Today I'd like to discuss the state of the DotA games: where they are at now and some speculative insight into where they're going.

NOTE: This is an opinion piece. I have no insider information regarding any of these products, and 100% of the contents below (other than indicated in quotation marks) are my own.

Blizzard DOTA by Blizzard Entertainment

-The Now: At Blizzcon 2011, Blizzard unveiled a shocking bit of their work on thier DOTA game. When Blizzard mentioned they were working on a DOTA game many months ago, I don't think I was alone in assuming that it would simply be another cute little custom game along the lines of Aiur Chef and Starjeweled - which although they were fun, neither made any significant impact on any gaming community. After reviewing what they have shown and discussed regarding the featureset of Blizzard DOTA, I have reversed my opinion. My first thought was that they put considerably more effort into this game than I expected, and they aren't going to release it in a way that allows it to be swalloed up into the Custom Game void of Battle.net 2.0 like Aiur Chef and Starjeweled. When looking at the intricate character select screen, the progressive gameplay adjustments, the announcement on how it will be released as a whole, Blizzard isn't toying around with this game. They are putting serious muscle behind this game and intend for it to succeed.

-The Gameplay: Blizzard's intention is to make the game more accessible with a less demanding learning curve than the standard DOTA model. They are designing the game to "encourage more aggressive, fast-paced gameplay, as well as team fights all over the map." Towers have limited ammunition that recharges over time, making it easier for heroes to team up and destroy a tower. Jungle buffs benefit your entire team, not just the player who acquired it. They are limiting the number of heroes and the styles of gameplay they offer. Currently there are 12 heroes and 4 different gameplay styles: Tank, Damage, Support and Seige. They are very interested in maintaining a healthy balanced gameplay experience. They are planning on adding more heroes in the future but they are focused on "quality over quantity". Heroes will be unlocked as you play in DOTA matches. The endgame will offer cosmetic items. It does not appear that Blizzard DOTA will have any sort of pre-game setups, such as talent points, runes, masteries, specs, spells, or configurations of any kind.

-The Future: Blizzard DOTA is expected to be free, "Currently we plan to offer a way to play Blizzard DOTA for free, possibly by including it as part of the StarCraft II: Starter Edition." They intended to do basic matchmaking at first, but appear in to imply that they will have formal ladders implemented at some point in it's future.

-Scraps' Speculation: Blizzard DOTA appears to be positioning itself as a balanced and casual-friendly approach to the genre. It will likely be completely free to play and not require a paid StarCraft II account. Blizzard's approach is likely going be to launch Blizzard DOTA alongside the Battle.net Marketplace, acting as both a proof of concept of a fully marketable game with aftermarket skins and character unlocks purchaseable upon launch. This will be expected to help breathe life into developers who are considering devleoping games for the Battle.net marketplace as opposed to other online gaming networks. The stated delay involving Blizzard DOTA is less likely related to polishing up Blizzard DOTA and more likely related to making sure the Battle.net Marketplace can be fully operational for the dual launch. In addition to programming, testing, art, internal support toolkits, training, polish and server stability concerns, this usually includes various licensing and legal hurdles such as enabling the collection of funds in all regional markets want to launch in. Battle.net may have already received most of the legal hurdles but there are always additional stipulations to research and iron out.

I expect to see Blizzard DOTA and/or the Battle.net Marketplace launching within a month (staggered, either before or after) Heart of the Swarm in the first four months of 2012.

League of Legends by Riot Games

-The Now: League of Legends (or LoL) is currently the juggernaut of the DotA genre. They have a monstrous playerbase of both casual and competitive players, 5 million in prize pool money, professional teams with professional sponsors, and a competent management team comfortable with the spotlight and embracing their community.

-The Gameplay: Players can customize the attributes of their characters before each game via runes, masteries and spells, as well as cosmetically with skins. Some of these pregame configuration tweaks require purchases with either Riot's play-money currency (IP) or real-money currency (RP). These configurations and purchases also require players to level up their accounts and invest time or money to be on a mathematically even competitive playing field when the game starts, much like an MMORPG. These investments also generate the "leveling-up" effect on players and create significant brand loyalty. This appears to be the biggest differentiator in Riot's strategy to approaching Dota versus any other model. This also provides what appears to be incredible financial stability. As a result of the large number of champions, runes, masteries, spells, items in addition to the standard variables of team composition, playstyles and strategy decisions, the game is arguably the least balanced of all DotA games. The banning phase for in Draft mode is less often used for strategy decisions based on oppossing team compositions as it is to prevent unbalanced champions from entering the battlefield whatsoever.

-The Future: They have released a new game mode, Dominion, which uses their deep pool of champions in a completely different way and promises to allow their game to evolve beyond DotA even if DotA players leave their game to a competitor. They continually release new champions which refreshes interest in the game at all skill levels as well as supports their financial model which could be described as "free, with optional paid enhancements". They have offered the largest competitive prize pool in eSports of 5 million dollars to ensure high skill players remain interested in the game.

-Scraps' Speculation: Currently, Riot doesn't appear to need a change to their business model to continue their impressive growth. Their game has a large and growing number of different champions (85) and they continue to make fine-tuning style balance changes regularly. They do a reasonable job of responding to both the general and professional communities of their game that are both too large to effectively or profitably. Due to the inherent difficulties of balancing a game with a deliberately increasing number of variables, I feel that in the long run, top players from League of Legends will migrate to Dota 2, which is positioning itself as the purest and most balanced form of competitive Dota, and will allow for slightly less luck and slightly more strategy. I mean, I would.

My minor perceived game imbalances aside, no matter what DotA game comes in second, League of Legends will come in first as the most played DotA game and highest overall revenue for the year 2012. They have a dramatically stronger financial model than any other Dota game for the time being.

Dota 2 by Valve Corporation

-The Now: Dota 2 is currently in limited beta testing, but is expected to expand its beta scope and get released much "sooner" than "soonish". Valve's original plan was to beta test Dota 2 and polish it to perfection, including the creation of all heroes and many additional features. Their groundbreaking live tournament, "The International" in Cologne, Germany in August 2011 offered 1.6 million USD total prize pool and the top 16 Dota 1 teams in the world. After this tournament, demand for Dota 2's release reached such incredible levels that Valve scrapped their old rollout plan entirely to sort of 'fast-track' the title in a releaseable form and get it into player's hands as soon as possible.

-The Gameplay: The gameplay in Dota 2 is being intentionally designed as an almost identical version of Dota 1 with graphic and interface updates for the 21st century. Reportedly designed mostly by IceFrog but probably improved by Valve's legendary team, Dota 2 is generally expected to be the "truest" to Dota 1 mechanics. While I found the game's graphics to be dark, stylized and smooth, the overall gameplay is true to form of Dota 1. There are no character configuration changes available before each game begins and it is not clear what if any sort of exterior leveling system will exist at launch.

-The Future: I said it earlier but in case you skipped right to this section: Dota 2 is positioning itself as the purest and most balanced form of competitive Dota, and will allow for slightly less luck and slightly more strategy. This will without a doubt draw serious competitive players to the game.

-Scraps' Speculation: One could almost envision League of Legends as the 'gateway drug' where people learn to love DotA and transition over to Dota 2 to play with the big boys in a more serious competitive atmosphere. The biggest thing preventing this from happeneing (other than the fact that Dota 2 isn't released yet) is a steep 5 million USD offered as an an overall tournament prize pool from Riot Games. While Valve has certainly shon they are willing to put big bucks behind Dota 2 in the form of 1.6 million USD prize money from 'The International', what additional money they are willing to offer towards a professional tournament circuit remains to be seen.

When it comes to competitive gaming, balance is an important factor. Professionals paying their bills with their success in gaming need to be able to rely on their own skills and strategies while limiting the chances of getting sandbagged by game bugs or imbalance.

Personally, I found it incredible to learn that fan pressure changed a Valve game's rollout plan, given Valve's history of responding to fan criticsm or comments regarding game releases.

Heroes of Newerth by S2 Games

-The New: Heroes of Newerth made it's public launch on May 12, 2010, about 8 months after the release of League of Legends. It initially launched as a one-time purchased game but became a free to play game 14.5 months later. When compared to League of Legends at the time of it's launch, it was seen as a more serious approach to the genre with more realistic graphics and a larger barrier to entry (purchasing the game rather than free-to-play). While it appears to boast a healthy playerbase, questions regarding it's sustainability in a new clearly crowded market are common.

-The Gameplay: Unlike League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth retains a number of notable DotA 1 mechanics including denying, hero gold loss upon death, and the DotA 1 stat system (Strength, Agility, Intellect). It is known for being the truest current updated version of DotA 1.

-The Future: I don't think I'm alone in being concerned for the future of Heroes of Newerth. There is no need for a debate over which game will do it better - the fact remains that everything HoN does, Dota 2 is planning on doing. I'm afraid this is a little bit like David vs Goliath, one of these companies has an extraordinary history, near infinite resources and iconic culture, while the other is simply a successful, new gaming company. Without taking anything away from S2 Games, Valve is simply the Gorilla in the room.

-Scraps' Speculation: HoN's only hope is that Dota 2 launches prematurely and flounders with bugs, and the players so thirsty for serious, original DotA will push into HoN and never look back. If Dota 2 fails to be a better game when compared to HoN, then HoN could have a place in the DotA genre for the foreseeable future. But as it appears to this writer, even the gigantic League of Legends has something to lose with the addition of Dota 2 to the scene - and League at this point only moderately resembles the core gameplay of DotA, much less copies it completely as does HoN.

Heroes of Newerth has a bad rap for having a community that is not exceptionally tolerant of new players. While I'm neither a newbie or a hardened veteran of DotA games, I can say that this criticsm isn't hard to believe but it might not be very fair to point at HoN as the real problem. I review cases for the League of Legends Tribunal on a regular basis and I find there are some recurring themes in this genre's community, not just one version of the game.

Every gaming community seems to have a subset of players that are unfathomably rude, but some matchmaking systems are better than others are keeping the true newbies away from the veterans. Original DotA 1 for example was a nightmare because there was no matchmaking system whatsoever. It would be clear before you even left your base if there was a player on your team who didn't know as much as you. However, in original DotA, you could harass a player into leaving the game and another player could join the game - problem solved. This is part of the effect that has carried forward to current DotA games, but not the whole story.

DotA at it's very core is different from most genres because the game design is inherently unforgiving to mistakes. It is a game that is designed to be played by ten people all willing and capable of communicating well with their teammates, and joining public games with random players simply isn't going to produce this result 100% of the time.

In defense of this criticsm, Heroes of Newerth would not be around this long with such a loyal playerbase if it wasn't doing many things right and improving on a regular basis. It is just as good a game as DotA 1, with an arguably better community based purely on the fact that they actually have a matchmaking system at all(albeit some players have not preferred it, it has improved since launch).

Phew. I hope I haven't angered anyone too much, I love the DotA genre a great deal and look forward to an exciting 2012. All comments and suggestions are welcome at garrett.schaper@wellplayed.org.

Cheers,

Scraps