God-battling free-to-play MOBA Smite is getting a full sequel, with an alpha test due to kick off this spring. The revamped rebuild will overhaul the decade-old game with fresh visuals and gameplay changes, but developers Titan Forge promise it won’t replace the original game.
]]>It's been a while since we've written about Smite, so if you've forgotten: it's a third-person MOBA about duelling gods in which players control the likes of Anubis and Zeus. That makes it a slightly odd fit for new characters like Invader Zim or Rocko from Rocko's Modern Life, but well, that's what is coming later this month, alongside a handful of other Nickelodeon characters.
]]>Netflix are hot for video games lately, with their number of animated and live-action adaptations now into double digits. Their E3 stream today brought news of even more, including announcements of a Far Cry: Blood Dragon cartoon and casting for their live-action Resident Evil. It has Lance Reddick! But by and large, their stream was a weird shrug with so little information that all they had on one show was a logo. But hey, here's what they had on Cuphead, Castlevania, Splinter Cell, League Of Legends, and others.
]]>When game developers started packing up last spring to work from home due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I suspect we all knew it was going to be a bumpy ride. Sure enough, there have been game delays galore over the past year as many studios found the adjustment to be a challenge. On the bright side, some seem to have really taken to it. Hi-Rez Studios, the folks behind Smite and Paladins, say "the pandemic has taught us new ways to work that we believe are superior to our previous way of operation." They'll be encouraging 80% of their 435 employees to work remotely if they choose to.
]]>Theological battle arena Smite's gone all Nickelodeon on us today. Those Avatar: The Last Airbender skins Hi-Rez Studios announced last month have arrived, packed inside their own bespoke battle-pass added to the god-smashing MOBA today. They might not be full characters in their own right - instead, possessing three of Smite's existing mythical warriors - but if you've ever wanted to batter Zeus as a child-like cartoon demigod, now's your chance.
]]>The next fighters coming to mythological MOBA Smite are not gods or fantastical creatures at all, they're movie characters. Hi-Rez Studios today announced a cross-over with Avatar: The Last Airbender, the M. Night Shyamalan movie. Aang, Zuko, and Korra (and her dog Naga) are all coming to Smite as skins for existing characters, to be clear, not new characters. They're looking a lot more cartoony than their original movie designs but hey, I suppose we have to allow a little creative liberty. Smite added Cthulhu earlier this month so Avatar is fairly mundane, really.
]]>Hi-Rez, the developers of Smite and Paladins, don’t have it easy. They compete head-on with Blizzard’s juggernauts; with their fingers stuck in the same hero-shooter-flavoured pies the comparisons are inevitable, and rarely favourable. Depending on whose questionable extended metaphors you listen to, you might hear it argued that they spend their time looking at where their competitors’ fingers are, and then follow suit.
You might also hear that their games can be uneven, or poorly managed. Some of that rings true, though much is hyperbole. Hi-Rez have made a few missteps, but that’s partly because they take a lot of steps in general.
]]>The Smite and Paladins World Championships didn't get off to an impressive start. Several thousand fans gathered around several adjacent screens occupying the back wall of Dreamhack Atlanta, each blasting out hype reels with near identical scripts. It was cookie-cutter drama played in disconcerting semi-stereo, leaving me uncomfortable in half a dozen different ways.
]]>Two weeks ago, I was sat in a dive bar so scuzzy it was practically underwater. It was there my friend told me he spent nearly all his time playing Paladins on his Xbox, and I learnt two things. 1) Paladins must be bigger than I thought, and 2) platform restrictions can make me sad.
Today, in the opening announco-blast of Atlanta's Hi-Rez Expo, Hi-Rez announced that cross-platform play is coming to Paladins, Realm Royale and Smite.
]]>The developers behind Paladins, Smite, Realm Royale, and Tribes: Ascend today announced they're formally splitting into distinct new studios to handle their big games (no, not including Tribes) under an overarching publisher. At the very least, this should assuage some fears about Hi-Rez's track record of ditching older games when their limited teams shifted over to newer games. For now, it seems their three core games are secure. Hi-Rez are also opening two new arms, one company focused on running esports events and the other making art assets. To speak in business terms, all of Hi-Rez's limbs are possessed by alien parasites and wrenching out their sockets to skitter off on lives of their own.
]]>We've just passed the half-way point of 2018, so Ian Gatekeeper and all his fabulously wealthy chums over at Valve have revealed which hundred games have sold best on Steam over the past six months. It's a list dominated by pre-2018 names, to be frank, a great many of which you'll be expected, but there are a few surprises in there.
2018 releases Jurassic World Evolution, Far Cry 5 Kingdom Come: Deliverance and Warhammer: Vermintide II are wearing some spectacular money-hats, for example, while the relatively lesser-known likes of Raft, Eco and Deep Rock Galactic have made themselves heard above the din of triple-A marketing budgets.
]]>Update Night is a fortnightly column in which Rich McCormick revisits games to find out whether they've been changed for better or worse.
Ganesha, the elephant-headed god of the Hindu faith, is legendarily generous, wise, and optimistic. He’s a patron of the arts and sciences, and busies himself by working to remove obstacles in the path of honest and caring people.
It’s not really on then, I’d say, to call him a “fucking idiot.”
That’s just what my teammates in deity-themed MOBA Smite kept doing, though. Maybe they had it in for the kind, gentle, and benevolent god? Maybe that was why they spent half an hour just absolutely roasting him? Or maybe it was my fault. You see, this was my first time playing Smite as fairly recent addition Ganesha, and I didn’t really get how he worked. I died. I died a lot.
]]>Another year over, a new one just begun, which means, impossibly, even more games. But what about last year? Which were the games that most people were buying and, more importantly, playing? As is now something of a tradition, Valve have let slip a big ol' breakdown of the most successful titles released on Steam over the past twelve months.
Below is the full, hundred-strong roster, complete with links to our coverage if you want to find out more about any of the games, or simply to marvel at how much seemed to happen in the space of 52 short weeks.
]]>I tried to wait out the Smite: Trials of King Hercules microsite loading loop by listening to the Disney Hercules soundtrack. Alas, the loading loop is indeed an eternal loop for me and I moved on to Moana before remembering I was supposed to write/finish/publish a news story. Let's listen to Moana's You're Welcome and then I'll explain Smite's new MMO dungeon-style event:
]]>Here's some words I never thought I'd write: Bob Ross is coming to Smite [official site].
The soft-spoken painter, famous for his excellent hair and The Joy of Painting TV series, will feature as a skin for Sylvanus, riding atop a treant and flinging paint.
]]>Smite [official site] has picked up a little karting mode for a limited time in the form of Apollo's Racer Rumble. It's pretty standard for MOBAs to offer up modes beyond the regular lane-pushing slugfest and often developers use limited time alternate modes to push the boat out a bit in terms of what you do with the characters. Where the mode you'll see in professional tournaments is all SRSBSNS and PAYING ATTENTION, limited time modes tend to be daft/non-canonical/slightly broken/good for a bit of downtime between SRSBSNS.
]]>Every Monday Brendan prays to the gods of early access for favour, power and a winning hand. This week, the collectible card game battler Smite Tactics [official site]
Being a fan of Duelyst’s card-based lunacy, I was more than happy to dip my toes into Smite Tactics at Pip’s suggestion. It’s a spin-off CCG from the makers of the same-named MOBA, using their collected gods and mythical figureheads to get you collecting cards instead of pushing mid. Sadly, it’s as skeletal as an argonaut’s worst nightmare, in dire need of some fleshing out.
]]>Today is International Fun at Work Day, according to some random website and, idk, the UN probably too or whatever. In that fun-loving, good-time spirit ahem!
Wow! Such meme!
So doge!
Very Smite [official site].
So much 2013!
]]>Hi-Rez Studios have announced a new project – Smite Rivals [official site] – billed as a collectible card arena game featuring familiar faces from its MOBA, Smite. Given Hi-Rez are also developing Paladins (which features some nods to Smite) and Smite Tactics which is a turn-based strategy card game also set in the same universe as Smite, I've been wondering if the mythology-and-deity Smite-iverse would end up turning into a full-blown franchise. It certainly looks like that's more the case now that Rivals is being added to the studio's roster.
]]>Along with all the new game announcements/closed beta phases and whatnot, Hi-Rez's god-themed MOBA, Smite [official site] is getting its annual overhaul. The Season 4 changes include a Celtic-focused event to mark the first character from that pantheon (The Morrigan), an Egyptian-themed Clash map, item updates, changes to ranked play, integrated voice chat, multi-queueing and the addition of Rituals to name just a few.
Here's a rundown of the main points.
]]>Smite developers Hi-Rez today announced Smite Tactics [official site], a turn-based spin-off from their MOBA. Smite Tactics will combine turn-based combat with collect-o-deckbuilding card antics for both competitive multiplayer and a spot of singleplayer. No word yet on when - or how - it'll fully launch but a beta will come later this year.
]]>I did not know that there was a god of bats. I guess that's what happens when you're not a bat and you don't have any observant bat friends. Hi-Rez have heard about the god of bats though, and have invited him to join the cast of their MOBA, Smite [official site]. His name is Camazotz, by the way, and he fits into the assassin jungler class. Let's take a closer look...
]]>You'll have noticed the "No more than nine wizards at a time" handwritten sign in the corner shop window. It's common knowledge that ten wizards together will inevitably brawl over some Ancient, Nexus, Titan, pick 'n' mix, or goodness knows what. Here's a secret: five wizards are just as unsafe, as they'll group up on an 'epic quest' and wander the neighbourhood to fight something, anything. 'PvE', they call it. A bloody nuisance, I say. Last night I found five steaming wizards tangled in my washing line shouting e.g. "It's casting Root!" and "Watch the adds!" while swatting at the peg bag.
Citizens, be alert. Smite [official site] is adding its first PvE mode this week, and the five-wizard arena battles of Xing Tian's Mountain will only encourage that rabble.
]]>The competitive games being featured as part of the eGames competition over in Rio from 15-16 August has been announced. Remember the eGames? They were announced a little while ago as an esports tournament that would run alongside the Olympics in Rio but wouldn't actually be part of the Olympics. So a kind of Olympics-ish-by-proximity affair which seemed to be experimenting with the idea of a tournament run on the basis of representing your country and gaining medals and national glory instead of, say, a multimillion dollar prize.
When the event was announced they hadn't actually got the list of games to be featured but today's announcement explains that it will be Hi-Rez's gods-brawler Smite and then Super Smash Bros on Wii U. They're also showcase matches so... it doesn't really feel like they're saying anything is at stake?
]]>I will be honest with you. I entirely came to read these Smite patch notes because they showed a character skin which turns a scarab beetle into a lobster. I stayed because who even is Erlang Shen and what's his deal and OH! HE HAS A PET DOG?
RIGHT.
]]>The dates for the Smite World Championship have been announced for 2017: 5-8 January. This time around it will be taking place alongside a Paladins Invitational as well as the existing Xbox version of the professional Smite [official site] scene.
In fact, all the accompanying bells and whistles mean developers Hi-Rez are referring to the Atlantan shindig as the Hi-Rex Expo rather than the Smite World Championships nowadays.
]]>Smite's [official site] pantheon of playable gods continues to expand apace with the addition of Susano, God Of The Summer Storm. He's from Japanese mythology and is the brother of an earlier addition, Amaterasu.
In terms of sibling rivalry, they seem like quite the handful. One account I'm looking at describes the fallout from an argument about who wins a creation challenge. Apparently Susano destroys Amaterasu's rice paddies, smears poop on her palace walls and "throws a flayed pony through the roof of her weaving shed". I think the pony was sacred to Amaterasu so the gesture is even more provocative, although I'm just going to put it out there that if my brother chucked a flayed ANYTHING into my weaving shed I'd be pretty narked.
]]>Jing Wei, The Oathkeeper is the latest god to join the pantheons of Smite [official site]. I'm now trying to find out where I put the Smite public test realm on my hard drive. Wait - it's live on the actual servers! WELL. While I update the client I am watching videos to learn more about Jing Wei and her oaths...
]]>The Smite World Championship 2016 contenders have been whittled down to four teams. So far the tournament has involved possibly the fewest upsets of any esports event I've attended (precisely zero). But today is where the uncertainty starts to kick in as the final four bring highly skilled players with very different team personalities to the world stage.
Here's the story so far [with proper spoilers after the jump]:
]]>"Gonna wash that man right out of my hair."
This is both a fantastically useful response to a) a failed relationship and b) to being a long-suffering treant in Smite who has spent their entire time having to carry an elderly god in your branches and have now decided it's time to go it alone in Hi-Rez's FPS game, Paladins [official site].
[Translation: A Smite character's mount is joining the Paladins roster as a standalone hero.]
]]>Smite [official site] developers, Hi-Rez, have been teasing their Japanese pantheon for a while now but they've been keeping tight-lipped over which deities they were working on. All president, Stew Chisam, would tell me a few months back was that we could expect a goddess.
Amaterasu, a sun (and universe) deity from the Shinto religion, was a common guess and today's announcement officially confirmed her as the seventy-second addition to the Smite roster. Reading an article in the official Smite magazine, it also seems like the Japanese pantheon in general will be mostly Shinto deities but with scope for some other figures from Japanese mythology. But who is Amaterasu for a Smite player, how does she work and what the heck does Guan Yu have to do with her ultimate?
Read on:
]]>New year, new esports event coverage! And by that, I mean let's have a look at the Smite World Championship 2016 [official site].
Here's what you need to know about Hi-Rez's annual Smite-a-thon from the teams to the $1m prize pool:
]]>When is a ban not a ban? That's a question which cropped up twice this weekend as League of Legends team Jin Air Green Wings and Smite team EnVyUs each passed up an opportunity to ban a character from a competitive match.
No-bans or skipped bans happen in the phase before the main game starts. At this point the teams are working out which characters their team will play and which to remove from play. Choosing NOT to remove something is vary rare but it does happen. It's well worth trying to understand what's going on in those scenarios, whether it's to unpick the strategic thought behind them or to nod sagely over the capacity for humans to make terrible blunders on the global stage. So let's take a closer look at no-bans, what they are and how you can use them to your advantage:
]]>"FUCKING END THE GAME!" Jeppe 'Trixtank' Gylling was roaring as his team, Paradigm, bore down on the opponent's titan – the beefy glowing final objective you need to destroy to win a game of Smite [official site].
It was the European and North American LAN event known as Super Regionals and on the line for Paradigm and their foes was a place at the Smite World Championships in January. Five teams would be making it through to the competition: two from North America, two from Europe and the winner of a match between the NA and EU third placed teams.
Spoilers after the jump if you haven't seen Sunday's finals:
]]>This afternoon I have been reading about Sol, Goddess of the Sun as she's the most recent addition to Smite's [official site] roster of playable deities. She hails from the Norse pantheon and I don't think I knew much about her, preferring as a child to stick with the Greek myths and legends.
The lore Hi-Rez offer up has Sol being punished for her father's hubris in naming her after the sun. Odin sends her to pull the chariot of the sun while being chased by one of the wolf sons of Fenrir. She is not exactly resigned to this fate and taunts the wolf, driven by her desire for freedom and chafing against the punishment handed down by Odin.
]]>Y'seen those folks behind Tribes: Ascend and Smite are working on a new free-to-play FPS, right? After showings at shows, Hi-Rez Studios are now ready to show Paladins [official site] to those of us who didn't schlep ourselves to shows to see the showings. Show. Show? Showww.
Which is to say Hi-Rez have dropped a trailer showing bits of gameplay alongside scenes of people using computers and people wearing their smartest casual clothes talking about the game. Observe:
]]>Part of a miscellany of serious thoughts, animal gifs, and anecdotage from the realm of MOBAs/hero brawlers/lane-pushers/ARTS/tactical wizard-em-ups. One day Pip might even tell you the story of how she bumped into Na’Vi’s Dendi at a dessert buffet cart*.
Hello!
It's time for some Dote Night real talk:
]]>Welcome to part two of "Thoughts about MOBA tutorials" - I hope you are as excited as I... WAIT COME BACK!
Tutorials might sound like a weird thing to devote two columns to given the wealth of other shenanigans and dramas in the MOBA communities at any given time but tutorials (or lack of them) can be the difference between having a good introduction to those games and communities and bouncing off so hard you could have treated the game as a launch rocket.
Last time I took an in-depth look at what Valve are doing in Dota 2's Reborn client, this time I've had a chance to return to Smite [official site] and League of Legends [official site] to check out what they're doing and not doing. I also have some suggestions for other ways to get players up to speed. Here's what I reckon:
]]>After starting out under ye olde subscription model with their first game, Global Agenda, Hi-Rez Studios turned it free-to-play and have stuck that way since. Over-the-shoulder MOBA Smite was the first game of theirs that seemed to really take off (poor, dear, sweet Tribes: Ascend, left to fade away). Now they've announced another F2P game, and another FPS - a fantasy "strategic team-based shooter" named Paladins [official site].
It sounds a bit MOBA-y to me. This being Gamescom week, they don't have much to say about Paladins just yet but will be yammering all about and showing everyone in a few days.
]]>Search the 7½th floor of your office building for a small door. Open it, take a deep breath, and crawl inside. Squelch through the dark tunnel until you find yourself somehow, impossibly, seeing through my eyes. You are sat in a swanky restaurant opposite a woman with great cans and the face of Kevin Sorbo. "Kevin Sorbo?" she asks. "Kevin Sorbo Kevin Sorbo." A waiter arrives and he too is Kevin Sorbo. You panic. You flee through a crowd of Kevin Sorbo. Everyone is Kevin Sorbo. How can this be. Kevin Sorbo? Kevin Sorbo! Kevin Sorbo Kevin Sorbo.
And that is what will get me to finally install and play Smite [official site]. The Sorbet himself, Kev Sorbsteen, has reprised the role of Hercules for a free voice pack. Kevin Sorbo? Kevin Sorbo!
]]>Developers Hi-Rez have announced that their 2016 Smite World Championships will be taking place in Atlanta, Georgia from 7-10 January.
]]>Earlier today game developers Hi-Rez announced that they would be capping the prize pool for their Smite World Championships at $1m. Smite [official site] is an over-the shoulder MOBA whose character roster is populated by the gods of various religions. Its inaugural World Championship took place earlier this year in Atlanta, Georgia with a total prize pool of $2.6m, the majority of which was crowdfunded. I got in touch with Hi-Rez president Stew Chisam to dig into why he thinks the cap will benefit the professional gaming scene:
]]>The prize pool for Smite's World Championships has been capped at $1m by publishers Hi-Rez. The move is part of an effort to rejig the financial rewards involved in playing the over-the-shoulder MOBA professionally so that more players can get a share of the winnings and hopefully finance their fledgling eSports career.
]]>Part of a miscellany of serious thoughts, animal gifs, and anecdotage from the realm of MOBAs/hero brawlers/lane-pushers/ARTS/tactical wizard-em-ups. One day Pip might even tell you the story of how she bumped into Na’Vi’s Dendi at a dessert buffet cart. THIS WEEK, however, she will be sharing concept art for an upcoming Smite god and asking questions about the design process!
The most recent character reveal for Hi-Rez's MOBA, Smite [official site] was for Ratatoskr, a little squirrel from Norse mythology who carries messages up and down the world tree Yggdrasil. Ratatoskr is already scurrying about on the test server while the developers see how he functions in the hands of real players but I wanted to take a look at the earlier bits of the process, particularly the early concept sketches as the artists and animators tried to figure out his final form.
First up, here are some of the concept sketches – just click on the picture for a bigger version:
]]>If I had to evangelise for one god, I've decided it would probably be Ah Puch, Horrific God of Decay. He's coming to Smite's Mayan pantheon of playable gods in the MOBA's next patch [official god page here] so I guess I could evangelise about his in-game presence, but I'm thinking more about going door-to-door and asking people if they've heard the word of Ah Puch.
"Have you heard the word of Ah Puch?" I would say.
"Who's that when he's at home?" they would respond, wrong-footed by the unfamiliar name.
"WELL," I would say, jamming my foot in the door and brandishing promotional literature. "He's the lord of the ninth hell, the lowest and most horrible of them all, and the king of the underworld."
]]>I write a lot about Riot's approach to negative player behaviour in League of Legends but it occurred to me that I don't really dig into how other MOBAs – Smite and Dota, particularly – approach the subject. I think that's because Riot are very keen to talk about the work that they do and pick out interesting bits and bobs from their research for use in talks and so on. Well, following a number of professional player bans in Smite stemming from an account sharing incident I emailed Hi-Rez with questions about how they approach the subject and to find out more about this particular situation. eSports manager Adam Mierzejewski (also known as HiRezAPC) got back to me to tell me a bit more.
]]>Five professional Smite [official site] players have been hit with bans ranging from three days to one year after it emerged they had been account-sharing - a violation of the game's Terms of Service.
All five were suspended from the game although the length of the punishment varied. For Enemy esports' Josua 'Tocketty' Romroth it was a first offence so a three day ban was issued. Contrast that with COGnitive Gaming's Suharab 'Mask' Askarzada - it's his fifth offence so he's staring at a one year suspension. Robert 'Lloydy' Lloyd, Samuel Lee 'Soulshiner' Thomas and a player whose real name I don't actually know, Vetium, were all on third offences and get a 14 day ban.
]]>The team over at Hi-Rez Studios has good news for anyone who has ever wanted to play a character with hair modelled after my own. The latest character being added to the Smite [official site] roster is The Gorgon Medusa, Miss Medusa if you're nasty.
Medusa slots quite nicely into the hunter role with lots of ranged attacks. She also, quite naturally, has a nice ultimate that turns enemies facing her to stone. The latest update also sees improvements made to the game's clan system, along with new skins for Thor, Vulcan and Athena. There's a hero introduction video explaining Medusa's abilities below.
]]>Part of a miscellany of serious thoughts, animal gifs, and anecdotage from the realm of MOBAs/hero brawlers/lane-pushers/ARTS/tactical wizard-em-ups. One day Pip might even tell you the story of how she bumped into Na’Vi’s Dendi at a dessert buffet cart. THIS WEEK, however, she will be digging into how one MOBA can influence another:
Three lanes, patches of jungle, a bunch of player characters, items and minions, oh – and a base to defend. When you put it in those terms League of Legends and Smite [official site] don't seem too far apart. But the devil's in the detail and it's what you do with that detail that counts. But from watching the first pro season of Smite it felt like a lot had been borrowed, or at least learned from other MOBAs in terms of playstyle– particularly League of Legends. With the second season of Smite well underway I got in touch with Graham 'Hinduman' Hadfield – a Smite expert caster with a League of Legends background – to find out how close the two really are and whether Smite is branching out.
]]>Smite's Battle Frost patch has brough with it a new character - Bellona, goddess of war.
Flavour text ahoy!
"Bellona, Goddess of War, took no time to build temples or gather worshippers. She favors only those for whom war is life; for that is where she thrives- not on the steps of hallowed basilicas or in whispered prayers, but in the blood-soaked mud, among the breathless armored troops, in the roar of victory."
]]>I said a little while back that I wanted to open up Dote Night to include interesting things across the MOBA spectrum so this is the first foray into that. It doesn't mean I've forgotten Dota 2 in any way, shape or form, nor does it mean there won't be Dote Nights about Dota, but I'd like to try out a few things and see how they go. This piece is about how item builds work in Smite. It's an aspect of MOBAs which has never come naturally to me but after speaking with Smite expert and analyst James 'Krett' Horgan it started making a lot more sense – and I don't just mean for Smite. After transcribing this I went to play a few games of Dota and was able to approach my hero builds far more confidently and effectively. So yes, this is about a different MOBA but it exists as part of a broader scene.
If you're looking for a quick and dirty version of what's here you should head to the build guide cheat sheet we've done as a pared down companion, otherwise... read on!
"The core of every build in every game that has a build – even an MMO like World of Warcraft – is the methodology," explains Krett. "What are you doing and how does your build help you do it?"
]]>Fun fact: we have a monstrously large article coming up which goes into a lot of detail about Smite builds thanks to expert and analyst James 'Krett' Horgan. BUT because you might also want build info to hand in a quick and easy-to-digest format we've made this – a separate Smite build cheat sheet with the bare bones information.
The idea here is not to be exhaustive but to give new players a basic structures for item builds on each character class so you don't feel lost. Then you can start to play around with your own ideas, fill in the blanks, or tweak some of the items to fit specific situations. For a more in-depth look and to see how items work together check out the monsterpiece which will be going up as Dote Night's first real foray into the world of other MOBAs.
]]>Part of a miscellany of serious thoughts, animal gifs, and anecdotage from the realm of MOBAs/hero brawlers/lane-pushers/ARTS/tactical wizard-em-ups. One day Pip might even tell you the story of how she bumped into Na’Vi’s Dendi at a dessert buffet cart.
For about as long as I've been playing MOBAs I've been aware of how monsters are portrayed in their game art. I love a good monster, just as I really like playing characters which fit different moods so when games seem to be holding back or skewing one particular direction I try to work out why and how I would change that. Here's one of my ideas, plus some context.
Idea:
A Discworld MOBA would be a great idea, especially in terms of introducing more varied body types under the pronoun "she". The point is not about losing busty ladies, but adding more diversity.
]]>The Smite World Championship is an eSports event taking place in Atlanta, Georgia. The prize pool is just over $2.6 million making it the third biggest in eSports history. Pip is out there writing daily reports, exploring the event and putting cans of Red Bull in her handbag (just in case).
Day three of the Smite World Championships and SK Gaming squared off against Cognitive Red to settle the matter of third and fourth place. It might not seem too consequential at first glance but the community-boosted prize pool meant the victor of the match would walk away with $391,839 while the losers would score $261,226 - a difference of over $100,000*.
]]>The Smite World Championship is an eSports event taking place in Atlanta, Georgia. The prize pool is just over $2.6 million making it the third biggest in eSports history. Pip is out there writing daily reports, exploring the event and putting Hershey bars in her handbag (just in case).
Kicking off day two of the Smite World Championships, Europe's top seed Titan took on the Brazilian team, We Love Bacon. Titan were in the quarter-finals after dropping a game to the American side, Cognitive Prime while WLB made their way into the match after defeating the Chinese side, Doage Is Dog.
]]>The Smite World Championship is an eSports event taking place in Atlanta, Georgia. The prize pool is just over $2.6 million making it the third biggest in eSports history. Pip is out there writing daily reports, exploring the event and putting PayDay bars in her handbag (just in case).
Day one of the Smite World Championships opened with North American favourites Cognitive Red taking on the Chinese second seed Doage Is Dog. It looked briefly like there might be an upset as DID scored first blood on Cog Red's Hunter, Snoopy. Unfortunately for DID, that was not a sign of things to come and the rest of the kills, and indeed the game, went to the young North American side.
]]>Smite's Conquest map will be undergoing a serious overhaul in preparation for the game's second competitive season.
The 5 versus 5 map which gets used in eSports events as well as by regular players has been reworked with the triple goals of increasing legibility of the play area, improving strategic play when you're playing or countering different classes of characters, and just generally de-clunking the game.
What this means in real terms is ocean vistas, a volcano dripping lava, reworked neutral minions, changes to how leashing works and so on. Wanna see?
]]>Here's a brief fact dump of Smite facts because the first Smite World Championship is taking place this weekend and it has the third largest prize in eSports history.
Smite. Smite. Smite. (I have typed that word too many times and now it looks unfamiliar and strange). Let's talk $2.6 million prize pools instead of typing single words repeatedly.
]]>The last couple of years I've seen games in various stages of completion making overtures towards the professional gaming scene. Of these I'd say Smite - a third-person over-the-shoulder lane pusher has done the most to convince me of its intentions towards competitive gaming.
]]>16-17 November saw Cologne's ESL studio playing host to the EU Regional Smite Championships. In case you're unfamiliar, Smite is a lane pushing game with third-person camera view. It's like playing League of Legends except you're down on the map with the characters. The Jumanji of MOBAs, perhaps? Anyway - here's our report from the European leg of the eSports tournament.
It's the grand final of the European Regional Smite Championships and Aquila are about to face off against SK Gaming. The atmosphere is a strange one for a grand final. The majority of eSports events pile on the pressure as they near their big finale. With this one there's actually far less riding on this last match than on the two preceding semifinals. That's because both Aquila and SK have – in some senses – already won.
]]>[Post updated with quote from the game designer]
As the old saying goes, a god up a tree is worth two in a bush. Which is just as well because Hi-Rez have now added god-up-a-tree Sylvanus, Keeper of the Wild to Smite, their god brawler/MOBA/whatever we're calling them currently.
Sylvanus (not to be confused with Sylvanas from the Warcraftiverse) stems* from the Roman god of the same name who protected the woods and flocks. In Smite he's a support-type character capable of healing and regenerating mana for allies as well as rooting and repositioning enemies. He also rides about on a big old tree (not to be confused with Treant Protector from Dota 2).
]]>"Oh God, it's like playing League of Legends crossed with Jumanji," was my initial verdict on Smite. I stand by that assessment but I probably ought to flesh it out a bit in this here Wot I Think piece. Here goes:
Smite is Hi-Rez's god-themed MOBA. Hang on, are we calling them MOBAs at the moment? ARTS? Lane pushing game? Lords management? Wizard-em-up? Magi-brawler? Five-a-side farming simulator? Whatever your preferred label, it's Hi-Rez's take on that genre. You play as one of a pantheon of characters based on the gods of various religions and mythological figures and proceed to do battle across a number of different game modes.
]]>For a company whose latest flagship game spells its name with MIGHTY MONOSYLLABIC CAPS, Hi-Rez tends to run a pretty quiet operation. Today, however, it suddenly decided to open fire on all fronts, so I had to reinforce this post's already formidable RPS Knowledge Entrapment Box with ores from the stars just to contain the sheer magnitude of it all. Many tireless hours later, I am here, and I have so much news for you. First off, god-powered MOBA SMITE (see?) is now in open beta. You can play it, I can play it, your cat can't play it - but theoretically could if it were physically capable. Meanwhile, Tribes Ascend has - finally kowtowing to requests hurled with blue-plate-special-level fervor - halved its XP cost for all unlocks.
]]>I've always thought "Ares" feels a bit of a softie name for a god of war. It's the sort of name you could give to washing powder. "Ares - fights for the whites." But the free-to-play SMITE, from Hi-Rez, assures that he's a melee magical tank.
]]>There's a new screenshot of SMITE. What's SMITE, you ask? You're so forgetful. It's Hi-Rez's Thor-themed DOTA-inspired hyphen-inciting free-to-play multiplayer that we mentioned back in April. Why are we posting when there's only one bloody screenshot in the last three months, when you'd think a developer proud of its game would release hundreds to make sure we can all see how great they think it is? Because this one pic is rather pretty, and I like pretty things. Oh, and I've put in the other seven pics they've released so far this year below.
]]>Sorry, I'm really tired. But not as tired as DOTA-type gamers are going to be if they bother to play all the DOTA-inspired games that are coming out. Yes, another one has been announced. This time from Hi-Rez Studios. It's called SMITE. Todd Harris explains: ""With SMITE, we draw inspiration from DoTA-style RTS titles, but leverage the Unreal 3 Engine to introduce original action oriented combat mechanics, great graphics, and a mythology-themed setting. These session-based games depend upon balanced class design, sophisticated stat-tracking, and matchmaking functionality."
]]>
