EXAMPLE OF IMMERSIVE MULTIMEDIA IN ENTERTAINMENT

1. Defense of the Ancients (DotA)

DotA is a custom scenario for the real-time strategy video game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and its expansion, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, based on the "Aeon of Strife" map for StarCraft. The objective of the scenario is for each team to destroy the opponents' Ancients, heavily guarded structures at opposing corners of the map. Players use powerful units known as heroes, and are assisted by allied heroes and AI-controlled fighters called "creeps". As in role-playing games, players level up their hero and use gold to buy equipment during the mission.[2]

The scenario was developed with the "World Editor" of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, and was updated upon the release of the expansion, The Frozen Throne. There have been many variations of the original concept; the most popular is DotA Allstars, which has been maintained by several authors during development. The current developer is known by his pseudonym as "IceFrog", and has been developing the game since 2005.

Since its release, Allstars has become a feature at several worldwide tournaments, including Blizzard Entertainment's BlizzCon and the Asian World Cyber Games, as well as the Cyberathlete Amateur and CyberEvolution leagues; Gamasutra declared that DotA was perhaps the most popular "free, non-supported game mod in the world".[3]

Gameplay

A game of DotA Allstars in progress

Defense of the Ancients pits two teams of players against each other: the Sentinel and the Scourge. Players on the Sentinel team are based at the southwest corner of the map, and those on the Scourge team are based at the northeast corner. Each base is defended by towers and waves of units which guard the main paths leading to their base. In the center of each base is the "Ancient", a building that must be destroyed to win the game.[4][5]

Each human player controls one Hero, a powerful unit with unique abilities. In Allstars, players on each side choose one of ninety-seven heroes, each with different abilities and tactical advantages over other heroes.[6] The scenario is highly team-oriented; it is difficult for one player to carry the team to victory alone.[7] Nevertheless, some heroes, given enough time, can change the outcome single-handedly, while countering the opposing team's heroes. Defense of the Ancients allows up to ten players in a five versus five format and an additional two slots for referees or observers, often with an equal number of players on each side.

Because the gameplay revolves around strengthening individual heroes, it does not require one to focus on resource management and base-building, as in most traditional real-time strategy games. Killing computer-controlled or neutral units earns the player experience points; when enough experience is accumulated, the player gains a level. Leveling up improves the hero's toughness and the damage it can inflict, and allows players to upgrade their spells or skills. In addition to accumulating experience, players also manage a single resource: gold. The typical resource gathering of Warcraft III is replaced by a combat-oriented money system; in addition to a small periodic income, heroes earn gold by killing

hostile units, base structures, and enemy heroes.[8] This gives rise to a technique called last hitting, which is when the player attacks a hostile unit when "its hit points are low enough to kill it with one blow".[9] Using gold, players buy items to strengthen their hero and gain abilities. Certain items can be combined with recipes to create more powerful items. Buying items that suit one's hero is an important tactical element of the scenario.[10]

Allstars offers a variety of game modes, selected by the game host at the beginning of the match. The game modes dictate the difficulty of the scenario, as well as whether people can choose their hero or are assigned one randomly. Many game modes can be combined (for example, an easy difficulty level and a random hero pick), allowing more flexible options.[11]

Development

Warcraft III is the third title in the Warcraft series of real-time strategy games developed by Blizzard Entertainment. As with Warcraft II, Blizzard included a free "world editor" in the game that allows players to create custom scenarios or "maps" for the game, which can be played online with other players through Battle.net.[12] These custom scenarios can be simple terrain changes, which play like normal Warcraft games, or they can be entirely new game scenarios with custom objectives, units, items, and events, like Defense of the Ancients.[12]

The first version of Defense of the Ancients was released in 2003 by a mapmaker under the alias Eul,[13] who based the map on a previous StarCraft scenario known as "Aeon of Strife",[11] After the release of Warcraft's expansion The Frozen Throne, which added new features to the World Editor, Eul did not update the scenario.[14] Other mapmakers produced spinoffs that added new heroes, items, and features.[13]

Among the DotA variants created in the wake of Eul's map included Allstars, developed by modder Steve Feak (under the alias Guinsoo); this version would become the most popular version of the map.[15] Feak said when he began developing Allstars he had no idea how popular the game would eventually become; the emerging success of the gametype inspired him to design a new title around what he considered an emerging game genre.[16] Feak added a recipe system for items so that player's equipment would scale as they grew more powerful, as well as a powerful boss character called Roshan (named after his bowling ball) who required an entire team to defeat.[13]

Feak used a battle.net chat channel as a place for DotA players to congregate,[13] but DotA Allstars had no official site for discussions and hosting. The leaders of the DotA Allstars clan, TDA, proposed that a dedicated web site be created to replace the various online alternatives that were infrequently updated or improperly maintained. TDA member Steve "Pendragon" Mescon created the former official community site, dota-allstars.com, on October 14, 2004.[17]

Towards the end of his association with the map, Feak primarily worked on optimizing the map before handing over control to another developer after version 6.01. The new author, IceFrog, added new features, heroes, and fixes. Each release is accompanied with a changelog.[18] IceFrog is notoriously reclusive, refusing to give interviews; the only evidence of IceFrog's authorship was the map maker's email account on the official website and the name branded on the game's loading screen.[3] Icefrog now interacts with players through a personal blog where he answers common questions players have about him and about the game.[19] He has also posted information about upcoming map releases, including previews of new heroes and items.[20] In October 2009, Icefrog was hired by Valve Corporation, leading a team in a project that he has described as "great news for DotA fans".[21]

Defense of the Ancients is maintained via official forums. Users can post ideas for new heroes or items, some of which are added to the map. Players have contributed icons and hero descriptions and created the artwork displayed while the map loads, and suggestions for changes to existing heroes or items are taken seriously; IceFrog once changed a new hero less than two weeks after the new version of the map was released.[3] Versions of the scenario where enemy heroes are controlled by artificial intelligences have also been released. Mescon continues to maintain dota-allstars.com, which as of April 2009 has 1.5 million registered members and receives more than a million unique visitors each month. New team members have been added to roll out visual and system improvements to the site.[17] IceFrog announced due to conflict of interest that he would be boycotting dota-allstars.com and starting his own web site, playdota.com, while continuing game development.[22]

Because Warcraft III custom games have none of the features designed to improve game quality (matchmaking players based on connection speed, etc.), various programs are used to maintain Defense of the Ancients. External tools ping player's locations, and games can be named to exclude geographic regions.[3] Clans and committees such as TDA maintain their own official list of rules and regulations, and players can be kicked from matches by being placed on "banlists".[3]

2. Heroes of Newerth

Heroes of Newerth is a game by S2 Games which is heavily based upon the Warcraft III scenario Defense of the Ancients (DotA).

Gameplay

Players in Heroes of Newerth control a single character in a 3/4 perspective, fantasy-based world. HoN focuses on hero control and development, and removes many of the common features of classic real time strategy games, such as base management, resource collection and single-player missions. Currently there are a total of sixty heroes consisting of thirty for each faction, the Legion and the Hellbourne. S2 Games has stated more heroes are forthcoming, but have not officially stated the number of heroes that will be available at release.

Heroes

Heroes are primarily organized by their main attribute - either strength, intelligence, or agility. A main attribute, along with the set of abilities that is provided for a hero, loosely assigns the role that they will fill in the game - such as a "tank" who is able to absorb a lot of damage and often starts team fights or "clashes", a "carry" who scales very well the longer the game moves on and deals massive damage and "support" - heroes which have a range of abilities from healing and buffing to damage and disables.

While the three primary attributes help categorize heroes, what truly distinguishes each hero from others is their set of abilities. Each hero in the game has four

unique skills or spells that can be learned and improved as the hero gains levels. These abilities accomplish vastly different things, such as dealing damage, healing, stunning, immobilizing or silencing, teleportation, summoning, and life and mana draining. While the skills themselves are unique, the skills of each hero usually have some sort of synergy with each other. For example, a hero might have one skill that reduces an enemy's defenses against magic, and another skill that deals magic damage. Using these skills one after the other increases the hero's effectiveness by allowing them to do more damage.

Each hero's skill-set defines their role in the game. These roles can vary according to the compositions of each team as well as the overall strategy that the team decides to follow.

Ganker: A hero that has skills favoring ambushing and killing enemy players, disrupting their experience gain and gold income.

Pusher: A hero that specializes in pushing lanes towards the enemy base, putting the other team on the defensive.

Carry: A hero with abilities that scale well as the game progresses. Carry heroes typically start weak but become very strong if not held in check by the enemy.

Support: A hero with abilities that are designed to help team members, such as with healing, buffing, and removing debuffs.

Disabler: A hero with abilities that disable the other team, such as by stunning, silencing, slowing, or immobilizing.

Tank: A hero that is able to receive extraordinary amounts of punishment, thereby protecting allies.

Nuker: A hero that specializes in "nukes", which are spells that deal a lot of damage, usually to everyone in the target area.

Intitiator: A hero that specializes in being the first to initiate a team fight. Intiators typically have an extremely powerful AoE (Area of Effect) which they use to initiate.

Note that heroes can belong to multiple categories. In addition, item selection is an important factor that determines a hero's role.

Items

Heroes of Newerth features a wide variety of items to choose from. Items are the primary means by which heroes improve their attributes and therefore become stronger and more effective. Some items may also grant additional passive or active abilities in addition to the four that the hero has.

Items are purchased from various shops that are scattered around the map. Most of the items can be found in the main shop in each faction's base. In addition, some lanes contain an Outpost shop which sell cheap, commonly sought items. A third kind of shop, called the Secret Shop, is usually located in the forest and sells very powerful and expensive items.

Items have a tier structure that determines their power. Higher tier items can be assembled by following their "recipe", which determines what lower tier items are necessary in order to build the higher tier item. Upgrading items in this manner consume the individual parts, but the resulting item is usually stronger than its parts separately and can grant powerful new abilities.

While most items are permanent, some items are consumed upon use, while a few tactical and/or very powerful items are dropped upon the player's death.

Game Modes

Hero selection is dependent on the type of game being played. As of Patch 0.1.66.1, game modes that have been implemented are as follows:

Normal Mode: Players can select freely and in any order from the entire pool of heroes from their faction in a first-come first-picked method;

Single Draft: Players are randomly assigned three heroes of each attribute type to select from.

Random Draft: Players pick from a common, randomly reduced pool of heroes in an alternating fashion.

Banning Draft: Similar to Random Draft, except for the addition of the ability to ban heroes from the pool.

Banning Pick: Team Captains first ban 3 heroes from the entire pool and then teams alternate hero selection similar to Random Draft.

There is also a Deathmatch game mode, but it has not been fully implemented.

In addition to game modes, there are game options, which are additional modifiers on the game. For example, "All Heroes" option allows players to choose heroes regardless of their faction, while "No Agility" takes out Agility heroes from the available hero pool. Players may also opt to randomly select a hero from the available pool in return for the benefit of extra starting gold.

New features

Most heroes in Heroes of Newerth have a direct correlation from Defense of the Ancients, with similar abilities and statistics. The additions that differentiate Heroes of Newerth from DotA are non-gameplay features such as tracking of individual statistics, in-game VOIP, and GUI-streamlined hero selection (draft mode, etc). Post-game MVP awards and matchmaking are upcoming but not currently implemented in beta. The game also uses S2 Games' proprietary K2 Engine, and a client-server model similar to that used in many modern multiplayer games.[2]. This differs from the peer-to-peer networking model used for Warcraft 3 which can cause network connectivity issues for all players when one player has issues.[3] [4].

The game also has some critical features that DotA lacked, such as full friends list, ban-list, and clan support, complete replay system, as well as ability to reconnect to games if a disconnection occurs.

Beta testing

Heroes of Newerth is currently in Closed Beta with over 1,000,000 users registered. [5] On average, over 40,000 active users play the game at any given point in time. S2 Games used a Facebook fan page and word of mouth to attract players. Registered users can also send out invites to others, which allow for the creation of a beta account.

On August 22, 2009 the pre-sale of Heroes of Newerth began for members of the beta. Pre-sales of the game includes the benefits of name reservation, gold-colored nameplate, gold shield insignia (which will both remain once the game is released), in-game taunt ability, and well as additional beta invitations (3 for every pre-ordered account).

The game's Non-disclosure agreement for beta members was lifted on September 8, 2009.[6]

3. Counter Strike

Counter-Strike (commonly abbreviated to CS) is a tactical first-person shooter video game which originated from a Half-Life modification by Minh "Gooseman" Le and Jess "Cliffe" Cliffe. The game has been expanded into a series since its original release, which currently includes Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, Counter-Strike: Source, Counter-Strike: Anthology and Counter-Strike on Xbox. Counter-Strike pits a team of counter-terrorists against a team of terrorists in a series of rounds. Each round is won by either completing the mission objective or eliminating the opposing force. The latest incarnation of the game, Counter-Strike: Source, is based on the Source engine developed for Half-Life 2. The game is currently the most played Half-Life modification in terms of players, according to GameSpy.

Counter-Strike was developed first as a Half-Life modification. Therefore named "Half-Life: Counter-Strike". The original version was a 3rd-party Half-Life modification, but since then it has grown into a commercial mod and later advertised as a separate game in itself. It still uses and runs on the Half-Life game engine and is based on its unchanged structure.

Gameplay

Screenshot of a player using a Desert Eagle on the map de_dust in the original Counter-Strike (left) and Counter-Strike: Source (right).

Counter-Strike is a first-person shooter in which players join either the terrorist or counter-terrorist team (or become a spectator). Each team attempts to complete their mission objective and/or eliminate the opposing team. Each round starts with the two teams spawning simultaneously, usually at opposite ends of the map from each other. A player can choose to play as one of eight different default character models (four for each side, although Counter-Strike: Condition Zero added two extra models, bringing the total to ten). Players are generally given a few seconds before the round begins (known as "freeze time") to prepare and buy equipment, during which they cannot attack or walk/move (a player can still take damage, having the player drop from a certain height during freeze time was the only way somebody could control the players starting "HP"). They can return to the buy area within a set amount of time to buy more equipment (some custom maps included neutral "buy zones" that could be used by both teams). Once the round has ended, surviving players retain their equipment for use in the next round; players who were killed begin the next round with the basic default starting equipment.

Standard monetary bonuses are awarded for winning a round, losing a round, killing an enemy, being the first to instruct a hostage to follow, rescuing a hostage or planting the bomb.

The scoreboard displays team scores in addition to statistics for each player: name, kills, deaths, and ping (in milliseconds). The scoreboard also indicates whether a player is dead, carrying the bomb (on bomb maps), or is the VIP (on assassination maps), although information on players on the opposing team is hidden from a player until his/her death, as this information can be important.

Killed players become "spectators" for the duration of the round; they cannot change their names until they spawn (come alive) again, text chat cannot be sent to or received from live players; and voice chat can only be received from live players and not sent to them (unless the cvar sv_alltalk is set to 1). Spectators are generally able to watch the rest of the round from multiple selectable views, although some servers disable some of these views

to prevent dead players from relaying information about living players to their teammates through alternative media (most notably voice in the case of Internet cafes and Voice over IP programs such as TeamSpeak or Ventrilo). This form of cheating is known as "ghosting".

Development

- Mods and scripts

Though Counter-Strike is itself a mod, it has developed its own community of script writers and mod creators. Some mods add bots, while others remove features of the game, and others create different modes of play. Some of the mods give server administrators more flexible and efficient control over his or her server. "Admin plugins", as they are mostly referred as, have become very popular (see Metamod, AMX Mod and AMX Mod X). There are some mods which affect gameplay heavily, such as Gun Game, where players start with a basic pistol and must score kills to receive better weapons, and Zombie Mod, where one team consists of zombies and must "spread the infection" by killing the other team (using only the knife). There are also the Superhero and Warcraft III mods which mix the first-person gameplay of Counter-Strike with an experience system, allowing a player to become more powerful as they continue to play. The game is also highly customizable on the player's end, allowing the user to install or even create their own custom skins, HUDs, sprites, and sound effects, given the proper tools.

- Cheating

Counter Strike has been a prime target for exploitation by cheaters since its release. In-game, cheating is often referred to as "hacking" in reference to programs or "hax" executed by the user.

1. Wallhacks : allow the player to see through walls. These work by displaying objects that are normally obscured or replacing opaque game textures with semitransparent ones, allowing the hacker to see enemies before they would normally be in view. As the engine only renders the

immediate area around the player, this does not allow a player to see the entire map at once.

2. Speedhacks : give the player increased speed. These work by sending false synchronization data to servers.

3. No recoil : which keeps the player's gun shooting straight on the y axis without a kickback by removing gun physics.

4. No spread : is used to make a player's gun shoot straight along the x axis.

5. Aimbots : which helps the player aim at enemies. These work by moving the player's view to anticipate an enemy's position.