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S3 Ep224: Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas (MOBAs)
78 Plays3 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they talk about the queen, famous deaths, and eventually mobas in this week's episode!
Intro:
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Intro:
- Smite - God Selection Theme
- Dota 2 - Main Menu Flute Theme
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
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Transcript
Introduction and Dark Humor
00:00:00
Speaker
you
00:00:47
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake and I'm joined by my co-host is always Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave?
Death of Iconic Figures
00:00:55
Speaker
I mean, it was going okay. And then I had my heart broken today. Yeah. She's dead. Who's dead? The queen of England. Oh yeah. That happened today. That's right. Totally know her name. Really invested in the whole thing. Pretty sure it's Elizabeth. Or it was Elizabeth. Yeah.
00:01:16
Speaker
Did you just dead name her? Is that when you mentioned someone who is dead? Yeah, it's a joke because she died. Gotcha. Other than that, we're OK. We're a little bit tired, but I'm still on the queen. Thanks for the smile. We had this discussion earlier in Discord. It's like, can we make jokes about this? Are we allowed to make jokes? If you make it to like 96, yes, absolutely.
00:01:45
Speaker
I think people should be able to make jokes unless you're like in the presence of their immediate family and even then maybe just like one joke. Um, I think it's, I think it's fine. You're not celebrating their death. You're not like, ah, thank goodness. You know, whatever.
00:02:02
Speaker
Yeah, I'm really ambivalent to the whole thing, but like, I love a good name. And also I feel like certain people, especially who have like that much publicity probably have a certain degree of notoriety with them as well. So I feel less bad making jokes. They're public figures. Yeah. I think, um, for me, I remember when Michael Jackson died and there was a bunch of people who were like,
00:02:29
Speaker
pretty reactive to that in like not super great ways. And that one kind of surprised me cause they were like Christian and stuff like that. And I was just like, dude, do you think he was a Christian? Like what's, what's your take on this? Right? Like how, how is this a reasonable response for a believer to essentially be celebrating someone's death? Um, I never got a great answer from them, but I kind of just realized they were douchebags. Yeah. Like.
00:02:58
Speaker
I understand if somebody's done like an action, you're like, oh, that's irredeemable. I feel like I would celebrate their death a little bit.
00:03:09
Speaker
Like we were talking on British discord earlier about some stuff and how, if you remember when they caught Osama bin Laden, we were in college. Right. And it was lit on campus in town. Everyone's like, we get, everybody was, everyone's friend was like, we got them. Like that was the motto. Um, and it was like a big capstone and like kind of an end of a chapter of, Hey, we had this tragedy happen back on. I can't remember the date specifically, but.
00:03:39
Speaker
When that happened, it was like a national tragedy. Yeah. It's the same day this episode will be posted, actually. That's perfect. Again, full circle. But it seemed like in the same way as national tragedy, it was like a national success for when they caught him like, oh, yeah, we've taken something back. We've had a group victory type
Perception of Public Figures
00:04:05
Speaker
thing. Yeah.
00:04:07
Speaker
So I get it in that sense to a degree, even though I didn't really know Osama too well or look up all of the things that he did or didn't do. Yeah. But I mean, like pretty agreeably a shitty person across the board for some of his actions. But I didn't want to go out of my way. I don't know. I don't judge people who celebrate somebody's death if they see that person as shitty enough.
00:04:36
Speaker
Right. I mean, I think particularly, I agree. I think particularly in that case, the difference is like, I don't know the kind of person who is like actively hoping for the Queen's death versus like a good chunk of the world was after Osama bin Laden. Now, admittedly, the US were like really, really hyped for it. Right. Really out for blood because of that whole 9-11 thing. But like, um,
00:05:05
Speaker
I feel like at the moment when that was announced, there's tons of reasons people would celebrate in that, right? Potentially.
00:05:11
Speaker
Maybe you thought that that was gonna be the end, right? It's like, okay, we've accomplished the goal. We'll pull back all of the family members who were fighting or something like that. That didn't really happen. Spoiler alert. But Jake, they had oil. Yeah, well, how else are we gonna have those dawn commercials? And I think there's people who legitimately were very invested in the conflict, and this was justice.
00:05:40
Speaker
to their perception, not saying whether that's correct or incorrect, but that is how a lot of people perceived it. Especially after not really getting anything except for negative outcomes for a very long time, which usually happens when the US enters a foreign conflict. They needed a win, right? They needed a win. We need something for the POR back home. Otherwise, they'll think we're just burning their money.
00:06:11
Speaker
When in the Queen's case, she's just like an icon for the country. She's been alive for I think someone said like 30 percent of the lifespan of the United States entirely. It's like a scary amount of time. Yeah, she had like four or five like counselors appointed and like died during her lifespan. It's like it's crazy.
00:06:34
Speaker
Cause she was inaugurated at like as a teenager or something. Yeah, really. Yeah. So like 80, 70, 80 years on the front. That's a long freaking time. Someone had pointed out world war two started and ended while she was on the throne. And it's like, yeah. Yeah.
00:06:56
Speaker
Yeah. Not saying she caused it. I'm just saying she was around for it. It's true. It's true. Um, and then people keep tripping up. I was reading about it and people keep tripping up. Um, like, uh, her majesty, they keep saying instinctively because literally people who have been alive for 40 years have only ever said
Transition to King Charles
00:07:16
Speaker
her majesty.
00:07:17
Speaker
instead of His Majesty. And there's the queen, the king and the queen consort now. So that sounds like some Elden Ring bullshit, I'll be honest. Well, it was a real thing first, but yeah. I was more sad when Betty White died. That's fair. Again, not somebody who I knew or like kept up with really, but
00:07:48
Speaker
Anytime you'd see an interview and like, oh, she's spry, which is lively, but for an older person. And she just seemed like a human rights advocate. And I'm like, oh, she seems like she's not a cunt. And I like that quality in people.
00:08:06
Speaker
Her loss when she was again a public figure is I think more detrimental in my eyes and it affects me more than Some random royalty, which is again. Are you still doing this shit? What's up with that? No, I mean I agree, you know you want to see the people who are
00:08:25
Speaker
really positively contributing to the world. And maybe the queen helped in some ways. I'm just not familiar with it. You know, different country, different people. I don't think it's to the same level. Right. Like she's royalty or she was royalty, I should say. So like it's like you said, it's a completely different dynamic. And I think a lot of people as this happens, right, like as Charles becomes king, they're like, do we need to keep
00:08:53
Speaker
Doing this because the only reason they do it is for like they don't have actual power or the actual power that they have would be a Lot of it would cause a lot of trouble if they exercised it. Yes, I think that's the case I think there is some degree of power they have but It would get shut down pretty quick. Yeah, see like hey realistically nah
00:09:18
Speaker
I think their main role is just being on money. So good luck figuring that shit out. Yeah. Got to recall everything. Got to start new stuff. But us, we're still on pennies, by the way. So keeping those around. Anyways, in other news, we did have a topic for this week. Oh, yeah. We're going to talk about multiplayer online battle arenas.
Introduction to MOBAs
00:09:49
Speaker
Um, I think it's a bit long. Can you shorten it for me? Uh, MOBA, MOOB, MOBA, MOBA, MOBA. That's a bit long. Could you shorten it for me? Uh, 5v5 mid, no response, slappers only.
00:10:12
Speaker
What game is that from? No, I have no idea. Flappers only is GoldenEye. Those are the stupid melee karate chop things because they wanted to use like two polygons per hand. But yeah, MOBA's. I'm kind of surprised that we haven't had a dedicated MOBA episode.
00:10:34
Speaker
in the 16 years that the podcast has been going on. I mean, I've still been playing a MOBA for about 16 years. Yeah. And every time I'm like, I'm out, they pull me back in. But again, it's a social thing for me, primarily. How would you define, what do you think the core traits of a MOBA actually is?
00:10:58
Speaker
for the people who have no idea what this word is or what it means. And multiplayer online battle arena is the most vague description imaginable. Yeah, it is. It's like, hey, multiplayer. You're like, yeah, a lot of games are online. Again. Yeah, we just had this conversation battle. Yes. Okay.
00:11:18
Speaker
So specifically it is a, in the case of a lot of them, rectangular map, usually square. And you basically have a base on either side.
00:11:30
Speaker
You'll spawn from your base when you die. You can go back there to get healed. Then in between the bases, there'll be different lanes and the lanes will have towers. The towers will attack anything that comes by and then you have creeps that go out. So the goal is as your specific hero, character, champion, what have you, is to kill creeps to get money or kill your points to get money. Creeps are like little guys. Creeps are like little NPC allies.
00:11:57
Speaker
Basically. Yeah. They just attack in a straight line. They're like, we're going that way. And then they'll fight each other in the middle. But as you kill things and get money, you can progress your level, upgrade your abilities. And in a lot of these games as well, you can buy gear to enhance your character. But the goal is eventually to destroy the enemy base. Yes. But I would say a key part of that is a MOBA should have a diversity of character cast.
00:12:26
Speaker
So if you're like, Oh, I like playing this person, this person really excels at supporting. This person is very tanky, likes to get into fights. This person's an asshole and plants minds everywhere. Nobody likes that one. They should be distinct enough. So if you, you don't have two of like the exact same character that you could have on a team. Right.
00:12:47
Speaker
I think that's fair. You've got the roles, you've got the gameplay. I think we've seen, and we'll talk about some different types of mobas as far as camera's concerned, but traditionally a lot of them are isometric. I think Diablo or Age of Empires are one of those other games. I specifically don't mention Warcraft, which is the one that spawned all of them.
00:13:10
Speaker
And yeah, there's a very heavy competitive scene in a lot of MOBA's. Since it is basically player versus player, there's a lot of incentive to go in that direction. A lot of depth, a lot of planning. And we can start talking about them in the specifics. I think that's a pretty good example of where they start.
00:13:35
Speaker
They're also one of the games that's not literally a sport game that is most approachable to people who like sports. I specifically know people who pretty much only play sports games and mobas. It's not like in the nerd space as much as it is in the competitive sports space.
00:13:59
Speaker
I understand the competitiveness of it because it is very, a lot of them can be very layered or you can do things well, but if you really know your shit and the character and how the game works, you can abuse that. And it's just, it's wildly different watching professional scene. Here's something like a MOBA, actually a lot of games in general versus like the casual scene where like people are kind of like putts in a belt. Like when we play smash later, um,
00:14:28
Speaker
Oh, the other thing I would mention is MOBAs are almost entirely, not exclusively, but almost entirely defined of a vertical progression that only lasts for the duration of one match. So like all of those upgrades and things Dave was mentioning, leveling up, buying items, picking talents, whatever the case may be. It's all until you achieve victory and then you get the dubs or you get the L and you move on to the next one where you start at level one.
00:14:55
Speaker
Yeah, so I think one of the big draws about mobas is Every game feels different Because you have a large cast of characters And it's 5v5 so you do the math on how many different combinations there could be And then how you're going to build Where's where things are going to happen in the game? What strategies people have?
00:15:17
Speaker
And having all that come together is for some really dynamic gameplay. Also, it just looks cool. Like, if you're watching it from afar, and you see all these abilities pop off, you're like, oh, this guy's pooping on his other guys greatly. Not literally, but like. It might be misrepresenting. I'm sure there's a mobile out there. It's really cool to see somebody who's very good at the game exceed in a team fight or the game overall. Yes. And then you go to play your game. You're like, I want to do that.
00:15:47
Speaker
When I watch the pro game, I'm not going to copy their build and strat and see how it goes in my games. Yeah. Yeah. And then every so often the game will change to some degree. Yes. And it really depends on the game. Some games in this list that we'll talk about try to mix things up much more aggressively than others.
00:16:04
Speaker
What's the first game on our list? The first game is Defense of the Ancients.
Origins and Impact of DOTA
00:16:11
Speaker
Could you shorten that for me? Sure. DOTA was a Warcraft mod released in 2003.
00:16:22
Speaker
god damn long time ago um word on the street is you actually played dota so i did pushes up imaginary glasses which are actually somewhere else uh on my desk is actually called dota all-stars but
00:16:39
Speaker
Somebody had the idea of, oh, I like all these characters in Warcraft 3. What if I made a custom game where I use some of their models and abilities? Because Warcraft 3 had like hero characters, and they could do certain things. So they played around with it and made a bunch of unique characters, and then they made this game mode.
00:16:56
Speaker
And looking back, it looks like dog shit. Warcraft 3 did not have good graphics. But it was so cool at the time to do all this crazy stuff. And we used to play in our networking class a lot. Like we had done the work ahead of time, or you just didn't care. And we'd play in the back room. We're like, we're going to play some Dota. And you get some land matches going. It was a good time.
00:17:23
Speaker
Yeah, it was really the OG. I didn't play the OG, but I have heard about it much through the years. And it really was an extension of all of the campaign mechanics. Right. It's like rather than building structures to train units to do all of this stuff, it's like, what if we just automatically train units? There you go. That's your creeps. They automatically go down the lanes. Right. It's like they streamlined all of it to the point where playing literally just the one hero.
00:17:53
Speaker
because outside of a couple notable exceptions, that's basically the way that they're played, was engaging enough to really provide a competitive atmosphere in a 5v5. Also probably the least balanced the Dota, any iteration ever was. Yes. Because I have heard, I have read stories of heroes that were just around for like a couple days because they were like entirely
00:18:23
Speaker
entirely broken, like completely broken. I'll try to find some if you want to talk more about it. I have to imagine it's very hard to predict that early on in the same way it was with Magic the Gathering. It's just how many possibilities are there that could interact in a weird way where it's abusive one way. But I remember the chain for Pudge back in the day, each link of the chain was like a separate model.
00:18:52
Speaker
So they kept like drawing it and then they undrawed it when that chain came back. It was so dumb. But I remember a lot of the, don't quiz me Alex, I'll immediately forget in the moment. I remember a lot of the original names for characters. So occasionally someone will talk about a Dota 2 character and I'll be like, Oh, do you mean Yurnero? It's just, it's just simple trivia, but like, it just, some of that stuff stuck with me.
00:19:18
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Because these are all Warcraft characters originally, I think they included some custom ones and some of those were the broken ones. I was trying to find the particular article, but it's literally been years since I saw it, so I'm not sure I'm going to be able to find it now because all of the comments are talking about Dota 2. That's how far it's been.
00:19:42
Speaker
you had characters that were just unbeatable in a fight or they would just heal a ridiculous amount or some other like infinite shields or something dumb or RNG they would just win instantly or just lose instantly and you're like not great character design but this was these were the roots these were the foundations of dota
00:20:06
Speaker
yeah and without this we wouldn't have anything else yes because eventually from this uh spawned our other games like obviously the successor dota 2 league of legends is probably the most notorious one yeah at this point it has a huge scene following spin-off games tv show etc um
00:20:30
Speaker
Yeah, I want to talk a little bit about the transition there because so ice frog is the lead developer on After a point he took over for I think again so or someone like that in all stars
00:20:46
Speaker
Um, did some freelance stuff, came back and worked on Dota two, but a lot of the other people who were involved in all stars went on to found League of Legends. Um, including Pendragon and other people that are hated. Um, but like, uh, they, you know, founded right at games, then they kick this off six years later, uh, in 2009. Um, and yeah, league is big.
00:21:17
Speaker
It also looks like dog shit if you go back to the original. It's a lot more polished now. Some people would argue that, yes, it is graphically not that complicated. Which sometimes helps it. Yeah, but I think League of Legends really brought a more accessible space to the scene. Oh, yeah. Because I know so many people who played League in college, like everybody. Like, nobody's fucking playing Dota, because you're like, that old archaic thing that you have to, like, be a master or be able to read, like, rune text for.
00:21:46
Speaker
I don't think so. Let me play the thing.
League of Legends and Accessibility
00:21:48
Speaker
You're going to hop in a game with people. They were all private games, too, for for Dota All-Stars, right? Since they were just modded, a modded game for Warcraft. It's like you get banned from one of those or you get kicked or something like that just ruins your whole experience. Compare that to League, where you just get banned for being toxic. You know, like other reasons, which is good. I'm glad the community is moving in that direction.
00:22:14
Speaker
But it just felt so much more approachable and less complex. And it was just fun for a time.
00:22:23
Speaker
Yeah, League introduced a lot of interesting concepts also, like to give them credit, they expanded on the MOBA space a lot. They had like the summoner abilities, which you could like equip, which are usually long cooldown, single use sort of spells and things like that. They unlocked or they added monetization scheme in the form of buying champions, as opposed to just having everybody unlocked.
00:22:51
Speaker
Uh, like, like, which initially is like, this is a plus because you don't get overwhelmed by all the heroes. Uh, and then you're like trying to unlock all of the champions. You're like, this is taking a bit. Uh, they did have an in-game currency. You could get just through playing and winning. Uh, you could eventually accrue everything, but it boy, howdy, it took some time.
00:23:15
Speaker
Yeah, it also had because before you're talking about each game was fresh as far as progression. But League introduced something called mastery trees, where you could say, oh, I'm going to use these 30 points at the time. I don't know what it is now to say, oh, it's going to be more spell castry, more tanky, more aggressive DPS.
00:23:36
Speaker
So your Teemo could be much more spell castry and magic based versus someone else's who could have been built hiddenly. It's not really visible to you when you're in game to be more physical damage based. Right. Which is an interesting idea. It gives you some meta progression. I find myself inherently opposed to the idea of people being on different footing when the match starts, right? Like someone else might have a full page and you don't have anything unlocked.
00:24:05
Speaker
But hopefully some of that also boils out in the DMMR rankings and things like that over enough games. But that's not to say one game is unfortunate, right? If someone's done a little bit of pay to win or they started with an advantage you don't have, but yeah.
00:24:22
Speaker
But overall, I mean, League is, I believe, still the top on this list for played. Pretty much everybody could play it. You could play it on like a potato. And they made a lot of concessions for that, you know. Maybe not necessarily at the time, but since then, in order to maintain this client where you literally do hero selection out like before the game launches. Right. And then it launches the separate client and you have to go in and do all this stuff.
00:24:51
Speaker
It seems super archaic now, but again, you could run it on something that doesn't have a graphics card. And for a while, we didn't. Yeah, it's exactly right. I mean, it's huge. We're pretty prosperous, at least in this country most of the time, to have the resources to get
00:25:12
Speaker
Just a dedicated graphics card not even like a high-end one, but plenty of places in the world. That's not really possible Or you know you don't have a dedicated PC at all and League is you know a great option to fill that space so
00:25:28
Speaker
I didn't play a ton. What was that? I'm sure you can even play it on your phone now. I know that there's spinoffs. I know there's spinoffs at least. It wouldn't surprise me if you could play the game itself too. I played League a little bit. I enjoyed support. I played like I think Thresh was his name and Fiddlesticks.
00:25:50
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, I don't know if I call Fiddlesticks a support or I definitely, I didn't really play him that much like a support either, but, um, yeah, no, it was, they had interesting character, uh, designs and I played Dota two first. So there's a lot that the games have both in common and completely separately, you know, on this list, but, uh, they share some of that same DNA coming from all stars. Like.
00:26:20
Speaker
Uh, I still think it's cute that like Rylai scepter exists in league and Rylai is crystal maiden and dota, right? That's like That's her old name. Yeah Yeah, I think it's still I think it's currently still like her name unless they actually legitimately like canonically. It is her name. Yes Yeah, but like they always call her crystal maiden. Yes um
00:26:43
Speaker
I really, one of the things I just have loved about MOBAs is like, you get into playing a certain character, a type of character to a degree, and it's just fun to
00:26:56
Speaker
get into it as that character. Like it was nice to say, Oh, I'm going to play Tarek and I have this specific Tarek building shot. I'm going to do. Yeah. And you basically go around and you're like babysitting your carry, but it felt good to say like, Oh, these are my strats for how I want to approach at this specific game. Maybe next game, you're like, I'm not feeling support. I want to go maybe range DPS. I'm like, Oh, I'll be Caitlin. And so you play an entirely different way. Yeah. Again, it feels very dynamic, but it's.
00:27:31
Speaker
It is it is one of the things that definitely kept Moba's fresh as if he ever got tired with a specific character. A different play style was right around the corner and it could mix everything up for you. You know, even beyond just roles where you have support, carry and offline or whatever you want to call them. Right. However it exists for the game. But yeah, I mean, League is a big one. I think this is probably the one our friend group overall has dumped the most time into.
00:27:52
Speaker
I miss those days of enjoying more.
00:27:59
Speaker
by a very, well, when I say our friend group, I guess I have to literally exclude your Dota friends because they probably at this point have eclipsed everyone else. But from the traditional school folks, I think League was really big for a time and Dota never really took off to the same extent.
00:28:19
Speaker
True. I feel like Dota is like post-rock. You appreciate it when you're older type thing. That's fair. Were there any really standout characters for you in either Dota 2 or League of Legends that kind of fits your vibe or play style? I'll definitely get to Dota 2 in League.
00:28:40
Speaker
I Did like support I liked Like I said, I like Thresh I didn't play that many characters though because most most of my games are like bot games I also played I think her name was Annie It's like a big bear It's like an ultimate and
00:28:58
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. League is fun for kind of like blaster type characters. You're trying to like just exchange hits and land skill shots and things like that. Also, I will say League really introduced a lot of skill shots.
00:29:14
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. So like you hover over your ability and it would draw a line for where it was going to go. So like if a creep or something else got in the way, it would hit that first. You might be trying to catch like a specific enemy champion. So you had to aim a lot more. Yes. Whereas a lot of stuff in Dota has been, you click your ability here.
00:29:36
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that carried over really from the classical ability style of like Defense of the Ancients and All-Stars is like the idea, the commitment and the skill is when are you using these abilities? Are you just burning off all of your mana? Because you don't have that much of it.
00:29:54
Speaker
Right. Like, uh, there's, and we'll, we'll talk more about Dota. I think the next one will be brief. Right. So 2009 was league of legends. Not too long after that, 2010, we got heroes of new worth, which I did not play. But the only thing I know about it is that there are a few heroes that people wish would come over to Dota. And then everyone says it was the most toxic thing ever.
00:30:21
Speaker
Yup, 100% agree with that. I played some Heroes of New Earth when I guess League of Legends was getting a little bit passé. Like, what else is there? Oh, Heroes of New Earth. I'm a MOBA player. And it is always interesting when you go cross MOBA to say, oh, this ability is kind of like this other ability from a different character in the other game. You kind of see like the mix and match, or you see something new they introduced.
00:30:47
Speaker
But still like if you're coming in as a new player you're always gonna have to learn the ropes to a degree And that is not an option in Heroes of New Earth. If you show weakness, they will jump on you For some reason the sweaty douchebag community all gravitated towards this game and every game I had People were dropping some real gamer words it was constantly just like the most toxic shit and
00:31:14
Speaker
Yeah. And even notably, like the people who make the game will play the game, but they're also toxic pieces of shit. Uh-huh. So it's a loose situation. This is the one where I remember hearing stories about people getting banned if they like argued with the game devs or sometimes if they beat the game devs like in a match and things like that. Would not surprise me. Yeah. It's been, it's been a long time. So some of that's hearsay, but like,
00:31:45
Speaker
Han is the game for it. That's enough about Han. Nobody cares. Game, I think, might legitimately be dead at this point. Didn't even care enough to Google to see if that's true. Dota 2.
The Success Story of Dota 2
00:32:00
Speaker
2013. I came in pretty close to ground floor. I think I was within the first year of when it launched, back when it was still in beta. And you had like a...
00:32:11
Speaker
You had like a shard type thing that had a counter for the number of people you invited to the beta, but that was the way you had to get in. If someone who was already playing had to invite you to play the beta, which was very weird, but it did basically ensure that the most interested people were the people who were playing the game.
00:32:33
Speaker
Not the worst model. I must have gotten in after that because I don't remember that whole setup so much. I think it was post-launch. I think it was like 2013, 2014, something like that is when we started playing together at least.
00:32:46
Speaker
But this one's big this was the the full the full sequel to dota all-stars which surprised a lot of people at the time because one Valve made this right and this is meaningful because blizzard previously not Activision related at all like owned the rights essentially to to warcraft 3 and the models from warcraft 3 and the names from warcraft and
00:33:15
Speaker
all of the Diablo characters that were also added to as heroes, right? So like when Leoric walks up and Dota 2 as Skeleton King, Blizzard's like, hey, that's kind of our thing. But Valve basically like pulled the rug out from under them for just like a tiny little bit of background. We could talk a little bit more about the actual game
00:33:45
Speaker
Ice Frog went to Blizzard and was like, I want to make the next Dota game. And Blizzard's like, we're not really interested in that right now. And so he went to Valve and Valve's like, we're interested in that right now. So like this will get even more context as we talk about some of the other MOBAs, but I guarantee you to this day, there's executives somewhere who are just like, they think back on this decision and they're like, I could have had so much more money.
00:34:17
Speaker
Yeah, because League of Legends is universally big for sure. Like they are, they have no lack of money in their coffers whatsoever. But Dota 2 TI has a bigger prize pool to my knowledge than League of Legends does. It has the biggest prize pool in any video game.
00:34:42
Speaker
Okay, it's it's a big thing. But it's, again, it's just very cool to watch and enjoy and such that I won't suck a dick too much. But I was definitely the most time playing this game. And I played a lot of League of Legends, I can tell you that.
00:35:02
Speaker
But Dota 2 is probably where my heart lies for MOBA. I still play it to this day with some people. I have another discord of like some Dota friends and we'll play or setup times that hang out. It's like a rotating cast of people.
00:35:17
Speaker
It's not always like the same group doing stuff. I'm sure we'd get tired of each other and be like, why does Dave never buy BKB? Because no one buys BKB. Everyone buys it. I don't want to be affected by magic.
00:35:36
Speaker
But something I want to add as color for MOBAs in general, because we talked about like the lanes and the bases in between the lanes, because it is a sizable map to a degree in between the lanes. There is jungle and like unexplored area, like fog of war.
00:35:54
Speaker
So there are other places to go and farm camps. People might try and gank you by rotating to your lane. It's like, I don't know where my mid character is. They fucked off. Be careful. And maybe someone will jump out of the bushes and try and stab you in the asshole.
00:36:10
Speaker
But a key part of that becomes getting vision out. You can place wards to say, oh, if somebody walks in this area, they will show up on the map. Exactly. And then you can look over it with your camera and be like, oh, there they are. This is what items they currently have. And then you can do other wards to deward.
00:36:28
Speaker
It becomes like this whole thing. Yeah. And it's changed a lot over the years. But it's still really I realize I'm now just ranting about why I like the game. And I think it's for I think to the critical constructive.
00:36:43
Speaker
To encapsulate what you're describing though, it's like there's multiple mechanics at play in a given match. And because you're playing these different roles, supports are dealing with the vision game a lot of the time. Maybe in the supportive item game, like you can be playing the mechanics that you're dealing with could be entirely different from what someone else's mechanics currently are in the game, right? Your carry is trying to get last hits to get gold.
00:37:09
Speaker
And you don't care about that in this moment. You are rotating to try to like kill the opposing carrier or something like that, right? So this asymmetric gameplay where there's all of these decisions to make moment by moment is basically the core, the heart of what makes MOBAs interesting because you're not like,
00:37:28
Speaker
If you're doing something by rote every game, then either that strategy is busted, your opponents aren't that good to punish you at some point, or you're playing the game wrong because it should be more dynamic than that. Yeah, that's a whole big thing. But Dota, to the high level, the things it contributed. One, it brought us back to all of the heroes are unlocked.
00:37:56
Speaker
Heroes get added to Dota, I think like two per year, give or take, maybe one per year on average. Less frequently than League of Legends.
00:38:04
Speaker
Yes, absolutely yes. They're unlocked immediately. The game is free to play also, and it's always been free to play. So if you're just in there for the content, you download it and you play it. There you go, that's all you gotta do. How do they make all this money? Why is it such a big game to have these massive prize pools? Their monetization scheme is
00:38:33
Speaker
They basically take the money of people who want style. They have like multiple components broken out oftentimes in skins and like different slots. Okay. You want to use this weapon. You want to use this helmet, et cetera, et cetera. And you can buy that on the steam marketplace or maybe in a chest.
00:38:49
Speaker
Um, and like a loot crate, basically, um, or get it as part of the battle pass, which is where almost all of the money goes, uh, for the international, um, as I think 9% of the money. Yeah. And I'm going to throw out some figures here, probably the, I'll go to the first international that I see on this list. And I want to talk about the last international.
00:39:16
Speaker
But the first international that I see, I'm pretty sure there was one in 2013, but I'm starting at 2014. Valve contributed $1.6 million to the prize pool. That's a pretty hefty prize pool. That's good, right? They had a compendium that could be purchased and then you could continue to buy levels or just play the game to level it up. And I think 25% of each purchase went to the prize pool.
00:39:43
Speaker
And that contributed $9.3 million for a grand total of 10.9 for that massive prize pool. And people were like, that's a lot of money.
00:39:55
Speaker
That is a whole lot of money. It's not like first place gets all of it, but I think it was like top eight is where it's all split. Something like top eight. And then the number just goes up. So the following year, it went from 10 million total to 18 million. And the last international was in 2021. It was 40 million dollars. Yeah, 40, 40 million dollars and valve.
00:40:23
Speaker
is still contributing 1.6 million every single time. This is all just the player base, buying compendiums, buying levels, things like that.
00:40:35
Speaker
So if you're like, that can't be possible. There must be like so many people playing dota. If it's that one, there are, it is a pretty big player base, but also I know two separate people who both have level 500 plus battle passes who bought like they literally probably spent around three to $500 on this.
00:40:59
Speaker
I don't know why I couldn't tell you. But usually the battle pass will have quote unquote exclusive content where if you get it, it's time limited to access it. Maybe it's a certain character skin because you got to a high enough level.
00:41:15
Speaker
Um, and then you can't really get anywhere else unless somebody's trying to sell it on the marketplace. Um, it becomes very unique. Um, and that really drives up the price, but that's just from marketplace trading that doesn't go towards it. Uh, the TI fund itself, but like these people are diehard. Yes. Absolutely.
00:41:39
Speaker
And this is actually, I know Griffin's not listening, so I'm going to use this time to shoot on him. Griffin's been playing this game for so long and he's terrible. He's not actually terrible, but like this is, I think his game. Occasionally I've seen him play other games on Steam and I'm like, Hey buddy, something up. I only expect him to play that game because that's the only really game he talks about or plays. But like.
00:42:04
Speaker
the same group of people will follow the pro scene. They'll follow the Twitter of different teams and stuff that's going on. They're very much in the scene and they love it. Yeah. I mean, I was there for a long time too.
00:42:21
Speaker
I put my couple thousand hours in. I was buying the compendium. I had a favorite team fill out the fantasy roster. I just got the bracelets motion from Dave because he knows one particular year I was on that list of people who spent like $200 to get my gosh dang golden bracelets on Enigma so I could have the coolest black hole ultimate.
00:42:50
Speaker
probably not worth, but still kind of worth. Uh, it's, it's so addicting. Uh, and we haven't really talked about that attribute of MOBAs, but like for me, that was Dota, um, particularly across like summers in school or, you know, in school after finishing homework or in school before finishing homework. Um, just like in school while I was doing the homework.
00:43:15
Speaker
Just like just dump so much time into it and not always for like a positive psychological result either.
00:43:26
Speaker
But they can be incredibly addictive. You want to win. You want to win. And the more you want to win, the less helpful individual wins are. It's going to sound like cocaine or something. But the more painful losses are, and that's what ultimately got me to the point where I was like, I can't. I can't anymore. I really can't.
00:43:52
Speaker
Yeah, it's Not wrong the other day. I wasn't on but like I heard about I think people were playing over the weekend They put like eight games and lost eight in a row. I'm like, why would you not stop after two losses? Be like, you know, I'm gonna do something else. Uh-huh. There is all the day I don't need to say to win it but it's like you're
00:44:12
Speaker
You're at the the craps table like well, I can't keep losing right and I think that's part of it. This is the opposite of the hot hand You're like, you know about monkeys and typewriters I'm bound to win, uh-huh Yeah, I mean I usually do two or three tops and like I'm good whether it's like those are wins or losses or not
00:44:41
Speaker
But I will say certain losses, I'm like, we could have won. I feel like they hurt much more because I'm like, oh, I could have done something different. Or this person definitely fucked up. The down to the wire. Yeah. Yeah.
00:44:54
Speaker
Yeah, there's, there's been a lot of analysis done on MOBAs and I think there's still a lot of room to do more on like game theory and the psychology behind it and all of this, but it's, it's so dang engaging, right? Like people get into first person shooters. Some people get into RTS games, not anymore, but I know that was the thing in the past. Um,
00:45:18
Speaker
And MOBA is like, it just blows all of that out of the water for me, for like how downright engaging it can be. And that's its strength and, you know, the draw. But Dota 2, big one. If you want to hear more about that one, I mean, we had an entire episode on it.
00:45:38
Speaker
A while back. Now I can answer your character or your question. Favorite character is still freaking Oracle because Oracle is awesome. I will say they've made him better. Really? Yes.
00:45:54
Speaker
How so? So you know how they added Ag Shards? Yes. For anybody who's listening, there's an item in the game called Ag Scepter or Agonym Scepter. If you get it, each character has a specific to them enhancement with it, whether it's a new ability or an enhancement on an existing ability that character has.
00:46:15
Speaker
And then there's an eggs shard, which is cost less money. It's a less impactful feature sometimes. Um, but again, distinctively unique to that character. Right. Minor improvement. So he has like an AOE heal slash damage thing, which is stupid for team fights.
00:46:36
Speaker
No, like it's a big circle. It's not a single target. Like it's a large aoe of like rain that comes down, heals allies, damages enemies. Is it like continual or just a single cast? Because if it's a single cast... Well you know like Firestorm from Underlord? Yeah. It lasts for like eight to ten seconds. Oh dang, so just a new ability. It is noticeable.
00:46:59
Speaker
Well, and I will say like I've played against good oracles and you're like, oh, I'm going to kill this person. And then they just make sure that person doesn't die. Yeah. You know, I've done at least 5000 damage. I was like, nope, he's fine. You know, what the fuck? I thought I calculated that better.
00:47:16
Speaker
Oracle is like, the reason I love Oracle is because he's a mix of a damaged healer, like a caster, and not to a crazy extent, not to like some of the magic carries, and a healer. But he has so many decisions he can make between those two extremes. And some of them include literally like, you are going to die. I cannot prevent your death.
00:47:42
Speaker
But I'm going to buy literally buy you time so that you can maybe keep fighting for a while and kill some people or something like that. And you just play with people's lives in the middle of the match and like.
00:47:57
Speaker
If you screw up, you can kill your allies, not directly, but you just reduce their health and then they get killed by something else. He can't literally lethal allies, but he's got like a root and his heal is the same thing that deals damage to both allies or enemies. And there's all of this nonsense at play. You could heal enemies too, which is really funny, but I mean, don't do that.
00:48:22
Speaker
And I just loved, I loved like all these little interactions with him, where it's just like, oh, someone's fighting, and like a tank, or say, or your carry, right, is in the fight. You hit them with a borrowed time. They were about to just retreat. And they're like, okay, maybe I should keep fighting. Because you know, they have like nine seconds or whatever, probably eight seconds now.
00:48:46
Speaker
where they can't die. And other times it's like, okay, now I can run because now I'll be able to survive with this borrowed time if you heal me. But you're like, no, keep fighting, right? Like you use this ability on them and you're like, you just make the call. This engagement will be better if you keep fighting and die at the end of it, as opposed to like being healed and survive. Sacrifice your body to me.
00:49:14
Speaker
uh-huh it's just the most absurd stuff um but i love oracle who's your favorite fun unique support i jump around a bit some of my
00:49:28
Speaker
I think my three top favorites or issues like pictures are venom answer. He's all about putting different poisons on people when I was a protector. He's all about being a big fucking tree, doing some forest nature shit. But he has an accessibility called eyes in the forest, which acts like a little vision wards. So I love littering the map with that and then not participating in team fights and cast your ult through it.
00:49:54
Speaker
Yes, that is also fun Undying who is still pretty strong right now but overall I I've really taken a liking to pudge Yeah, like he got buffed within like the last two or three patches and they've nerfed and backed down again since but He's just one of those characters who will always be fun to play Mm-hmm cuz he has the hook
00:50:21
Speaker
which they also have Blitzcrank, but he'll be stationary, send out something, if it catches something, it'll bring it back to him. So usually you want to catch an enemy out of place, bring them to you, and then you start ulting them and locking them in place while you have your rot on, which does AoE damage. But he can also get stacks of flesh heap. So every time you get a kill, another stack. And then for each stack he has, he has more health and regen.
00:50:46
Speaker
So later on in the game, if you've been playing well and you're snowballing, he gets to be a real tanky motherfucker. Yeah. But he's just so fun to play. It also feels good to do a blink hook and line up the shot because you have to lead it because it takes time to go out. It's not instant. You're making a triangle. Draw the vertices. Here we go. It always feels good to land those skill shots because there aren't too many of them.
00:51:17
Speaker
Morana arrows are another example of if you land it you're like, oh, yeah. Uh-huh. That's that's a hundred percent Pudge is the only one and I didn't know about everything else I was up to date on but I didn't know you're playing more pudge I could see it though. She did so much. They made him so good Yeah, but he always he gets played so much now that he's always like a first pick ban
00:51:41
Speaker
Interesting. That was another difference in Dota, right? Like League, I think you could have symmetrical heroes or champs. I believe you could have the same person on both sides. I think so. Yeah. And in Dota, that's not the case. Once a character is picked or banned, that's it for the match.
00:52:01
Speaker
So sometimes those did lead to a very interesting like captain's draft or draft modes where you're like picking your characters one after another. A lot more strategy involved there as opposed to like a mirror match or something you might see in Overwatch, right? And you see that a lot in pro play. You'll spend like 10 minutes on draft and you're like, who are they going to ban next? Who are they going to pick? Because obviously certain characters would excel against other characters. It's a rock, paper, scissors type thing.
00:52:30
Speaker
To a degree, yeah. Not to say it's impossible for you to do it. It just makes your life a lot fucking harder. Yeah. Some characters are just really good against other characters, right? It's like, oh, they're all like squishy casters. All right. Someone with high magic resistance that just jumps on them and kills them, probably the playing star. Yeah.
00:52:54
Speaker
But yeah, Dota is a big one. I have some others on this list. Two of them are going to be fast. Don't even mention Super Monday Night Combat. Nobody's played it. Nobody's played it. So I didn't even have that one on the list. I don't know when it came out. But Super Monday Night Combat I think was sometime after Dota 2. Definitely sometime after. Yeah.
00:53:15
Speaker
and it didn't last that long. I'm pretty sure. I think that that one was high-rise, but I'm not 100% sure on that. I think it didn't even last as long as Paragon. That's my last one, yeah. The next one I have was Smite. Didn't play Smite. It was interesting though. That was a third person over the shoulder.
00:53:36
Speaker
More like action sort of MOBA, but it still had the lanes and all of that kind of more like old gods themed not like Cthulhu but like juice and Athena I guess, you know Greek gods things like that And I've heard good things about it, I think this is like the only high-res game that still exists
00:54:05
Speaker
Um, but otherwise I have nothing to say about it. I think it's free. Never tried it. Yeah. It's, I feel like I've done brief stints with all of them. It sounds familiar. Yeah. Um, this one came out like a year. I was going to say it came out like a year after Dota two. So like it was clearly in development and it's just kind of one of those unfortunate launches where.
00:54:32
Speaker
It's got to try to carve its niche out where people were already playing league or dota. Yeah. I don't want it to come off the wrong way, but like smite in my eyes feels like a Chinese knockoff of league. Like, you know how you like played some like strictly like Korean type games, but like, you know, it's like a budget ripoff of something else and versus something that was made.
00:55:02
Speaker
on its own standalone. Right. That's the vibe I get. Gotcha. I think I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt. And I think like they tried to introduce some novel concepts and the third person actiony MOBA was there were a couple of tries super, super Monday night combat, I think was the same type. But
00:55:26
Speaker
This is the same thing as those other genres like zombie games or Minecraft or whatever. You don't want to be the 10th one to release because you have to really, really incentivize people to move over and play your game. And getting people to swap from something that they're already enjoying is really hard. But I think it did all right. I don't know.
00:55:50
Speaker
Next one, 2015, so we're getting even closer to the current year, Heroes of the Storm.
Review of Heroes of the Storm
00:55:57
Speaker
So this is... Not that much to say here, folks. Nobody really plays this. No one plays this. So this is Blizzard. Blizzard published this two years after Dota 2.
00:56:11
Speaker
And I think it really was intended to be an admission of, not guilt, but the mistake of letting Ice Frog go, and the realization that MOBAs were going to be a big moneymaker.
00:56:30
Speaker
Um, and they should have seen it with league, but they were just behind the ball, but, uh, it has a couple changes to the formula. Um, and I put a lot of time out of this. This is the second most played one of these on the list for me. Um, Dota two is insurmountable for hours. Like.
00:56:49
Speaker
At the place I'm at in my life, I'm not going to play that many hours in a game, basically again. But heroes made some design decisions that are kind of novel given the existing place. It's still top down, still plays kind of like League or Dota. They took out all of the items. They took out last hits. You still get experience in the game launch. You got experience by killing creeps or minions or whatever they're called.
00:57:16
Speaker
And this one, current state of the game is they drop experience orbs that you have to pick up. So the idea is if you're not actually nearby, or you can't like push forward to grab them, then you're punished in some way, as opposed to having some advantage and being able to move forward and grab the resources that are dropping.
00:57:37
Speaker
Um, but it just has talents. That's the, the one decision to make wallet really leveling up. Um, and then they introduced more mid-map objectives. Um, so traditionally, uh, league and Dota, they have Baron Nashor or they have Roshan to try to like claim advantage in the mid game in a way that's not literally just killing your opponents. Um, and hots liked that idea. And so they made it part of the core game.
00:58:07
Speaker
There's a lot of maps where it's like if you get the optional objective, you're actually just pushing forward to win.
00:58:17
Speaker
All of that sounds really cool. It's fun. We had a bunch of people who played it in our friend group that was adding up until Destiny recently. And the game is also on long-term support. So no new characters will be added, no new maps, anything like that, unless there's some massive change in leadership or goals.
00:58:43
Speaker
Cause it did not take off again. The last one to the pie. No, they shut down the pro scene and then stop doing anything with it. But I think.
00:58:57
Speaker
So remember we're talking about league of legends being like, Oh, mobas are accessible. Yeah. That was true before hots came out. Hot is the entry way. Cause you can go in and when you die, you don't feel as punished. You don't have to learn items. The map objectives will usually ping and say, Hey, you should go here. I'm sure your teammates will chime in with that as well. Um, but not in voice chat. The default, it doesn't join everyone to voice. You have to explicitly join it if you want.
00:59:27
Speaker
Every game should have a future, by the way. I never want to hear somebody talking. The worst. But yeah, it's a lot more evenly split as far as experience. Usually, like there's not a wide level disparity between you and your teammates.
00:59:46
Speaker
Either might be between your team and the enemy team based on how objectives are going or how many things are killing. But again, it's usually pretty minor. Yeah. Whereas in Diller, like if you're a support, like you're not killing stuff, you're roaming around trying to get vision. It's very hard to ball out of control.
01:00:04
Speaker
Cause you're not supposed to get that money. You're usually strong earlier to like help people out so you can have one person get like real big later. And then they are the, they show up to team play and murder people. Whereas everybody feels a lot more equal in hots.
01:00:20
Speaker
And to be fair, there still are roles and there still are carries. Their roles are like assassins, which are damage, healers, which are healers, support, which are like, there's literally three of them in the game, but they're just like specialists kind of. Tanks and bruisers. Bruisers are supposed to be more damaged and a bit of tankiness and tanks are like all tankiness.
01:00:44
Speaker
um but like assassins do a lot of damage particularly in the late game and a couple of them do have scaling but never to the extent of like oh i'm just gonna win before all of these people you'll get like locked down with cc or healing or something like that it's not
01:01:00
Speaker
Not to the same crazy extent. You can get it in other MOBA's where it's like, by the way, I'm God. Because I had a really good early game and everything else is the penance you're going to be paying for me getting all of those of items. Right. Yes.
01:01:17
Speaker
Because you can invest in your character to say, Oh, I'm going to give them all this extra damage or health or something else. But you don't have any items in hots. So it's really focused around the team fighting as a group. And occasionally you can definitely do one of the ones depending on the matchup. If you're alone and you're a bruiser versus somebody who's to support.
01:01:37
Speaker
You can probably damage them out or push them out of lane. But for the most part, I would say it's entirely team based. Because again, you have those objectives going on to encourage you not to just have everyone chill in lanes, doing their own thing. Yes.
01:01:51
Speaker
Yeah, they really try to like really encourage people to be like, this is the point. This is where we want team fights to be happening. Don't sit and farm. There is no gold. As a reminder, there is no gold. You're just getting experience. And sometimes it's advantageous and you can get people that rat or try to push a lane on their own. But like a lot more team fight focused and the rounds are quite short by comparison.
01:02:18
Speaker
If you get stomped and hot, um, it'll normally be over in sub 15 minutes. Um, which is like a very short time. Compared to. That is unheard of in other mobas. Yeah. Other mobas, you're like, yeah, I got some time to kill. Whereas like Haas, you're like, I'm currently eating. Yeah, I can play. Mm-hmm.
01:02:42
Speaker
I think we could we could almost have a sub discussion on like comeback mechanics and how like those are treated in mobas but I'm gonna avoid it. I will say in hots, since it is just experience, basically, and then keeps.
01:02:58
Speaker
It's actually really possible to come up come back from like the jaws of defeat If the people get too confident and you kill them they can't buy back in the game only I think two characters in the entire roster have an ability to respond up Three three characters in the entire roster have an ability to respond faster
01:03:21
Speaker
And that I can remember. And otherwise it's like, you guys have really crazy respawn times cause you're such a high level sucks to suck. We're just going to destroy all your stuff. Right. And suddenly you're back in it. Um, whereas sometimes it takes more failures to, uh, throw the game on the opposite side. Like Dota wants people to feel strong in their advantages a lot of the time, which is satisfying.
01:03:48
Speaker
Yeah, there are times that you definitely Will have the team go off and like oh we're gonna farm but it's like we're up 30 kills We should probably push an objective Want to lock it in though, you know
01:04:03
Speaker
So I just want to make sure it's just really close to Battle Fury. Getting in the headshakes. But yeah, I actually quite enjoy hots and I actually still recommend it. It's on long term support. If you want to not be addicted to these types of games, it's kind of difficult to be addicted to hots. They're really short maps and you can kind of just stop playing.
01:04:31
Speaker
and you don't have to deal with all the mechanics in some of the other ones. It's fun. I also like some of the hero designs. I think a lot of the ones on this list actually have really cool hero designs, but I love the concept of ariel in hots, right? Like, hey, I'm gonna pick an ally, put a crown on them, and the damage they deal is what's gonna fill my energy bar that I use for healing.
Paragon: Innovation and Shutdown
01:04:57
Speaker
No mana otherwise. That's cool, I like that.
01:05:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's a nice energy. Yeah. Last one. I can spend a lot of time on this. Dave alluded to this. I can tell he's got like the enthusiasm in his eyes as I as I bring this one up. Paragon literally dead. I played this one against bots and I contributed no money to it and somehow the game failed.
01:05:27
Speaker
Yeah, it's it was an interesting idea. I didn't hate the idea. It was fun to try out. I think we played for a week, maybe like seven to 10 hours total. The idea is it is a third person game, but it is 3D. Yeah. So you can turn your camera around and go do stuff and possibly not see things.
01:05:52
Speaker
I think like Gears of War. It was it was kind of like, yeah, but with lanes. Yeah. But as far as like melee interaction, you had to like you're playing Reinhardt swing and actually hit them. Yeah. To be fair, Reinhardt has a bullshit hitbox and will hit no matter where he is in the hammer. There's a rectangle. Yeah. But you really have to be close enough if you're playing a melee character or melee ability.
01:06:16
Speaker
And the range characters don't have a limited range. It feels weird to aim stuff in a three-dimensional space when it's so uncommon. But I think there was a Reaper character who I enjoyed playing as.
01:06:29
Speaker
Mm hmm. There's also like a shooter guy, some cowboy type person. And I remember his ultimate was he like put him and the opponent into like the shadow realm and no one else existed. You couldn't heal them. Couldn't hurt them. Couldn't do anything. But he's just like you and me 1v1 right now.
01:06:48
Speaker
Um, usually with advantage cause he's a damage character. Right. So, um, if you put it on their support, they're like, well, but, um, no, it was fun. And they also had like, uh, their meta progression type thing where cards you could like equip for your loadout. They would have different effects. Um, it was cool.
01:07:12
Speaker
And then it died because it was made by Epic and Epic also made Fortnite. Fortnite's not doing so good. Well, and then Fortnite made all of the money. And so they decided not to make any other games, which is fair.
01:07:33
Speaker
I feel like Paragon didn't really get much in the way of marketing either. No, not really. It was a flash in the pan. I think it literally went from data to cancer. One guy whispered, do you want to play this? And then nobody heard him. And then that's what it was. I played a couple co-op games with other people, but I feel like I played one or two games against actual human opponents because I could just do my dailies. And it was just this catharsis. I was just like, oh, it just feels good to get the dailies done and do something else. I didn't help the game survive.
01:08:02
Speaker
That's why I'm cool with an MTG arena. I'm like, oh, I'll do some Taylor's. Never plays a game. Yeah, that's fair. But those are mobas. There's other ones out there on the list. Nobody cares about them. If it was mobile only, I didn't include it.
01:08:21
Speaker
I know a lot of people play those. It doesn't matter. We're PC and console game. They're a huge waste of time. Huge waste of life. Hopefully if you play them, you have fun. I don't recommend any of them. And if you do play them, let me know how it goes.
01:08:41
Speaker
Don't tell me. No, I'm just going to assume it was bad. Um, if you guys have your favorite moba stories, maybe something really cool happened. Maybe you popped off with, as with anti-mage with techies on your team, you'd send those in soapstone podcast at gmail.com. Or you could join the discussion on Facebook, which is kind of like a moba with comments at facebook.com. So I soap some podcast. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Have a good night.
01:10:12
Speaker
you