By Jim Rossignol on August 4th, 2011 at 4:21 pm.
The new game mode is called Dominion. It is a capture-point game mode fought on a new map called the Crystal Scar. Riot explain: “On the Crystal Scar players will battle for control of five capture points, holding them to damage their enemies’ nexus. The game ends when one team had seized control long enough to drain the opposing team’s nexus down to zero. Battles last around 20 minutes, and focus on high-intensity, player-versus-player combat.” High-intensity! None of this middle-intensity rubbish, right. No date for it yet, but presumably after PAX and GamesCom, because it’s being shown off to the press everyone at those events.
There’s also a trailer for it around here somewhere. Hmm.
04/08/2011 at 16:30 Dhruun says:
Ahh, I wondered why they introduced the Kalamandra story arc, unless I’m very much mistaken this map appears to be based around that setting. Now I feel special for reading the lore.
04/08/2011 at 16:54 Dragatus says:
They had me totally fooled. I used to think it was supposed to result in an official match between Noxus and Demacia, like the one between Noxus and Ionia back in December.
04/08/2011 at 17:09 OctaneHugo says:
yeah I was thinking this too, although certainly not as a new gamemode. mite b cool.
04/08/2011 at 18:32 Daniel Klein says:
+200 internets. The village frozen in time is indeed related to this :)
Glad someone spotted it! Sometimes I think our awesome writers plant all these cool storylines leading up to announcements only for me.
05/08/2011 at 05:34 Devan says:
Daniel, are you going to be at gamescom this year showing off Dominion, by any chance?
04/08/2011 at 16:32 zoomab says:
No information on how many players by team?
04/08/2011 at 16:45 lasikbear says:
Its 5v5, you start at level 3 with extra gold. There are a bunch of other changes too, someone on the forum is trying to list everything he can find: http://na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=1055227
04/08/2011 at 16:37 Bluebreaker says:
Wait wait wait.. you mean that a Dota clone is getting rid of the awfull boring grinding draging mechanics and leave just the fun combat? this looks promising.
04/08/2011 at 16:50 tenseiga says:
Dota tried to do it ages ago, http://www.dota-utilities.com/2010/03/dota-capture-point-mode-guide-dota.html
It didnt work that much no, people stopping caring about it and i havent seen a single game in ages. I dont think its going to take off for LoL, everyone just prefers vanilla dota rather than some hero arena style gameplay.
04/08/2011 at 18:34 Daniel Klein says:
Give Dominion a try. We’ve been playing it internally for 8 months now, and it’s a LOT of fun. Remember it’s radically different from Summoner’s Rift. It’s a map that is made from the ground up to enable CP play, there’s no lanes, no destructible towers, no bases you can push etc. It’ll be very very different from a fun-mode for dota.
04/08/2011 at 21:56 Zakkeh says:
Give Bloodlines Champion a try. If you enjoy the combat, that will definitely be the game for you.
04/08/2011 at 16:46 Anjiro says:
I can’t wait for this! The Summoner’s Rift feels seriously old after 2000+ games.
04/08/2011 at 16:51 tenseiga says:
They should reskin it, i have the dota reskinner to play on all kinds of weird terrain and loved the beach one.
04/08/2011 at 17:10 OctaneHugo says:
MAGMA CHAMBERRRRRRRRRRRR
04/08/2011 at 17:15 jonfitt says:
I am honestly surprised Riot haven’t produced tons of “reskins” of Summoner’s Rift. The topology is sound, but a face-lift would help it feel less repetitive.
04/08/2011 at 17:19 lasikbear says:
Don’t think they will ever do more than two skins for Summoners Rift. One of the devs mentioned on the forums that they are adverse to the idea because it adds to the size of the game, which is a burden for new players installing it.
Seems like a kind of silly reason, but maybe they will at least rotate some new versions in.
04/08/2011 at 17:57 Baka says:
Wasn’t there a snow version of it once? What was the reason for deleting that one? Certainly not the size of the client?
04/08/2011 at 18:38 Daniel Klein says:
Yep, there’s three versions of summoner’s rift: Summer, Autumn, Winter. We did remove the winter map after running a poll where the community resoundingly said “we prefer the autumn version”.
And yes, it is actually size that keeps us from having more versions of SR. This is supposed to be a game you can quickly download and check out. Every MB we can shave off helps. Is there sufficient value in having 3 versions of SR (over 2 versions) to justify 300 MB? I don’t think so.
(It didn’t help that the snow particle caused weird slow-down issues on some machines)
04/08/2011 at 20:54 Kryopsis says:
With all due respect, every new champion that comes out adds to the size of the game. I am pretty certain the community would rather have a new map than 10 or so champions. Of course, new champions are an important source of income but I find size to be a silly reason not to include maps/alternate versions of maps.
EDIT: LoL player since November 2011.
04/08/2011 at 21:34 Nallen says:
@Kryopsis The future. Tell me about it.
04/08/2011 at 22:17 valru says:
Since they’re just reskins why not sell them and/or have them be optional downloads.
05/08/2011 at 00:09 Josh W says:
If you’re a time traveller, you need to get better at hiding it. What would the Doc say?!
05/08/2011 at 01:56 Nick says:
pretty sure he’d say ‘Great Scott!’
04/08/2011 at 17:11 Pike says:
I wonder if it’ll have bots, I hope so. I started playing LoL a couple of weeks ago, and contrary to everything I’ve heard about the community, everyone I’ve played with in Co-op vs bots has been really nice so far. And bot games seem like the best place for someone of my skill level (i.e. 0).
04/08/2011 at 18:39 Daniel Klein says:
No bots on Dominion at launch, sorry :( That would have been quite a lot of engineering effort that we would have had to take from some other project (say spectator mode). Of course we want people to be able to play against bots, but we currently don’t have the manpower to make it happen. That said, we’re hiring like crazy, so who knows.
04/08/2011 at 18:42 shaydeeadi says:
Mr Klein, do Riot have plans for a Mac version, and an eta maybe please?
04/08/2011 at 19:03 Daniel Klein says:
No ETA at the moment, sorry :( We were exploring a port made by a third party at one point, but there were serious problems around this. When we make a Mac version we want it to be perfect. So unfortunately it won’t be any time soon.
04/08/2011 at 19:39 Warskull says:
While the a cap point DotA style game is a good idea, I can’t really say I have great confidence in Riot either. They’ve done a lot of poor design in the past (for example their whole surrender system.) Did you guys actually try and address the game length issue and bring it down to a more playable length?
05/08/2011 at 08:21 Thants says:
What’s the problem with the surrender system?
04/08/2011 at 17:16 weizur says:
If it goes by their typical release schedule after announcing a new feature this should be out within the next 2 years.
Basically I’ll believe this once it’s actually in the game and I can play it.
04/08/2011 at 17:24 Brise Bonbons says:
I really can’t manage to muster any excitement for this. LoL is really only interesting because of the tactical maneuvering, and the overall struggle for control of a complex and multifaceted map – at first glance, this looks like it will end up in mindlessly bum-rushing the enemy and watching your kills stack up. In short, the champions in LoL are really simple – I don’t see them being interesting in a scenario like this.
Also the changes from normal mode sound idiotic. A new “personal score” focused score board? Banned items? So we need to learn an entirely new arbitrary set of items? Starting at level 3 with a bunch of gold? What is this, Fastest Map Ever?
Sounds to me like this will be abandoned in a few weeks after release, and everyone will go back to whining for a new map again. But who knows, maybe everyone will love it because they can skip levels 1 and 2…
EDIT: I did think of a positive point for this map: It should be a decent way to practice a new champion! Well, the only way, since they removed the ability to do solo custom games, which was the only way to spend 10 minutes learning the skills and attack timing of a champ…
04/08/2011 at 17:51 Koozer says:
That’s what I was thinking. It’s like being shot in the bum from anywhere on a CoD map versus A Battlefield Conquest map, where you know where they’ll be coming from (mostly).
04/08/2011 at 19:54 Spectre-7 says:
@Brise Bonbons
They removed solo custom games? Maybe I’m confused about something seeing as I just started playing this last night, but I didn’t have any trouble setting up a custom game alone with bots filling out all the other slots.
04/08/2011 at 21:21 GeorgeB says:
don’t know if troll or impatient and unable to read
05/08/2011 at 08:23 Thants says:
They didn’t remove the ability to do solo custom games.
05/08/2011 at 17:36 Lightbulb says:
They disable solo play practice games when traffic is busy. So one night it will work the next it might not.
04/08/2011 at 17:34 KikYu0 says:
awwwwesome <3
04/08/2011 at 18:15 koex says:
It’s that hard to just implement CUSTOM MAPS? Seriously can’t understand why HoN and LoL developers are losing the battle against Dota 2 before it starts.
04/08/2011 at 18:31 Daniel Klein says:
Correction: we’re not just showing it off to the press at Gamescom/PAX. We’ll let everyone who wants to have a go at it. We’ll have plenty of machines running Dominion all day. (We’ll also have a big shiny booth, right next to the Intel Extreme Masters stage where they’ll play LoL too)
04/08/2011 at 18:48 Ricotta says:
I’m a pretty huge HoN fanboi, but I’m definitely going to give this a gander at PAX.
04/08/2011 at 23:12 benji_online says:
I still wonder what the heck happened to this awesome new graphics style/engine Riot promised last year. That has vanished together with Magma Chamber I suppose?
04/08/2011 at 19:06 Reapy says:
When this comes out I’ll probably pop back into LoL to try it out. I enjoyed LoL a bunch when I tried it out but ultimately once I learned what you need to do to succeed and the overall pacing of DOTA games in general, I threw in the towel as the mechanics weren’t really anything I was interested in.
I think a mode like this where you are just focusing on those rapid fast group fights might be pretty interesting and I look forward to trying it out.
04/08/2011 at 19:22 Crainey says:
They just keep promising more and more, this is really something. what ever happened to that molten magma like map they promised? They tell us about these cool things they are going to add/do and take forever to actually implement them, it’s very disappointing.
04/08/2011 at 20:22 President Weasel says:
Middle intensity is the worst of all the intensities.
04/08/2011 at 21:07 pakoito says:
So now they’re ripping off BLC in a(nother) attempt to attract as much people to their game with gimmicks?
04/08/2011 at 21:12 pakoito says:
Removed the pitiful part. It is a legit attempt, but I’d rather start adding some meat to the game than diluting everything to squeeze more bucks. The game is, and worst, looks heavily “marketing-driven” instead of letting the gameplay speak for itself.
04/08/2011 at 21:59 innociv says:
BLC is awesome. I wish they had more advertising.
04/08/2011 at 22:50 pakoito says:
Same as HoN, all ads of MOBA genre are run by Riot and their partners.
05/08/2011 at 08:26 Thants says:
I’m fairly sure that Bloodline Champions didn’t invent capture-point arena battles.
04/08/2011 at 21:08 man-eater chimp says:
Huzzah! As much fun as playing 450 consecutive games of Summoner’s Rift is (I’ve never felt the urge to play Twisted Treeline) it will be nice to play a completely different mode!
04/08/2011 at 21:58 innociv says:
And they’ll also add more bugs in the process, which still won’t be fixed 2 years later.
05/08/2011 at 01:42 Shiny says:
Was Battlefield 1942 the first game to have this type of mode?
05/08/2011 at 17:36 FalseMyrmidon says:
No, Tribes 1 at least had it. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a Quake mod that had it before that.
05/08/2011 at 02:57 Metonymy says:
Indistinguishable from arathi highlands in wow?
I’m not sure how flimsier champs are going to succeed in this situation. The advantage goes strongly to the champion that can’t be quickly chased away.
05/08/2011 at 12:39 InternetBatman says:
Are you going to have to pay for this game type? I’d be pretty irked at that since I bought the retail copy way back when.
05/08/2011 at 17:39 Lightbulb says:
Doubt it…
Noone will play it if they made you pay for it.
For those who have never played TT its actually really fun and the games are much faster. Also being 3 players your skill has more of an effect on the outcome – which I like.