If you actually played this game and read the patch notes, you'd have a different perspective on this.
There's a lot of weird code and technical debt in the game client. For example, a map-wide filter (Nocturne's ult) is actually a giant minion covering the whole map.
AI-generated, and also highly untrustworthy given its source - Riot Games is an extraordinarily player-, community-, and pro-player-hostile company. On top of all of the new and exciting ways that they manage to not only screw up software engineering but also screw over their users, their business model is selling skins at the expense of their games (in the sames sense that Google's business model is selling ads at the expense of search quality).
It would only be a slight exaggeration to say that Riot is the Monsanto of game developers - because EA/Activision/Blizzard/Epic all contend for that spot too.
> The "It's not X -- it's Y" pattern, often with an em dash. The single most commonly identified AI writing tell. Man I f*cking hate it. AI uses this to create false profundity by framing everything as a surprising reframe. One in a piece can be effective; ten in a blog post is a genuine insult to the reader. Before LLMs, people simply did not write like this at scale. Includes the causal variant "not because X, but because Y" where every explanation is framed as a surprise reveal, the em-dash dismissal "X -- not Y", and the cross-sentence reframe where the same noun is negated then repositioned: "The question isn't X. The question is Y."
The information is hard to read because I had to run an https://tropes.fyi/ filter over the essay to make it readable.
IceFrog didn't create Dota, he took over maintenance of it from a long line of other people at the time, including Guinsoo (who added Roshan and the recipe system) who worked at Riot (though Icefrog was definitely the best maintainer, Dota was already hugely popular before Icefrog had anything to do with it).
Dota itself wasn't even original, it was based on a StarCraft 1 custom map.
Sure the genre and many of its archetypes were invented in the WC3 fun/custom map scene but LoL is more than a Dota clone.
I haven’t really played it (my moba time ended with HoN) but it’s obviously very well made
Candy Crush is obviously well made. It's a scourge, but it's a well made scourge.
That's what I find so frustrating about games these days. The most effective business models (by a long way) are the ones that lean into all of the dark patterns.
They can attract great talent to work on them, and afford the time to build them well, because there's so much money sloshing around.
It has matured over time but it was absolutely a hosted dota ripoff initially, including the playable characters. The fact there are also other spinoffs isn’t really relevant to its origins and lack of recognition or even an attempt at monetary compensation.
If you actually played this game and read the patch notes, you'd have a different perspective on this.
There's a lot of weird code and technical debt in the game client. For example, a map-wide filter (Nocturne's ult) is actually a giant minion covering the whole map.
> shares game design field manual written entirely by AI
I fixed the title for you.
AI is here to stay. Embrace the future of to-be-summarized-by-another-LLM content.
AI-generated, and also highly untrustworthy given its source - Riot Games is an extraordinarily player-, community-, and pro-player-hostile company. On top of all of the new and exciting ways that they manage to not only screw up software engineering but also screw over their users, their business model is selling skins at the expense of their games (in the sames sense that Google's business model is selling ads at the expense of search quality).
It would only be a slight exaggeration to say that Riot is the Monsanto of game developers - because EA/Activision/Blizzard/Epic all contend for that spot too.
I'm only to preface 3 but this is the densest download of knowledge I've come across in a long time
> The "It's not X -- it's Y" pattern, often with an em dash. The single most commonly identified AI writing tell. Man I f*cking hate it. AI uses this to create false profundity by framing everything as a surprising reframe. One in a piece can be effective; ten in a blog post is a genuine insult to the reader. Before LLMs, people simply did not write like this at scale. Includes the causal variant "not because X, but because Y" where every explanation is framed as a surprise reveal, the em-dash dismissal "X -- not Y", and the cross-sentence reframe where the same noun is negated then repositioned: "The question isn't X. The question is Y."
The information is hard to read because I had to run an https://tropes.fyi/ filter over the essay to make it readable.
I found it quite tiring to read as well.
If only the popularity of the game wasn't 100% derived from original DoTA map by IceFrog, which this guy had nothing to do with.
IceFrog didn't create Dota, he took over maintenance of it from a long line of other people at the time, including Guinsoo (who added Roshan and the recipe system) who worked at Riot (though Icefrog was definitely the best maintainer, Dota was already hugely popular before Icefrog had anything to do with it).
Dota itself wasn't even original, it was based on a StarCraft 1 custom map.
Dota was popular in its own niche and game was hugely imbalanced. IceFrog took it to somewhere so high above, saying "next level" is understating it.
The Starcraft map was called Aeon of Strife.
Would you say the same about a basketball video game?
Sure the genre and many of its archetypes were invented in the WC3 fun/custom map scene but LoL is more than a Dota clone. I haven’t really played it (my moba time ended with HoN) but it’s obviously very well made
What makes it obvious to you, that LoL is well made? Userbase? Is candy crush obviously well made? Perhaps it is well marketed, more than well made?
Candy Crush is obviously well made. It's a scourge, but it's a well made scourge.
That's what I find so frustrating about games these days. The most effective business models (by a long way) are the ones that lean into all of the dark patterns.
They can attract great talent to work on them, and afford the time to build them well, because there's so much money sloshing around.
It has matured over time but it was absolutely a hosted dota ripoff initially, including the playable characters. The fact there are also other spinoffs isn’t really relevant to its origins and lack of recognition or even an attempt at monetary compensation.
>or even an attempt at monetary compensation.
Who should pay who do you think in this?
Would love to hear.
Or is this the same as "reparations"? Poeple just dont want others to succeed.