That was… what, 18 months after release?
The popularity and money in these is something I just don’t understand.
The link is busted right now. I guess they don’t even have enough budget for forum servers.
From Matt Bromberg, Group General Manager
Today, I have the unenviable task of announcing that we’ve decided to stop development of Dawngate.
I know this is disappointing news for our community, which has been so supportive and loyal. To all of you who have graciously given us your time and valuable feedback during our beta period, we’d first like to thank you.
Whenever we begin a game project, we do so with great hopes and expectations. In this case, we chose to enter a new genre for EA in MOBA, one that we knew going in was extremely competitive. We built a game in Dawngate that wasn’t simply a clone of existing MOBAs, but one that truly pushed the genre forward in many ways. Dawngate has been in beta for almost 18 months, including a full open beta for the past six months. Through that time, we’ve taken a lot of feedback from players and delivered lots of new features and innovations. And although the game has grown, we’re not seeing the progress we’d hoped for. This isn’t the outcome we wanted, but beta testing is about learning and improving, and ultimately, about making difficult decisions about how to proceed.
As for the incredibly talented team of designers, producers, engineers, and artists who have put so much creative energy into Dawngate: The game was truly a labor of love, and it shows. We’ve got nothing but gratitude for their hard work, and pride about what’s been accomplished.
As a part of the process of closing down Dawngate, we’ll continue to operate the game for the next 90 days. All players will be entitled to a full refund of any money spent during the beta. For most players, we’ll process those refunds within the next 10 days. If we don’t have current payment information on file for you, we’ll need to reach out first before initiating the refund. If you have any questions, you can reach us at help.ea.com.
On behalf of the entire team at Waystone Games and EA, I want once again to thank all our players for being part of this journey. Your straight-up feedback and the friendly reception we received all over the world at events was extremely encouraging and important to us. We appreciate it.
It’s like the MMO boom all over again. Listen publishers, there’s only so many of these that will make it. Your me-too budget MOBA isn’t one of them.
/thread.
Makes perfect sense to me. Games are a mix of action/strategy with team play. Have a learning curve that rewards more skilled play. Matches play out differently and require different strategies depending on team makeup. One of the few competitive video games that are fun to spectate, where big plays can be made.
The issue is there really is only room for small number of these games, as knowing the heroes/champions is prohibitive from playing multiple different games. So it’s pretty much League of Legends and Dota. There may be room for a third or fourth but we’ll see how Blizzard does with HotS.
Well, that and a lot of them have almost zero distinguishing features from one another. FPS games had/have the same issue. They need to differentiate themselves AND actually be fun to play. And most can’t seem to manage either.
It isn’t exactly the same. MMOs problem was they were very expensive to make (they aren’t cheap games, from the server infrastructure to all the content people expects in a mmo) and they had a limited audience (people willing to pay a monthly subscription are less than those that would just pay a retail price), whose numbers fell even more in the last years as the f2p games on mobile and pc accustomed people to pay even less.
MOBAs, it seems to me the problem was how late were the other big companies to try to take a cut of the pie, when the genre and audience were solidified and stratified around 2 games, lol and dota2. It was like when Doom was created that doom-clones appeared on a year, they have been late for three years.
And because they are online games by nature you can’t start a new one and have success, as they need a decent number of people playing it online to have a decent experience, it isn’t like doing a traditional game that can be supported totally or partially with a single player experience.
Also, because they are kind of like sports, people don’t feel they get old and have the need to buy a new game of the same genre next year.
And, even if they are played by dozens of millions, I feel we are already close to the total public, they are millions of gamers who aren’t really interested into intense player vs player online competition, which is the heart’s genre.
Not that it’s impossible to do it, but you need a better hook in graphics, gameplay and distinction of the traditional mobas, like Smite. Let’s see 2015, with the Gearbox game and the other one who also looked like a close cousin.
As for the incredibly talented team of designers, producers, engineers, and artists who have put so much creative energy into Dawngate: The game was truly a labor of love, and it shows. We’ve got nothing but gratitude for their hard work, and pride about what’s been accomplished.
Nothing but layoffs
I randomly got an invite into the The technical alpha of heroes of the storm, and I really like it. Blizzard have streamlined the experience by getting rid of some of the barriers for getting into mobas (last hits, too many heroes, not sure what to spend gold on, your team out levelling you), and coupled with the fact it’s blizzard could potentially attract a very large audience. I never expected to ever enjoy playing this genre, beyond watching the international every year. The action is tight, the maps all have unique features, and there is just enough choices to keep it strategic. You guys should apply for the alpha if you haven’t already done so!
This is going to come across as far more negative than I mean it to, but I do have a question that I hope you can answer: What is left after removing all that?
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t care much for MOBAs and typically avoid them like the plague due to their communities, but that seems like a pretty substantial amount of the typical MOBA gameplay that’s been excised.
this is what everyone is telling me about Heroes of the Storm from a friend who has been in alpha for months. i keep hoping to get invited.
Likewise. I don’t see it replacing DotA for me, but it seems like it would be a good casual game for when I don’t want to take things too seriously, but don’t want to play against bots either.
That is a good question. To be clear, I am someone with maybe 10 hours playing DOTA 2 and LoL, and with both I reached a point where I realised I wasn’t having fun so stopped. I’m going to try and break down my thoughts on the changes:
- Teams level together: I like that this change doesn’t let newbies get too far behind, and it also encourages more team-oriented play in pick up groups.
- No gold: You don’t accumulate gold and buy things at the end of the round. I don’t mind this since in the other MOBAs I spent too much time wondering what I should buy, and then freaking out that my indecision meant that I wasn’t out there levelling and pushing a lane. This is probably the change I am least sure about though. Having that extra layer of decisionmaking, if handled right, could still add to the game.
- No more last hits: No longer meaningful because of the two changes stated above. Don’t know how others feel but I hated last hits in MOBAs.
- Games are shorter in length: This is probably my favourite change. My worst experiences in other MOBAs was getting put in a bad pick up group, knew that we would lose 5 minutes into the game, but it still took 30-40 minutes to actually finish the game. Games have a quicker pace here and even if you lose it’s still fun.
What is left:
- Talents: You pick different perks for your hero as they level up. For most characters (some have talents that are still likely to be changed before beta), these talents are mostly interesting decisions that can significantly change the way you play a certain hero.
Beyond that, there’s probably the most important part of any game; fun! The heroes are well designed, some really unique and interesting, and so there is usually a good deal of diversity on any given map. The maps are really great, each have a certain mechanic that give a big leg up to the team that uses it well (e.g. collect 20 x from things that spawn at night, and then you can grow a massive monster that one player gets to control for 1.5 minutes). The action is really tight, everything feels responsive (assuming no lag) and the back-and-forth with the enemy is ever constant and engaging.
Not sure how else to explain it (as you can tell, I am not a good explainer of videogames), but if the game can make me a convert then I think it will do well. I applied to the beta ages ago on a whim, and when I got the invite I was mostly indifferent about it (apologies to those who really want an invite but haven’t gotten it). It only took a couple of games to turn me around.
It reminds me of what Blizzard recently did to the TCG formula with hearthstone. Hearthstone is probably the simplest TCG I have ever gotten into, but the experience is so polished and engaging it’s hard to begrudge the changes. My current gaming habit is to play heroes of the storm or hearthstone when I want a quick fix of fun, and EU4 when I have more time and need a more intellectually stimulating gaming experience.
I think the above about talents translates to the direct tactical experience. By taking out more of the meta-stuff, you’re more or less guaranteed to be on even-ish grounds with your opponents, so it can focus more on the moment to moment positioning, timing of abilities, team co-ordination, etc.
At high levels, DoTA / LoL obviously have just as much tactical considerations in addition to the meta-stuff. But reducing the meta means that there’s less barrier to entry.
Put another way, if you’re low-ish in DoTA matchmaking rank, you’re going to be playing matches where everybody is using more or less known builds, and everybody is basically farming gold / XP for themselves all the time (no real hard carry / support dynamics). For a lot of people, that’s all the DoTA they’ll ever see. So, HoTS seems to be designed around assuming that playstyle is standard, and then iterating on that.
Just speaking from what I’ve heard, I haven’t played it.
Yes, I want better moment to moment gameplay. Laning phase is boring as hell. Cut out the boring crap I don’t have time for and get on with it.
In different ways, that seems to be the direction Heroes of the Storm and Gigantic are going, and I love that.
Play League of Legends with Single Lane (I forget the official name) or Dominion mode.
Aram and yes Dominion. The 3v3 twisted treeline is faster paced too. Hexakill mode on that map was crazy fun the couple of weeks it was on. Hope it becomes a regular mode.
Yeah I already miss Hexakill
I’d only think laning phase was boring if I played really really passively in lane. If you’re trying to stop your opponent from CSing and/or kill them, it’s not very boring except in certain circumstances against a very passive opponent.
Also, if you find “laning is boring”, why not randomly show up in someone else’s lane? I guarantee a little roaming will make the game more exciting for you. Typically, the higher in skill the players get, the shorter the laning phase is, as people move much more dynamically around the map.
I’m glad you like it. I don’t.
The most exciting parts of a dota match I actually play with friends is probably the latter third. Also, matches take too long.
Obviously not everyone feels that way, but I’d be happy for options of a similar style game that is faster paced and much more focused.