Here Are the Full Q&A Session #4, brought to you by IceFrogQ: When will we hear more about you and Valve? Some people say it will take 2-3 years, can you give us any clues? (from Zeyall)
A: It certainly won't take that long. There are a lot of very talented people here at Valve
that are working hard on it every day to ensure high quality in a timely manner. We'll be
making an announcement soon actually, and based on the feedback I've been getting
since the last mention. I'm sure you all will be as excited as I am.
Q: Can you tell us how you first met Valve and how you like it so far? (from Sodoes)
A: It started off with an email from Valve where they mentioned that they were big fans
of DotA wanted to fly me out to spend some time with them and visit their studio. I wasn't
quite sure what to expect from the trip. After arriving and chatting with them, the first thing
I noticed was how much of their decision making process was like mine. They shared
the same aspirations towards building a long term and sustainable community without
having short sighted business goals that end up hurting the quality of the game. One of
the most important things for me though was that there wasn't going to be anyone standing
above telling me how I should be doing things. They trust the developers that have experience
to make the best decisions for their playerbase. The atmosphere at Valve allows everyone
to be very comfortable and able to focus on what they love doing. It also doesn't hurt that
they are huge DotA fans.. until their favorite heroes are nerfed, then I'm the bad guy for a
week!
Q: How popular is DotA these days? (from china_white)
A: I can only give estimates based on getdota.com usage, because I can't track ingame
downloads or fansites or downloads from China. It is roughly estimated (based on the
statistics from popular Chinese sites) that the Chinese DotA audience is about 40-50%
of the worldwide audience. Not counting China, the playerbase is estimated to be
somewhere between 7-11 million. I expect the audience to grow even more in the not too
distant
future.
Q: Is your goal to make everything picked the same amount of times? (from j.walsh)
A: I don't think about it that way exactly. Sure it's good if there is a nice distribution and
that is something to work towards, but really the goal in DotA's development is, first and
foremost, to make the gameplay quality the best it can be. It is the combination of all the
heroes, items and mechanics together that makes DotA what it is and not the individual
elements alone. Sometimes that means certain things are carefully adjusted to be more
frequent than others, sometimes it doesn't, but ultimately the main judge of a game's
qualityis not in some artificial balance metric, but in the overall gameplay quality and depth
that it has.
Q: Can you tell us something about 6.68? (from Carlos)
A: It is still a work in progress and needs some time, but it will have new heroes, more
balance improvements, and some new features as well. Here is one of the new heroes
in development: Icarus, the Phoenix
Q: What do you think about DotA's future, will it continue to grow? (from Amir)
A: Definitely. I think players like to spend their time on something they both enjoy and
trust. While DotA has a lot to offer now in terms of content and gameplay quality, I will
always be working hard to improve it and all that work will be maintained when it matures
to something that solves all the other non-gameplay elements that it needs to go to the
next level. I think it is a good option for players that want to spend time on a game that
will grow with them. It also has a very bright future in the competitive scene. In addition
to the already announced SMM ($32,000), ESWC ($24,500), a soon to be announced
online ($30,000) event and another huge offline event that will be revealed soon, there
will also be an even bigger set of opportunities in the future for players that are dedicating
their time and energy into DotA. I think players on all levels of play will be satisfied with
their choice and experience with the game.
Q:Why are some heroes unavailable in -CM mode? (from Brandom Lim)
A: It is a largely experimental idea so it may or may not remain for the future. There are
a lot of different reasons for it though. In some cases it's balance or bug-potential related.
Other times it is done to limit the number of simultaneous changes so that certain changes
can be more easily measured. In a lot of cases where the above aren't a factor, it is actually
done to give enough opportunity for players to understand how to play with and against
them and understand the strengths and weaknesses better. This also makes new versions
less destabalizing for competitive gaming while still providing a continuous stream of fresh
content. That being said though, I've gotten a lot of requests from players that use the mode
for casual or semi-competitive play and miss omitted heroes, so I may add a subcommand
to unlock all.
Q: What do you think about the fan support of competitive teams?
(from Mooseman)
A: Fan support is, for the most part, very good. I think it's great how passionate many of
them are about competitive DotA. At times, though, some of them can be a little too judgmental
towards teams based on their last few consecutive wins or losses. They have a lot of pressure
on them and sometimes they make mistakes or just want to relax and try something different.
I don't think it is always fair to judge them for that. They also face top competition regularly,
so its hard to win every time. Teams have a lot of pride and spend a lot of time practicing,
so it can be demoralizing to them when some fans change their attitudes towards them so
fast.
Q: Are we going to see more visual effects in the future? (from Zikaro)
A: Visual upgrades can be a good thing (and they will come in the future) but is extremely
important to not add too much visual noise. You want a scene that has a nice atmosphere
and theme but isn't too cluttered or shiny that it negatively affects gameplay by making it
hard to tell what is going on.
Q: Should we expect to see any more loadscreens by Kunkka? (from 27302)
A: Yes, he is planning a new one now, but I can't tell you when it will be done since it depends
on his free time.
Q: Do you use WC3 Editor by itself or other things as well? (from Sasha200)
A: Most of the map development is done outside of the editor actually. There are a lot
of separate script files and program tools that are used together to create the map file.
Q: Any interesting bugs or features that were in beta maps? (from OpyyuRDs)
A: We once had a different ability for Techies that used the same visual art and sound
effects from starcraft one for the ghost nuke. When he used it, a red indicator would appear
on the ground like in Starcraft and then it would play the classic "Nuclear Launch Detected"
audio. It sounded a lot cooler than it played out in practice and it was near the end of a beta
cycle and had some balancing and design issues, so we decided to remove it instead of rush it
in. As far as bugs go, Chaos Knight could pull towers in one beta version, so you were able to
have a line of towers pushing on the enemy side!
Q: Will more heroes get an Aghanim upgrade to their ultimate? (from Akder)
A: Yea, I usually try to add some more every version or two. I think it's a good idea to add
them in slowly though, instead of too many at once. I've also gotten more requests for extra
graphic animations for the ones that already have, so I'll try to find suitable ones for those as
well.
Q: What is the hardest part when developing dota? What risks are there?
(from Bannion)
A: The hardest part is actually not the development itself, but in how to measure success.
The thing I always try to work on the most is increasing the measurability/prediction of a
successful patch. The goal is to be able to improve the development process and feedback
systems for better accuracy to what reasonates best with players. The riskiest thing is making
a change where it might take too long to discover its true impacts on the game where it
becomes hard to reverse. We work really hard to eliminate that stuff early on in the theory
phase with either careful analysis or specific beta testing.
Q: How do you decide when to release a new patch? (from VinceX)
A: There are two separate considerations for this. The first is frequency. If you update too
frequently players do not get a chance to settle into the previous changes and learn the
game, if you update too slowly then you aren't providing enough fresh content. It is a
balance between the two that I'm always trying to find a happy medium between as I get
more feedback from players. The second is when it's "ready". I usually release it as soon
as I feel that the value we get out of more internal testing is too low compared to external
feedback we'd get from the larger community. If we are still in the experimenting phase
where we are trying out ideas then it's not ready. Once it feels like it needs external testing
to be able to make more good decisions, then it is released. From my perspective, the game
is in constant development and improvement regardless, it just becomes a matter of what
is the most effective way to improve something.
Q: What takes the most time each patch? Researching, Balancing, Implementing or Bug Hunting? (from Enders)
A: The two most time consuming are usually research and experimentation. Research
involves more than just playing the game, it's also watching replays, reading a wide range
of feedback and talking with players. Experimentation is the other time consuming part.
It would be fast to just reproduce a patch if I already knew exactly what to do, but the
hard part is usually figuring out what you want to do and doing the proper testing before
making changes.
Q: What are you most happy about with regards to DotA? (from Artem)
A: I am really thankful for all the support players have given this game, it is more than I
could ask for. I see a vibrant community that, despite the very hard learning curve DotA
has, grows through the dedication and passion of its players. That shows me how much
more potential the game has and encourages me to work harder.
