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Author Topic: [Kickstarter] Battle Arena Show, the MOBA inspired miniatures game!  (Read 7024 times)

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rsegura

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Hi folks,

My name is Ruben Segura, producer of Koti Games, a company founded by an enthusiastic group of professional entrepreneurs. Together, we have over 30 years’ experience working in leading companies in the videogame industry. Since we all love games, we have some exciting news that we believe you might consider interesting. We will be soon launching our next project: Battle Arena Show, an innovative board game inspired by the style of MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) videogames.
At April 7th the Battle Arena Show's Kickstarter campaign will be launched.



Battle Arena Show is a multiplayer strategy board game that takes place in an alternative reality, where the discovery of time travel has permitted unprecedented technological advances. This board game uses miniatures to recreate a morbid reality show, in which two teams battle to compete for the coveted title of Battle Arena Master.
Battle Arena Show brings the gameplay mechanics of the MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) PC games, like League of Legends or DOTA 2, to your table. 2 to 6 players divided in 2 teams will compete to destroy the enemy base. Each player will control one or more heroes and the team will receive the help of their minions to achieve the victory.



You can take a quick look at our project by watching the following video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=n9HUQKYVyyo

Also, we are running a giveaway now, until April 6th, and if you want to win a copy of Battle Arena Show, you can visit the following link:
https://gleam.io/fb/9KyPn
Good luck!  ;)

You can find much more information in our web site and Facebook's fan page:
http://www.battlearenashow.com
https://www.facebook.com/battlearenashow

We hope you like the project  :)
« Last Edit: April 03, 2015, 05:45:02 pm by rsegura »
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popsofctown

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Re: [Kickstarter] Battle Arena Show, the MOBA inspired miniatures game!
« Reply #1 on: April 10, 2015, 11:21:55 pm »
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You might want to call it a MOBA inspired board game instead, if that's accurate.  I'm megaturned off by miniatures games that aren't tile based due to the frustration with measuring, and I think on the Dominion board a lot of other people might be the same way.  I almost didn't click.

Just a suggestion.  My love for MOBAs made me click anyway
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Watno

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Re: [Kickstarter] Battle Arena Show, the MOBA inspired miniatures game!
« Reply #2 on: April 11, 2015, 12:28:33 pm »
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You might also want to call it an ARTS inspired game. Im megaturned off by refering to this genre as MOBA, and I think among DOTA2 players a lot of other people might be the same way.
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Drab Emordnilap

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Re: [Kickstarter] Battle Arena Show, the MOBA inspired miniatures game!
« Reply #3 on: April 11, 2015, 01:19:39 pm »
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Is this the game I saw at Protospiel Houston?
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eHalcyon

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Re: [Kickstarter] Battle Arena Show, the MOBA inspired miniatures game!
« Reply #4 on: April 11, 2015, 01:28:59 pm »
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You might also want to call it an ARTS inspired game. Im megaturned off by refering to this genre as MOBA, and I think among DOTA2 players a lot of other people might be the same way.

What's wrong with calling the genre MOBA?  As far as I can tell, the only reason DOTA players don't like it is that it was coined by Riot.  I haven't seen one good argument against the term.
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pacovf

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Re: [Kickstarter] Battle Arena Show, the MOBA inspired miniatures game!
« Reply #5 on: April 11, 2015, 02:42:11 pm »
+1

You might also want to call it an ARTS inspired game. Im megaturned off by refering to this genre as MOBA, and I think among DOTA2 players a lot of other people might be the same way.

What's wrong with calling the genre MOBA?  As far as I can tell, the only reason DOTA players don't like it is that it was coined by Riot.  I haven't seen one good argument against the term.

Are you denying the artistic aspiration of DotA?
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Watno

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Re: [Kickstarter] Battle Arena Show, the MOBA inspired miniatures game!
« Reply #6 on: April 11, 2015, 08:18:52 pm »
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You might also want to call it an ARTS inspired game. Im megaturned off by refering to this genre as MOBA, and I think among DOTA2 players a lot of other people might be the same way.

What's wrong with calling the genre MOBA?  As far as I can tell, the only reason DOTA players don't like it is that it was coined by Riot.  I haven't seen one good argument against the term.
Being coined by Riot is already a good argument the term, but it's also highly nondescriptive. Let's look at the parts more closely:

M(ultiplayer) - While certainly true, it fails to convey the information that the multiple players are on different teams

O(nline) - Not necessarily true, they can be played in LANs as well, and for DotA this certainly happens a significant amount. If they're online, that's mostly to facilitate Multiplayer, which we already covered before, and is hardly a defining characteristic as it is for MMORPGs.

B(attle) - Nearly every computer game is about battle

A(rena) - For me, an arena is a small enclosed area where people just whack at each other. In the games we are talking abpout, there are resources (creeps) to be harvested and contested and places to seek refuge and run away from a fight, to come back stronger later. That doesn't sound much like an Arena to me.

The term imho applies much better to a game a like Street Fighter or Counter Strike.


As an analogy, imagine David Sirlin came along and proposed referring to deckbuilders as MTVRs (Multiplayer Table Victory Point Resource Managers)

M(ultiplayer) - While certainly true, fails to convey the information that players play against each other.

T(able) - Not necessarily true, they can be played on the floor or online as well, and for Dominion this certainly happens a significnat amount. If they're on a table, that's mostly just for convenience.

V(ictory Point) - Nearly every board/card game is about Victory Points

R(esource manager) - Again, you could stretch the definition to fit Deck Builders, but deckbuilders wouldn't usuallly be referred to as resource managers.

The term would apply much better to a game like Agricola or Settlers of Catan.
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eHalcyon

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Re: [Kickstarter] Battle Arena Show, the MOBA inspired miniatures game!
« Reply #7 on: April 11, 2015, 09:54:41 pm »
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Smells like blind hatred of a pretty decent company.  The comparison to Sirlin certainly isn't valid.

OK... and how is ARTS more descriptive?

A(ction) -- this says even less than "Battle". 

R(eal)-T(ime) -- OK, but lots of multiplayer games happen in real time.

S(trategy) -- again, most games have strategy.

If MOBA applies better to fighting games or FPS games, ARTS applies to them just as much if not more.

If you break it into its roots, it seems even less appropriate.  Action RTS?  Traditional RTS games already have action.  Lots of action.  And games like DotA don't make me think of traditional RTS games at all.

And seriously, RTS itself is such a non-descriptive name.  You could apply to all sorts of things.  At face-value, you could apply it to Galaxy Trucker, or Blitz Chess, or American Football.  Why not complain about the prevalent use of RTS as a genre name?  Moreover, why advocate using it as part of the name for a very different genre?

Edit:

I also think that MOBA is perfectly functional as a description of the genre.

M(ultiplayer) -- tells us off the bat that there are almost always more than 2 players involved.  Sure, "multi" just means more than one, but in practice it tends to be used for games involving 3+.

O(nline) -- You said that it's not necessarily true, but being "online" just means that the computer is part of a network.  That's true even on LAN.  Moreover, I'd expect that playing over the internet is significantly more common than playing over LAN.  And this is supposed to be a name for a genre, not just DOTA.

B(attle) -- Not every computer game is about battle.  Off the top of my head -- Portal, The Sims, Sim City, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Journey, Minecraft (for the most part), Myst, Pong, Oregon Trail, World of Goo, The Stanley Parable, Antichamber, various sports and racing games...  Saying "Battle" implies a more direct kind of conflict, and the word suggests something bigger than what you see in the usual 1v1 matchups of the fighting game genre.

A(rena) -- The definition is "a field of conflict", not necessarily a small one.  Sports arenas are pretty big, and that's a lot like what I see in MOBA games.  Is it a perfect descriptor?  Maybe not, but it serves to distinguish it from the bigger scale of RTS games and the sprawling worlds of MMORPGs.
« Last Edit: April 11, 2015, 10:24:30 pm by eHalcyon »
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popsofctown

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Re: [Kickstarter] Battle Arena Show, the MOBA inspired miniatures game!
« Reply #8 on: April 12, 2015, 12:49:15 am »
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My turn!

Multiplayer -  Technically two players is multiplayer but in common speech people expect 3+.  I think that part is helpful since a lot computer games are not 3+.  Thumbs up.
Online - This is dumb for a genre name.  It'd be like calling a genre of music "headphones music" or something just because the majority of people listening to it listen to it that way.  It doesn't describe the thing itself, just a frequent vehicle for delivering it.  Someone could staple ten arcade cabinets together and make a game with the same strategy elements, pace of play, control of space, and scaling of character power that we find distinctive about a MOBA and it would totally feel like it belongs to that genre.  Just because they usually don't isn't saying something about the genre.  Thumbs down.
Battle - Well, you are battling.  In a lot of games you are battling.  In some games you aren't.  Since the more games involve battling than those that don't, you really need to be in the center of what "battling" means for this to be a good descriptor.  Just like "button masher" describes a lot of games but it's only a helpful, adequate, acceptable genre descriptor when there are about 3 button depresses per second. 
Are MOBAs really battlely beyond normal battly?  Not really, battle is about soldiers trying to kill eachother.  More so than in the average game you will take a break from killing eachother to kill structures and peons.  You could argue that those things are AI controlled participants in the fight, but then you get focal points in the game where players are killing jungle monsters, those aren't even on anyone's team.  That ain't battle, they aren't even wearing uniforms for the other team, now you're just terrorists really.  Overall thumbs down.
Arena - Well, we spent an entire word whittling the genre down to the 85% of games that are about battle, and I decided we didn't narrow down among those to any sort of core that are exceedingly focused on battle, so are we whittling down from most "battle" games not using an arena or being exceedingly focused on the arena?  Well, most battle games do use an arena, although some like Call of Duty design the arena not to feel like it's an arena until you hit the invisible wall.  Some games use more of a "ring" than an arena, the difference to me is the size of the competitors compared to the size of the space, and MOBAs match the proportions of a Roman arena or demolition derby arena moreso than a sumo ring or wrestling ring in terms of those proportions. 
Maybe like half the battling games use an arena of some sort.  But I would say arena is a good descriptor because MOBA games do place a lot of focus on the arena itself.  You have structures that control various parts of the arena.  The arena space itself offers you effects with pretty significant strategical impact from the neutral creeps.  And the wincons are located in particular points of the arena, unlike in a point based fps game or something where victory can happen in whatever part of the arena people end up in.  So I think that's a helpful term.  It's worth pointing out that most games in the genre feel the need to keep the arena static from game to game for strategies to feel the same (except for the new Blizzard "MOBA", which changes the map every game, and could arguably not be a MOBA for that reason and some others), while fps games can change the arena just for the heck of it and not feel like anyone is cheated by it or like it really made that much difference.  Mechfighters are largely the same way.  So are MMORPG pvps.
Thumbs up


Mixed review.

I really dislike that both MOBA and ARTS don't nod towards an individual player's character scaling up in overall power (during an instance of competition, not before it as in MMORPG PVP), because that's a feature that is emphasized in MOBAs more so than virtually every game that isn't labelled MOBA and that is altogether absent from the majority of multiplayer games outside the genre.
« Last Edit: April 12, 2015, 12:55:37 am by popsofctown »
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Awaclus

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Re: [Kickstarter] Battle Arena Show, the MOBA inspired miniatures game!
« Reply #9 on: April 12, 2015, 03:17:29 am »
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Online - This is dumb for a genre name.  It'd be like calling a genre of music "headphones music" or something just because the majority of people listening to it listen to it that way.

Yeah, like club music, right?
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Watno

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Re: [Kickstarter] Battle Arena Show, the MOBA inspired miniatures game!
« Reply #10 on: April 12, 2015, 07:10:29 am »
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I agree that ARTS is not a very good name either, but I like how it conveys that the genre originates from RTS games (though action certainly doesn't convey the key difference). I guess I'd prefer using AoS, which opel used before Riot came along.

I don't see how the analogy Riot-Sirlin does not work.
Both are responsible for highly deivative games, claim that cool features of the games they take their inspiration from are flaws, and both made pretty scummy moves (In Sirlin's case, taking the chip idea from that guy on BGG, in Riot's case taking down dotaallstars.com, promising to put up an archive, which happened 3 years later. In the meantime, LOL released lots of champions based on hero ideas from that forum, which their creators had proposed for DotA. Or trying to file a Trademark on "Dota".
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eHalcyon

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Re: [Kickstarter] Battle Arena Show, the MOBA inspired miniatures game!
« Reply #11 on: April 12, 2015, 10:25:40 am »
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So there's no rational reasoning against MOBA other than personal preference.  Cool.

Weren't the people who founded Riot among those who created DotA?  Isn't DotA itself derivative of AoS? Wasn't Riot's trademark application in response to Valve's, with the intent of keeping the name free for the community to use?
« Last Edit: April 12, 2015, 10:27:44 am by eHalcyon »
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Watno

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Re: [Kickstarter] Battle Arena Show, the MOBA inspired miniatures game!
« Reply #12 on: April 12, 2015, 10:35:06 am »
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So there's no rational reasoning against MOBA other than personal preference.  Cool.
No, there is no rational reasoning for using ARTs instead other than perosnal preference.
Quote
Weren't the people who founded Riot among those who created DotA?
No.
Quote
Isn't DotA itself derivative of AoS?
It is, and AoS is derivative of Starcraft. The acronomy ARTS acknowledgs that.
Quote
Wasn't Riot's trademark application in response to Valve's, with the intent of keeping the name free for the community to use?
Hopw does that even make sense?
« Last Edit: April 12, 2015, 10:42:13 am by Watno »
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eHalcyon

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Re: [Kickstarter] Battle Arena Show, the MOBA inspired miniatures game!
« Reply #13 on: April 12, 2015, 10:47:04 am »
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http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/19/riot-games-counter-files-for-dota-trademark/

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/170248/Blizzard_and_Valve_settle_ongoing_Dota_trademark_controversy.php

As I understand it, the original DotA was a community effort.  Valve filed the trademark after hiring one of the people from that community, which stirred up a huge controversy.  Riot counterclaimed and stated that they would leave it free for public use.  Riot employees included Guinsoo and Pendragon, which is worth as much as IceFrog on Valve's side.
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Watno

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Re: [Kickstarter] Battle Arena Show, the MOBA inspired miniatures game!
« Reply #14 on: April 12, 2015, 11:33:20 am »
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There is no way Riot has any claim to the name if Valve doesn't. I see how an argument can be made for not wantingf it to be trademarked at all, but I don't see how it then makes sense to claim the trademark for yourself with the argument "We'll be nice about it"

BTW: Valve didn't hire one person from the community, they hired both the original creator of DotA, as well as the person  who developed the map since 2005. In comparison, the person Riot bases their claim on, worked on DotA for about a year.
« Last Edit: April 12, 2015, 11:39:34 am by Watno »
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pacovf

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Re: [Kickstarter] Battle Arena Show, the MOBA inspired miniatures game!
« Reply #15 on: April 12, 2015, 12:49:20 pm »
+1

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eHalcyon

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Re: [Kickstarter] Battle Arena Show, the MOBA inspired miniatures game!
« Reply #16 on: April 12, 2015, 07:28:47 pm »
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There is no way Riot has any claim to the name if Valve doesn't. I see how an argument can be made for not wantingf it to be trademarked at all, but I don't see how it then makes sense to claim the trademark for yourself with the argument "We'll be nice about it"

BTW: Valve didn't hire one person from the community, they hired both the original creator of DotA, as well as the person  who developed the map since 2005. In comparison, the person Riot bases their claim on, worked on DotA for about a year.

The two people Riot had are Guinsoo and Pendragon.  Guinsoo was the one who developed DotA: Allstars into the force it was, and Pendragon built the Allstars forum that brought together the entire community.  I think they had as good a claim as Valve did, but that wasn't my point.  It was, after all, a community effort.  You said that Riot trying to trademark "DotA" was scummy, but the truth is that Valve was the one who created controversy when they filed for trademark.  They're the ones who made the scummy move.

This is why I said the comparison to Sirlin is invalid.  Sirlin is a big name designer who ripped off an individual's chip design and still refuses to acknowledge the inspiration.  Riot is a company that actually includes former developers of DotA and has never denied its roots.

From what I can tell, Riot is a great company that DotA fans irrationally hate, to the point where they can't even accept the de facto standard genre name "MOBA" and invent flimsy arguments against it.  The only reason is that Riot coined it.
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Re: [Kickstarter] Battle Arena Show, the MOBA inspired miniatures game!
« Reply #17 on: April 12, 2015, 07:32:55 pm »
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Let's move away from the Dota-LoL catfight, since it's really not relevant to this thread.  You can take it up elsewhere.
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popsofctown

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Re: [Kickstarter] Battle Arena Show, the MOBA inspired miniatures game!
« Reply #18 on: April 17, 2015, 12:21:40 am »
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I agree with theory, but I feel like genre name catfighting is ok since it could have bearing on what this miniatures game should actually get labelled with (the dota catfighting surely doesn't)

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