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[Putnam]

Strife, Super Monday Night Combat, and there's that one from way early in the commercialization that I keep forgetting the name of are others I can think of.

[Cthulhu]

There was Demigod but I think that one turned out pretty bad.  There's Sins of Something, from the Sins of a Solar Empire people.  They seem to be picking genres randomly, their last game was a roguelike.  Sort of like Sacred, whose first game was an asymmetrical shooter, then a moba (hawn, the worst of them all) then some sidescrolling thing.

[frostshotgg]

You say that but there are a lot of game that keep the same basic format but make some pretty integral shifts in gameplay. SMITE, Super Monday Night Combat, and from the looks of things Heroes of the Storm all have wildly different gameplay but retain the same basic format.

[SalmonGod]

The MOBA genre is a bit more lacking in variation than all your other examples... just a bit...

You really meaning to tell me that there's more difference between, say, Starcraft and Star Wars: Empire at War than in Dota 2 and League of Legends?

The map may be nearly identical, but that's LoL's problem, not the genre's. HoN really shouldn't be considered either because its entire premise is "Dota knock-off".

All the games have different sets of items and characters, which is obvious.  Other than that, they're mostly just variations on map design and pacing.  Each one has more or less mobility / more or less snowballing / more or less wandering and ganking / etc.  But things like control style, perspective, objectives, team sizes, creep waves, towers, and the basic nature and means of character design/advancement/customization see very little meaningful variation. 

The only counter-examples I see are Awesomenauts, Monday Night Combat, Bloodline Champions, Panzar, and Smite.  And I'm being generous including Monday Night Combat purely due to the inclusion of monster waves pushing into opposing bases providing some relevance to the genre, because otherwise it's just another team-based multiplayer FPS.  I also admit that there are a few upcoming titles that I haven't looked at yet in order to tell if they're doing anything different.

Aside from those, we've had Demigod, League of Legends, DotA 2, Avalon Heroes, Heroes of Newerth, Realm of the Titans, Rise of Immortals, Guardians of Middle-Earth, Sins of a Dark Age, Dawngate, and Solstice Arena all following the same basic formula.

Any other genre has already been accused of stagnation for having more variety.

[Flying Dice]

SMNC is a mediocre TF2 knockoff which borrows two MOBA mechanics to disguise the fact that it's a mediocre TF2 knockoff. It also shares mechanics with tower defense games, but it's not one of those either, it's a mediocre shooter that cribbed excessive amounts of notes from a better shooter and decided to be 'unique' by half-assing features from other genres. The only real comparison that holds is the "your character gets upgrades based on your performance over the length of the match" aspect (which is hardly unique to MOBAs, considering that -- just off the top of my head -- Counterstrike has the same sort of mechanic), as you can functionally ignore the creeps in favor of fragging people and building towers.

[frostshotgg]

Of the former, how many are still successful? I'd say at least 3, maybe 4. How many of the latter are successful? Again, 3, maybe 4. The sample size is simply too small to make an accurate judgement on these things.

[Putnam]

Especially since this is one of those genres where every game has to compete against Dota and LoL just like every game in the MMO genre has to compete against WoW.

[SalmonGod]

Of the former, how many are still successful? I'd say at least 3, maybe 4. How many of the latter are successful? Again, 3, maybe 4. The sample size is simply too small to make an accurate judgement on these things.

If that's relevant at all, it's only to reinforce the point.  A competitive multiplayer game needs a consistent player-base to survive.  Only so many such games that are so similar can really exist for long at one time, because they have to directly compete with each other for that player base. 

So the number that try to make it into the market and fail is just more evidence, especially since none of the former that made some attempt to be different have shut down yet and many of the latter have.

And there's really no reason for it.  The core defining features of the genre are team-based action-rpg combat over opposing objectives in something like an arena.  There is a huge amount of space to fill out there.

Especially since this is one of those genres where every game has to compete against Dota and LoL just like every game in the MMO genre has to compete against WoW.

That's debatable.  I know a lot of people get frustrated with or avoid the genre due to the design decisions that all these clones have in common, because they're trying to compete with DotA or LoL.  If someone took things in the opposite direction, I bet they'd do decently well.

[Frumple]

I'll have to look into strife* -- just remembered I nabbed a closed beta key as part of recent bundle. As for the early commercialization stuff, there's been a good three or four I've noticed (and probably a good handful I haven't) that were explicitly WC3 Arena maps (Like bloodline champions, which SG mentions) that, naturally enough, did deviate from the AoS formula 'cause they weren't AoS-style games, heh. Even if they were still calling themselves MOBAs.

SMNC, from what I heard about it (never played -- crap rig, so I usually don't even try to run FPS-type stuff that's even remotely recent), was a nice deviation in the same sense Awesomenauts is -- and that's definitely something I can appreciate. And gods know I've craved variation in the AoS style long before the commercial ones started showing up. But for every one that does, maybe, try something notably different, we've been getting two-four ones like that recent superhero one that's pretty much just more of the same, reskinned and maybe with a little map-variation. At least so far as I've noticed.

*Though initial looking at the website and a review and such is pinging my knock-off radar hard. E: Though a disproportionate amount of that may be because of the observatory things. Love of scrag there were like six AoS maps that had that feature seven+ years ago and the review I hit seemed to be calling it innovative waaaaaaaaagggghhh

And there's really no reason for it.  The core defining features of the genre are team-based action-rpg combat over opposing objectives in something like an arena.  There is a huge amount of space to fill out there.

Hrrg, I'd argue that's not the core defining features of the AoS style, of which DotA is a subset (though DotA does, largely, fit inside the MOBA umbrella fairly handily), though. It's more about automation and tactical influence of a strategic level (or at least, broader tactical level) conflict -- basically handing off all the fiddly force building and resource gathering and whatnot of an RTS over to the computer and letting you play general and/or hero. S'pretty much always been my major issue with DotA and its influence is it pretty much explicitly scaled things down instead of up, sticking things into an arena and making it about champion vs. champion instead of bringing out onto a battlefield and making it about army vs. army. That's where I'd love to see things go, m'self, and that's never going to bloody happen with 5-10 critter creep waves and three lanes and all that malarky *crotchety grumbling*

[SalmonGod]

And there's really no reason for it.  The core defining features of the genre are team-based action-rpg combat over opposing objectives in something like an arena.  There is a huge amount of space to fill out there.

Hrrg, I'd argue that's not the core defining features of the AoS style, of which DotA is a subset (though DotA does, largely, fit inside the MOBA umbrella fairly handily), though. It's more about automation and tactical influence of a strategic level (or at least, broader tactical level) conflict -- basically handing off all the fiddly force building and resource gathering and whatnot of an RTS over to the computer and letting you play general and/or hero. S'pretty much always been my major issue with DotA and its influence is it pretty much explicitly scaled things down instead of up, sticking things into an arena and making it about champion vs. champion instead of bringing out onto a battlefield and making it about army vs. army. That's where I'd love to see things go, m'self, and that's never going to bloody happen with 5-10 critter creep waves and three lanes and all that malarky *crotchety grumbling*

I'm going for a broad definition explicitly for the sake of benefit of the doubt.  Didn't want argument over what deserved to be considered a MOBA and what didn't.  Which is why I went ahead and included SMNC, with note that I was being generous.  It doesn't matter, because I can include everything possible and the point still stands.

I'm with you, though.  I kinda looked at it from the other direction.  I saw your description of "tactical influence of a strategic level conflict" as something the genre could benefit from experimenting with, but a form it had not taken thus far.  I'd love to see it, myself.  Along with many other things, like Alien Swarm-style combat, instead of click-based ability casting.  Or base customization.  Or less focus on competition over speed of character advancement.

[Frumple]

Fair number of the AoS maps actually had that tactical influence of strategic bits going on. Think Tides of Blood was one of the first that actually let you build stuff that influenced creep waves, just as an example -- the one I've played most recently was the Eve of the Apocalypse one, which had a comparatively hefty amount of non-direct-champion conflict stuff going on. Points of contention, base building aspect, non-XP advancement alongside standard leveling, some heroes actually meant to meaningfully interact with the (usually notably larger, strongly so in the late game after many critter producing buildings were built) creep waves... it had -- has -- a lot going for it. Is an example of AoS I'd point to and say, "This was going in the right direction" for all that it's still heavily limited by the WC3 engine. And there were quite a few later in WC3's life that did similar things, really. Tried to step out of that mindset and design focus that would go on to become the MOBA. It just didn't take, unfortunately. Drowned out by the dozens of DotA bots gumming up the custom game list, ha.

[SalmonGod]

Alright.  Limitation on my perspective, then, is I never played WC3 or any of its custom maps.  I know that it's where the whole MOBA thing originated, and that's about it.

[Frumple]

It was a pretty great time, really. For all that I rag on games being a WC3 custom map knockoff these days (because damnit, it's been a decade people! You could be stomping on a decade old engine's achievement's by now!), people were doing legitimately amazing things with that engine, and trying all sorts of really neat stuff. Riding along while new games were popping out, variations being experimented with, etc., so forth, so on... the SC/WC3 custom map days were what I'd genuinely call some of the most interesting days I've experienced in my gaming lifetime. S'just, y'know, it was a decade ago, and the oneupmanship I was hoping for after all that never seemed to show up. I've yet to see something that captured the feel of the old SC LotR maps, or the more expansive AoS games, or some of the better battleship maps... hell, they're even pulling out Night of the Dead stuff nowadays, finally, but I was hoping for... more, y'know? Eh.

[Jopax]

New cinematic is pure win.

Kinda hoping they cover Ionia or Piltower next

[penguinofhonor]

Nautilus got in one! And he was a badass.