I don’t want MP in my TD game. I’m perfectly content squishing orcs by myself or in coop - I think OMD2 did a great job with COOP game play and if anything I wish OMD3 would go more in that direction.
I don’t see how a FTP game is going to have a SP component worth anything.
And PvZ screwed the pooch for me, I couldn’t stomach what it has become in FTP land. I would much rather of spent the $20 on it and had the entire game. But why get only 20 when you have whales who will give you hundreds?
To say I liked OMD and OMD2 is an understatement. I have 256hrs into OMD2 and 155 into OMD but I’m completely not interested in this title. I don’t want MP. I wish that Robot Entertainment would have chosen another game title to experiment in their MP universe and left OMD3 to the SP/COOP realm.
While I will take a look at release, this just makes me sad. Hundreds of hours invested in OMD1/2. What am I missing here? Is MP really doing that much better than SP in gaming sales? Is this because of a future tablet release?
Yeah, I saw some gameplay video and read some hands-on previews. This is a MOBA/Deathmatch hybrid that revolves around buying booster packs to get heroes, minion groups, and traps. Oh well.
I only played the original Monday Night Combat, but yes - I think that’s a fair comparison. “Fortress Siege gameplay” they’re calling it, but…yeah, looks like a mash-up if you ask me. There are lanes, you spawn creeps, they march into your opponent’s base (you can’t control them), your hero has 4 abilities + a passive, it’s basically a MOBA/TPS hybrid in the vein of MNC only in this one you can run up to your base’s door and spend “Leadership” to spawn a unique mix of creeps (you determine the mix with a card before the game starts, and your teammates each add their cards for 5 different kinds of spawn waves total) and also there are traps to place on the lanes. The waves are initially weak, but you can spend gold to level the waves up and make them tougher. Also some characters can disable enemy traps with their special abilities. It looked competent enough, even for an Alpha. It has that great Orcs Must Die art design which I personally enjoy the heck out of. Really makes me sad that the cool Gnoll and Orc heroes, who look really bitchin’, are going to be stuck in a game that I don’t particularly want to play. Well, I hope it’s good so that people who want to play a CCG/MOBA mash-up style games can have fun with it.
The monetization model for Unchained is the element that sets it apart from other MOBAs. Everything in the game takes on the metaphor of digital cards. Instead of buying individual playable characters and cosmetic add-ons (although those will likely be sold as well), players can purchase packs of cards using in-game currency or real money. Cards unlock new heroes and provide the means to upgrade them, and also expand your arsenal with new minions, weapons and traps. In addition to mastering offensive and defensive gameplay, Unchained players will have to become skilled deck builders.
“There’s probably something good about the toxic players showing up and sticking with your game,” Jones said. “The good thing is probably that it’s a good game. It’s holding their interest, it’s keeping them around. It’s making them passionate enough to give a damn.”
Jones expects Unchained to draw in some aggressive players, but isn’t interested in scaring them off. Gaming in general, he says, shouldn’t try to eliminate that group. Players who want to avoid that aggression can choose to play defensively or act as a support character.
“They’re not going to go away,” Jones concluded of toxic players. "And honestly, I don’t think you want them to.
“You need those people there. They’re driving the game. They’re giving it longevity. They’re giving it passion. And when they find something about your game that they love, they defend it to the death. Those are the same people that can go to bat for you.”
We take (and will continue to take) a hard line against any toxic players. I won’t try to overparse what got quoted out of Jerome’s conversation but our existing actions back up our stated policy, which is to actively deal with toxic members of the community. There’s actually a pretty fantastic (IMO) community forming around the game that’s been great about helping new players learn the game and establish some solid community-oriented principles.
We do a weekly stream on Thursdays with some of the main members of the community if you want to get a general sense of things. www.twitch.tv/orcsmustdie
Technically anyone in Alpha probably shouldn’t be saying shit about anything, good or bad. That’s what an NDA is, right? Typically if a game has a NDA, you only hear bad things because people who like it don’t want to risk losing access.
You can always have a goat with you, and tickle his tummy to have the goat voice your opinions withouth breaking the NDA
The other coop turret defense game (Dungeon Defenders) also took the moba route. :P
This is sad, but I suppose theres not much money in the turret defense genre, so they are in search of a bigger public.
I love turret defense games.
I don’t love mobas…
Edit:
Years later, Dungeon Defenders 2 released, and was actually not a mob, but a correct turret defense game. I have lost some of the magic of the original, but its still a good game.
They aren’t just anonymous folks on message boards. When I say I’ve talked to people in the Alpha, I mean in real life. Like, in person. These are my friends.
We lifted the NDA a while back, so folks are free to stream the game, talk about it as much as they like, etc. Of course the game is only just barely into Beta and we have a ways to go before we are ready to call it ready for release still.
I still wouldn’t call our game a MOBA but it has some common elements with it (along with elements from games like TF2, MTG, and even our RTSes). We always envisioned it internally as two games of OMD smashed into one another. So if you think we are just chasing MOBA as a genre du jour, that’s really not the case.
You know, if this were marketed for single player, I’d try it in a heartbeat. I loved the first game, the second was ok, though seemed to lean too much on co-op. And with this game, now with up to 5 people, combined with the F2P elements, to me it seems like Robot Entertainment lost the plot. I too would be interested to hear if it worth bothering.
