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[Shadowlord]

I'm curious: Does anyone else see 'MOBA' or 'tower defense' used in the description of a game, and promptly lose all interest in it? I definitely do (in both cases).

[miauw62]

Yeah, i dont really like TD games, and the multiplayer games are usually P2W.
There are some pretty good TD games out there tough. My favorite is a game with three types of towers and heroes are trying to steal some gems from you. I dont remember the name.

[hemmingjay]

I definitely roll my eyes and assume the worst but then finish looking into them to see if they offer anything new. The problem is that lazy marketers often use these terms to draw in a crowd even if they are not accurate descriptors.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

ya, these types of games usually leave my unsatisfied and are mostly without backbone, though they can be fun timekillers

[Briggsy16]

I never look at a game and instantly write it off, that's a good way on missing out on some really good games.

[head]

I never look at a game and instantly write it off, that's a good way on missing out on some really good games.

^

I disliked MOBA alot at first, then i took the time to you know figure that shit out and i've been having a blast.

Mostly good timerkilers tho

[Frumple]

I'll give most TDs a chance (if not two) simply because I like the kind of hands off play it represents -- set up your whatever and have it go, see what happens, adjust or learn from it. Frankly, I'm fond of Dominions 3's battle system for very similar reasons, so the preference isn't genre locked. I like stuff that gets a lot of the twitch removed, really, which factors into it.

That said, most TDs are trash (even moreso than the standard signel to noise ratio when it comes to games/everything) and we still haven't substantially progressed beyond what was done in the starcraft/WC3 (especially the latter) days.

Now that... other one... is, well, strange for me. I bloody loved AoS (Aeon of Strife) maps back in the SC/WC3 custom map days. I still absolutely love the general concept and implementation inherent in what AoS represents. What I'm not nearly as fond of is the inspiration all these AoS knockoffs have been taking from DotA and its ilk. DotA was -- is -- a fairly solid map, especially from a technical/balance (comparatively, and relative to the number of moving parts it has) perspective. That, I wouldn't argue. What is also represents, to me, however, is a backslide in what AoS style games could be -- should be, arguably.

For me, it's in the name. AoS means Aeon of Strife. Warfare and conflict on an epic scale, armies clashing against each other as great figures walk the earth, directing and leading troops into battle and changing the very face of the land as they step. It represents RTS or -- in its best -- TBS scale battles being automated so that you may walk among it as a general or squad leader and change the weft and flow of battle with your bare hands and sheer grit; a departure -- and an excellent one -- from the omniscient armchair general position of your standard strategy game. It's all the scale and influence of a large theatre strategy game without shoving you up the arse of a bird.

This newer generation would be more accurately referred to as Afternoon of Scrimmages. It's a distillation of the potential of the AoS genre into a comparatively bland weekend day of sports games with shiny special effects. It's teamcomps and cs and item builds, not armies and massacres and giants amongst men. They tend to be fairly well done -- it's actually pretty hard to genuinely fuck up this sort of diluted AoS -- but they lack the sort of soul they could, should, have. Not bad, per se, and I still play and enjoy them, but they're always -- always, for some ungodly reason -- at core a disappointment. So much potential lost in the name of slavishly following the DotA formula.

And frankly moba just sounds terrible. Just plain unattractive as acronyms go. I'll stick to my AoS like I stick to my roguelike, thank you verra' much.

[pilgrimboy]

I have felt that way about RTS for years.

[Errol]

I believe that there are better timewasters for me than TDs.
As for MOBA, they are fine. Thing is, there is so much untapped potential in those. Guilty Gear 2 Overture for example (although they didn't tag it as MOBA, nor was there even such a term when it was released) - it's a PS3 game and a delicious-looking mix of 3D fighter, RTS and MOBA elements.

Spoiler: Wall of text explaining the game (click to show/hide)

You basically have a map with two bases and a bunch of ressource generators and a whole bunch of lanes between them. Your base dies, you are dead. Iirc they have a potent shield so that you have open an access lane to it first somehow. The resource is mana, you spend it on servants, consumables and unlocking some units and active abilities.
Then there's three types of units - capture units that spawn automatically and move automatically like minions/creeps, excelling at capturing generators. They suck at battle and their only method to cap bases or do a bit of damage is suicide.
Then, servants - basic battle units with some attacks, you give them general orders to attack something or go somewhere and the AI then handles the details. There are several classes of them - Heavy, Mobile, Sniper, Mage, something like that - and there's the good old rock paper scissors between them so certain classes get messed up by other classes. As said before these cost mana to buy. There are also advanced classes, powerful units but expensive and you may only field one of each. Also, you're vulnerable while giving your servants orders. Take care.
Then there's the master. Your player character. Each Master has a different army of servants, although there are a few that share. You're basically running around beating up people, escorting your own armies. I dunno about the controls, but there are combos, launching attacks, cancels, super meter and overdrives so you have to be able to do that too to some degree. Furthermore while you can cap generators and attack the enemy base you do really little damage to those, so you have to rely on your capture units to cap the points (disrupting enemy generators still is pretty easy) and on your servants to take down the enemy base. You also have an inventory, so you can take consumables like potions and bombs with you, or just stuff a couple of servants into your pocket for ninja actions (or because you simply are faster than them.).
There's like 8 characters but they are pretty different from each other. Most are melee.
Game is either 1v1 or 2v2. Also, the music kicks major ass.
For lack of a PS3 I haven't played it myself but I wish there was some enterprising developer taking a few notes from there and putting such a game on PC.

TLDR put more diverse elements into MOBA. From fighting games, for example, or just make them more strategic again so that creeps are more than a simple source of gold.

[Dutchling]

I already have Defense Grid, and I hate DotA games with all my heart. It killed Warcraft III custom battle multiplayer.

[nenjin]

/raises hand

I've tried to like TD, DoTA, LoL.....I simply cannot see what's so appealing about them, other than 50 characters to play. I'm not saying there isn't something to like there....but it doesn't register with me.

[Rex_Nex]

Actually, Custom Games were killed by forces very much desperate from DotA. You just have to look deeper. I was a WC3 fanatic for... 6 years or so. Made a lot of friends, did a lot of things. For at least 4 of those years, I absolutely hated DotA. At that time, all it did was consume the custom game list. Then I realized that DotA only took the place of multitudes of mediocre maps; the good ones were still listed, but you had to search between the hundreds of DotA matches to find them. It was a loss of variety, but I still enjoyed custom games; people would fill up your games fast if you hosted one the community deemed fit.

Then came bots. It started with autorefresh; a little program that would refresh games for you. Fair enough, everyone and their mother used this program. Then it upgraded to gHost. Entire games could be awkwardly hosted by a third party entity. Soon, gHost was updated from being a fairly unwieldy and hard-to-configure to a easy-to-use program with its own GUI and everything. It conquered the games list, hosting only the elite couple maps. You'd see DotA x30, maybe 2x The Black Road, 2x YouTD, 2x The Predator, 2x Fortress Survival, etc. No one bothered to host anything, since everyone knew their favorite maps would always be hosted for them. Why experiment with new maps if you have your dota constantly hosted by ELO-tracking bots?

Among this, Blizzard furthered the deterioration of the game (Perhaps they only nailed the coffin) with a update that broke a good number of maps. It fixed a security flaw by removing a functionality of map editing; unfortunately this did more harm then good. Warcraft was well past its prime, all the maps were made, many abandoned by their makers, and this update required these maps to be updated or else they would not run at all. So with that, a good number of old maps were wiped out in one update, never to see the light of day again.

There you have it, my (not so) little rant 

[majikero]

The joy of DotA games and every DotA like games is playing it in LAN or whatever it's called. The point is, its best played when all the players are in the same room. Your team shouting orders, your enemies shouting profanities, the cheers of victory and the sound of defeat, after all is said and done, you stand up and pat each others back, congratulating each other. Then the losers pays for the meal afterwards.

I don't like playing team games with faceless assholes across the internet. It just doesn't measure up.

[nenjin]

The joy of DotA games and every DotA like games is playing it in LAN or whatever it's called. The point is, its best played when all the players are in the same room. Your team shouting orders, your enemies shouting profanities, the cheers of victory and the sound of defeat, after all is said and done, you stand up and pat each others back, congratulating each other. Then the losers pays for the meal afterwards.

I don't like playing team games with faceless assholes across the internet. It just doesn't measure up.

Nothing changes for me in a LAN setting. I can do all that you described above with other games as well. Something about the top-down nature of it, and the game basically revolving around running in to use your abilities then running away and kiting people.....bores the absolute shit out of me. The games have never stopped being basically WC3 MP to me. And I thought WC3 sucked in terms of heroes and running around with your click abilities.

[Darkmere]

My god, I thought I was the only one. I tried to play SotIS (That's DOTA for SC2) and a couple others. The community is utter shit for every one I played. Older players actively try to fuck over people who are learning the game, or they are only interested in shouting how awesome they are from the rooftops at anyone who can't run away fast enough. Oh and the gameplay feels pathetically derivative.

You know what MOBA is? It's the PC equivalent of those dime-a-dozen console shooters with loud shithead kids on the microphone.