League vs. DOTA isn't even the debate anymore....

[Human Snorenado]

...apparently it's LoL vs. THE REST OF VIDEOGAMES IN THE ENTIRE WORLD COMBINED if these numbers are to be believed

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2012/10/12/league-of-legends-bigger-than-wow-more-daily-players-than-call-of-duty/

[Human Snorenado]

I just don't get the appeal of MOBAs.  They're kind of boring as dogshit.

[Rahxephon91]

My friend plays Legaue and sometimes I look over while he's playing just to get an idea and it just looks like the most boring thing ever.

I don't get it.

It just kind of looks like a bunch of people walking around boring looking rts maps while controlling 1 unit. It looks like WoW PVP gaming, another thing I found boring as it just seems to be me running around this dude hoping for skills to refill so I can spam them. Then again, I also don't care for competitive gaming as a whole.

[originalz]

This article is pretty old, I thought I had seen it before.

Anyway now that DOTA2 is out of beta and riding the hype from TI3 it'll be interesting to see how things go.

[cool breeze]

I just don't get the appeal of MOBAs.  They're kind of boring as dogshit.

What I don't get are why people are for one and against the other.  It's like people who argue about Gran Turismo and Forza.

[Human Snorenado]

This article is pretty old, I thought I had seen it before.

Anyway now that DOTA2 is out of beta and riding the hype from TI3 it'll be interesting to see how things go.

Ha! You're right, it's from late 2012.  Still, those numbers are just dick punchingly insane.  I DON'T GET IT.

[Himu]

I can see the appeal of mobas in the same way I see the appeal of Warcraft and other rtses.

[Human Snorenado]

I liked the single player campaigns in RTS games, couldn't get into single player MOBA games, as obviously it's designed even moreso with pvp in mind than rts games.  I've just never liked pvp anything other than mario kart and goldeneye, and I'm guessing that was a product of the dudes I hung out with in college more than anything else.

[Cerveza mas fina]

I get what moba's are about, but without a team and loads of time it just isn't that great.if I was in college I would be all over that shit.

I'd rather play 1vs1 in Starcraft too in Bronze League and get my ass kicked, at least it will take 15 min instead of 50 with like in MOBA and I won't get any disconnects from teammates.

Or just some fps.

[pilonv1]

I just don't get the appeal of MOBAs.  They're kind of boring as dogshit.

I can see why they're popular, and I think if I was a college student with 12+hrs a day free I'd be into them. I know I've hit old man phase because I find the grand strategy games or anything turn based more interesting than something that requires accurate and timely clicking.

The streams I've watched of them on twitch are horrendous though, music too loud and just generally annoying.

[Phoenix Dark]

From what I understand LoL is the most accessible, whereas DOTA2 is more skill based. I noticed the DOTA2 tournament last weekend was constantly hovering around 200k concurrent viewers which is insane.

It has effectively killed SC2's momentum and sapped players from other games as well; most of my former WoW friends play LoL now. Meh, the genre doesn't appeal to me. I played DOTA2 for 5 minutes, didn't make it through the tutorial.

[Human Snorenado]

I made it through the first section of the DOTA 2 tutorial, haven't payed LoL at all and don't see myself ever doing so.

I guess the appeal is "hey it's free*" and you can sink a fuck ton of hours into it?

*sort of

[Cerveza mas fina]

I just don't get the appeal of MOBAs.  They're kind of boring as dogshit.

I can see why they're popular, and I think if I was a college student with 12+hrs a day free I'd be into them. I know I've hit old man phase because I find the grand strategy games or anything turn based more interesting than something that requires accurate and timely clicking.

The streams I've watched of them on twitch are horrendous though, music too loud and just generally annoying.

Pretty much, if I was a student now I would probably play moba over mmo's or shooters.

[etiolate]

I have fun with MOBAs until the community rears its head. They're not super amazing, but they're quick fun.

How seriously its taken is not something I'll ever understand. The competitive popularity doesn't make sense either. Map clicking isn't exactly high skill or is it visually interesting. Honestly, only fighting games are interesting to watch as an outsider. The popularity aspect? I imagine its the extremely low barrier to entry of being F2P. It also sucked in the toxic WoW crowd, and those folks are great at self promotion.

[StealthFan]

I'd play it if matches weren't so long.

[archie4208]

LoL is a good game, but I can't stand Riot.  They remind me of a 16 bit era SEGA that goes out on a limb to trash the competition.

To their credit, they have been much less hostile in the past 6 months, even going out of their way to avoid holding any tournaments during Valve's event last week.

[Great Rumbler]

MOBAs are the creepy, white van-driving, pedophile uncles of the MMO genre.

[Stoney Mason]

There is a whole new generation of kids who don't like single player games. They like co-op experiences or pvp experiences almost exclusively. They want social experiences.  Add in the fact that these games are "free" and they are perfectly tailored to this audience.

I can't play MOBA's simply because of my flaws which are the same reasons I don't play traditional RTS games. I simply can't think fast enough in a real time strategy game. I need turn based action which is why I prefer Civ games or asynchronous strategy games on ios.

[Cerveza mas fina]

I prefer multiplayer pvp as well and I'm not a kid, but something which i don't have to spend a minumum of 45 minutes from and be penalized for other peoples shittyness.

What I really want is a pure pvp mmo. Camelot Unchained has me hoping.

[mjemirzian]

I think MOBA popularity comes down to a couple factors:

It's an RTS, but you only need to control one character. Lower skill cap overall.

Most of the action is PvE - creeps, towers, dropping wards without fighting, etc. with maybe 5-15 minutes of direct PvP combat in a 30-60 minute game.

Individual heroes, unit upgrades and leveling/class roles give it an RPG feel.

It has a social element, play with your friends, etc. and you can blame someone else when your team fails. Also F2P lol.

Even back in the Warcraft III days when Dota was in its infancy, I preferred arena combat games like "Advanced Hero Arena X" that didn't have NPC creeps running around, towers, laning, and such. Basically a pure teamwork PvP experience. Well apparently other people didn't think so. That suggests to me that people prefer MOBAs over RTSes or arena combat games because of the lower skill cap and heavy PvE elements.

[headwalk]

i enjoyed my time with dota for what it was, but the sad fact is they take a unholy number of hours to gain the knowledge proficiency to play reasonably well, while plateauing on a mechanical level fairly quickly. that and having to rely on four other spooges to ensure you don't just blow an hour of your life for zero payoff.

i just wish the RTS scene had anywhere near as much going on as MOBAs.

[hampster]

Awesomenauts is pretty fun. I should try getting back into it. Anyway MOBAs seem like they could be fun if I found a group of 30+ year olds who play like twice a week and are all equally terrible at the game. The public matches would chew me up and spit me out

Wasn't DOTA2 (or maybe league) going to add a horde type mode? Or maybe that was a rumor.

[archie4208]

There were text strings suggesting a horde mode for Dota in the last patch.

It'll eventually come out, but Valve time lol

[etiolate]

I think MOBA popularity comes down to a couple factors:

It's an RTS, but you only need to control one character. Lower skill cap overall.

Most of the action is PvE - creeps, towers, dropping wards without fighting, etc. with maybe 5-15 minutes of direct PvP combat in a 30-60 minute game.

Individual heroes, unit upgrades and leveling/class roles give it an RPG feel.

It has a social element, play with your friends, etc. and you can blame someone else when your team fails. Also F2P lol.

Even back in the Warcraft III days when Dota was in its infancy, I preferred arena combat games like "Advanced Hero Arena X" that didn't have NPC creeps running around, towers, laning, and such. Basically a pure teamwork PvP experience. Well apparently other people didn't think so. That suggests to me that people prefer MOBAs over RTSes or arena combat games because of the lower skill cap and heavy PvE elements.

Yes, this seems to be so. What initially surprised me about MOBAs was the first advice to newcomers is to... not PvP. Just kill creeps and hide behind your creeps.

I think this is one of the reasons I like Awesomenauts. Due to he increased movement ability, I spend a lot more time fighting other players in that than other MOBAs I've tried.

[tiesto]

I've never even played a MOBA before but its RTS (a genre I'm not particularly a fan of) heritage, and reports of the community being unbearable ensure I probably never will. Weirdly, I don't know anyone who plays them IRL. Even my friends who were huge into Starcraft back in the day.

[Rufus]

I know nothing of MOBAs, but I see nothing to suggest that LoL isn't fun to the people playing it. Except for streamers. They seem to be in it for the money.

[archie4208]

The game came out in 2009 on a shoestring budget and Riot has been playing catch up ever since.

Also, the game mishmashes every trope possible and has no aesthetic cohesion.  That's why you have demons from hell fighting lolis. 

[Stoney Mason]

To be honest the concept of a moba seems more appealing to me than the traditional rts. I like the idea of only having to worry about one character versus micromanaging an entire army. And the nature of how the characters are more individualized like a fighting game is also more appealing to me.

That being said it all falls apart when I actually try to play one and don't enjoy myself.

The closest I've ever come to enjoying one was Monday Night Combat. The fps part was enough of an fps that I could tolerate and even like the moba lite aspect it had.

[Rufus]

Yeah, same here. I don't have the mental bandwidth for competitive RTS. I can do single-player, but even that's pushing it. Loved Warcraft 3 though, partly because of the hero system. MOBAs should be right up my alley, but the acidic community and hour-long matches have kept me away so far.

[Cerveza mas fina]

Oh look Ruzbeh doesnt like a game.