Eve of the Apocalypse: Twilight

It occurred to me that this might actually be very useful information, or just interesting in general. Assuming you remember anything, what was your first game of EotA like? How did you end up playing a game, what was the game like, what hero did you pick, what difficulties did you have, etc.

DarnYak

It was a long time ago, but I remember that I had found the game on Mod Forge (way back in the day, before it went down, when I was an obsessive Skibi TD player) and decided to check it out. I showed up in Clan EotA's channel one day and got into a pubbie game with a few of the clan members. God knows if I remember who they were anymore, but I know it was version 1.07e, where I believe the AM and BP were considered way too powerful for in-house games. I played as the AA, and mostly just listened to the clannies on my team. That made things a bit easier for me, but I was overwhelmed trying to figure out how the skill system worked, the teleporting (and the fact that I needed gold for it), the upgrade/tower system (at that time all cash-intensive), and just trying to get the size of the map and the names of the lanes down. It took me quite a few games to really figure out what to do and how to play.

I'm pretty sure I played with you in your first few games BGB.

I still remember my first game. I was pretty into DotA and can't remember now if I joined by accident (because of the " > DotA!" thing) or whether I was genuinely interested in just trying something new. It was a pub-stomp; I was playing against like, Drayven (was that his name? Something like that), GraveI, Siege, etc. We obviously got destroyed. I played Gravel. Went Rockslide and HotM, had no clue wtf was going on and after I died for the first time was shocked I didn't lose money. So I died a few more to check if anything happened till some players called me a feeder and I realized they got crystal (which at the time I had no idea what it did) for it. I had a good laugh about that.

Siege did the usual "if you like the game, come check out Clan EotA!" and I did and hung around. Got to play a few more. Took me about 8-10 games before I finally won one (I always ended up on the pub team to start).

The future first Chieftain of the Euro Clan frequently hosted EotA at that point in time. I joined as I liked to try out new maps and was fascinated by EotA with the heroes, outposts, powerful spawns and obelisks. Terrain as well I guess. And no gold loss on death. :p
Ended up on the opposite team and got owned.

I joined more of his EotA games and thus became ( I think ) 4th or 5th member of the original core group on Europe. Allowed me to join his team to own noobs like me. We did try to teach them about the mechanics though and soon had enough players for the clan.


At least I imagine it to happen that way, cant say I remember the players 6-10 we needed to create the clan.

Luftwaffles wrote:I'm pretty sure I played with you in your first few games BGB.

Right, you did, Ion. You and Siege were both there around then. A few others, too, but I can't remember everyone...

My first EotA game was a pub game with Coramoor and KeeblerIce, went Treant and stacked armor, other team got really mad when they did no damage to a 300 armor Treant.

My first game was just me trying EotA out in SP.
I remembered just being amazed at the entire map (like the hero selection and stat-affecting spells) and basically how the game played. I also remembered being called NOOB because I didn't know anything about the scroll.

my first game was in 1.01 way back at the start. played against a pubstomp im pretty sure. I played the dread shaman, and i took mass rejuvi and something else. i was impressed that even though i knew nothing about the game that i wasnt at a complete disadvantage against people who knew the game. i had a lot of fun then went to the clan eota channel, and the rest is pretty much history. cant believe i have been hanging around that long lol

My first EotA game was against ToX, Elle, and Ion. Needless to say I won 5v1 as Icespinner
Really though, I got destroyed.

A friend showed it to me back in 1.03, and I tried to play it whenever I saw it hosted (Read: Never). Finally around 1.07 I played against 4 people or so from the clan (mian and siege I think were there, maybe cora) and won. Was told about the clan and hung out in the channel thereafter.

Mills wrote:A friend showed it to me back in 1.03, and I tried to play it whenever I saw it hosted (Read: Never). Finally around 1.07 I played against 4 people or so from the clan (mian and siege I think were there, maybe cora) and won. Was told about the clan and hung out in the channel thereafter.

creeper!!!

It was ages ago, at least half a decade. I joined a game of EotA out of couriosit, which was hosted by the first-to-be chief of Europe Hellslayer, who sadly retired. I liked it the instant I got to play it, the mechanics, the gameplay, it was epic and I was fascinated by it. I kept joining his games and we befriended sooner or later. At this time I met the rest of the first core group. My memory is quite rusty but I think we are about five people and Dekar and de-cross were two of them. Once we had enough people we created the first EotA clan on europe, which had to go through many difficulties, inactivity and got occasionally disbanded through history.

I found it on ModForge around 1.06 I think. I've been trolling the forums ever since.

Tehw00tz wrote:My first EotA game was against ToX, Elle, and Ion. Needless to say I won 5v1 as Icespinner
Really though, I got destroyed.

That's hilarious. Wish my old computer didn't die, I had a lot of replays saved from the past.

Ah hey there!

Although I played my first EotA game yeeeears ago (I think it was a TFT->ROC version, could that be true?) I had a break that lasted just as long and only had two or three games back then. I just played a few SP games with AIs simply because I can't be bothered hosting a game for years just to end up with everyone leaving the second they join.

So, this little piece of art may have just as many bugs as DotA or any other AoS has and is just as immature as most - "quality" wise, just talking about little errors here and there, stats too, nothing game breaking though, I can suggest a hundred of changes -, but even the very first game people play they realize that EotA is somewhat special. To me and probably most first-timers too it seems to try being full of diversity. There's at least a dozen different ways to improve or support your hero/team: Items, Levels, Stats, Talents, dozens of creep upgrades, Towers, Generators, blah blah blah.

The game feels a lot like StarCrafts "A Grave Invasion", if you know that map. What I like about THAT map is its "mess". This might sound bad, but it's not meant to! EotA is similar: Something seems to be going on all the time. Lots of different things. "A Grave Invasion" is letting StarCrafts computer player handle the game, there are unit spawn triggers and all that, but there's still minerals that have to be mined, buildings that have to be built so the player can benefit by their effects, etc. EotA is different, but still similar: Although it lacks a really decent computer player to handle the army, there's triggers that send miners to mine gold, harvest Gloomite, etc. That's what makes the world feel real and shows EotAs true quality, in my point of view. It's not about simply leveling your hero like in most AoS maps, but actually participating in a chaotic war and the fact that creeps use abilities adds even more to that! Thse are the things that have to be extended and focused on much more, too, making the game an actual AoS and not an RPG.


If you were asking about a more technical- or metagame first-expression, then you'll just have to tell me DarnYak.

(I think it was a TFT->ROC version, could that be true?)

EotA wasn't started till well into TFT.

If you were asking about a more technical- or metagame first-expression, then you'll just have to tell me DarnYak.

I'm really just looking for anything about first games. Simple stuff like "I didn't know the main castle functioned as a fountain until my 4th game!" is good to know so I can improve it for EotA2/any other future maps. (side note: I've always wondered how people learn that particular aspect of EotA)

DarnYak

It is in the hints that observant people read during the course of the game, and there's the whole oh my mana is going up when I pass by this building after respawning!

Well, I still think I've been playing a version converted to RoC. Didn't play it though, since EotA is one of the higher hardware requiring AoS maps, which didn't work that well on the computers back then. Anyway! See, multiple/buildable HQs healing you instead of a fountain is another thing that EotA has in common with the SC map I mentioned.

As a new player it's very easy to loose track of nearly everything. I know it's hard to get a good overview in most games as a new player, but that's especially true for chaotic EotA (< 'compliment'). Maybe simply providing a higher default zoom distance helps, I'm not sure. The minimap should make heavy use of different icons. It's really hard finding the right structure for ones needs, this goes especially for Obelisks. All structures are pure black, the terrain is just gray (which I don't understand, is that a bug, or a feature? I didn't even know that was doable). I've been using doodads with custom minimap colors to highlight things in my own map. That would help enormously - you could highlight the different paths units take, etc.

Monoliths?

Uhm, no wait. Not Monoliths, I meant Obelisks. Gonna fix it. (ah reminds me.. there's also an AoS named "Conquest of the Obelisks" )

the command -o pings the location of all obelisks and even color coordinates them based on control, while not being readily apparent to new players it is again located in the hints that appear periodically in the game.

All structures are pure black, the terrain is just gray (which I don't understand, is that a bug, or a feature?

Uh, "feature". It's an unfortunate side effect of having 5 different battlefields, the minimap terrain doesn't zoom/stretch to only the battlefield your using, so it ends up being more confusing than a grey background. I've heard theories on how to improve it, but I've never gotten around to trying them.

DarnYak

My first game I randomly joined because I like AoS games. I was a bit weirded out because the mini-map loading screen, before the splash art, (at the time there was only Storm) didn't look like the conventional 3 lane AoS.

I was a pub, played as IS. Coramoor was on the other team playing as fenris. It was a long long game, like over an hour. I hit something like level 56 before I lost. Everyone left except for me and Cora and maybe 1 more person. We talked alot, he gave me tips and told be about teleporting and stuff. He mentioned the clan so I joined the channel afterwards. It was fun enough that I kept playing.

I remember Tox's first game. His team won by stealing the artifact back after we had tried to win with it. Talk about epic fail on our part!