Maximum Bert said:
Now I know absolutely nothing about the genre so I am just wondering where would be a good place to start.
I...honestly don't know. Partly because I don't play a huge range of MOBAs...it's mostly just DotA:A/Dota 2 I've played and I tried LoL for a bit.
Maximum Bert said:
I am thinking of giving the upcoming Dead Breed and the one by Blizzard a go when they come out
I've not heard about Dead Bleed (should I assume it is something with zombies?) but Heroes of the Storm (the Blizzard one) does sound like something you might enjoy. They are targeting the more (as much as I hate that term) "casual" portion of the market and from what I know, it should be a darn solid game. Easy to pick up and start playing. It certainly is something the genre needs, I believe, and Blizzard may just be the best people to provide it. When it comes out (so...*checks watch* in about 10 years or so...) I would definitely recommend giving it a go.
Maximum Bert said:
but as of now Im not sure if I should try Smite, Dota2 or Lol is it even worth playing if not with friends?
Smite, I don't know about, I'll assume it's similar enough to the other two, though, for the purposes of giving you an advice: no, it is probably not a good idea. A team of random can, and probably would, be rather...let's say annoying. Especially if you are new. At least if you have a grasp on what the overall mechanics are. When I played LoL, I found it shares a lot of aspects with DotA:A, so I did have an advantage when I started playing it. But, again, I did play DotA:A quite a lot until that point.
Maximum Bert said:
Just trying to get a few perceptions on the games and what people think of them also a quick explanation on how to play for dummies would be nice if someone wants to do that just make sure its not overly heavy on the lingo I dont mind looking up what some slang means for the game but I dont want to be doing it all the time.
Well...the concept is simple, really. Talking about DotA here
- you have two bases on the opposite ends of the maps. One team for each base and each team and both sides are mirrored, except the players.
- each team consists of (up to) 5 players each controlling a hero.
- the pool of heroes is rather big and each has a unique set of abilities, which makes for a distinct playstyle with each, although some may share some concepts in play - say, melee characters who are durable, or in other words "tanks", yet how exactly they do their tanking may differ across them, also what can they do besides tanking is another big difference. For example Axe can also deal quite a lot of damage during taking hits, often times
because he is taking hits as one of his abilities is an AOE counterattack, at the same time, Magnus can give his whole team an advantage by positioning, nuking, and stunning the enemy team.
- the goal is to get to the enemy base and destroy their ancient (it's in the title Defence of the Ancients - basically the biggest building there).
That's really it as an overview.
How you get about to doing it is more involved, though. I think the biggest challenge is learning all heroes. You don't necessarily need to be able to play them all at expert level - fuck it, I suck a lot with several, however, you do need to know how to play several, and what the overall strengths, weaknesses, and abilities of the rest are. The trouble comes from both there being
so many heroes (they are, more then 100, I believe, in Dota 2) and also the exact interactions between them and other heroes as well as items. Some heroes can do some pretty impressive combos. Actually, if we generalise it a bit, all combinations of heroes have them opportunities - say, a team with a lot of stuns is as deadly as just a combo of two heroes that are
really deadly when together. And, of course, items are there to make the thing more complicated.
Honestly there is a lot of strategy and theory and I don't think I can cover all. That's probably also a reason why the MOBAs have such a steep entry. Still, if you do feel like playing Dota 2 - I would point you towards Purge - he makes excellent guides and videos about the game and really does offer insight into a lot of it. If you look at his YouTube channel, look for the replays - he also has live games he records and places on there, but they...frankly sort of suck. Well, at least when it comes to explaining what's going on. Understandable as he's, you know, playing at the time - the replays are him commenting about his play - it offers greater insight into what happens, why it happens, and his thought process and decision making during play - that's probably the most important thing you CAN learn about the genre - really, the rest of the stuff, like exact items and heroes, are not as relevant - you can't do without them, sure, but knowing all of them would not help you win as much. However, sadly, they ARE the easiest thing to learn as a newcomer and are also required for a newcomer to be effective. It's a vicious circle.
Maximum Bert said:
Oh and how does DOTA2 get away with having characters like Lina Inverse? do they have the blessing of those who created (hold the rights to the character) or do they have a deal going on?
Actually, that doesn't happen. In Dota 2, all copyrighted names have been tactfully removed - Lina Inverse is just Lina now, Rexxar is Karroch, the Nerubian Weaver is Weaver, the Buriza-Do Kyanon is called Daedalus, Lothar's Edg is Shadow Blade, and so on. Weirdly, "Slithereen" still exists, yet I thought it was a Warcraft thingie. Also, the Drow Ranger is still around when I am even more sure that's a D&D race and they protect their stuff (then again, "Drow" may be under an open license somewhere).
At any rate, DotA and DotA: Allstars do use copyrighted names and I am not sure how. I would assume it's because they don't actually make money off them or something.