Dota 2 announced Valve officially announces DOTA 2, their upcoming sequel offering DOTA's "unique blend of online RTS and RPG action," for PC and Mac next year. Game Informer has all of the preliminary details on what is sure to be one of the most anticipated titles of 2011.
DotA-Allstars' roster of 100+ heroes is being brought over in its entirety. The single map games take place on is functionally identical to the one that you can download for free today in the Warcraft III mod. Items, skills, and upgrade paths are unchanged. Some hero skills work slightly better due to being freed from the now-ancient Warcraft III engine, but Dota 2 will be instantly familiar to any DotA player.
A few things will make significant differences to players making the transition. Dota 2 uses Valve's Source engine, so the game is much prettier. Source itself is getting a few upgrades, including improved global lighting and true cloth simulation. Dota 2's integrated voice chat is a huge step up from having to set up your own Ventrilo server, and the speed of voice communication is very nearly a requirement for a game as team-focused as DotA.
AI bots will take over for disconnected players, and will be available to play against in unranked training matches as well. However, don't get your hopes up for a full-fledged single-player game, though. Johnson says, "Our goal with the AI is just that their experience isn't destroyed just because one person couldn't finish the game."
The visual style is remarkable for retaining the somewhat cartoony feel that the Warcraft III version of DotA-Allstars is built around, while going in a few different directions. "I think there are functional aspects to the art that are pretty significant to the players," Johnson muses. The environment, particularly in the forests that fill in the map between the three lanes that the NPC armies follow, uses a desaturated color scheme to give the colorful heroes and abilities some visual pop. The sizable art team is putting a lot of work into making the shapes and animations of each hero distinct to the point that players will be able to instantly identify any hero they see and quickly gauge the threat level of any situation. The game will also feature a ton of custom voice work. You'll get amusing lines from heroes as they deny the enemy team last hits on creeps, and champions who have backstory connections will trade quips when nearby.
The bulk of innovation in Dota 2, however, is ancillary to the gameplay itself. Valve is upgrading Steamworks (the company's backend technologies for matchmaking and other gameplay and community-related things) to allow them to create in-game rewards for participating in the Dota 2 community. The idea is to have everything a player does in or out of game tie back into their online identity. Like the improvements to Source, the Steamworks upgrades will be available to third-party developers who choose to use Valve's tools when Dota 2 launches in 2011.
At a basic level, posting useful feedback or participating in constructive discussions on the forums will contribute to your standing in the community in a visible way. Valve doesn't have the specifics on how this will work nailed down yet. Will you get points that contribute to a visible ranking, like a Gamerscore? Will your posts need to be recommended by other community members to count for anything? What counts as a constructive discussion? These questions are all being actively explored at the moment. Valve assures us that the designers have a slew of awesome ideas for how to implement rewards in a way that’s visible to the rest of the community, but there are no details to announce yet. "When we talk about this identity that exists inside and outside the game, we don't think we're anywhere near it with what exists on Steam right now," Johnson admits.
Game Informer has conducted an interview with DICE's Patrick Bach as he talks about Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam. Here's a taster:
How much inspiration are you taking from Battlefield Vietnam in terms of the game design for the expansion? A lot of the elements that gamers loved in the original Vietnam game are implemented here as well. For example, you can listen to (and blow up) propaganda speakers, and you can enjoy ‘60s music on the radio in your vehicles – the latter being one of the features that really brings a unique feeling to this expansion.
Are there things you wanted to achieve with the original Vietnam game that you couldn’t do due to technical limitations that you can do now? Well, a lot has happened in the Battlefield franchise since 2004, both gameplay wise and technically speaking. From a purely technical standpoint, our upgraded Frostbite engine handles destruction on a whole new level compared to the engine we used for Battlefield 1942. So simply taking our latest engine back to Vietnam automatically means we get closer to our vision of all-out warfare.
Will we see a lot of the same unique weapons and environmental hazards return from BF: Vietnam, like the bouncing Betties and the punji stick booby traps? No. Actually, looking at the telemetry for Bad Company 2 across the different formats, we can see that we have achieved an extremely well-balanced game. This is something we take pride in and want to maintain, so while introducing booby traps might sound like a good idea, we would much rather focus on keeping our finely tuned game balance.
These are all brand new maps How are you changing your approach to map design for this expansion pack? Will these maps be more wide open or are they going to be more streamlined like they were in Bad Company 2? I wouldn't say we are changing our design sensibilities for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam. We are designing the maps to offer a great sense of variation, from the tight and up close to the more wide open spaces with plenty of vehicles. Much like the difference between, say, White Pass and Atacama Desert in the base game.
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood Trailer
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood launches on November 16 in North America and on November 19 in Europe for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Sadly, the PC version has been delayed until 2011.
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