You know what they say about oil and water, or kart racers and multiplayer online battle arenas (MOBAs). Neither mixes together very well. But that hasnât stopped a brave crew of Dota 2 players-cum-modders from attempting to rejigger Valveâs classic to be a little more like Mario Kart.
The unorthodox union is called Dota Dash. Its page on the Steam Community forums describes it as âa Fast-paced Dota 2 racing game meant to feel like Mario Kart. Race with fast-paced sliding controls! Use greevil shells to blast your enemy! Drop banana peels to send your enemy slipping!â
The thing is freely available online for gamers curious enough to take it out for a spin. But be warned: the mod has sparked enough controversy already that its creators have had to apologize for the thing repeatedly, insisting that itâs still in the earliest of experimental development stages.
The comments section for the above video showing early Dota Dash footage became a particularly fierce battleground. Many YouTubers blasted the game for being an unholy combination at best and, more often, one that was simply nonfunctional and thus not a lot of fun to play on a PC.
Dota Dashâs creator, a modder who goes by the handle BMD, took to Reddit over the weekend to apologize for all the initial hiccups and to say that heâs still working on turning the mod into a workable game. In a sign of how intense the blowback against this mod was, BMD went out of his way to take sole responsibility for Dota Dash, insisting that the other Dota 2 modders and mapmakers with their handles attached to the project werenât to blame.
âI also want to apologize to Nigma for his video becoming a battleground he had nothing to do with,â BMD wrote in an update, referring to the original video. âI thought it was a really fun way to show off the mod.â
He provided another video of his own to show off the new kind of movement and gameplay heâs trying to bring into Dota 2 with the mod:
âIâm working on making the dota 2 map raceable, as well as building a âcampaignâ system so that people can race across multiple maps in the same game session, instead of on only a single map,â BMD wrote. âIâm also building development tools for mappers so that they can draw their map in Hammer, then use my development tools to place all of the powerups/waypoints/hazards/barriers on the map, and then release their map/map pack (or possibly even sell it on the workshop eventually).â
Sounds crazy for sure. But crazy enough to work? Both of these games have been tinkered with in the past with fruitful results. Mario Kart 8 has already attracted a modding community of sorts. And Dota 2 wouldnât even exist if it werenât for enterprising Warcraft III modders. I remain wary but curious.
via Destructoid
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