Last night as I was lying in bed thinking all the dota I’d played during the day - I’ve been playing DOTA AI for lack of a suitable online environment in which to play in - and was thinking about, firstly, what makes it fun and, secondly, why it isn’t on the DS. For the sake of logic, I will look at the second of these points first as that weighs upon my mind more and the first point inevitably flows into the second.
For those who are unaware, DOTA DS does exist. DOTA DS is, as the name implies, DOTA which you can play on your DS. I don’t know if it has multiplayer support or not, to be honest, I didn’t get that far. For those who haven’t played it, rest assured it is an affliction you needn’t subject yourself to. I enjoy playing DOTA and so when I heard about DOTA DS, I thought it would be awesome; but the experience of playing DOTA DS I imagine was similar to that of those who saw Star Wars Episode I after the long break following the previous Star Wars film. That said, this inevitably led me to ask the question, why is DOTA DS so awful? There are a few reasons for this not limited to:
- There are only about 5 heroes to choose from
- The sprites used in game mostly came from Warcraft 2
- The controls were clunky
- The game freezes after a few minutes
- The controls were not intuitive
In brief, it was ugly, hard to play and very unstable; however, were these issues dealt with, would the game still be enjoyable? There is one thing I will say about DOTA DS to its benefit and that is that it is a fairly decent port of the Warcraft 1, 2, 3 interface, by which I mean, I think it would have been hard to make that interface any better given the restraints of the console. It is herein that I would like to try and resolve the gap between what makes a game like DOTA good and the strengths and limitations of the DS as a console. To do this we must ask ourselves what makes DOTA DOTA and what makes it fun?
For those that are unaware - if you’ve read this far, you’re most likely not unaware - DOTA is a Warcraft 3 map in which up to 10 players are split onto two teams of 5 players each. Each player controls a unique hero and the goal is to destroy your opponents’ base which is situated at the other end of the map. In addition to this, each team has one computer controlled player (not included in the 5) which controls all the various buildings as well as its own units (referred to as creeps) that endlessly spawn at the base every minute or so and march towards the enemy base in an effort to destroy it. Inevitably these creeps come into contact with the enemy team’s creeps and they fight. It is usually in this environment in which your hero tries to push back the enemy’s creeps to allow yours to triumph or, as is more often the case, you focus on eliminating the enemy’s heroes to make it harder for them to defend themselves. As the game progresses, your heroes gain experience which is used to allow them to gain levels hence making your heroes stronger and more able. In addition to experience, for killing units, whether they be enemy heroes or creeps, players gain money which can then be used to purchase equipment for your hero. The game is over when your team destroy’s the enemy’s base (although there are different modes in the game which allow you to change the victory conditions). This is, essentially, what DOTA is. The experience itself can be somewhat different and, most certainly, it’s rare that any two games are the same (the wide difference between the heroes makes this so). So, the question is, why can’t this simple concept work on the DS? Maybe we will see such a game on the DS in the future, but what would it look like? How would it play? And above all, how would it be received?
DOTA is a fairly old map and is based on a earlier map (from either Starcraft or Warcraft 3, I’m not sure) known as Aeon of Strife. What I have described above, I believe, is the same description of any Aeon of Strife map. Everyone controls a unique unit and you all try to wipe out the enemy base. Given the clunkiness of the DOTA DS I described above, perhaps simply porting DOTA to the DS isn’t such a good idea, instead it would be better if an Aeon of Strife map was specifically designed for the DS.
Now, I’ve just said that DOTA is a kind of Aeon of Strife (AoS) map, so for anyone who has played Warcraft, you are no doubt aware exactly how many dozens of AoS maps are available to play. The truth is there are heaps, yet more people play DOTA than any of the others, why is that? Perhaps it is because DOTA has the right balance between length of game (roughly an hour a match), difference between each game (rare is it that two rounds of DOTA are alike) and it offers a rewarding experience to both veterans of DOTA or AoS maps in general and beginners to the genre. DOTA is not a map that leads beginners by the hand, it assumes you are familiar with the interface of Warcraft prior to playing and, more often than not, the best and most effective way of finding out how certain skills or items work is by purchasing them and finding out first hand rather than by reading large slabs of text (almost certain to turn people off a game). There was one other AoS map which I and a few others were familiar with called Tides of Blood. I remember that being a perfectly enjoyable map, but the rounds took too long and there wasn’t much variety between each game. That said, as an AoS map, it was very enjoyable, so so long as the lessons of DOTA are learned and capitalised upon, a non-DOTA AoS game on the DS has the potential to be thoroughly enjoyable.
How would an AoS game on DS work? For this section, I will assume the reader is fairly aware of the DOTA interface and the DS hardware. DOTA is played in Warcraft 3 using a two-buttoned mouse in conjuction with a keyboard, granted you may say the keyboard isn’t entirely necessary, but even if you only use it for communicating with your teammates, it’s still used none-the-less. The DS consists of a D-pad on the left, 4 buttons on the right and two shoulder buttons in addition to a touchscreen. The number one frustration I faced when playing DOTA DS was moving and attacking with my hero. On computer it’s easy, you select your hero and right-click where you want him or her to go. On DOTA DS, you tap your hero to select it and then… well… I can’t remember. If you tap on another unit, you either select that unit or, perhaps your hero walks to that unit, but what if you want to attack it? Maybe you can push a D-pad direction to set you next tap to be ‘attack’ or ‘move’, but heaven help you should you need to control multiple units (eg. summoners, Geomancer in DOTA); that just isn’t effective. What about scrolling around to look around the map? Maybe the d-pad should be used for that, but then you still have the movement/selection issues from before.
It was at this time that I realised I was looking at it the wrong way. What I have said above is simply porting DOTA/AoS to the DS, but such a system just isn’t suited to the console. How would you normally control a unit/hero in a real-time game on a console. Well, normally, the D-pad moves your unit around, so it makes sense that the same holds true in any DS AoS game. Wouldn’t that create problems if you have to control multiple units? Well, yes and no. How do you control multiple units in console games? In a few of the games I’ve played you use things called ‘orders’. The other units would probably be a lot more independent than they are in a game like Warcraft, but remember even in Warcraft they are not fully independent. Unless you hold-position whatever unit you have, that unit is still going to attack any enemy that comes nearby and do a whole host of what we would regard as ’stupid’ things.
Another frustrating thing I remember about DOTA DS is what I would call the minimap/hero-config screen. There would be a button you would push to switch the screens around enabling you to access the minimap (to move around) as well as to level up and use your hero’s abilities and purchase items. What that meant was, when you’re in the heat of a battle, you would constantly need to switch screens to access your hero’s skills. Woe betide you should you need to urgently run away while you presently have a select-unit skill awaiting a target highlighted. Again, this is an example of a fairly decent port of a Warcraft function, but it simply doesn’t work given the constraints of the DS. Ultimately AoS DS will perhaps initially look to have more in common with Battalion Wars (GC) or Freedom Fighters (All) than it would with DOTA as we know it on PC.
Perhaps what I have said above seems somewhat boring or obvious, but it was the later thoughts I had that made me really excited at the prospect of such a game. At present, DOTA or AoS maps are a feature of Warcraft/Starcraft/RTS games. They are not games in themselves; but what if they were? What options would be on the table? As a standalone DS game, what would AoS DS look like? I can see a menu screen already:
- Campaign
- Skirmish
- Multiplayer
- WFC
- Options
Looks like the exact same list you’d see in any RTS game and the possibilities seem equally endless. The excitement in my mind dwells on what the Skirmish and Multiplayer sections would look like. For those who have played DOTA, you’d be aware of some of its faults. The need to input modes at the start, leavers, unbalanced teams. AoS DS could ammeliorate some of these faults as, given it would be a stand alone game, it would be made with these in mind, not something tacked on at the end.
Can you imagine you and 4 of your friends together with your DSs about to play AoS DS. First you talk about what map you want to play, of course map in this case would mean terrain. This isn’t really an option playing AoS maps in Warcraft 3 as the terrains is invariably tied to the game. For there to be different terrain, the entire map has to be remade. What might other maps look like? Will it always be two teams on one map? Will one map always consist of one map? Is there a possibility of having two completely seperate terrains exisiting on the same map through which travel between them can only be achieved using special portals.
What heroes will be available to use? Presumably those from the ‘campaign’, but what about custom heroes? Perhaps a system could be set up allowing players to create their own heroes using the skill-set provided in the game.
What will the starting and victory conditions be? The default or something more exotic?
There are 5 of your altogether, so does that mean you will all be on the same team against X number of computer opponents or will you split up? If AoS DS is built on its own, unlike in Warcraft 3 AoS maps, the AI needn’t simply be tacked on after the fact. The game can be built with the AI in mind and, in that way, it stands a better chance of having a more sophisticated AI than present AoS maps found in War3 have. What’s more, if one of the players drop, that player can simply be controlled by the computer without damaging the team too much (provided the AI is sophisticated enough to adapt to the circumstances of the player that left).
All of this might sound interesting, but it is important to note that these should be extras in addition to a ‘default’. The default mode should be something that definitely works and is definitely enjoyable. These extras should be saved for those players that are looking for a bit more excitement.
That just about wraps up all my thoughts on DOTA/AoS for DS. I think it could work if it is made specifically for the DS and not just ported over. I believe the aspects that make DOTA fun can be realised on the DS in a game similar in experience but not necessarily in interface. I think it would be fascinating if such a game existed on the DS (provided the work goes into it), but I don’t see it happening in the short term at all.