Category: FMP Context

Overwatch is a MOBA that has the closet links to the action genre than others. Its unique in that it has its game set in first person meaning you get to see other characters up close meaning that each character needs to be at a top level to immerse the player. Hence why each and every character of Overwatch has unique and clear personality traits shown through looks and armour, something I aim to research into. The game follows the normal 5v5 codes of a MOBA with each character holding a role. However, Overwatch is a objective based game rather than deathmatch. Icons in this game work somewhat as simple badges that let players know whose who, similar to Apex legends.

One character of the Overwatch world is Lucio. From weapon, colour choice and armour we can see the style of what this character is about. Weapons wise we see the speaker like gun that allows him to use his music to attack enemies and push them from points for his team literally ‘moving’ people with his music. His armour shows his DJ like set up with the addition of skates that allow him to zoom across the map allowing him to fulfil his support role with his music’s healing properties that he can alternate between. Finally his colour choice, a resident of Brazil, Lucio honors this with his yellow, blue and green colours of him parent country. Each piece of art of Lucio is perfectly placed to tell apart of his story which is something that I must be able to emulate in my Avatars.

Next is the one of the Tank characters in Overwatch. Roadhog. Within his beast like appearance, we are able to see the story of himself and his name, his abilities and his role. The name roadhog clearly comes from the tattoo of his pig belly and the lookalike mask he wears that gives this nickname to life. His stubby brute nature sings praises to the name calling of hog and the road aspect being his makeshift armour look. His abilities are clear in looking at his hook. This main ability allows hog the ability to hook enemies to him to take them out with his primary shotgun like scrap gun. Finally, his role. To be a Tank is to be big, simple and plain. The role of a Tank is to take damage for the team and Roadhogs statute allows him to take many ‘punches’ to the gut.

Similar to the Apex Legends issue, Overwatch falls short for the creativity of the icon use like R6S excels in. This is disappointing but with the detail of each character, we can see how they decided to take time off this to excel with the character which I can understand, however I have only a few characters to make therefore I feel able to create each incon and character correctly which the same level of creativity.

R6S (Rainbow Six Siege) is a 5v5 objective styled game which is very far to the style my game would be. But like above, there are still things here that I would be able to assimilate and use to improve my own. Before going into a game, you are presented with the choice of who to choose. To show these people, they are all accompanied with their own personal icons that are solely theirs. While other games use the easier face shot to show whos who, R6S shows a more creative way, and a way in which watchers can identify players. This Icon style is something I aim to learn, with this I can add a more personal touch to each character outside of their information blogs.

Smoke is one of the operators you are able to play in R6S. Smoke’s ability is to use his specialised canister to deploy poison gas to kill opponents. While this ability explains him in full, his armor and pose shows it through too. Arguably showing a more personal level. His pose shows his laid back nature, such as a gases undefendable approach acting almost complacent as it destroys its target. He also has the most iconic piece that links to his ability by wearing a gas mask, something that helps indefinitely the character.

Something I don’t like is how the character sticks to his uniform, taking away another piece of information that could lay out a characters persona. The use of a full face mask also takes this personality away but does have a link for that mysterious background feel when storytelling.

Mute is another operator of R6S. His ability revolves around the use of his jammers which takes out the other teams electronic gadgets. This is where the name comes from. His pose and style is set in a way of a silent guardian with one hand on the trigger showing a sense of confidence. The biggest part of his design is from the mask by using the white X made by tape on his helmet. This X works to metaphorically show the silencing of the enemies scouting options by jammer/disrupting them.

Again, similar to the smoke design, I find issues with taking away the facial pieces of characters that covering them up fully. However, Mute takes this to a better level by actually having personal decal on his armour giving us a sense of the character and the abilities he uses.

One of the best parts of this game in terms of research is the use of icons in game to show and signal who is where. These icons are small pieces of art that are creatively crafted to include the operators gadget and gives them their own style of badge, adding another layer of personality.

This Icon is from the operator Pulse, whose ability is that he uses his camera to identify enemies through a heartbeat scanner. This is one of the main searching abilities in the game and is shown this with this icon. The use of the eye signals the visual aspect of the ability with the inner radar shows his ability to scan for his enemies and the blips that appear with it. This tells us the persona of the character before even seeing them and gives each a unique calling card that I wish to emulate in my final work.

Apex legends is a battle royale style game, which is already one step away from my own. However, what attracts me and has pulled my interest into following this style is the way the universe is set. The legends in this game act the same way my Avatars will, in a game sense. By this I mean that the legends fight in a large arena and is broadcasted like a bloodsport, while my game will be virtual it holds the same values. The designs of each character are unique and work well with their created skill set, something I must make sure to achieve with my character as to add story and personality to them. While also making sure to find ways that the game shows

In Apex Legends we control the Legends, powerful fighters who have won multiple tournaments and are like the star players of the Apex games. Each character has vast background that is shown through their audio cues and most importantly there armour. This is something I need to make sure I am able to emulate in my Avatar and causal character creations.

Here we see one of the legends, Octane. He is a fast speed demon character who uses his speed and boosts to zoom across the map and close down enemies. This style of playing is shown through each piece of his character and armour. Starting with his helmet, we can see him wearing pressure goggles that racers wear to avoid friction damage to their eyes when moving at high speeds. His pose and torso clothing shows his outrageous personality and his jackass style. His two most important pieces of his gear is his blood dialysis machine and his legs. This machine acts to clear his blood which works in contention to his ability of using a adrenaline drug to go quicker, having this machine adds that modernism I seek to show in my own work. His legs are practically his background, to the naked eye this is just a simple robotic leg swap so that he is able to run at faster speeds. However the way he lost them and how he got robotic replacements are actually the reason to why he acts the way he does. A perfect way of adding a iconic piece to the character.

What I don’t like is his hidden face and overall style. In my work I intend to create a normal character and then their avatar which allows them to play the Exodus games through a Avatar designed by their desires and whatnot.

Another legend is Bloodhound. A character that can track his enemies due to his tracking technology. Straight away Bloodhounds character is hidden and they are easily the most mysterious in the game, however the designs and items on his armour allow us to see his style and how he acts. The additions to the tip of their helmet and the various hunting trophies that adorn them tell a story of their adventures. They are always seen with a crow which in game is how they attract opponents, with the following of crows. If there is one thing I love about the character then it would be his pose. This stoic pose shows his silent killer style that the legend plays as.

One thing I dont like with the character is the lack of humanity and overall personality. While this might be intentional, I find that having this void of humanity doesn’t allow a majority of players connect with him, only connecting when they have heard outside reasons why. Which is why I want to show personality through clothing and style allowing people to connect.

In terms of icons from this game. I find them lackluster at best. While truthfully this specific game has no need to create these, I find that using these icons just to design small versions of the characters face is a waste. Instead my choice would be to use these icons to create iconic piece to the character that allows people/the audience to find them. For Octane you could choose the design of his stim drug that is his main ability and for bloodhound you could design the crow to give a sort of calling card for them rather than the arty mugshot style.

reference

EA (2019). Apex Legends – The Next Evolution of Battle Royale – Free on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. [online] Available at: https://www.ea.com/games/apex-legends [Accessed 26 feb. 2020]

To make sure that I am fully aware of my product and to make sure that I keep in check, I must explain my idea fully and delve into the aspects of this. My idea is not to actually form a true game, but to create the world and characters through the medium of art. To do this I must analyse other games that share the same genre as mine. My genre being MOBA, due to its tactical arena fighter like style.

THEME

The theme of my work is that of my own creation, the game of Exodus, a game that’s universe was thought by me and will be crafted through my work. The theme of my work is linked with the story of the poor country of the North as underdogs fighting in arena like battles with simulated Avatars to claim back the respect they deserve. With this in mind, I need to design my art in the way you would see a prizefighter. As such I will be looking into games that follow this MOBA genre while also looking closer as Arena like games such as Apex Legends. Both of these use the avatar system of allowing the player to play through the eyes of different champions which is something I intend to emulate. Having this theme written down and understood I will be able to move to tone, which allows me to analysis a similar piece of work and see how to learn from this.

Another main theme against this underdog style is the esports style it will emulate. In the universe, these are publicly watched games similar to that of football and other major sports. As such I need to make sure to create my art in ways that a public member would see. By this I mean the small profile shots while watching to know who’s who and other pieces of information like maps, name and health. And everything you need to understand what is going. With this I also need to remember that this is arena fighting and therefore will include team banners and such.

STYLE 

Profile shots

The styles of these selection screens differ when it comes to the two games. League has a close face portrait. These are simply up close shots of the character with the name underneath which for me is something I would rather stray away from, due to its inability to show meaning. In my world, one player will always have just one avatar but will have an image of that avatar throughout the arena like a champion banner. So looking through select screens I can first see how to create small images to show the ‘in world’ audience who is who.

Rather to League’s way of selecting images as the selection screen, Apex has a similar portrait select idea but then shows the full character beside them. This acts like a intro pose which for this universe would be like the showmanship from fighters before the actual fight. This is something to consider when looking for the style in which I draw. Overall, the portrait system works well for creating a commentary image, much like other esports.

Another profile shot idea is to emulate the rainbow six siege option of icons. This allows for a more creative idea to go into each character with these icons to show meaning of the character. Like Rainbows Sledge who has the sledge hammer icon, simple and effective. Something to consider creating and letting my target audience deciding which would look better for the game.

Commentary Caster Image

In this image we can see that ‘Commentary’ image I mentioned. On the side we can see the profile shots that allow characters to be seen, rather than the player cam however, I would use this to display the image of the character that was in play. The below is a showcase of health, mana and overall details of the character, I see this being scrapped for a simple data card that shows kills / assists / deaths with health of the side. At the far right is the map, which is something I intend to keep which allows watches to understand the layout.

In this Call Of Duty caster image, we are given similar details. The profile shots are placed on top for both teams with the score in the middle, something I see myself taking and using in my own. The POV is that of an fps but I will be drawing this in the version of a birds eye view, similar to that of football with its moving cameras. The Map is still in use showing the public map awareness and knowledge upon the game.

TONE

With these initial styles and themes research, I only feel it right to conclude with work on the tone of my work. While the universe is a rough one of dark neo like cities, a dystopia, I feel that the tone in the actual arena must be light hearted action to a degree. This tone switch will allow me to show the harsh realities of the outside world while flipping into a game for the sport.

The outside world is that of a luminous night life, the lights shining upon the dark grimy lifestyle that some live while the rest live in beautiful sceneries that the poor could of dream off. A quote that resonates with this world is “EAT THE RICH”.

This style and tone is also shown through the characters outside the arena. This will shown the poverty and general personality. This look and fashion choice won’t dictate the looks of the Avatars hence the point of the look, think of this system like an esports player. These clothing choices will change on the birthplace of the character such to show the wealth of their social class.

With this blog completed I am able to see the theme of my MOBA dystopia world, the style in which I am able to show this and finally the tone in which the dark world is set and the best way to show this through design choices ahead of me. I am now able to look further into these similar games to see what it really is that attracts me and what I intend to learn from to further help my work. This new blog will include games written here and any others that I have seen inspiration from.

MOBA is a gaming genre meaning MASSIVE ONLINE BATTLE ARENA. This genre has been leading the esports scene through its already established arena style fitting perfectly in the real world. The two most popular MOBAs are League of legends and DOTA 2 which are also two of the most played game on PC. MOBAs are designed and seen to allows hold the same codes with different characters and universes.

THE CODES OF MOBA

The codes of every genre must be kept to create the game, like CoD with its FPS deathmatch style build that if changed would take away from its core value. The build of an MOBA is the three lane system. The game is designed so that you, in your role, work with a team to push your lanes by destroying the obstacles all the way into the other base. This style allows for aggressive plays but also rewards the slow thoughtful player who dismantles a team with strategy. The obstacles on each lane are usually turrets that inflict major damage upon entering its range, something to deter straight rushes and forces teamwork. Due to the nature of such MOBAs are mostly always very competitive which allows for esports to thrive with League of Legends being its flagship with its record breaking 44 million concurrent viewership. In terms of characters, MOBAs usually hold huge pools to choose from, each with different looks/story/skill set/weakness allowing for every type of player to feel at home.

HISTORY 

The first ever MOBA game was conceived through a custom made map on the game StarCraft in 1998. Aeon of Strife was born having the three lane system that is still ingrained to this game with a few lacking parts that we have now. The next part of the story was another mod, now in Warcraft 3, in 2003 called Defense of the Ancients. DOTA had refined AoS into the more MOBA style game we play today but due to it only being a mod, the assets were limited. After this surge of modders taking turns on DOTA, companies started to look at creating stand alone games for this style. The first of these being Demigod that allowed players to have hero characters to control but fell short due to connectivity issues. This is where League of Legends joined the world, with the help of Riot games and the man who had created the DOTA add on.

After this point the floodgates opened. More and more companies came in to create their own version of this highly sort after genre and MOBA has slowly but surely the most popular game genre in both casual play and competitive.

EXAMPLES   

League of legends is by far the most popular MOBA game and one of the world’s most popular game. Created in 2009 by Riot games with the help of Feak who had previously created DOTA allstars, the spiritual father to DOTA 2. LoL was well recepted when it was first released and has kept this well reception today. In 2012 it became North America’s highest played game by hours on the PC. 4 years later the game had surpassed 100 million players a month and in the 2019 world championship has broke records with its over 100 million viewership and 44 million concurrent viewers statistic.

Leagues esports has been the flagship and has put hugh distance from any other game even swallowing the likes of Fortnite and CSGO. This is due to the great players and the competitive nature that MOBAs produce so well. The action style of MOBA isn’t just that, it feels like an arena battle you could watch at home. And that is one of the main reasons why MOBA dominates the worlds competitive scene even in the physical scene by getting higher viewership than America’s Super Bowl.

DOTA 2 was released in 2013 by Value with the help of veteran IceFrog. Feak had created DOTA allstars and once he left was taken over by IceFrog. Once Feak had gone on to League, Value performed a similar move by making DOTA 2. DOTA has been universal acclaim from release and once held the record players with 330,000 concurrent. While the overall stats have been drowned out by League, it by no means implies that DOTA is the lower game. Most critics claim that DOTA is the more complex and harder game making it more rewarding, this is due to the counter play emphasis that all ‘HEROS’ have to each other.

DOTA 2 has been claimed as one of the greatest games of all time and has a well placed esports that is watched by thousands and has broke the record for reward money with 33 million as the prize amount.

Having this blog completed has allowed me to look into the background of MOBAs and has given me more than enough sources helping me to gain more experience when looking at how and who to create. Allowing me to have this blog as well works as a way to clearly explain MOBAs and why I have choose to emulate this genre and helps me to follow into Action genre research due to the genre heavy influence of such.

References

Webb, K. (2019). More than 100 million people watched the ‘League of Legends’ World Championship, cementing its place as the most popular esport. [online] Business Insider. Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/league-of-legends-world-championship-100-million-viewers-2019-12?r=US&IR=T [Accessed 26 Feb. 2020].

Minotti, M. (2014). The history of MOBAs: From mod to sensation. [online] VentureBeat. Available at: https://venturebeat.com/2014/09/01/the-history-of-mobas-from-mod-to-sensation/ [Accessed 27 Feb. 2020].

En.wikipedia.org. (2004). [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org [Accessed 27 Feb. 2020].

 

WHAT ARE VALS?

VALs is a marketing strategy thats allows for designer and creators to gain a detailed view on what their audience values allowing for creators to adjust their creations accordingly. VALs stands for ‘Values and Lifestyle’ which in sectioned into six primary motivations of consumerism.

• Experiencers– These people value moods and the expression of the product. They are the youngest and most active members of the VALs. They fall for new items and spend a lot on clothing and other apparel.
• Thinkers – These people value knowledge and creativity. These are the high educated professionals that center their activities around their own homes while also being well informed of the world.
• Believers –  These people value the social sharing and community in media. These people are the average Joes with modest incomes, however they are very predictable in that they stick with nation brands not allowing the interference of foreign products.
• Achievers – These people value achievement and the functionality. These people enjoy established products and thrive off the success of the actual product and their own jobs.
• Strivers – These people are much like achievers with more importance to style as these people intend to emulate those they look up to.
• Makers – These people are family grounded who enjoy practical products. They have little interest in the big world but can still appreciate a good product regardless.

For my audience, I find that the closest style for my viewers would be a mixture. From Thinkers but of lower income and social standing. With this in mind I can use my creations to show off my skills to those who value such an aspect. Having this information will allow me to look into the demographics of my audience and further define them even after the initial questionnaire. To find such information, I will use secondary research to look into official statistics.

To ensure that my belief is correct, I have gone back to my target audience with these choices to see which of these they identify to in terms of viewing art work.

With this question I made sure to find original audience members and explained the three choices to them and let them choose. Having only a small group allowed me to find a clear cut answer to work from. The winner of this one question questionnaire was Thinker, but not in the traditional sense, that being that they were of high class and wealthy professionals. But instead having a low income background who watches to consume more understanding and to delve into deeper and vast worlds.

Having this confirmed will allow me to move on with what I have planned, which is to go into secondary research to find deeper demographics of my genre game art.

References 

Ezzeldian, I. (2014). V.A.L.S. Model (Values and Lifestyles) The Most Intelligent Tool For Understanding Of CustomersValues And Lifestyles. [online] Linkedin.com. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141011232233-99993053-v-a-l-s-model-values-and-lifestyles-the-most-intelligent-tool-for-understanding-of-customersvalues-and-lifestyles [Accessed 25 Feb. 2020].

Ridenour, E. (2017). Zilker Marketing | Using VALS To Find Your Audience. [online] Zilkermarketing.com. Available at: https://zilkermarketing.com/using-vals-to-find-your-audience/ [Accessed 25 Feb. 2020].

STory

While I will send in my proposal separately. I wanted to make sure that it was easy to see what my idea is and where I have started from, so that hopefully I can show my progression and my evolution throughout my project.

The title is Exodus. This is a story that I have been wanting to display for a very long time. This is why I am able to explain my full idea. This world has been torn apart by war, literally creating islands from the damage. These thousands of islands worked together to connect in the recovery of the world. Countries ceased to exist and is now replaced with four simple sections where hundreds of Islands have connect to make a small hive cluster. The South/East/West and North. After awhile the world realised that they did not have enough supplies to feed everyone at once so they created a system to earn these supplies so that they may be regulated easier.

This doesn’t mean that the food has ran out, just they couldn’t make enough so quickly so they made a sports event system to regulate the speed of supplies. It started as normal sports but after a huge discovery, we had found an element that allowed us to create Augmented reality games, these games allowed us to put our consciousness into the created world. As such the Exodus games were made.

With the help of all four ‘nations’, they created one large hive cluster of islands for tournaments and academies to train gifted children to play in these games and win supplies for their nation. These were called to Academy islands and the Exodus Centre.

The Exodus games is a copy of the old League of Legends MOBA game. But this time, players entered the game and won through the use of skills from their own mental and physical abilities. The team and codes of MOBAs still remained (apart from the buying items part) but I will elaborate on these roles in another blog.

As such the games became majorly watched sports in which Nations sent in multiple teams of gifted children to work as teams. However, jumping into a game required a Avatar. These Avatars are based off of your own mental state. For example, a very shy individuals Avatar would be a confident being, Avatars could be out of this world characters such as robotic half animal half humanoids. But that all depends of ones creativity. These Avatars are first choose at 12 when you enter for the first time which forces you to create one.

The history of Exodus started well, The North were the first ever winners and dominated the games for years, hwoever they were cheated out. The south cheated with hacks and started an era of dominance. Over time the South have bribed the West and East to ‘bully’ the North for a share of supplies. As such the Northern nation is very poor and spiteful to the cheating. Thats where my story starts.

5 children from the North become new players and work there way up to beat the cheaters that destroyed their people. Each member has reasons and vices to beat and that is the journey I intend to show.

In the actual game, being killed does not result in actual death. Killing an Avatar in game simulates pain to the host but due to the nature of the game, they are able to respawn after a certain timer. This timer is decided up how many times they had died previously.

creating

I will be creating the 5 characters in personal and then their Avatars. I will then design the maps they battle on and the HUD of the broadcasters, similar to the commentary that most sports have, but with an Esports twist. Finally I will create flags and symbols of the nations. Finally showcasing these on a Wix Website.