Less grumble, more rumble!

While multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games like HoN, DoTA and LoL have managed to take the gaming world by storm, not everyone can actually go in and enjoy them. The highly competitive nature of these MOBAs means that they usually have extremely steep learning curves, and requires players to be as competitive as possible, leaving little room for experimentation. Strife, made by developer S2 Games and brought to the PH by Asiasoft and Level Up!, aims to change all that, by completely redesigning how MOBAs are played.

First off, the developers of Strife wanted to take out the toxicity surrounding MOBAs. To that end, they’ve done a few things to take the stress out of playing. You can’t talk to the opposing team for example, which means there’s no trashtalking with them while in the game, though you can talk to them postgame, after the game statistics are shown. You’re only able to communicate with your own team, both via the chatbox and the built-in voice chat in the game (no more using Teamspeak or Mumble). Speaking of statistics, you won’t see anyone’s KDR while the game is ongoing, which means the blame game for a losing match is kept to a minimum. Players also get to share the gold with the entire team, which means you’re only going to compete against the enemy team, and not your teammates.

The hero pool for Strife is also significantly smaller compared to other MOBAs, and while there are traditional roles to fill (tank, support) the characters are flexible enough that they’ll be able to do other things that are helpful to the team. The smaller roster of players avoids the trap of specialized characters, who usually have a very specific way of playing. With fewer characters and bigger versatility, players are free to play their character however they want. Players are also required to pick their heroes first, rather than the other way around.

There are other, nicer things that make Strife the MOBA for people who are afraid of MOBAs. You can always buy items anywhere you are, as long as you have gold, as it’s delivered straight to you via a courier. And before anybody has any ideas of killing the cute, furry courier, know that they cannot be targeted or killed, and doesn’t need player intervention to deliver the items where you are.

Strife is also one of the few games that is currently being developed with input from its local partners. The game is currently in closed beta, and the team are putting in improvements taken in from the suggestions of their local partners in different countries, including Asiasoft and Level Up! Both local companies are promising that local dedicated servers will be put up for PH gamers, though you can also battle it out with players in different territories.

There are also planned tournaments for the game, which are slated to start on the 4th quarter of 2014, with a prize pool totalling Php 500,000.

Strife is currently in closed beta, but you can try to get a beta key by signing up at www.strife.com. We’re trying to snag beta keys for our own use, we’ll be posting our impressions of the game as soon as we have em.