Valve's DotA Game Will Be Announced Soon

Icefrog's Valve Update

GameInformer: Valve's Next Game Announced Here Tomorrow

Shacknews: Valve and Icefrog Game to be Announced Tomorrow (Wednesday)

The DotA project led by Icefrog (DotA All-Stars author for the last few years) is going to be revealed tommorrow on Game Informer.

Regarding that Valve Reveal of the new DotA coming in like 12 hours or so....

I wanted to share the following for entertainment reading.

Two months ago, because I really went nuts for League of Legends (obvious to everyone here), I wanted to know more about DotA and HoN and the whole genre. Guinsoo and Icefrog too... Anyways, what follows is what I interpreted from all the news with regards to the development of the new Valve DotA. It's not much, but it's a numbered list of the weird drama in DotA/MOBA land... and how excited I am about tomorrow's news (and how much I still am nuts about LoL). Enjoy ^_^

About Valve's DotA

1) Consider it DotA 2. It was confirmed earlier this year that Valve registered the trademark for "DotA." Notice they used the acronym, not the full name. (Side Note: it was announced about a year ago now that Icefrog was hired by Valve and he said he had the resources he needed to push DotA forward).

2) Riot reacted by registering the name "Defense of the Ancients."

3) Riot will not use this name, but Riot issued a statement that they believe Defense of the Ancients has always been a community made mod/map that belongs to the community and was always free. It was developed before even Guinsoo (designer for League of Legends) went ahead and updated it to DotA All-Stars before passing on the role to Icefrog. So they feel that Defense of the Ancients (and by that, they mean DotA) should always be kept as that special labor of love from and for the community.

4) Of course they wouldn't like another game called DotA to be commercially made either But it's gonna happen, and it's happening.

5) I think whether you are a fan of DotA (Defense of the Ancients), HoN (Heroes of Newerth), or LoL (League of Legends)--you will be looking forward to the new DotA game by Valve. Especially if you're a fan or player of the first two games, since Icefrog is the designer for it and well... let's say both DotA (in the last 2 years) and HoN were his babies.

6) To give HoN credit... some people didn't like the idea of S2 making a commercial game DotA with much the same gameplay, and profiting on it. To give S2 credit, they put in competitive features such as rankings, replays, tournament/league structure, and still support the game with anouncers and highlights, etc... They've done good on that. Also, Icefrog pretty much told the community he's cool with HoN.

7) In crazyland MOBA news... though the HoN detractors feel S2 ripped off the work done by Icefrog in the latest versions of DotA... it turns out that Icefrog secretly worked on HoN on conditions of a good pay and anonymity. Now this was first rumored and sort of leaked by an insider... and then it was blast-open outed by Penndragon (now community manager at Riot, formerly DotA All-Stars site manager I think) which you can see if you go to the old DotA All-Stars site (dota-allstars.com). CRAZY DRAMA IN DOTA/MOBA LAND! So hey, Icefrog fans can appreciate HoN ^_^

8) Everyone knows I freaking love League of Legends. I still think it's gonna be my main game of this type for years to come. That said, I am very excited to see what Valve's DotA will be like and I am sure I will still be playing LoL a ton, even if I buy and play a lot of this new DotA game! (I think LoL hits a sweetspot in the genre that's perfect for me).

LOOKING FORWARD TO TOMORROW'S REVEAL!

-Chanchai

Also... to celebrate the occasion, here's The DotA Song!

<object width="560" height="340"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qGO-becAB9Q"></param> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qGO-becAB9Q" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="560" height="340"> </embed></object>

 

Should be very interesting considering it's valve then.

 

Bizarre-ass games names.

 

Can't edit the original post, but here is a breakdown of the Acronyms:

DotA = Defense of the Ancients. Commonly referencing DotA All-Stars. Mod/Map for Warcraft 3 (Frozen Throne now). Originally designed by EUL. Guinsoo designed DotA All-Stars then passed the work to Icefrog.

HoN = Heroes of Newerth. Game that was developed by S2 and is very much like DotA. Designed for the hardcore DotA fan and competitive players.

LoL = League of Legends. Game developed by Riot Games. It's based on DotA but designed to be more accessible and have made changes to mechanics and even design philosophy. Star Designer: Guinsoo. Some former Blizzard staff are also on the team.

MOBA = Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. This is Riot's term for this sub-genre. Really only used in the League of Legends Community.

Action-RTS = What Valve (and I think other community members and games) have termed this sub-genre.

DotA 2 = Full Game being released by Valve and developed by a team led by Icefrog.

 

DotA 2 Announced

Summary:

* DotA 2's gameplay is pretty much DotA. It'll be updated, but consider this a port to a stronger engine and with added community features and stronger support by Valve and the DotA 2 team.

* Same gameplay, same characters, same names, new engine and artwork.

* Artwork will go for a cartoony style with contrast to make it easier to see what's going on (like League of Legends).

* Built-In In-Game Chat (this exists in HoN too).

* Leavers will be replaced with "bots." The bots won't be super strong (DotA will not become a single player game) but they will keep up in gaining experience and reduce the disadvantage that way.

* The big news about DotA 2 is community integration. You will unlock achievements, ranks, and skins not just from gameplay but your interaction with the community.

* Valve's big focus is on nurturing a positive experience because games in this genre usually suffer from hostile attitudes towars beginners. Much of the innovations of DotA 2 will be aimed at community integration and management. As Gabe Newell puts it, allowing the community to better service the community.

* Valve will provide tools for the community to make guides for the game. Details aren't given about this, but it will tie with the game--sounds like guides will be a module attached to the game so items can be recommended as you play along with other build order information. Maybe this will happen when you play, maybe it will be a tutorial mode. We will see.

* You will get achievements and probably visible status of some sort for how you conduct yourself on the forums. I'm guessing it's all positive reinforcement, will be interesting if there is any identification of negative posting.

* The big news is a Coaching Mode. Good coaches will likely get prestige and all pupils will be able to rate the coach. The coaching mode will allow the coach to watch the pupil's game how they see it (I'm guessing the coach will have a cursor for guidance) and talk to them on a private channel.

-Chanchai

 

And here's a hands-on preview of Blizzard DOTA which was unveiled this past weekend at Blizzcon.

Blizzard is putting their own brand on the genre with a Starcraft 2 mod of their own. They will be using characters from the different Blizzard franchises (you can think of this as Blizzard's own Smash Bros. or Megamix).

Gamespot: Preview Blizzard DOTA