Back in the day, when gaming was just starting to mature out of its infancy, we had these things called demos. Yes, I know some of you don't know what those are. Many of you were born yesterday, so give me time to elaborate. Demos were these CDs that you would pop into your Playstation ( 1, not 7 or whatever number you whippersnappers have made it to nowadays ) that contained about 7-8ish shortened versions of games. Some notable demo-version games I recall enjoying were Legend of Dragoon and Spyro. But one day, my Mom brought home a demo that contained a game that would destroy my brain forever.
I ripped the demo out of its packaging, popped the CD in, and started scrolling through the games. I discovered Crash Bandicoot Warped, pretty cool. Played some Brave Fencer Musashi, awesome game. And then it happened. I dived into this game called "Bomberman World", and after my first game, I literally would not let my Playstation rest. Sun up to sun down, I would play freaking Bomberman World nonstop. I played the game so much, even my Mom memorized all the phrases from the game, and sometimes she would repeat them i.e. she would say "Darn!" out loud, which was what the characters in game would say after they ran into a "Curse" item.
And this wasn't story mode Bomberman, this was just hours upon hours invested into the multi-player mode. The demo version didn't have a story mode, but I didn't care. It was this new, arena-based fighting game with explosions and items that I almost instantly became obsessed with. Destroying blocks, collecting items to get stronger, and then going head to head against my cousin and a few AI opponents was just the best thing ever. I harassed my parents for months until my Mom finally went out and got me the full version of the game. #HappiestDayOfMyLife. Even years after I sold my PSX and got rid of all those games, she went out and picked me up a PC version of Bomberman World because she remembered how crazy I was about the game. #BestMomEver.
I didn't realize until a few days ago that I literally have not changed as a gamer. Down through the years, the only games I've truly invested tons of hours into were multi-player arena-based fighting games ( with the exception being Pokemon ). Bomberman turned into Super Smash Brothers. Super Smash Brothers turned into Dragon Ball Tenkaichi. Tenkaichi turned into Rumble Fighter ( a game a lot of you probably don't know ). Rumble Fighter turned into Lost Saga ( another game a lot of you probably don't know about ). Lost Saga turned into Heroes of Newerth, which led to where I am now: League of Legends, Dota 2 and Heroes of the Storm.
It also probably explains why one of my favorite BYOND games is Proelium. It's basically the same concept. 2 teams battle it out on one map in extremely hectic, skill-based combat. It's like, I was born for this genre. You may have seen me mention this before, but I spent 800 hours in the Dota 2 closed beta alone, which I had only been apart of for about 2 months. To put that in perspective, there are 730 hours in a month. If I played 800ish hours within 2 months, that means that I was literally spending over 50% of my life doing absolutely nothing but playing Dota 2 over those two months. It's scary when you think about it. But that's how much I love this genre of games.
MOBAs are the games I was destined to play. What were YOU destined to play?
ID:1838219
 Apr 21 2015, 11:43 am (Edited on Apr 21 2015, 11:48 am)
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Apr 21 2015, 11:48 am
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Fugsnarf
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RPGs
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Fugsnarf wrote:
RPGs RPGs are for casuals who can't handle adrenaline-fueled PvP. You should switch over to MOBAs and become an elite. | |
EmpirezTeam wrote:
RPGs are for casuals who can't handle adrenaline-fueled PvP. You should switch over to MOBAs and become an elite. I have a love-hate relationship with MOBAs. Well, mostly hate. I really want to enjoy them because they look like a lot of fun, but the learning curve is generally too much for me. Usually learning curves do not turn me away, but the fact that MOBAs are, as the name implies, online, makes it harder for me to enjoy my time. Most MOBA communities I've seen are not very welcoming to newbies, and it's an uphill battle to get past being ostracized and hated for not knowing what you're doing. The nature of PvP is that people want to win, and who the hell wants to play with a newbie that will guarantee winning will not be happening? I never got over that hill, so I always get discouraged and go back to my RPGs. There's nobody in Dark Souls telling me that I suck and that I should piss off, so I keep playing and get good at it. | |
Mario Kart. (no not racing)
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Fugsnarf wrote:
I have a love-hate relationship with MOBAs. Well, mostly hate. I really want to enjoy them because they look like a lot of fun, but the learning curve is generally too much for me. Usually learning curves do not turn me away, but the fact that MOBAs are, as the name implies, online, makes it harder for me to enjoy my time. Most MOBA communities I've seen are not very welcoming to newbies, and it's an uphill battle to get past being ostracized and hated for not knowing what you're doing. I never got over that hill, so I always get discouraged and go back to my RPGs. There's nobody in Dark Souls telling me that I suck and that I should piss off, so I keep playing and get good at it. That's why you play with friends. In fact, most of the people who are professionals and making 6 figures off games like League of Legends actually got into it because of friends, and then started teams with those friends. Unlike MMORPGs where you can solo your way from beginning to max level with no issues, the MOBA experience without friends to accompany you is going to be an extremely stressful one. But trust me, when you get 4 friends who know how to play, and your opponents are decent enough to put up a good fight against you as well, and it's 50 minutes into the game and everything boils down to one final clash between you and your foes, there's nothing else like it. It's the equivalent of what Kobe or other basketball players feel when there's like, 2 seconds on the clock and it's up to them and only them to make the shot and send the game into overtime. It's quite unreal. There are times when I've played League or Dota 2 and my heart felt like it was about to burst through my chest. That's how tense and closely matched the game was. It gets to the point where the slightest mistake or miscalculation means your entire team loses the game, or a slight moment of godlike reaction time by you wins the game. MOBAs are serious business. If you're playing Dark Souls, it sounds like you're looking for a challenge. Trust me, there's not many bigger challenges in gaming right now than League of Legends and Dota 2. There's gotta be someone you know into online games IRL. Ask them to play League with you, they'll probably enjoy it, then voila. That's 1 less person every game calling you a retard. Find 3 more and you're set to have the time of your life. | |
That green guy is going HAM. Pro plays. Pro plays!!!
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DOTA? I have it installed. I never got in to it primarily because I never have anyone on my steam who plays it. So, I stick with League since that's pretty much what everyone I know plays.
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I have watched that video like 5 times and I have yet to figure out what it was that roshan did that was the bait.
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Lugia319 wrote:
I have watched that video like 5 times and I have yet to figure out what it was that roshan did that was the bait. At the beginning of the game, one of the players from Alliance ( or No Tidehunter as they were known at the time of this video ) ran into the Rosh pit at level 1 and died to Rosh. Now, with Alliance's team comp, it's actually not unheard of to go for a level 1 or 2 Roshan. So when EG ( the enemy team ) saw that someone on Alliance had died, they were thinking "Oh snap, they were trying to level 1 Rosh and screwed up! We better go kill them and steal Roshan for ourselves!" The only problem is that it's exactly what Alliance wanted them do to, that's why they were standing up on the high ground. When EG ran into the river to check Rosh, they had no vision of Alliance standing right behind them. As soon as EGs team ran into the river, Alliance came down after them and basically got two free kills because they weren't expecting to get ambushed all of a sudden. And it doesn't matter that Nature's Prophet died to Roshan, because the level 1 death timer is extremely short and NP has a global teleport, so he was able to die to Roshan, spend like 5 seconds dead, and then globally teleport back to where his teammates were and initiate a 5v5 ambush. This is why Tobiwan ( the commentator ) was going crazy. He's been casting Dota since before the term "MOBA" even existed, and he's never seen a team intentionally die to Roshan in order to bait the enemy team into the river and kill them. Alliance knew EG would come charging into the river to contest Roshan if they saw that someone on Alliance had died to Roshan, so they sent NP to suicide, luring EG out of position, and then came up from behind for some surprise buttsecks. The same team that did this epic bait in the video actually went on to win the International 2013, which had a prize pool of almost $3 million. Their strategist, "S4" is the guy who came up with it. It was his idea to do the bait in the first place, and it was also his clutch ultimate on Puck in the International that won his team the tournament. This is why I like MOBAs, because on the surface it just looks like all that matters is reaction time and reflexes, or being able to hit buttons in the right order really fast, but this video shows it's actually game knowledge and cunning that sets the scrubs apart from the legends. | |
Fugsnarf wrote:
EmpirezTeam wrote: i used to be like you, but abandoning my casual side was the best decision i've ever made. i know a lot of people who claim to hate MOBAs, and a lot of people who once hated them and now love them. after seeing so many people convert, i've come to the conclusion that it isn't actually a matter of personal preference. MOBAs(specifically league, because it's easier to pick up) are for everyone. it just takes time to understand and truly appreciate what they bring to the table as a genre | |
EmpirezTeam wrote:
This is why I like MOBAs, because on the surface it just looks like all that matters is reaction time and reflexes, or being able to hit buttons in the right order really fast, but this video shows it's actually game knowledge and cunning that sets the scrubs apart from the legends. That's the same thing as saying knowing all the camping spots in Call of Duty sets you apart from all of the new players who want to just get started in CoD. Now, just let that sink in and think about it. Any game, with experience, brings knowledge on how it functions to a whole new level. You end up devising new ways to utilize the game's functionality is all. It's one the basic things humans do. Think about doing math problems. 10 * 1 Would you do them one by one or would you just figure out that the 1 in 10 just adds a zero to the number? If your answer is the latter, then you've learned this through experience. Because they don't teach you that in elementary school. In fact, most teachers (the lame ones at least) teach you the hard method of doing things. You either learn how to do this method on your own or you learn it by seeing someone else do it. Same thing as CoD. You learn the camping spots by seeing campers camp there. That's why when the idiots camp the same spots all game, I have a fun time running around the map racking up kills. They just sit in dark corners like emo kids and I come around and give them a reason to be emo... BOOM! HEADSHOT! OOOO BABY A TWIPPLE. Edit: I saw Nix posted before I could finish this post. So I'm going to just say this. Shutup. Ciao. | |
No, strategizing in Dota 2 is not the same as hiding in a corner for 30 minutes in CoD. Next argument.
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EmpirezTeam wrote:
No, strategizing in Dota 2 is not the same as hiding in a corner for 30 minutes in CoD. Next argument. You have to plan how you are going to humiliate the next camper though, ET. Cmon, get your facts together. I thought you were better than this. Pathetic. | |
Xirre wrote:
EmpirezTeam wrote: I used to play SWAT 4, and in that game we had tazers. Like every shooter, there were camping retards who sat in one spot the whole game, but if you were fast, you could beat the retards to their spots. I'd run directly to the camping spot, and switch to my tazer. As soon as they get in the room and get all cozy, I'd taze them, and because the taze duration was longer than the reload time, you could taze them quickly enough to where they weren't able to recover and retaliate. There was also an exploit to get infinite ammo, so I'd sit there and taze them like 20-30 times ( which means they were rendered unable to do anything for like 5 minutes straight ) until they just finally gave up and disconnected from the server. It was the ultimate revenge against those losers. They'd be in chat like "WTF HACKER", "ENJOY YOUR BAN", "NOOB". Fun times. | |
Nix wrote:
i used to be like you, but abandoning my casual side was the best decision i've ever made. I can read into ET's comments pretty well at this point. You, not so much. That seemed serious, and frankly quite condescending. Woe is me! I simply cannot escape the trappings of the filthy casual world. Please do not look down on me, enlightened one. I just cannot get past my enjoyment of lore, plot, character development, adventure, puzzles, platforming, and varying game mechanics. What nonsense that I would actually get enjoyment from such things. Clearly I should throw ALL of that out the window and never think of such things. It's all rubbish. | |
Over the years, not so much recently though, I've played quite a lot of games and was into LoL for quite a while before quitting due to a lot of little reasons;
1. the streamlined way they let you copy another persons build order, even via the in-game HUD, therefore reinforcing the meta-game. 2. the reliance on a team which may or may not suck ballz and lose their tower within the first 5 mins. 3. the game uses team roles, similar to the "holy trinity" found in RPGs with very specific Tank, DPS and Support heroes. Meaning that the game turns into a sort of babysitter simulator where you gotta wipe Ashe's arse for her and waste all your gold on wards. #PurifiedCapitalism 4. The metagame itself leaves very little room for innovation in public games, as builds have been fine tuned by the most hardcore and heroes are changing a lot quite regularly, even if it is just inherently as a result of another hero being buffed. 5. The way they release a new hero and it's OP as shit and then nerf it once the next hero is released, creating a temporary incentive and false promise on what you're buying. I don't know if this still happens at the moment though to be fair, since I havent played in ages, so they might have changed. But this was extremely noticable for Akali and Vayne. Finally, I think MOBA's have a lot of good qualities but their fundamental "last-hitting" process as the main source of gold gain is terrible, boring and has bred a really embarrasing form of elitism. "Jeez, lern 2 last hit n00b!!!" | |
Also, separate from my "analysis"(lol) of the MOBA genre I would just like to say some things that are more on the original topic.
I also fondly remember PS1 demo's, such as Abe's Odyssey, the animated Hercules game, Silent Hill and those weird Net Yarozz mini games you sometimes got, like that Pac-man style one where you were a guy in a haunted house with the classical music (Alton Towers tune) playing really fast, you had to pick up lucky charms and if you were caught by a ghost he would quickly exclaim "ooo!" in a way that would make you imagine real bad things had just happened to him. I really enjoy city builder games, so that would be a good genre to criticize if you wanted to get me back. | |
Paying someone $1 to finish my game for me, then you could have your own MOBA on BYOND (man, MOBA is such a terrible term).
https://mega.co.nz/#!8VJkySaY!JyQ-InTsYbEnG5nOyHTI57d3QQM4nO mtRFWvIznRKNk | |