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Tag: MOBA

  • DC MOBA ‘Infinite Crisis’ Now in Open Beta

    DC MOBA ‘Infinite Crisis’ Now in Open Beta

    League of Legends and DOTA 2 have pioneered the MOBA genre and quickly become some of the most-played multiplayer games of all time. Seeing this success, publishers other than Riot and Valve are seeing dollar signs and throwing out their own MOBA attempts, with limited success.

    Warner Bros. today announced that Infinite Crisis is now in open beta. Players can sign up for the beta at the Infinite Crisis website and jump into the game.

    Infinite Crisis is a free-to-play MOBA for PC based on the characters and settings from the DC Comics universe. As in other MOBAs players can chose from a large line-up of of DC heroes and villains including Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and more. Green Arrow, Aquaman, and Mecha Superman have been added just as the open beta is beginning. Players will team up and take their character onto laned maps and battle henchmen before coming to blows with other heroes.

    Most of the characters now featured in the game are previewed in the new open beta launch trailer that Warner Bros. released today. No gameplay is seen in the video, which looks like it could actually double for an Injustice: Gods Among Us preview:

    While comic superheroes do seem to be the perfect fit for MOBA characters, it remains to be seen whether the DC brand alone can break Warner Bros. into the MOBA market. The publisher is coming off the console-centric MOBA Guardians of Middle-Earth, which failed to create an audience for the genre on consoles.

  • Blizzard’s ‘Heroes of the Storm’ Previewed, Beta Sign-Ups Live

    Blizzard Entertainment, one of the most popular video game publishers in the world, is holding its annual BlizzCon event this weekend. The publisher is known for making big announcements at the events, and this year is no exception.

    Blizzard has finally taken the wraps off its new MOBA game, previously codenamed Blizzard All-Stars. The title is now Heroes of the Storm.

    Heroes of the Storm is Blizzard’s take on the DOTA-style MOBA genre, which began as a mod for Blizzard’s Warcraft III. Though Valve has taken up the DOTA brand and Riot Games’ League of Legends is the most popular in the genre, Blizzard’s Heroes is, perhaps, the only one of many recent MOBA games that stands a chance of developing a competitive audience.

    The game will feature characters from Blizzard’s biggest franchises – Warcraft, Diablo, and Starcraft. Characters include World of Warcraft‘s Malfurion Stormrage, Starcraft‘s Sarah Kerrigan, and Diablo himself. The multiplayer maps will also be taken from various locations in those game franchises.

    Blizzard is already taking beta sign-ups for Heroes of the Storm at the game’s new website.

    Blizzard today also released three video previews of Heroes of the Storm. The first is a classic high-quality Blizzard cinematic trailer, featuring plenty of action and animation that rivals Pixar:

    The second video is an actual gameplay trailer for Heroes of the Storm. Unsurprisingly, it looks an awful lot like DOTA:

    The third is a behind-the-scenes look at Blizzard’s development of Heroes, detailing some of the decisions they’ve made about how the game will play:

  • League of Legends American Express Cards Announced, Come With RP

    League of Legends has quietly become one of the most popular games in the entire world. The MOBA has now gotten so big that mainstream credit card companies are looking to cash in on the phenomenon.

    American Express this week announced that it and Riot Games, the developer of League of Legends, have joined forces to introduce League of Legends-themed prepaid credit accounts. The accounts will have a reward system attached that can provide players with Riot Points (RP, an in-game League of Legends currency). American Express is also now the “official payment partner” for the League Championship Series and an “official partner” for the World Championship.

    “Riot Games is passionate about serving their players and giving them avenues for enhancing their gaming experience” said Stefan Happ, SVP for U.S. payment options at American Express. “Together we’ve been able to create a great co-branded product with a unique rewards program that will help League of Legends players earn Riot Points whenever they use their Card to make qualifying purchases.”

    The “RP+” program attached to the accounts gives players 1,000 RP for registering, 1,000 RP for putting $20 in the account, and 1,000 RP for using the cars for 10 purchases. Setting up the card with direct deposit will get players 10,000 RP. All together, players can earn 13,000 RP – more than $85 worth of RP.

    Those who sign up for the card can choose from six different League of Legends backgrounds for their card. The backgrounds include art for Teemo, Vi, Lux, Twisted Fate, the Summoner’s Cup, and the League of Legends logo.

  • Dead Island: Epidemic, a MOBA, Announced

    The success of League of Legends and DOTA 2 has proven both the possible success of a free-to-play business model, and the popularity of the relatively new MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) genre. Publishers are now beginning to chase both in ham-fisted ways, such as inserting micro-transactions into full-priced games and pushing out MOBA’s without understanding what made them popular in the first place. Warner Bros’ Guardians of Middle Earth is a good example of missing the point.

    Today, publisher Deep Silver announced that it too will be using an existing brand to create a MOBA. Dead Island: Epidemic will be a free-to-play PC MOBA (or ZOMBA, as the publisher’s marketing materials put it.). It will pit three players against each other, similar to other current MOBAs. Epidemic will be set in the world of the Dead Island games and feature “trademark elements” of Dead Island games (kicking zombies?).

    No other details, such as a release date, have been revealed about Epidemic. A website has been created for the game, but is bare with only a colorful animation and a link to sign up for a Dead Island: Epidemic newsletter. Deep Silver is promising that more details will be announced at the Gamescom conference, which begins on August 21.

  • League of Legends is Getting a Professional eSports League

    Riot Games, the developer behind the wildly popular League of Legends, has announced plans to create a professional gaming league around its title. Starting next year, the company will host a League of Legends Championship Series. The series will host professional League of Legends teams from all over the world. HD streaming broadcasts of live regular-season matches will be aired weekly, leading up to a world championship match.

    “Talking to players around the world, they repeatedly asked if we could kick League of Legends eSports into higher gear,” said Brandon Beck, co-founder and CEO of Riot Games. “The new League of Legends Championship Series is our answer. Millions of fans tune in every time we support a major League of Legends tournament, so we’re broadening that support in an unprecedented way.”

    The top 8 teams from North America, Europe, and Asia will compete in the Championship Series. The top three teams in the upcoming North American and European Regional competitions will “pre-qualify” for the new professional league. Championship Series teams will receive salaries and have a chance to win prize pools during competitions, which Riot Games states will enable players to make a career of eSports. The games in the series will be broadcast for free online.

    Riot today also released a teaser trailer for its upcoming Championship Series:

    Riot stated that in addition to the Championship Series, it will continue to support its Challenger Circuit, which is made up of events hosted by eSports leagues such as Major League Gaming (MLG) and the IGN Pro League (IPL). Teams competing in the Challenger Circuit will be vying for a chance to play in the Championship Series.

    League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game featuring various “champions” that players use to defeat opposing champions and their minions while leveling up. Players win a match by destroying the “Nexus” (home base, if you will) of the opposing team. The game, released in 2009, has grown to become one of the most popular video games used for eSports.

  • Guardians of Middle-Earth Gameplay Trailer Reveals Console MOBA Action

    Though games such as Defense of the Ancients 2 (DOTA 2) and League of Legends have become huge hits for PC gamers, but console gamers have not yet been widely exposed to the relatively new multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) genre of gaming. Warner Bros. aims to fix that oversight this fall with the release of Guardians of Middle-Earth, a MOBA for Xbox LIVE Arcade and PlayStation Network. A brand new gameplay video has been released, showing what gamers can expect from the title.

    A cinematic trailer for the game hit the web just before E3 this year, featuring a Lord of the Rings character battle royale with Gandalf, Sauron, Galadriel, Gollum, and more. Fantasy fans (ironic) were instantly upset by the obvious disrespect to Lord of the Rings cannon, but their complaints were quickly drowned out by the outcry from MOBA fans that the game is simply League of Legends with Lord of the Rings characters. Both are, to some extent, correct, and it is obvious that the Lord of the Rings IP is simply being used here because it can. MOBA action was going to come to consoles sooner rather than later, and Guardians of Middle-Earth will show whether or not console gamers will embrace that style of gameplay.

    For those who are unfamiliar with the MOBA concept, it features two teams battling to destroy the enemy base. Each player gains control of one character (guardian, in the case of Guardians of Middle-Earth) that will fight and level up over the course of a match. The games are normally presented in a top-down point of view, as MOBAs were originally mods of real-time strategy games. Take a look at the gameplay trailer for Guardians of Middle-Earth below, and see what Warner Bros. envisions a console MOBA to be:

  • DOTA: A History Of The Game [Infographic]

    There’s no denying that Defense of the Ancients may be one of the most popular, if not the most popular, mods ever made. Most people equate the game with Warcraft III when the sub-genre known as MOBA blew up in the competitive PC gaming scene. Now everybody and their grandmother wants to make a DOTA-like game with League of Legends arguably being the most popular of the bunch.

    For the fans of the genre, you might not know the true origins of DOTA though. This handy infographic from our friends at GameArena sets the record straight on one of the most popular game types in the world. The first big shocker is that DOTA has been around since the days of the first StarCraft with a mod called Aeon of Strife. The mod was then carried over into WarCraft III where it was eventually formed into DOTA.

    From this point, the popularity exploded leading up to the creation of DOTA All-Stars. Once All-Stars had become big enough to be featured at BlizzCon, the genre really took off. This is what led to the creation of titles like League of Legends and the upcoming DOTA 2 from Valve. Blizzard has also jumped into the game announcing Blizzard DOTA, a mod for StarCraft 2.

    As you can see, DOTA has a long and storied history. It’s still going to be best known as that awesome WarCraft III mod, but others are taking the genre into new and interesting places.

    DOTA: A History Of The Game