pwn. Taking other people's stuff and calling it yours, you are going to hell.

[h0bgawblin]

What, the undodgeable combos that you can't avoid no matter how good your micro is? Oh, yes, getting killed for no reason whatsoever and having to respawn for 70 seconds before another potential fight happens is all the fun.



You're looking at Tides of Blood wrong. It's not about mass slaughtering heroes because you have a ridiculously powerful spell combo of gg and are so awesome that you don't even need skill to win, it's about doing what it takes to push and destroy the enemy base. If you're basing your evaluation on watching people try to pull 1-man assassinations, you were probably playing some low-end pubby game full of dota nubs.
Besides, the fear is still there, it's just that if you are skilled enough you can actually avoid the bs. If you didn't get blink-dagger boats of 1200 dmg in your face from pirate while sin threw rocks at you, with you desperately trying to micro your dagger of spell avoid for the not death, you weren't playing a real game of ToB. I find ToB combat to be about 3.57 times more intense than dota combat, and covering about 5.6847356 times the percent of time during the game that you're fighting.
Killing in ToB is strategic; You don't kill because you can buff your hero into an unstoppable 4000 hp beast with 800 damage and an attack that slows people, you kill because otherwise you won't be able take out that tower.


The reason there aren't a lot of items is to avoid the stuff that makes dota gameplay so bloody boring. The difficulty to balance things increases exponentially as more content enters the map, and nobody intelligent can look you in the eye and say that they are capable of balancing the amount of stuff that's in dota.



You're right though; In tob you don't have to worry about getting snagged by undodgeable 3-hit-kill BS. But you DO have to micro and worry about...OMFG BLM IS KILLING MEH KNIGHT SPAWN TOWER!!??!!

Haha, that is a priceless reaction. One thing I knew I would get out of my statement, was a response educating me about ToB. I admit, I only played it about twice, but it seems very slow pace. So it's nice to hear about some of the strategic elements of it.

[uberfoop]

Haha, that is a priceless reaction. One thing I knew I would get out of my statement, was a response educating me about ToB. I admit, I only played it about twice, but it seems very slow pace. So it's nice to hear about some of the strategic elements of it.
Admitedly, ToB games CAN take a while (one time I played one that got stalemated for 3 hours where we were wittling eachother down by about 1 building every 15 minutes, so I just quit). Pretty much the only big complaint against it is the game length. Still, seeing as how it takes 10 minutes to get a game started sometimes, the gamelength isn't TOO bad.


But yea, join a game with a lot of decent people, and it's pretty hardcore. Unless the 'pretty good' people are all on the Undead team, and the allies team is all nub, and the walk around next to eachother at half hp while pirate waits on top of the temple with boat ready and a blinkdagger. QUADRUPLE BOAT.
I've actually seen that before too, it was amazing. 3 of them died right away and cow tried to run but got finished by pirate's extremely awesome fly-into-the-air-and-bash-your-skull-in Jolly Roger Hoist.

[Blacker]

We prolly shouldn't stress that.
Icefrog's mapping skill isn't TOO bad; His score only really drops when you consider that he's pulling an Eric Bauman and credit-whoring.
And for this corner of the internet, that's bad.
^
From the general point of view of people over here:
Anticopyright, good. Owning the MPAA and/or RIAA, you are teh pwn. Taking other people's stuff and calling it yours, you are going to hell.

I hadn't said that he's soooo bad in mapping,he's not,but is he TOO cool as someone saying it?Bcz he made DotA?brgfff,offcourse not!In DotA are NO any system balance,you MUST confirm that...

[h0bgawblin]

Balancing in dota comes from the team aspect of it. Team games are where it's at in dota. A lot of decent strategy involved. However, I don't like to face other teams. It's a battle of out laming one another.