RPS Feature Dota? I hardly knew 'er
Part of a miscellany of serious thoughts, animal gifs, and anecdotage from the realm of MOBAs/hero brawlers/lane-pushers/ARTS/tactical wizard-em-ups. One day Pip might even tell you the story of how she bumped into Na’Vi’s Dendi at a dessert buffet cart*.
Hello!
It’s time for some Dote Night real talk:
RPS Feature Getting to know you
Part of a miscellany of serious thoughts, animal gifs, and anecdotage from the realm of MOBAs/hero brawlers/lane-pushers/ARTS/tactical wizard-em-ups. One day Pip might even tell you the story of how she bumped into Na’Vi’s Dendi at a dessert buffet cart.
I spent the last few Dote Nights talking about tutorials in three MOBAs – what they did well and what they did poorly. I realise I didn’t make any suggestions of my own for where to start in terms of characters, though. This post is about which heroes I learned to play Dota 2 [official site] on:
Tutorials and practice in MOBAs is something I think about a lot. It came up again over the last couple of weeks because Riot ventured the opinion that a sandbox mode in League of Legends would introduce problems and take away from fun of the game.
I already talked about the sandbox situation in greater detail here but I figured I’d put forward a few of my own ideas for useful practice scenarios. Before doing so, though, I wanted to check on the current state of tutorials in MOBAs. A quick peek turned into a longer look because Dota 2’s Reborn beta has introduced a whole bunch of new tutorial stuff in the form of these guided bot games you can play in their entirety as well as a demo hero mode. What I’ll do, then, is go into Reborn’s guided bot matches in more detail to say what’s good and bad about them – how they work and what’s still not covered. Next week’s Dote Night will be for broader thoughts about MOBA tutorials in general. Feel free to pitch in with your own in the comment section!
RPS Feature Incy wincy spider
Part of a miscellany of serious thoughts, animal gifs, and anecdotage from the realm of MOBAs/hero brawlers/lane-pushers/ARTS/tactical wizard-em-ups. One day Pip might even tell you the story of how she bumped into Na’Vi’s Dendi at a dessert buffet cart. Today she’s going to talk about the aftermath of TI5 for pro players and spectators.
With the confetti [mostly] picked out of my handbag and Aegis of Champions in the hands of five new gentlemen, it’s time for the fallout from The International 2015.
For the players that all began a little while ago. The International is a great place to try and win stacks of money with your current team but it’s also a networking event and a recruitment opportunity. The best teams in the world (and their managers and associated folk) are all in attendance and an attractive prospect dissatisfied with their current roster is a veritable Cinderella in a shoe shop. I don’t think that analogy worked but you get the point.
RPS Feature Ready to role
Part of a miscellany of serious thoughts, animal gifs, and anecdotage from the realm of MOBAs/hero brawlers/lane-pushers/ARTS/tactical wizard-em-ups. One day Pip might even tell you the story of how she bumped into Na’Vi’s Dendi at a dessert buffet cart.
Today Twitter had a meltdown over the existence of a magazine about YouTubers called Oh My Vlog. You can pretty much guess at the reactions. The reason that I bring it up is that it prompted me to take my first internet quiz in about ten years.
Suddenly I was seized by curiosity. Were there Dota 2 quizzes? There must be! This is the internet, there’s a quiz for everything.
RPS Feature The case for a reset
Part of a miscellany of serious thoughts, animal gifs, and anecdotage from the realm of MOBAs/hero brawlers/lane-pushers/ARTS/tactical wizard-em-ups. One day Pip might even tell you the story of how she bumped into Na’Vi’s Dendi at a dessert buffet cart.
Above is a picture of two bears. I have been watching a bearcam while I try and write about matchmaking rating (MMR) in Dota 2 [official site]. Eventually I started imagining the bear you can just about see in the background shouting at the one on top of the little waterfall “WHAT’S UR MMR, SCRUB?” as they both fail to catch any fish.
I guess that’s as good a jumping off point as any: I don’t associate MMR with anything good. I associate it with miserable gaming experiences and being used to undermine people in discussions.
RPS Feature It's dead butterflies all the way down
Part of a miscellany of serious thoughts, animal gifs, and anecdotage from the realm of MOBAs/hero brawlers/lane-pushers/ARTS/tactical wizard-em-ups. One day Pip might even tell you the story of how she bumped into Na’Vi’s Dendi at a dessert buffet cart. THIS WEEK, however, she will be complaining about her Dota 2 petting zoo!
I am staring at a hang screen in Dota 2. I think I just tried to compile a map but I can’t be completely sure because programming words have always been a bit of a mystery to me.
Being sick and jetlagged I took the obvious decision that this would be a good time to build a petting zoo as a custom game mode using Dota 2 Reborn’s toolkit. So far I seem to have made a horrible map in the Hammer editor where the trees look goofy and the textures are unsubtle and there’s an army of butterflies completely by accident that I can’t get rid of. The totally separate INTENTIONAL army of butterflies is in a totally different location but I got cross with rotating them individually so they’re currently in grid formation and now they look weird and menacing and, crucially, unable to fly. I think they might all be dead.
