Blizzard DotA - Starcarft 2 Mods Preview - Blizzard announced that it will be continuing to support StarCraft 2 and its community with the release of four developer-created mod maps. One of those is Blizzard DotA. All four of the maps were on display at BlizzCon 2010, and all but one are parodies of existing gameplay concepts. In creating these mods, StarCraft 2's developers said during a panel on Friday that they were aiming not only to show off what the game's editor can do, but to put really push its limits to see where they had work to do on it.
Dota was the mod I was most looking forward to -- while the legendary Defense of the Ancients mod from WarCraft 3 has its roots in an original StarCraft map, I was curious to see Blizzard's official take on the now much-copied gameplay. Unfortunately, Blizzard Dota seems more like a straight remake of the old mod, albeit in the StarCraft 2 engine.
That's hardly a bad thing, and the new mod features the classic range of heroes and creeps. Despite some occasional trouble I had with targeting (sometimes my hero would lose focus, causing me to lose control during some frantic scuttles), Blizzard Dota plays as expected. Each hero has a few abilities to level up, items can be purchased and upgraded from a few shops in the base, and the players I fought alongside fell right back into old tricks: switching lanes to gank, pushing a lane when the opportunity arose and going after towers when possible.
Still, it felt sort of hollow. Compared to a polished DotA clone like League of Legends, Blizzard Dota never lets you forget that it's just a mod of StarCraft 2. Sure, it's a nice bonus for StarCraft 2 owners, and it's still being balanced and worked on (Blizzard made sure to point out that this was just a preview build, not the finished product), but anyone expecting a challenger to the commercial clones out there (or the one soon coming) probably won't find what they're looking for.
That said, it's worth mentioning that the heroes in the mod are a Blizzard fan's dream: Lady Sylvanas, Zeratul, Raynor, Muradin, Grunty the Murloc, and even the Level-80 Tauren Chieftain are all playable characters; each with its own art assets and abilities. During the StarCraft 2 mods panel, the developers told the crowd that Blizzard Dota was their version of Super Smash Bros. If you're a huge Blizzard fan, this one's worth playing for the company in-jokes alone.
Dota was the mod I was most looking forward to -- while the legendary Defense of the Ancients mod from WarCraft 3 has its roots in an original StarCraft map, I was curious to see Blizzard's official take on the now much-copied gameplay. Unfortunately, Blizzard Dota seems more like a straight remake of the old mod, albeit in the StarCraft 2 engine.
That's hardly a bad thing, and the new mod features the classic range of heroes and creeps. Despite some occasional trouble I had with targeting (sometimes my hero would lose focus, causing me to lose control during some frantic scuttles), Blizzard Dota plays as expected. Each hero has a few abilities to level up, items can be purchased and upgraded from a few shops in the base, and the players I fought alongside fell right back into old tricks: switching lanes to gank, pushing a lane when the opportunity arose and going after towers when possible.
Still, it felt sort of hollow. Compared to a polished DotA clone like League of Legends, Blizzard Dota never lets you forget that it's just a mod of StarCraft 2. Sure, it's a nice bonus for StarCraft 2 owners, and it's still being balanced and worked on (Blizzard made sure to point out that this was just a preview build, not the finished product), but anyone expecting a challenger to the commercial clones out there (or the one soon coming) probably won't find what they're looking for.
That said, it's worth mentioning that the heroes in the mod are a Blizzard fan's dream: Lady Sylvanas, Zeratul, Raynor, Muradin, Grunty the Murloc, and even the Level-80 Tauren Chieftain are all playable characters; each with its own art assets and abilities. During the StarCraft 2 mods panel, the developers told the crowd that Blizzard Dota was their version of Super Smash Bros. If you're a huge Blizzard fan, this one's worth playing for the company in-jokes alone.