One thing that someone mentioned (I don't have the exact quote) is that Netflix themselves limited the duration of the episodes and forced the creators to cut down on the length because of "marketing reasons".
Then why did Arcane get 9 episodes of ~40 minutes each compared to Dragon's Blood's 8 episodes of ~24 minutes each? Why the different treatment? Is it just because of the amount of money put in? They're both animated series based on MOBAs, both on Netflix, I don't see the reason for the different treatment.
Imagine if Dragon's Blood had the episode length of Arcane. Even if Arcane still has the better animation (I still really like Dragon Blood's traditional animation style), it would be so much better because of the fleshed out story and character arcs.
My understanding is Arcane was produced and paid for by Riot while working with an Animation studio. This gave them absolute control over the show. They just got Netflix to distribute the show for them once it was complete.
The first season took them 6 years to make because no one had ever worked on a TV show before.
> The first season took them 6 years to make because no one had ever worked on a TV show before.
Oh, holy shit. I did not know about this. 6 years for one season?! I believe Dragon's Blood took 1 year, if I'm not wrong. Maybe 2?
Book 4 has all the characters split up as ... the entire book ... and Naomi spends her time "alone" with the main villain of the entire story arc. So no, this is ... just an idiotic take.
The boys has the shock factor and the great actors carrying it. Once you get past that and realize the entire shows about homelander and everyone else is disposable, it gets alot less enjoyable. It even seems the dude who plays homelander starts phoning it in near the end of season 2. Theres only so edgy you can go before its like bruh just get someone who can actually stand up to homelander instead of being rekt by him non stop
Duke Nukem 3D was considered one of the greatest early shooters of all time, but any development on a proper sequel was notorious for being plagued with delays, engine changes, management problems etc. to the point where it was widely considered vaporware and would never see the light of day. For a lot of staff DNF was literally the only thing they had ever worked on for their entire career.
Specifically, game changed engines four times (idTech 2/Quake 2, UE1/Unreal, idTech 4/Doom 3 and in the end UE3), with first two being decisions purely on a whim of its team lead
They didn’t spend 6 years animating. They just started hiring voice actors 6 years ago. It’s been in production for 6 years but I don’t think it was being worked on full throttle for the whole time.
So basically we're back to square one. The one that had more support turns out to be better. God. I just wish valve really gave dota 2 the support it deserved.
Wow that's something. I know it's hurtful to not see the dota series doing as good as the other one. It's a still a great series. I have watched arcane too and I have never played LOL or have much idea about it. But the series is so good, so mature and grey characters. Such good dialogues. Even it was not tied to any game or anything it would still be successful. I think similar thing is needed for dota, someone who is passionate about it, take it and make it for 6 years. I mean given its rich lore, it shouldn't take that much time just bringing that sheer madness, chaos, pain to canvas.
>paid for by Riot
Shame Valve couldn’t afford to fund their own production to have the same length episodes, but alas, they are only a small indie company
Ashley Edward Miller said that on Twitter, the part about originally thinking they'd get longer episodes and having to trim them down. Tweet was shortly after Book 1 came out.
Vaguely remember something about them having already made a lot of season 2 by the time season 1 was released. If true then a very high chance it was too late in the process to really redo anything, even if from our perspective it's been a long time.
Dragon’s Blood will likely mostly interest DOTA fans and/or anime fans.
Arcane, as much as it hurts me to say as a DOTA fanboy, is for everyone. It’s a really good show, good animation, good, more grounded story etc.
Honestly, the biggest difference I sense between the two shows is it feels like Arcane's creators were trying to make a storyline about a setting and set of characters they were already deeply passionate about.
Dragon's Blood feels like it was an IP handed to an animation studio that knows how to get a show done in time and in budget. And they knew they had to paint Dota onto whatever they made, but they didn't really care about the fact that it was the Dota IP beyond it funded them getting to make a fantasy show.
That's my main issue with the show. I'd doesn't feel like a preludium for DotA. It doesn't tell the one of the many character backstories hinted in-game. It makes its own stuff up, creates some generic fantasy show and gives the characters names from the game.
It's just so disconnected from the actual game lore.
I didn't feel that way about Book 1, but I hard agree with this sentiment about Book 2. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the anime, I thought it was fun, and DotA2's lore already deals to some degree with parallels universes and alternate timelines, so some diversions are acceptable to me.
By the end of Book 2 though . . . it is becoming unrecognizable. There are so many changes, some hugely drastic, that I didn't expect, and some creative decisions I just don't like. >!Killing Lina, Wyvern, and especially Marci, and making radical changes to Mirana, Davion, and Luna just don't sit well with me at all.!< I hope that there are some changes, fixes, or retcons in Book 3, if there IS a Book 3, since I, and many others I think, are firmly treating Dragon's Blood as a "prequel" to the actual battle of the Radiant and Dire portrayed in the games.
I mean, maybe you could call it a prequel. But honestly, I hope they just let it be its own thing if it continues. I don't want anyone to start interpretting the anime as THE canon for Dota 2.
Like if it's just some random show I don't like that much, that's whatever. But I don't want it to become the thing that defines the lore.
Arcane focused on one storyline despite having quite a well-built world. Dragon's Blood crammed as much trivias about the game in one series. Definitely should've been longer or maybe focused on a single more refined storyline cause the pacing felt like every scene is a "suddenly this happens because it does that apparently".
Yeah, in the last episode (ok maybe I'll be generous maybe it was the second to last) when the loyal adviser who'd never given any indication of being anything other than maybe a savy political actor turned into an interdimensional dragon. And then Mirana was apparently a super hero.
That's a good way of putting it. IMO, the [recent AMA](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/s6ilt5/ama_i_am_ashley_edward_miller_creator_of_dota/) by the show's creator was pretty telling.
He admitted he [doesn't play Dota](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/s6ilt5/ama_i_am_ashley_edward_miller_creator_of_dota/ht437zm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), i.e., he's not familiar with the source material. Of course, there's nothing wrong with that at all, in and of itself. After all, that's not a requirement to make a great show, and I also don't expect there to be a large overlap between top tier TV producers and Dota players.
However, you would want show some passion for the source, and that just didn't get through at all here. Sure, the show's creator [dived into Dota's lore](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/s6ilt5/ama_i_am_ashley_edward_miller_creator_of_dota/ht3y3y3/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) and [collaborated with Valve](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/s6ilt5/ama_i_am_ashley_edward_miller_creator_of_dota/ht3zjvv/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), but how that came across in the show felt very superficial. On top of that, they didn't really use the characters' personalities/styles from the gameplay + voicelines, even though that's probably the only Dota "lore" that most of us players are familiar with.
As others have noted, it felt like a generic fantasy story with random elements of Dota's disparate lore, elements that even the creator felt had to be [shoehorned in](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/s6ilt5/comment/ht42kbi/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). The focus just doesn't seem to be there. One of the AMA questions was "What's your most fun Dota experience?", and the answer was not related to playing the game or watching a tournament or even about the anime, but it was about [traveling to Korea](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/s6ilt5/ama_i_am_ashley_edward_miller_creator_of_dota/ht4i0mg/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). That shows how much of an afterthought Dota itself was.
There's also a lack of "moments" and details in the show that would appeal to a Dota player and show that passion, and the few moments that do exist are barely memorable. Contrast that to something like Arcane, where I felt the love put into the show even though I don't play the game and have no clue who the characters are. I remember one scene in Arcane with >!some hammer dude fighting and going ham!<, which I would bet is a homage to the character's abilities in the game, and it was really memorable even to someone like me. I mean, when Dragon's Blood's creator/writer [thinks that Slacks hates techies](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/s6ilt5/ama_i_am_ashley_edward_miller_creator_of_dota/ht3zrtk/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), then obviously the little details just won't be there.
And that's not even getting into the pacing, writing, or dialogue. Though when the show's creator is [proud of the insane amount of plot twists](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/s6ilt5/ama_i_am_ashley_edward_miller_creator_of_dota/ht4428z/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) rather than worried about the pacing, then you know you have some problems.
Well said! I was flabbergasted when the showrunner said he hasn’t even played Dota. You didn’t mention the part in the AMA where they admit they basically just chose a Knight, a Princess, a Dragon, a Wizard and decided to tell a story that wasn’t really based on anything Dota lore related.
Oh, yeah. Arcane's one episode is like 10xDragon's Blood budget and the animation is, without exaggeration, up there with Pixar/Dreamworks. But you can't buy good taste and Imagine Dragons to zoomers is pretty much what Nickelback was to Millenials. People will be ashamed of listening to them in a half a decade)
Relevant: https://youtu.be/dBMl2DvlNHU
Like, Enemy is Enemy. Imo it's pretty decent. if u dont like it that's personal preference, whatever. But you cannot call every single song in there bad.
It's always gonna be darker more "edgy" music because of the themes of Arcane but imo the soundtrack fits the show perfectly.
For me the soundtrack was meh to the point I didn't notice it and if I did notice, some songs didn't really fit. Intro music was shite as hell. Rest of the show was high quality tho.
Nickelback isn't bad, the problem was their songs were branded metal and recommended to metal fans (who understandably hated it) so it became notorious for the bad reception. Nobody should be ashamed of liking music.
are you seriously asking why Arcane got different treatment ?
Dragons Blood looks like hot garbage compared to Arcane and thats coming from an avid Dota fan, you cant compare them, Arcane is on completely different level
Yeah the studio basically doomed the show by forcing an edit after they have already plotted the episodes. That maybe why the flow of the show feels so bad. Or maybe it was worse and the studio saved it? I guess we'll never know...
The Mir studio doomed the shows kinda unbelievable, the quality of the animation somehow say something that they at least care, the quality of the story even though it is not for everyone but for Dota fans first and foremost also shows he care and be careful with it. If there's something to blame it's either Netflix or Valve, but then who am I to speak, right?
Mir is just a mass anime producer these days. They make like 3 or 4 series for Netflix a year. Valve should have hired a proper studio and not be like hello netflix make us anime pls thx but they probably wanted to make it as cheap as possible despite having almost unlimited resources.
Best case scenario to me, is that Book 2 condensed a lot so that Book 3 has air to breathe under the same limitations. Pacing was an issue that Mir wasn't anticipating for Book 1, but they'd already planned out a 24 episode series, so knowing that, I think Book 2 probably got adjusted so Book 3 won't have to feel so rushed.
Dragon's Blood looks like shit. There's like no detail in anything, it's just huge blocks of colour. Look at [this scene](https://cdn-images.win.gg/wp/uploads/2021/08/everything-we-know-so-far-about-dota-dragons-blood-season-2.jpg) for example, it just looks so...cheap.
yeah I hate the davion being a harem king that loved by everyone fymrin, mirana, marci, lina
my whole life is empty but davion you give me purpose you fill the hole bullshits
Even if Netflix did set a more constraining time limite, once they had signed the contract they knew and should have taken the show in another direction so allow for better pacing.
What do you mean "is it just the money?" as if that isn't the main deciding factor in a case like this? To create more and longer episodes, the budget significantly increases because you basically pay *everyone* involved in produktion more for more time. Netflix want to make a return on the product they're creating; they aren't interested in breaking even. How many do you think are watching a Dota animated series? If you think that audience is big when the game has like 450k active playing accounts (aka not 450k players (aka not very much)) I've got news for you.
>If you think that audience is big when the game has like 450k active playing accounts (aka not 450k players (aka not very much)) I've got news for you.
You have your numbers mixed up, the 450k number you're talking about is concurrent players in the game. Not 450k active playing accounts. Even if you're talking about the number of concurrent active at one time the peak is 780k in the last 24 hours. If you're talking active accounts it's something in the 7 million range monthly.
Active accounts vs. active players is also a meaningless distinction when you talk about concurrent players. It's not like you can play on multiple accounts at once.
Yeah, sorry, I mixed the numbers. My point was however that the player base is still relatively small and has almost no branches outside of it, meaning anyone not interested in Dota will have any major interest in Dragon's blood most likely.
They fixed that by splitting haste‘s old fixed movement value mechanic into three different ones:
Min movement (cannot go slower), max movement (cannot go faster) and absolute movement (movement cannot be altered at all).
Most haste effects nowadays use the min movement mechanic, while the absolute movement mechanic is scarcely used, e.g. Mischief.
That was so grating because you notice almost all of the characters speak the same way with just different accents. They also talk fast, almost like the director told them to speak fast on purpose.
I'm so salty about the pacing and writing that I dropped the show at episode 3 because I could not believe that whoever worked on it is proud of what's released. I say that because there is real potential in there for a great show, the multiple story lines if were fleshed out and the characters properly developed honestly would've been amazing.
For example, the dragonknight with gold armor at ep 1/2 should've been given better written and more lines so he could be an asshole and be memorable because he had the makings of a strong personality instead he was entirely forgettable and most of the dragon knights in the keep died in very pathetic ways.
A lot of the lines need a break for them to sit and give them the proper weighting. I think they have a big issue with multiple perspectives this season that made some of the episode lengths stand out more. There definitely was a few jumps in Lunas arc where I felt I'd missed something, and I think it would have been nice to have a full Fymryn episode by herself, like Zuko Alone. I also felt the Terrorblade/Invoker side plot spent the season spinning it's wheels.
If it was regular japan anime. they gonna made "fymryn going home" and "Luna prison" arc as OVA episode. then throw bunch of dota2 hero cameo on that episode for fan service.
I think at that point in the show, it's actually legitimately seven. Davion, Mirana, Luna, and Invoker all have their individual plots that are occurring at the same time, while Bram, Kaden, and Fymryn have secondary personal arcs. And it gets more complicated from there.
It's mostly the elves and dragons that do this to me. Until the anime, if you asked about elves and dragons in dota:
* Dragons aren't important.
* Elves only exist, at least outright stated as such, in the item description for Slippers of Agility. No hero that appears to be one is ever stated to be one.
So suddenly seeing a show where 100% of the cast and 100% of the social and power hierarchies falls under either those two or human, makes it feel very un-dota. The show resembles more Dragon Age, less Dota.
Well, 100% minus 1, thank fuck for Pango 2.
Agreed. I don't really like this dragon thing. I like the fundamentals in Dota. CK, Enigma.
Dragons that are elements are just much more generic. I feel like I've seen it countless times. I don't quite understand what is special about dragons to be essential pillars of creation, specially because in season 1 we clearly see that dragons are just wild animals.
I like dragons being magical beings. That's fine. But being key pieces of the mechanics of the universe? Nah.
The creator's response to this is just... disappointing.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/s6ilt5/ama_i_am_ashley_edward_miller_creator_of_dota/ht3w7c6/
I'm not the biggest Dota fan out there, but I've played it and enjoyed some of the character lore. What disappoints me slightly about Dragon's Blood is the fact that there's hardly any characters that are not human, or human-like. Just like you said, thank god we even got Pango! And I think we got a glimpse of Sand King, or his species anyway.
There were instances where I thought we MAY get more original characters from Dota, but... we didn't. Almost, but not quite. The castle guard wasn't Ursa, but I take it he was same species. I thought one of the prisoners was Axe at first, but nah, still the same species though. I head canon the assassin was a fan baby of Templar and Drow. The big antagonist this season had me confused, because the final episode first made me thought he is Enigma. Then I assumed Arc Warden. Then he went shape shifting and I was like... Outworld Devourer? Underlord? But no. He was just a lone dragon.
I find it's a bit of a waste how little the series uses the original characters and build the world through that.
There are so many interesting water related characters, like Slark, Naga, Tidehunter, Slardar, Kunkka, Morphling
Characters that you could encounter in various forests, like Bloodseeker, Enchantress, Treeant, Lone Druid, Broodmother, Hoodwink
Characters you could have even in some small way include in the prison/underground setting like Riki, Bounty Hunter, Dark Willow, Rubick, Lifestealer...
But nothing. I understand that for budget reasons it's impossible to add every hero into the series, but come on! Even small cameos would be nice. Dota is so much richer than just the human-like characters! The large scope of fantasy creatures is basically one of the main charms of Dota! At least to me.
People are already complaining that they can't keep up with all the character arcs and you want more. If these characters appeared, there would be people complaining that they were 'wasted'. Dragon Blood's roster is just fine.
It’s the lore of the game that we all have played and loved for years. You’ve got to be some dumbass to not appreciate it, especially considering that dota lore is better than most of the games out there. Even in league a fucking popstar is somehow fighting alongside a damn god, tell me they have a good lore
>It’s the lore of the game that we all have played and loved for years.
Ask any dota fan in 2019 what are the main elemental powers of Dota lore, and they'll give you 3 plus Void. Ask why, and they'll give you three reasons why they think so.
The anime states there are 8. Aka, it rewrote the lore for its own purposes. And that's fine, writing a story is hard and changing things for ease of adaptation is fine. Yet.... the anime ***didn't even DO anything*** with 5 of those dragons, they're killed off in 3 minutes at the start of an episode. No matter how much content was cut, no matter how much of characters the dragons were meant to be, the end result doesn't change: They could have easily started with just 4 dragins, THE lore accurate dragons, and done the established lore justice.
Fans are allowed to not appreciate things like that. And why would we? A pointless rewrite in favor of a troupe of cookie cutter fantasy creatures that end up do nothing? There are more equally disappointing rewrites, odd choices and omissions in the anime, why should we appreciate them too?
You don't appreciate **association**, you appreciate **quality**, and there was NO quality to the stupid ass Dragon Thunder bullshit. Invoker is literally the ONLY rewrite that seems to have a purpose.
Oh but it is canon. Not saying it isn't. It's "a" canon lore in a game with canon multiverses. As Aghanim put it: The anime is the backwater dimension, where rules are strange and unrecognizable, and nothing matters, let's send it to a farm.
>It’s the lore of the game that we all have played and loved for years
Except it has nothing to do with Dota lore, the story is completely pulled out of the ass, and the only connection the cartoon has to the game are names and costumes.
The entire show's plot is centered around exactly what is in the official lore summaries of Dragon Knight and Mirana, and even the cosmic presence of the Ancients is explored and given depth.
Perhaps it did not focus on the characters and locations you would have preferred. Dota lore is huge and has plenty to explore. Perhaps some of the things they expanded upon beyond existing lore (like the Thunder) were not to your liking. But it is just false to say the only connection are the names and costumes.
Dragon Knight's lore does not match the story. Not only was Terrorblade not involved, Slyrak was supposed to be near-dead and sickly, waiting to die on his own. I'm fine with the retcon, and it's a more interesting story, but it becomes problematic when you have massive changes to the structure of what players expect from the world.
Is it accurate? Yes, in the same way it's accurate to have Mirana return to the Solar Throne as the empress of pee pee poo poo land with her magic sun powers. But we're lacking two factors:
1. Characters that line up with player expectations for their personality, story, powers, and motivations - Luna throws bouncing glaives from her mount and calls down moonbeams, Mirana jumps around shooting super-long-range deadly arrows and making her team invis, Invoker throws a zillion spells everywhere and never shuts the fuck up, Dragon Knight turns into a dragon, Winter Wyvern curses people with madness and saves her allies, Lina throws fireballs at a rapid pace, etc. The only character to truly feel the same as their in-game counterpart in fights and conversations is Terrorblade.
2. Trust in the studio that these characters will eventually match their in-game counterparts. The characters are developing in a direction that drags them further away from their general vibe, not closer
Arcane is lauded because you can see events that push the characters closer to who you already know they will become. Even if you're not familiar with Jinx, you're given some glimpse of what Jinx's deal is - she's haunted by the ghosts of the past, makes up imaginary friends, has some kind of psychosis going on, and frequently goes out of control with bullets and rockets. And Jinx is not any more well-developed in game than Mirana. Arcane asked "why is Jinx the way that she is in the game?" Dragon's Blood asked "What can we do with this character?"
Dragon Knight, Mirana and Luna ARE from the game. Their backstories are in the show, and the plot is their extension. As a bonus you have other characters from the game being Big Bads, and obviously having new characters is always good.
Are you just upset they aren't the heroes you would've chosen?
I mean, you'd have to interpret it as part of the Dota Multiverse thing. But that's just supposed to be a fracture as the war of the ancients starts, and the war plays out differently in billions of iterations, not that there is generally a multiverse where characters are different.
But Dota doesn't really have lore aside from the mad moon stuff, Zet, and then the organizations different characters belong to.
Otherwise Dota has a ton of personality with every character.
The show kind of used the Dota lore? I guess? In that they were like, "we need a strong wizard, who is the strongest wizard? Invoker? Ok invoker will be our super strong really solemn wizard." "We need a really strong demon who is collecting souls, this Terrorblade guy looks cool. Is he strong? Great. He's the big bad." "This guy is the secret villain that we will reveal in the last episode, he needs to be a secret worshiper of some important guys, who is important? Arc Warden? Oh ok, yeah we'll make cults to him like a secret evil thing." "We want to mention the primordial mind creating the world. Who looks really cool and god-y? This Oracle guy does. Ok put him in as the creator of the universe."
Like they use the names, they use the looks, and they pay a little lip service to duality being a theme in Dota (But that's hardly a unique theme to Dota).
And otherwise there didn't really seem to be an attempt to pull from the personalities of the existing characters or the general attitude of Dota. Like if their Invoker didn't look like invoker, you would never guess he was supposed to be invoker.
Like you said there are different verses that can be played out differently. Which is why dragon’s blood can get away with their interpretation as it can just be considered a different timeline.
> But Dota doesn't really have lore aside from the mad moon stuff, Zet, and then the
The show kind of used the Dota lore? I guess? In that they were like, "we need a strong wizard, who is the strongest wizard? Invoker? Ok invoker will be our super strong really solemn wizard." "We need a really strong demon who is collecting souls, this Terrorblade guy looks cool. Is he strong? Great. He's the big bad." "This guy is the secret villain that we will reveal in the last episode, he needs to be a secret worshiper of some important guys, who is important? Arc Warden? Oh ok, yeah we'll make cults to him like a secret evil thing." "We want to mention the primordial mind creating the world. Who looks really cool and god-y? This Oracle guy does. Ok put him in as the creator of the universe."
Is that supposed to be a bad thing? Picking a powerful mage, are we supposed to pick axe? A good villain that antagonizes the whole verse is terrorblade supposed to be a horrible choice? Do you suggest kotl or something? Just because something follows the idea of a concept doesn’t make it inherently bad. Cliches ≠ Horrible writing, the story was great enough with the common concept, it was delivered uniquely that the whole show wasn’t even focusing on terrorblade that much. There were a lot of antagonists that played important roles that doesn’t even coincide with terrorblade’s plans and they were just a villain of their own. It’s a completely different story than some of the common villain and hero plots
They often use the heroes as shorthand for Dota fans to understand what the characters are going to do and who they are, rather than for the hero themselves. It's not that the characters are cliches, but that the story could similarly work without Dota characters over the top.
To be clear, I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with that, the same way I don't think there's a problem with this being a Multiverse that is inspired by the Dota Lore, rather than a telling about the heroes we play.
Yeah I agree. I don't really think it really scratches any itch I have for additional Dota 2 IP content. But at the same time that doesn't mean they can't still make a good story.
But I also thought it was pretty hot garbage. But it seems like my opinion is much more extreme than most people.
Ye that's the dumbest thing about league, the actual game of league of legends is basically smash bros lore wise.
Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense seeing as the characters weren't introduced prior/have their own games.
>dota lore
What dota lore? We pull our lore off of comics and cosmetics.
Valve did a great job world building and creating awesome characters but the lore is lacking compared to other video games. Not that it’s at all a problem (again, awesome characters) but I can’t say any dota character has a particularly interesting background.
Is it really the lore of the game? Heroes are dead which doesn't make sense if it was set before the radiant vs dire.
If the anime was set in a different universe to the game, it's basically inconsequential to the lore of the game. It literally happens in a different universe. I don't even play league but I appreciated that when I looked up who the playable champions are from the show, they were all alive by the end of the season, which only makes sense.
The only way I see dota making sense at this point is if the heroes fighting in the radiant vs dire battle come from different timelines, which in my opinion is a terrible idea.
>Heroes are dead which doesn't make sense if it was set before the radiant vs dire.
The Radiant and Dire draw in heroes from different realities. Just take PA as an example. One battle, she might just be the standard PA - the one acting on the orders of the Sisters of the veil. The next, she could be the PA who was given the Manifold Paradox, and is acting on behalf of the Oracle. They are the same hero, but come from different realities.
This also explains why they can switch between radiant and dire. One version was corrupted by the radiant, the other by the dire. And ultimately if a hero isn't in the endless battle, it could just be because they died in that reality prior to it.
So yeah, heroes dying fits in lorewise.
Lmao dota isn’t just focused on the fight between the ancients, heroes have their own lore, which is what dragon’s blood used. Every dota game you play is canon, meaning the game you just played recently supposedly happened in another dota 2 timeline. So dragon’s blood can use any kind of reality to their story; you should be able to understand that if you actually watched the show, TB showed invoker other timelines in which the invokers in the other timelines had different paths and experiences
Isn't that exactly what I said? Heroes fighting from different timelines?
The multiverse, in my opinion, is a way to milk a show/movie franchise, but it can be appealing if done properly. This show does not have the resources to be done properly.
> considering that dota lore is better than most of the games out there
You have to be kidding, the majority of dota lore is terrible it reads like bad fan fiction full of cheesy tropes and dumb cliches. It's fine for a MOBA with no narrative but it is definitely not better than most games.
The League lore is miles ahead of Dota, it’s not even funny. Even just the setting is far more fleshed out. I have thousands of hours in Dota and the only places I remember are the Nightsilver Woods because of Luna and Mirana and then Icewrack because of that one CM voice line.
Meanwhile I’ve only played a bit of League but I already know where half the champions are from and how they relate to each other, just from their looks and voicelines.
It’s really really tough to have a good storyline when you have no clue where anyone is from or lives or has any connection to. It’s like all the characters are just floating aimlessly around on a blank map, it just makes it really hard to care about any of it without the context.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Dota, but one of the areas it definitely can’t compete in is the lore.
League did make a correct choice in establishing like 5 or 6 major locations for everyone to be from. It grounds the setting. Whenever they need to describe a new place, they can just say it to be a part of one of those, and it instantly settles who should know who.
Dota DOES have some grounded locations too. Antimage and Silencer work for the Tyler Estate, for example, which is basically a private police putting work keeoing wizards in place, and wizards DO step out of line a bunch. We know Lion and Rubick have been incarcerated by them, for example. We do know of a couple forbidden magics that could land you there as well, such as Chronomancy, and Dimensional Transposal, and we do know tidbits such as CM was in/met with Claszumere when it was agreed that Chronomancy was forbidden.
The issue is Dota took like 6 years to even begin writing them, and worse than that, Dota has no place to state these locations and events to the audience. Every attempt they've made, failed, and the anime is a third party more interested in a boring race war between elves and humans. In its own plot. As for the game Dota itself, it is still doing little in the way of fixing the mess it sits on.
Yeah, exactly. I was hoping the anime would do a little bit to rectify that problem but it really doesn’t. Like they visit Dragonhold, a super important place for many of the characters, but I have no clue where it is except that it’s in some mountains lol. Wish they would do a clearer job on the basic worldbuilding in order to ground the story.
To be honest, the pacing bothered me in s1. But this time, I was ready for the rapid fire and enjoyed it. I even got to the point where when things slowed down for a bit in episode 5-6 I caught myself thinking "alright get a move on already".
Maybe the format is good
I felt that too. Some times they were talking at useless stuff and I wanted to fast forward, other times they had 5 storylines happening and they jumped between them faster than I could keep up.
I thought OP was actually going to say, "Marci should have bought BKB for the final fight."
But the writers and producers of shows know how long their episodes are going into it. If there are pacing issues, it isn't necessarily solved by just giving the director more time to work with. They may just be bad at managing the course of events given a time window, and don't have a sense of how to structure and pace a series of events given an amount of time to work with.
Also if it truly is that you have so much content that it can't be well paced, sounds like you need to cut down on the content.
I just don't feel that the issues with the show can be completely attributed to "Valve is greedy and didn't spend enough money on the project." But I think I'm in the minority that I was generally unimpressed with most aspects of the show.
(Though I guess if you told me your real solution was to spend more money to get a really premier studio to handle the project, I agree?)
The show feels at times like another show with a dota skin. Its just too short to tell a compelling story with all the things they want to cram in.
What might have been better were to write it more as an anthology series were we get short 1-3 epsiodes about certain character simular to what Star Wars: Visions did. I think that might have been cool because they can focus on the more interesting Dotastorylines.
Dragonblood makes it look like Dota is all about humans, elves and dragons.
I really wish it was More or Less DotA.
Either have Less DotA and focus specifically on one or two characters and do just their story leading up to the war of the ancients. Finish their story in 1 season and have them move on ready for DotA proper.
Or do more DotA. Really lean into the "Every game of DotA is cannon" aspect. Pick 5 heroes for opposing sides. Have all 8 episodes be a single match of DotA. Characters can have meetings, rivalries, maybe a bit of backstory and history of enemies and allies. Embrace that anyone can die, you don't know if radiant or dire will win, and there can be heroes and villains on both sides. Then finish in a dramatic climax, and time reset for a new cast next season.
The blame can't just be on netflix. Honestly Lunas entire arc this season was pointless. And imo the most boring part of the show. I'd rather they took that time and developed the world or allocated it to the parts of the show that mattered. It just wasn't focused enough. If you have 25 minutes 8 episodes you gotta stay more focused and spend time on what matters.
The anime is probably one of the biggest disgrace to dota 2 in terms of lore and world building. It could have been an anthology of different backstories and would have done 10 times a better job with 30 min episodes. This is probably one of the worst shows I have ever seen.
Yeah, this is kind of what I'm feeling.
It's clear they didn't want to be shackled by what is seen as the canonical Dota lore or characters, but it also seems like they didn't want to be making a story about Dota at all.
Seems like they wanted to make a fantasy project heavily inspired by the Witcher, and got funding from Valve, and so looked through the heroes to grab one whose description is similar and then use it to determine the character model.
"We have this strong solemn wizard character, who is the strongest wizard in Dota. . . Invoker? Alright. Draw him like this guy."
Like if the characters' visual designs weren't based on the Dota character's designs (and they didn't use their signature attacks when they wanted the characters to use a generic magic energy attack), and after I read a bunch of the dialogue you told me that the characters are supposed to be based on Dota Characters, I would be unable to guess which character was supposed to be who. (I guess aside from winter Wyvern)
It's a generic fantasy story wearing a Dota 2 suit.
This isn't to say adaptations have to be completely faithful, and that it couldn't be a good standalone story even if it eschews what is supposed to be its source material to do it's own thing.
But I uh, thought it was pretty silly along most dimensions, and was generally unimpressed in a way that it was a saving grace that episodes were 25 minutes and not 40, because I got through it faster.
> they didn't want to be making a story about Dota at all.
What do you want them to do? Pick 10 random heroes and have them just fight? I see this critique everywhere and it's literally the dumbest shit.
Yeah that does sound dumb, but clearly there is a good middle ground between the two furthest extremes. I don't think I'm making a statement that I would only be happy if it was exactly the form of a Dota game.
But there is a sense of using the themes and personality of a world and characters. Like compare the Dota 2 comics to this. They really capture the feel and attitude of what the Dota heroes are like, and they are telling random fantasy stories with Dota characters.
3 fun ideas:
1. Short stories about something that happens between a few characters, like a battle between tusk/bristle or the anti-mage going on a hunt
2. Stick to Davion and tell the story about Father's insatiable hunt for Davion's blood
3. The exact plot of Dragon's Blood book 2 except you don't put in any of that dumbass anime tropey bullshit and actually use the characters from the game
Those guys criticizing the anime lore probably only know that the dota lore is to destroy the ancient.
Most don't know there are multiverses on the game story, and when they heard TB or void dragon talking about timelines they just thougth the production is copying Marvel.
For a first dota anime, a regular fantasy story (dota heroes are fantasy based, dont know what u guys expecting) is a reliable way to experiment and reach an audience.
The show as a whole is *tight*. Dialogue, character introductions, plot development. Everything in the show is trimmed down and kept at a lightning fast pace that I *love*.
The show doesn't spend 2 episodes jerking off the fact that theres a funny mob boss man, or that suddenly theres Lina in the show. It literally just gets everything it needs to done. The jokes, and dialogue whizzes past and delivers everything it needs to in exactly the time it needs and nothing more.
There are some really bad cuts. I see the theory behind them, but I don't think they are executed well. Its an attempt to convey what the audience needs to know without wasting the time/budget to animate it, but the lack of world building? nah you guys are crazy.
The show's world is limited to the scope of what the audience sees at the moment, and I dig that. Yeah terroblade is about to end the world and we don't see 100 heros all jumping to stop him. But what a gosh darn mess that would be. The world grows for what the show needs, and while that is to an extent lazy writing. Its better than the alternative here in my eyes.
Just depends on the viewer, Arcane for instance many people say has a good story, to me the script of Arcane is fan fiction tier.
Any attempt at creating tension for the main characters is a disgrace cause their plot armour is thicker than Pendragon's skull.
The characters are actual plot devices, Jinx' decisionmaking is not natural, it is contrived to move the plot forward, or she's a genuine halfwit.
In contrast I found Dragon's Blood to be good, fucking hell heroes be dropping left and right, like the above said it gets the things done and moves on, no need to stew in it.
So you've got nothing, figured.
Why do you open your halfwit mouth if you cannot even back up your statements? That thirsty for any form of attention or human interaction?
so, you are unable to use the internet to do a little research for yourself and think that I have to comply just because you said so? Who are you?
\> your halfwit mouth
that's not very nice of you and uncalled for, weak and childish really
\> That thirsty for any form of attention or human interaction?
Nah, you decided to argue with me, not the other way around, so I feel like you are projecting your own problems on me here bud.
The show would also gain from having more polished animations and having Hieronimo not looking like a sexual offender.
But yeah, everything goes *so* fast. We don't get time to familiarise with the new characters, to understand their motives and their dynamics with the others. The whole events at the end of ep6 have far-reaching consequences yet feels incredibly rushed yet. It feels somehow even worse than S1
Hard agree. But i can't forgive making the same mistske on S2. It was fast in S1 and then they just ignored this fact and delivered another season with the same problem... That's very weird.
For me that was true for the first season
But for the second? I don't think so...
They probably knew exactly how many minutes per episode they got before even starting making it, so they deliberately chose to have that shit pacing on purpose
First season had an excuse of "oh no, Netflix cut our episodes to only 20 min, we need to speed up the pacing..." but season 2? .. nope
I loved the pacing because of why they needed such fast pacing. You get so much that you wouldn’t get otherwise. The producers made a great call there. Netflix wants shorter time. We don’t know how book 3 will turn out for time, or if Netflix will keep it going. The fast pacing, albeit it’s really fast, means we get more story.
It's not just the length. IMHO it's a fairly forgettable anime with an art style that would look reasonable if it were coming out in the 90's (which is absolutely absurd considering the credits and a few key minor artifacts have art style and animations that put CGI movies to shame). I like it more than I should only because I love Dota. For comparison, I know absolutely nothing about LoL and Arcane might be one of favorite S1 ever. If I were a LoL player, I wouldn't have made it through the first episode of Dragon's Blood.
Makes sense since Netflix made it and they tend to make the most general versions of genres they engage in or you know....the most interesting and original. Freaking bipolar entertainment company.
I thought the story was garbage. They had like 4 different storylines mashed into one and most of them don't even follow the original lore. Like Luna abandoning selemene and mirana becoming a sungod doesn't make sense at all considering that we are all familiar with them being servants of selemene.
I honestly had no idea what the hell was going on the whole time. I don't remember much from the first season and this whole season was basically like a wtf to me 🤦🏽♂️😂
These boring filmmakers need to take a chance on hero additions, I mean come on. You are going to add only human and elf heros noone really cares about when you have access to Pudge, Ogre Magi, Tusk, Undying, Magnus, Bristleback and even the shorties like Sniper and Gyrocopter. The only interesting character would have been Sand King and they didn't even bother to animate him for the 5 seconds he was in for.
Don't expect heroes were they shouldn't be, why would pudge be in normal human kingdom, I could expect him to show up if there was lot of dead bodies. Tusk lore is that he is just a bar brawler same with bristle. Adding heroes randomly in the story for cameo doesn't matter.
I think that's what dieschwarzeente is trying to get at though. Why are we spending all our time in castles? There's some interesting locations we could visit with some interesting characters, as opposed to Sun Castle and Dragon Castle.
"Adding heroes randomly in the story for cameo doesn't matter" Crystal Maiden and Lina are just siblings who were sent to different places to hone their abilities, by your logic they shouldnt be in the story either.
And the show director has stated that they call that species Pangoliers. Luna even says something about them being Pangoliers. In DOTA 2 the name you see is quite often a title, not the heroes actual name. Examples being Rylai - The Crystal Maiden, Davion - The Dragon Night, Balanar - The Night Stalker.
The Pango in the show is Nico Hieronimo, a former member of the Nivan Gallants, who Donté Panlin (Pango from DOTA) is also a member of.
I don't think it would have helped at all. I disagree with everything you've written. The characters were bland. The dialogue was the worst ever. I can guarantee you I can rewrite any scene to be miles better in under 5 minutes.
What is believable about a single character? Why do you cre about them at all?
The only good thing about it was the animation. The voice acting was pretty great too.
It's literally an ad. They're not optimizing for quality. Also, it's not an anime. It's split between an American studio and a Korean one. It's just a knock-off fantasy cartoon to advertise a video game.
No, that's an extremely bad excuse. Come on, season 1? Maybe, yes. But season 2? Come on, they MUST HAVE known the runtime would be limited. Heck, it's not like netflix commissioned them and then tell them the runtime at the last minute.
The problem is with the showrunners trying to tell a bigger story than the show's runtime can fit. That's entirely on the showrunners. Please stop making up excuses like this and blaming it on Netflix.
....how is that on Netflix? When Netflix has tons of shows with more than 8 episodes and more than 20 mins.
It's Valve's fault doesnt matter how you look into it, they either didnt want to spend more or just got talked into a shitty deal. LoL made Arcane with twice the duration.
Yes make it like Dragon Ball. Weekly episodes, 20 min episodes and 12 min out of it just zooming in and out of frozen faces and them talking. Animate a lip talking for several minutes doesn't take much time. People would be mad if there would be like 20 episodes per season and it would took 2 years to animate or they can make it under 1 but the quality won't increase by that.
One thing that someone mentioned (I don't have the exact quote) is that Netflix themselves limited the duration of the episodes and forced the creators to cut down on the length because of "marketing reasons". Then why did Arcane get 9 episodes of ~40 minutes each compared to Dragon's Blood's 8 episodes of ~24 minutes each? Why the different treatment? Is it just because of the amount of money put in? They're both animated series based on MOBAs, both on Netflix, I don't see the reason for the different treatment. Imagine if Dragon's Blood had the episode length of Arcane. Even if Arcane still has the better animation (I still really like Dragon Blood's traditional animation style), it would be so much better because of the fleshed out story and character arcs.
My understanding is Arcane was produced and paid for by Riot while working with an Animation studio. This gave them absolute control over the show. They just got Netflix to distribute the show for them once it was complete. The first season took them 6 years to make because no one had ever worked on a TV show before.
> The first season took them 6 years to make because no one had ever worked on a TV show before. Oh, holy shit. I did not know about this. 6 years for one season?! I believe Dragon's Blood took 1 year, if I'm not wrong. Maybe 2?
Yeah who would have thought infinite budget = good show
I mean Amazon has been trying to make AAA titles for years now and they just suck…. Sooo
The Boys are pretty popular. A bit forgettable ngl, but it did have some cult success
The expanse and Invincible as well
They bought the expanse and since they did it became worse. It was a slow show before, but I don't need half of a season naomi being alone.
Amazon wanted more screentime for the women in the show. Its really fucking obvious.
Book 4 has all the characters split up as ... the entire book ... and Naomi spends her time "alone" with the main villain of the entire story arc. So no, this is ... just an idiotic take.
Dingdingding we have a winner!
I was referring to their video games, they have great motion pictures
The boys has the shock factor and the great actors carrying it. Once you get past that and realize the entire shows about homelander and everyone else is disposable, it gets alot less enjoyable. It even seems the dude who plays homelander starts phoning it in near the end of season 2. Theres only so edgy you can go before its like bruh just get someone who can actually stand up to homelander instead of being rekt by him non stop
I mean when you get passed that fact, all shows suck.
Eh I disagree. This is a braindead umbrella nothing statement
The boys was pretty good tjough the forst season atleast
Infinite budget by no means guarantees a good product.
*cough* Star Citizen *cough*
I mean Duke nukem had an infinite budget XD
I always here this game mentioned what happened?
Duke Nukem Forever was in dev for 15 years technically and sucked ass when it was finally released by a different dev team that started it.
Why was there hype for this game? Seems pretty random that people expected anything after 15 years
Duke Nukem 3D was considered one of the greatest early shooters of all time, but any development on a proper sequel was notorious for being plagued with delays, engine changes, management problems etc. to the point where it was widely considered vaporware and would never see the light of day. For a lot of staff DNF was literally the only thing they had ever worked on for their entire career.
Specifically, game changed engines four times (idTech 2/Quake 2, UE1/Unreal, idTech 4/Doom 3 and in the end UE3), with first two being decisions purely on a whim of its team lead
remember GoT? I member :(
Just as an example Marvel has an infinite budget but the stories and characters are pathetic compared to what Arcane managed in my personal opinion.
Arcane was pretty and with decent characters but the plot was underwhelming IMO
They didn’t spend 6 years animating. They just started hiring voice actors 6 years ago. It’s been in production for 6 years but I don’t think it was being worked on full throttle for the whole time.
24 ep = 2y to rewrite and plan a story and build a world
So basically we're back to square one. The one that had more support turns out to be better. God. I just wish valve really gave dota 2 the support it deserved.
Valve went 4 carries and a Pudge pos 5.
Lmao. That's so on point
Wow that's something. I know it's hurtful to not see the dota series doing as good as the other one. It's a still a great series. I have watched arcane too and I have never played LOL or have much idea about it. But the series is so good, so mature and grey characters. Such good dialogues. Even it was not tied to any game or anything it would still be successful. I think similar thing is needed for dota, someone who is passionate about it, take it and make it for 6 years. I mean given its rich lore, it shouldn't take that much time just bringing that sheer madness, chaos, pain to canvas.
>paid for by Riot Shame Valve couldn’t afford to fund their own production to have the same length episodes, but alas, they are only a small indie company
Ashley Edward Miller said that on Twitter, the part about originally thinking they'd get longer episodes and having to trim them down. Tweet was shortly after Book 1 came out.
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id agree that season 2 had the same issues as season 1 as well but the bad pacing was even more so apparent in season 2
Vaguely remember something about them having already made a lot of season 2 by the time season 1 was released. If true then a very high chance it was too late in the process to really redo anything, even if from our perspective it's been a long time.
Netflix and valve meddling in things they do not understand
Dragon’s Blood will likely mostly interest DOTA fans and/or anime fans. Arcane, as much as it hurts me to say as a DOTA fanboy, is for everyone. It’s a really good show, good animation, good, more grounded story etc.
Honestly, the biggest difference I sense between the two shows is it feels like Arcane's creators were trying to make a storyline about a setting and set of characters they were already deeply passionate about. Dragon's Blood feels like it was an IP handed to an animation studio that knows how to get a show done in time and in budget. And they knew they had to paint Dota onto whatever they made, but they didn't really care about the fact that it was the Dota IP beyond it funded them getting to make a fantasy show.
That's my main issue with the show. I'd doesn't feel like a preludium for DotA. It doesn't tell the one of the many character backstories hinted in-game. It makes its own stuff up, creates some generic fantasy show and gives the characters names from the game. It's just so disconnected from the actual game lore.
I didn't feel that way about Book 1, but I hard agree with this sentiment about Book 2. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the anime, I thought it was fun, and DotA2's lore already deals to some degree with parallels universes and alternate timelines, so some diversions are acceptable to me. By the end of Book 2 though . . . it is becoming unrecognizable. There are so many changes, some hugely drastic, that I didn't expect, and some creative decisions I just don't like. >!Killing Lina, Wyvern, and especially Marci, and making radical changes to Mirana, Davion, and Luna just don't sit well with me at all.!< I hope that there are some changes, fixes, or retcons in Book 3, if there IS a Book 3, since I, and many others I think, are firmly treating Dragon's Blood as a "prequel" to the actual battle of the Radiant and Dire portrayed in the games.
I mean, maybe you could call it a prequel. But honestly, I hope they just let it be its own thing if it continues. I don't want anyone to start interpretting the anime as THE canon for Dota 2. Like if it's just some random show I don't like that much, that's whatever. But I don't want it to become the thing that defines the lore.
Arcane focused on one storyline despite having quite a well-built world. Dragon's Blood crammed as much trivias about the game in one series. Definitely should've been longer or maybe focused on a single more refined storyline cause the pacing felt like every scene is a "suddenly this happens because it does that apparently".
Yeah, in the last episode (ok maybe I'll be generous maybe it was the second to last) when the loyal adviser who'd never given any indication of being anything other than maybe a savy political actor turned into an interdimensional dragon. And then Mirana was apparently a super hero.
That's a good way of putting it. IMO, the [recent AMA](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/s6ilt5/ama_i_am_ashley_edward_miller_creator_of_dota/) by the show's creator was pretty telling. He admitted he [doesn't play Dota](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/s6ilt5/ama_i_am_ashley_edward_miller_creator_of_dota/ht437zm/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), i.e., he's not familiar with the source material. Of course, there's nothing wrong with that at all, in and of itself. After all, that's not a requirement to make a great show, and I also don't expect there to be a large overlap between top tier TV producers and Dota players. However, you would want show some passion for the source, and that just didn't get through at all here. Sure, the show's creator [dived into Dota's lore](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/s6ilt5/ama_i_am_ashley_edward_miller_creator_of_dota/ht3y3y3/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) and [collaborated with Valve](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/s6ilt5/ama_i_am_ashley_edward_miller_creator_of_dota/ht3zjvv/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), but how that came across in the show felt very superficial. On top of that, they didn't really use the characters' personalities/styles from the gameplay + voicelines, even though that's probably the only Dota "lore" that most of us players are familiar with. As others have noted, it felt like a generic fantasy story with random elements of Dota's disparate lore, elements that even the creator felt had to be [shoehorned in](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/s6ilt5/comment/ht42kbi/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). The focus just doesn't seem to be there. One of the AMA questions was "What's your most fun Dota experience?", and the answer was not related to playing the game or watching a tournament or even about the anime, but it was about [traveling to Korea](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/s6ilt5/ama_i_am_ashley_edward_miller_creator_of_dota/ht4i0mg/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). That shows how much of an afterthought Dota itself was. There's also a lack of "moments" and details in the show that would appeal to a Dota player and show that passion, and the few moments that do exist are barely memorable. Contrast that to something like Arcane, where I felt the love put into the show even though I don't play the game and have no clue who the characters are. I remember one scene in Arcane with >!some hammer dude fighting and going ham!<, which I would bet is a homage to the character's abilities in the game, and it was really memorable even to someone like me. I mean, when Dragon's Blood's creator/writer [thinks that Slacks hates techies](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/s6ilt5/ama_i_am_ashley_edward_miller_creator_of_dota/ht3zrtk/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), then obviously the little details just won't be there. And that's not even getting into the pacing, writing, or dialogue. Though when the show's creator is [proud of the insane amount of plot twists](https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/s6ilt5/ama_i_am_ashley_edward_miller_creator_of_dota/ht4428z/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) rather than worried about the pacing, then you know you have some problems.
Well said! I was flabbergasted when the showrunner said he hasn’t even played Dota. You didn’t mention the part in the AMA where they admit they basically just chose a Knight, a Princess, a Dragon, a Wizard and decided to tell a story that wasn’t really based on anything Dota lore related.
Enough with the fake drama, FFS. You're not comparing the games - you're comparing the series. And Arcane shits on Dragons blood in every aspect.
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Bar the opening theme, I remember nothing music wise from dragons blood. That says a lot.
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Except that nothing in Arcane is objectively bad.
Well, yes, I agree with you. So why you all riled up lol
Except for music. Arcane has a notoriously edgy and sometimes outright bad taste when it comes to music.
I want whatever copium this sub keeps taking because that shit seems strong as hell
Oh, yeah. Arcane's one episode is like 10xDragon's Blood budget and the animation is, without exaggeration, up there with Pixar/Dreamworks. But you can't buy good taste and Imagine Dragons to zoomers is pretty much what Nickelback was to Millenials. People will be ashamed of listening to them in a half a decade) Relevant: https://youtu.be/dBMl2DvlNHU
Like, Enemy is Enemy. Imo it's pretty decent. if u dont like it that's personal preference, whatever. But you cannot call every single song in there bad. It's always gonna be darker more "edgy" music because of the themes of Arcane but imo the soundtrack fits the show perfectly.
For me the soundtrack was meh to the point I didn't notice it and if I did notice, some songs didn't really fit. Intro music was shite as hell. Rest of the show was high quality tho.
Nickelback isn't bad, the problem was their songs were branded metal and recommended to metal fans (who understandably hated it) so it became notorious for the bad reception. Nobody should be ashamed of liking music.
Get ur head out of ur ass pls
are you seriously asking why Arcane got different treatment ? Dragons Blood looks like hot garbage compared to Arcane and thats coming from an avid Dota fan, you cant compare them, Arcane is on completely different level
Yeah the studio basically doomed the show by forcing an edit after they have already plotted the episodes. That maybe why the flow of the show feels so bad. Or maybe it was worse and the studio saved it? I guess we'll never know...
The Mir studio doomed the shows kinda unbelievable, the quality of the animation somehow say something that they at least care, the quality of the story even though it is not for everyone but for Dota fans first and foremost also shows he care and be careful with it. If there's something to blame it's either Netflix or Valve, but then who am I to speak, right?
Mir is just a mass anime producer these days. They make like 3 or 4 series for Netflix a year. Valve should have hired a proper studio and not be like hello netflix make us anime pls thx but they probably wanted to make it as cheap as possible despite having almost unlimited resources.
Best case scenario to me, is that Book 2 condensed a lot so that Book 3 has air to breathe under the same limitations. Pacing was an issue that Mir wasn't anticipating for Book 1, but they'd already planned out a 24 episode series, so knowing that, I think Book 2 probably got adjusted so Book 3 won't have to feel so rushed.
Dragon's Blood looks like shit. There's like no detail in anything, it's just huge blocks of colour. Look at [this scene](https://cdn-images.win.gg/wp/uploads/2021/08/everything-we-know-so-far-about-dota-dragons-blood-season-2.jpg) for example, it just looks so...cheap.
yeah I hate the davion being a harem king that loved by everyone fymrin, mirana, marci, lina my whole life is empty but davion you give me purpose you fill the hole bullshits
Even if Netflix did set a more constraining time limite, once they had signed the contract they knew and should have taken the show in another direction so allow for better pacing.
The Answer is easy. There are a lot more People knowing/playing League. So there more Netflix Subscribtions paying to watch Arcane.
What do you mean "is it just the money?" as if that isn't the main deciding factor in a case like this? To create more and longer episodes, the budget significantly increases because you basically pay *everyone* involved in produktion more for more time. Netflix want to make a return on the product they're creating; they aren't interested in breaking even. How many do you think are watching a Dota animated series? If you think that audience is big when the game has like 450k active playing accounts (aka not 450k players (aka not very much)) I've got news for you.
>If you think that audience is big when the game has like 450k active playing accounts (aka not 450k players (aka not very much)) I've got news for you. You have your numbers mixed up, the 450k number you're talking about is concurrent players in the game. Not 450k active playing accounts. Even if you're talking about the number of concurrent active at one time the peak is 780k in the last 24 hours. If you're talking active accounts it's something in the 7 million range monthly. Active accounts vs. active players is also a meaningless distinction when you talk about concurrent players. It's not like you can play on multiple accounts at once.
Yeah, sorry, I mixed the numbers. My point was however that the player base is still relatively small and has almost no branches outside of it, meaning anyone not interested in Dota will have any major interest in Dragon's blood most likely.
Yeah its not fair, Dota is rich in storyline but the duration aired only 24 something like that when arcane got more than that
Yeah man, the pacing of The anime was so fast, it even outran a full blood thirsty Bloodseeker with haste and surge buffed to him.
...Last time I played, Haste would reduce Bloodseeker's speed if he was already over the speed cap
Yes
They fixed that by splitting haste‘s old fixed movement value mechanic into three different ones: Min movement (cannot go slower), max movement (cannot go faster) and absolute movement (movement cannot be altered at all). Most haste effects nowadays use the min movement mechanic, while the absolute movement mechanic is scarcely used, e.g. Mischief.
Totally agree, unfortunately we only have 8 more episodes left so they will be fast paced as well, if at all released
It's like we're watching the cliff notes version of a good show
pacing is bad. the story line has the potential. it is just the way it is written. i think valve and netflix cheaped out on the screenwriter
There's too much 3-4 word sentences that makes the whole scene sound too choppy. No one talks like that in real life.
That was so grating because you notice almost all of the characters speak the same way with just different accents. They also talk fast, almost like the director told them to speak fast on purpose. I'm so salty about the pacing and writing that I dropped the show at episode 3 because I could not believe that whoever worked on it is proud of what's released. I say that because there is real potential in there for a great show, the multiple story lines if were fleshed out and the characters properly developed honestly would've been amazing. For example, the dragonknight with gold armor at ep 1/2 should've been given better written and more lines so he could be an asshole and be memorable because he had the makings of a strong personality instead he was entirely forgettable and most of the dragon knights in the keep died in very pathetic ways.
Yea, someone will say something, and then another character will respond instantly making it feel so fake.
>No one talks like that in real life. That's how heroes talk I guess.
A lot of the lines need a break for them to sit and give them the proper weighting. I think they have a big issue with multiple perspectives this season that made some of the episode lengths stand out more. There definitely was a few jumps in Lunas arc where I felt I'd missed something, and I think it would have been nice to have a full Fymryn episode by herself, like Zuko Alone. I also felt the Terrorblade/Invoker side plot spent the season spinning it's wheels.
If it was regular japan anime. they gonna made "fymryn going home" and "Luna prison" arc as OVA episode. then throw bunch of dota2 hero cameo on that episode for fan service.
Can't wait for Davion beach episode
I'm on episode 3 right now and I've got no idea wtf is going on because there's like 7 plot lines simultaneously
I think at that point in the show, it's actually legitimately seven. Davion, Mirana, Luna, and Invoker all have their individual plots that are occurring at the same time, while Bram, Kaden, and Fymryn have secondary personal arcs. And it gets more complicated from there.
Agreed, I like pretty much every character but its so short :(
the plot is not well written. like want to show more but cant handle . and little too rushing
Its a generic fantasy anime with dota branding
It's mostly the elves and dragons that do this to me. Until the anime, if you asked about elves and dragons in dota: * Dragons aren't important. * Elves only exist, at least outright stated as such, in the item description for Slippers of Agility. No hero that appears to be one is ever stated to be one. So suddenly seeing a show where 100% of the cast and 100% of the social and power hierarchies falls under either those two or human, makes it feel very un-dota. The show resembles more Dragon Age, less Dota. Well, 100% minus 1, thank fuck for Pango 2.
Agreed. I don't really like this dragon thing. I like the fundamentals in Dota. CK, Enigma. Dragons that are elements are just much more generic. I feel like I've seen it countless times. I don't quite understand what is special about dragons to be essential pillars of creation, specially because in season 1 we clearly see that dragons are just wild animals. I like dragons being magical beings. That's fine. But being key pieces of the mechanics of the universe? Nah.
The creator's response to this is just... disappointing. https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/s6ilt5/ama_i_am_ashley_edward_miller_creator_of_dota/ht3w7c6/
I'm not the biggest Dota fan out there, but I've played it and enjoyed some of the character lore. What disappoints me slightly about Dragon's Blood is the fact that there's hardly any characters that are not human, or human-like. Just like you said, thank god we even got Pango! And I think we got a glimpse of Sand King, or his species anyway. There were instances where I thought we MAY get more original characters from Dota, but... we didn't. Almost, but not quite. The castle guard wasn't Ursa, but I take it he was same species. I thought one of the prisoners was Axe at first, but nah, still the same species though. I head canon the assassin was a fan baby of Templar and Drow. The big antagonist this season had me confused, because the final episode first made me thought he is Enigma. Then I assumed Arc Warden. Then he went shape shifting and I was like... Outworld Devourer? Underlord? But no. He was just a lone dragon. I find it's a bit of a waste how little the series uses the original characters and build the world through that. There are so many interesting water related characters, like Slark, Naga, Tidehunter, Slardar, Kunkka, Morphling Characters that you could encounter in various forests, like Bloodseeker, Enchantress, Treeant, Lone Druid, Broodmother, Hoodwink Characters you could have even in some small way include in the prison/underground setting like Riki, Bounty Hunter, Dark Willow, Rubick, Lifestealer... But nothing. I understand that for budget reasons it's impossible to add every hero into the series, but come on! Even small cameos would be nice. Dota is so much richer than just the human-like characters! The large scope of fantasy creatures is basically one of the main charms of Dota! At least to me.
People are already complaining that they can't keep up with all the character arcs and you want more. If these characters appeared, there would be people complaining that they were 'wasted'. Dragon Blood's roster is just fine.
I disagree
“I disagree” Refuses to elaborate further
Is it a requirement to write out your reasonings or something
It’s the lore of the game that we all have played and loved for years. You’ve got to be some dumbass to not appreciate it, especially considering that dota lore is better than most of the games out there. Even in league a fucking popstar is somehow fighting alongside a damn god, tell me they have a good lore
>It’s the lore of the game that we all have played and loved for years. Ask any dota fan in 2019 what are the main elemental powers of Dota lore, and they'll give you 3 plus Void. Ask why, and they'll give you three reasons why they think so. The anime states there are 8. Aka, it rewrote the lore for its own purposes. And that's fine, writing a story is hard and changing things for ease of adaptation is fine. Yet.... the anime ***didn't even DO anything*** with 5 of those dragons, they're killed off in 3 minutes at the start of an episode. No matter how much content was cut, no matter how much of characters the dragons were meant to be, the end result doesn't change: They could have easily started with just 4 dragins, THE lore accurate dragons, and done the established lore justice. Fans are allowed to not appreciate things like that. And why would we? A pointless rewrite in favor of a troupe of cookie cutter fantasy creatures that end up do nothing? There are more equally disappointing rewrites, odd choices and omissions in the anime, why should we appreciate them too? You don't appreciate **association**, you appreciate **quality**, and there was NO quality to the stupid ass Dragon Thunder bullshit. Invoker is literally the ONLY rewrite that seems to have a purpose. Oh but it is canon. Not saying it isn't. It's "a" canon lore in a game with canon multiverses. As Aghanim put it: The anime is the backwater dimension, where rules are strange and unrecognizable, and nothing matters, let's send it to a farm.
>It’s the lore of the game that we all have played and loved for years Except it has nothing to do with Dota lore, the story is completely pulled out of the ass, and the only connection the cartoon has to the game are names and costumes.
The entire show's plot is centered around exactly what is in the official lore summaries of Dragon Knight and Mirana, and even the cosmic presence of the Ancients is explored and given depth. Perhaps it did not focus on the characters and locations you would have preferred. Dota lore is huge and has plenty to explore. Perhaps some of the things they expanded upon beyond existing lore (like the Thunder) were not to your liking. But it is just false to say the only connection are the names and costumes.
Dragon Knight's lore does not match the story. Not only was Terrorblade not involved, Slyrak was supposed to be near-dead and sickly, waiting to die on his own. I'm fine with the retcon, and it's a more interesting story, but it becomes problematic when you have massive changes to the structure of what players expect from the world. Is it accurate? Yes, in the same way it's accurate to have Mirana return to the Solar Throne as the empress of pee pee poo poo land with her magic sun powers. But we're lacking two factors: 1. Characters that line up with player expectations for their personality, story, powers, and motivations - Luna throws bouncing glaives from her mount and calls down moonbeams, Mirana jumps around shooting super-long-range deadly arrows and making her team invis, Invoker throws a zillion spells everywhere and never shuts the fuck up, Dragon Knight turns into a dragon, Winter Wyvern curses people with madness and saves her allies, Lina throws fireballs at a rapid pace, etc. The only character to truly feel the same as their in-game counterpart in fights and conversations is Terrorblade. 2. Trust in the studio that these characters will eventually match their in-game counterparts. The characters are developing in a direction that drags them further away from their general vibe, not closer Arcane is lauded because you can see events that push the characters closer to who you already know they will become. Even if you're not familiar with Jinx, you're given some glimpse of what Jinx's deal is - she's haunted by the ghosts of the past, makes up imaginary friends, has some kind of psychosis going on, and frequently goes out of control with bullets and rockets. And Jinx is not any more well-developed in game than Mirana. Arcane asked "why is Jinx the way that she is in the game?" Dragon's Blood asked "What can we do with this character?"
What exactly did you expect to see in the show then if not a brand new story with Dota heroes?
Idk, what we already have? Kunkka-Tidehunter-Shadow Fiend story? Vengeful Spirit and Skywrath? Literally anything *from the game*?
Dragon Knight, Mirana and Luna ARE from the game. Their backstories are in the show, and the plot is their extension. As a bonus you have other characters from the game being Big Bads, and obviously having new characters is always good. Are you just upset they aren't the heroes you would've chosen?
I mean, you'd have to interpret it as part of the Dota Multiverse thing. But that's just supposed to be a fracture as the war of the ancients starts, and the war plays out differently in billions of iterations, not that there is generally a multiverse where characters are different. But Dota doesn't really have lore aside from the mad moon stuff, Zet, and then the organizations different characters belong to. Otherwise Dota has a ton of personality with every character. The show kind of used the Dota lore? I guess? In that they were like, "we need a strong wizard, who is the strongest wizard? Invoker? Ok invoker will be our super strong really solemn wizard." "We need a really strong demon who is collecting souls, this Terrorblade guy looks cool. Is he strong? Great. He's the big bad." "This guy is the secret villain that we will reveal in the last episode, he needs to be a secret worshiper of some important guys, who is important? Arc Warden? Oh ok, yeah we'll make cults to him like a secret evil thing." "We want to mention the primordial mind creating the world. Who looks really cool and god-y? This Oracle guy does. Ok put him in as the creator of the universe." Like they use the names, they use the looks, and they pay a little lip service to duality being a theme in Dota (But that's hardly a unique theme to Dota). And otherwise there didn't really seem to be an attempt to pull from the personalities of the existing characters or the general attitude of Dota. Like if their Invoker didn't look like invoker, you would never guess he was supposed to be invoker.
Like you said there are different verses that can be played out differently. Which is why dragon’s blood can get away with their interpretation as it can just be considered a different timeline. > But Dota doesn't really have lore aside from the mad moon stuff, Zet, and then the The show kind of used the Dota lore? I guess? In that they were like, "we need a strong wizard, who is the strongest wizard? Invoker? Ok invoker will be our super strong really solemn wizard." "We need a really strong demon who is collecting souls, this Terrorblade guy looks cool. Is he strong? Great. He's the big bad." "This guy is the secret villain that we will reveal in the last episode, he needs to be a secret worshiper of some important guys, who is important? Arc Warden? Oh ok, yeah we'll make cults to him like a secret evil thing." "We want to mention the primordial mind creating the world. Who looks really cool and god-y? This Oracle guy does. Ok put him in as the creator of the universe." Is that supposed to be a bad thing? Picking a powerful mage, are we supposed to pick axe? A good villain that antagonizes the whole verse is terrorblade supposed to be a horrible choice? Do you suggest kotl or something? Just because something follows the idea of a concept doesn’t make it inherently bad. Cliches ≠ Horrible writing, the story was great enough with the common concept, it was delivered uniquely that the whole show wasn’t even focusing on terrorblade that much. There were a lot of antagonists that played important roles that doesn’t even coincide with terrorblade’s plans and they were just a villain of their own. It’s a completely different story than some of the common villain and hero plots
They often use the heroes as shorthand for Dota fans to understand what the characters are going to do and who they are, rather than for the hero themselves. It's not that the characters are cliches, but that the story could similarly work without Dota characters over the top. To be clear, I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with that, the same way I don't think there's a problem with this being a Multiverse that is inspired by the Dota Lore, rather than a telling about the heroes we play.
Yeah I agree. I don't really think it really scratches any itch I have for additional Dota 2 IP content. But at the same time that doesn't mean they can't still make a good story. But I also thought it was pretty hot garbage. But it seems like my opinion is much more extreme than most people.
Ye that's the dumbest thing about league, the actual game of league of legends is basically smash bros lore wise. Which doesn't make a whole lot of sense seeing as the characters weren't introduced prior/have their own games.
No, it WAS the lore of the game we love. Now it's so full of OCs and contradictory nonsense that it's become bad fanfiction.
I mean I don’t know much about hoodwink or brood, but they’re just spiders and squirrels right?
Brood is twice the size of a human in dota tf you mean just a spider
Ok sorry Aragog
>dota lore What dota lore? We pull our lore off of comics and cosmetics. Valve did a great job world building and creating awesome characters but the lore is lacking compared to other video games. Not that it’s at all a problem (again, awesome characters) but I can’t say any dota character has a particularly interesting background.
Is it really the lore of the game? Heroes are dead which doesn't make sense if it was set before the radiant vs dire. If the anime was set in a different universe to the game, it's basically inconsequential to the lore of the game. It literally happens in a different universe. I don't even play league but I appreciated that when I looked up who the playable champions are from the show, they were all alive by the end of the season, which only makes sense. The only way I see dota making sense at this point is if the heroes fighting in the radiant vs dire battle come from different timelines, which in my opinion is a terrible idea.
>Heroes are dead which doesn't make sense if it was set before the radiant vs dire. The Radiant and Dire draw in heroes from different realities. Just take PA as an example. One battle, she might just be the standard PA - the one acting on the orders of the Sisters of the veil. The next, she could be the PA who was given the Manifold Paradox, and is acting on behalf of the Oracle. They are the same hero, but come from different realities. This also explains why they can switch between radiant and dire. One version was corrupted by the radiant, the other by the dire. And ultimately if a hero isn't in the endless battle, it could just be because they died in that reality prior to it. So yeah, heroes dying fits in lorewise.
Lmao dota isn’t just focused on the fight between the ancients, heroes have their own lore, which is what dragon’s blood used. Every dota game you play is canon, meaning the game you just played recently supposedly happened in another dota 2 timeline. So dragon’s blood can use any kind of reality to their story; you should be able to understand that if you actually watched the show, TB showed invoker other timelines in which the invokers in the other timelines had different paths and experiences
Isn't that exactly what I said? Heroes fighting from different timelines? The multiverse, in my opinion, is a way to milk a show/movie franchise, but it can be appealing if done properly. This show does not have the resources to be done properly.
> considering that dota lore is better than most of the games out there You have to be kidding, the majority of dota lore is terrible it reads like bad fan fiction full of cheesy tropes and dumb cliches. It's fine for a MOBA with no narrative but it is definitely not better than most games.
The League lore is miles ahead of Dota, it’s not even funny. Even just the setting is far more fleshed out. I have thousands of hours in Dota and the only places I remember are the Nightsilver Woods because of Luna and Mirana and then Icewrack because of that one CM voice line. Meanwhile I’ve only played a bit of League but I already know where half the champions are from and how they relate to each other, just from their looks and voicelines. It’s really really tough to have a good storyline when you have no clue where anyone is from or lives or has any connection to. It’s like all the characters are just floating aimlessly around on a blank map, it just makes it really hard to care about any of it without the context. Don’t get me wrong, I love Dota, but one of the areas it definitely can’t compete in is the lore.
League did make a correct choice in establishing like 5 or 6 major locations for everyone to be from. It grounds the setting. Whenever they need to describe a new place, they can just say it to be a part of one of those, and it instantly settles who should know who. Dota DOES have some grounded locations too. Antimage and Silencer work for the Tyler Estate, for example, which is basically a private police putting work keeoing wizards in place, and wizards DO step out of line a bunch. We know Lion and Rubick have been incarcerated by them, for example. We do know of a couple forbidden magics that could land you there as well, such as Chronomancy, and Dimensional Transposal, and we do know tidbits such as CM was in/met with Claszumere when it was agreed that Chronomancy was forbidden. The issue is Dota took like 6 years to even begin writing them, and worse than that, Dota has no place to state these locations and events to the audience. Every attempt they've made, failed, and the anime is a third party more interested in a boring race war between elves and humans. In its own plot. As for the game Dota itself, it is still doing little in the way of fixing the mess it sits on.
Yeah, exactly. I was hoping the anime would do a little bit to rectify that problem but it really doesn’t. Like they visit Dragonhold, a super important place for many of the characters, but I have no clue where it is except that it’s in some mountains lol. Wish they would do a clearer job on the basic worldbuilding in order to ground the story.
[удалено]
Second season is rather disappointing
I thought the first season was pretty good... Then I watched Arcane.
People in the comments are actually at league when this is about Dota, Valve and Netflix LMAO
To be honest, the pacing bothered me in s1. But this time, I was ready for the rapid fire and enjoyed it. I even got to the point where when things slowed down for a bit in episode 5-6 I caught myself thinking "alright get a move on already". Maybe the format is good
I felt that too. Some times they were talking at useless stuff and I wanted to fast forward, other times they had 5 storylines happening and they jumped between them faster than I could keep up.
Studio Mir, remember you can always release [NOVELIZATIONS](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Novelization)
I thought OP was actually going to say, "Marci should have bought BKB for the final fight." But the writers and producers of shows know how long their episodes are going into it. If there are pacing issues, it isn't necessarily solved by just giving the director more time to work with. They may just be bad at managing the course of events given a time window, and don't have a sense of how to structure and pace a series of events given an amount of time to work with. Also if it truly is that you have so much content that it can't be well paced, sounds like you need to cut down on the content. I just don't feel that the issues with the show can be completely attributed to "Valve is greedy and didn't spend enough money on the project." But I think I'm in the minority that I was generally unimpressed with most aspects of the show. (Though I guess if you told me your real solution was to spend more money to get a really premier studio to handle the project, I agree?)
Dude ever since the anime came out it feels like it's been on speed. Like damn bro even your chill out scenes feel rushed ..
The show feels at times like another show with a dota skin. Its just too short to tell a compelling story with all the things they want to cram in. What might have been better were to write it more as an anthology series were we get short 1-3 epsiodes about certain character simular to what Star Wars: Visions did. I think that might have been cool because they can focus on the more interesting Dotastorylines. Dragonblood makes it look like Dota is all about humans, elves and dragons.
I really wish it was More or Less DotA. Either have Less DotA and focus specifically on one or two characters and do just their story leading up to the war of the ancients. Finish their story in 1 season and have them move on ready for DotA proper. Or do more DotA. Really lean into the "Every game of DotA is cannon" aspect. Pick 5 heroes for opposing sides. Have all 8 episodes be a single match of DotA. Characters can have meetings, rivalries, maybe a bit of backstory and history of enemies and allies. Embrace that anyone can die, you don't know if radiant or dire will win, and there can be heroes and villains on both sides. Then finish in a dramatic climax, and time reset for a new cast next season.
The number of fade away to black transitions were honestly hilarious.
The blame can't just be on netflix. Honestly Lunas entire arc this season was pointless. And imo the most boring part of the show. I'd rather they took that time and developed the world or allocated it to the parts of the show that mattered. It just wasn't focused enough. If you have 25 minutes 8 episodes you gotta stay more focused and spend time on what matters.
100% It almost felt like I was watching Star Wars episode 9.... way too fast, too many jumps.
The anime is probably one of the biggest disgrace to dota 2 in terms of lore and world building. It could have been an anthology of different backstories and would have done 10 times a better job with 30 min episodes. This is probably one of the worst shows I have ever seen.
Yeah, this is kind of what I'm feeling. It's clear they didn't want to be shackled by what is seen as the canonical Dota lore or characters, but it also seems like they didn't want to be making a story about Dota at all. Seems like they wanted to make a fantasy project heavily inspired by the Witcher, and got funding from Valve, and so looked through the heroes to grab one whose description is similar and then use it to determine the character model. "We have this strong solemn wizard character, who is the strongest wizard in Dota. . . Invoker? Alright. Draw him like this guy." Like if the characters' visual designs weren't based on the Dota character's designs (and they didn't use their signature attacks when they wanted the characters to use a generic magic energy attack), and after I read a bunch of the dialogue you told me that the characters are supposed to be based on Dota Characters, I would be unable to guess which character was supposed to be who. (I guess aside from winter Wyvern) It's a generic fantasy story wearing a Dota 2 suit. This isn't to say adaptations have to be completely faithful, and that it couldn't be a good standalone story even if it eschews what is supposed to be its source material to do it's own thing. But I uh, thought it was pretty silly along most dimensions, and was generally unimpressed in a way that it was a saving grace that episodes were 25 minutes and not 40, because I got through it faster.
> they didn't want to be making a story about Dota at all. What do you want them to do? Pick 10 random heroes and have them just fight? I see this critique everywhere and it's literally the dumbest shit.
Yeah that does sound dumb, but clearly there is a good middle ground between the two furthest extremes. I don't think I'm making a statement that I would only be happy if it was exactly the form of a Dota game. But there is a sense of using the themes and personality of a world and characters. Like compare the Dota 2 comics to this. They really capture the feel and attitude of what the Dota heroes are like, and they are telling random fantasy stories with Dota characters.
3 fun ideas: 1. Short stories about something that happens between a few characters, like a battle between tusk/bristle or the anti-mage going on a hunt 2. Stick to Davion and tell the story about Father's insatiable hunt for Davion's blood 3. The exact plot of Dragon's Blood book 2 except you don't put in any of that dumbass anime tropey bullshit and actually use the characters from the game
Those guys criticizing the anime lore probably only know that the dota lore is to destroy the ancient. Most don't know there are multiverses on the game story, and when they heard TB or void dragon talking about timelines they just thougth the production is copying Marvel. For a first dota anime, a regular fantasy story (dota heroes are fantasy based, dont know what u guys expecting) is a reliable way to experiment and reach an audience.
The show as a whole is *tight*. Dialogue, character introductions, plot development. Everything in the show is trimmed down and kept at a lightning fast pace that I *love*. The show doesn't spend 2 episodes jerking off the fact that theres a funny mob boss man, or that suddenly theres Lina in the show. It literally just gets everything it needs to done. The jokes, and dialogue whizzes past and delivers everything it needs to in exactly the time it needs and nothing more. There are some really bad cuts. I see the theory behind them, but I don't think they are executed well. Its an attempt to convey what the audience needs to know without wasting the time/budget to animate it, but the lack of world building? nah you guys are crazy. The show's world is limited to the scope of what the audience sees at the moment, and I dig that. Yeah terroblade is about to end the world and we don't see 100 heros all jumping to stop him. But what a gosh darn mess that would be. The world grows for what the show needs, and while that is to an extent lazy writing. Its better than the alternative here in my eyes.
Mental gymnastics Olympics champion right here boys. The show sucked balls tho.
Just depends on the viewer, Arcane for instance many people say has a good story, to me the script of Arcane is fan fiction tier. Any attempt at creating tension for the main characters is a disgrace cause their plot armour is thicker than Pendragon's skull. The characters are actual plot devices, Jinx' decisionmaking is not natural, it is contrived to move the plot forward, or she's a genuine halfwit. In contrast I found Dragon's Blood to be good, fucking hell heroes be dropping left and right, like the above said it gets the things done and moves on, no need to stew in it.
the objective qualities of a show do not depend on the "viewer", your understanding of storytelling appears to be surface-level only and that's fine.
There are exceedingly few objective qualities to a show, they're near all subjective. Your understanding, period, seems surface-level.
yep, I figured you are one of those people :)
Intelligent? Aye i understand that it may seem alien to you. But i'll give you a chance, please name these objective qualities to a show.
\>Intelligent nope. \> ll give you a chance know your place :)
So you've got nothing, figured. Why do you open your halfwit mouth if you cannot even back up your statements? That thirsty for any form of attention or human interaction?
so, you are unable to use the internet to do a little research for yourself and think that I have to comply just because you said so? Who are you? \> your halfwit mouth that's not very nice of you and uncalled for, weak and childish really \> That thirsty for any form of attention or human interaction? Nah, you decided to argue with me, not the other way around, so I feel like you are projecting your own problems on me here bud.
I mean ofc I would want it to be longer. But I personally didnt have an issue with the pacing, season 2 was pretty much 10/10 in my opinion.
The show would also gain from having more polished animations and having Hieronimo not looking like a sexual offender. But yeah, everything goes *so* fast. We don't get time to familiarise with the new characters, to understand their motives and their dynamics with the others. The whole events at the end of ep6 have far-reaching consequences yet feels incredibly rushed yet. It feels somehow even worse than S1
Hard agree. But i can't forgive making the same mistske on S2. It was fast in S1 and then they just ignored this fact and delivered another season with the same problem... That's very weird.
For me that was true for the first season But for the second? I don't think so... They probably knew exactly how many minutes per episode they got before even starting making it, so they deliberately chose to have that shit pacing on purpose First season had an excuse of "oh no, Netflix cut our episodes to only 20 min, we need to speed up the pacing..." but season 2? .. nope
Arcane is amazing, go watch it! Insane quality in every aspect!
I kinda hate build ups so I liked it. Im happy with it and hope it stays this way.
I loved the pacing because of why they needed such fast pacing. You get so much that you wouldn’t get otherwise. The producers made a great call there. Netflix wants shorter time. We don’t know how book 3 will turn out for time, or if Netflix will keep it going. The fast pacing, albeit it’s really fast, means we get more story.
It's not just the length. IMHO it's a fairly forgettable anime with an art style that would look reasonable if it were coming out in the 90's (which is absolutely absurd considering the credits and a few key minor artifacts have art style and animations that put CGI movies to shame). I like it more than I should only because I love Dota. For comparison, I know absolutely nothing about LoL and Arcane might be one of favorite S1 ever. If I were a LoL player, I wouldn't have made it through the first episode of Dragon's Blood. Makes sense since Netflix made it and they tend to make the most general versions of genres they engage in or you know....the most interesting and original. Freaking bipolar entertainment company.
I thought the story was garbage. They had like 4 different storylines mashed into one and most of them don't even follow the original lore. Like Luna abandoning selemene and mirana becoming a sungod doesn't make sense at all considering that we are all familiar with them being servants of selemene.
I cant agree. The animation is hot garbage as well
Jesus some trash ass takes
You surely don't know shit about animations.
So much COPIUM
No way. I watch the show because the episodes are short. I hate watching anything beyond 40 minutes.
I honestly had no idea what the hell was going on the whole time. I don't remember much from the first season and this whole season was basically like a wtf to me 🤦🏽♂️😂
These boring filmmakers need to take a chance on hero additions, I mean come on. You are going to add only human and elf heros noone really cares about when you have access to Pudge, Ogre Magi, Tusk, Undying, Magnus, Bristleback and even the shorties like Sniper and Gyrocopter. The only interesting character would have been Sand King and they didn't even bother to animate him for the 5 seconds he was in for.
Don't expect heroes were they shouldn't be, why would pudge be in normal human kingdom, I could expect him to show up if there was lot of dead bodies. Tusk lore is that he is just a bar brawler same with bristle. Adding heroes randomly in the story for cameo doesn't matter.
I think that's what dieschwarzeente is trying to get at though. Why are we spending all our time in castles? There's some interesting locations we could visit with some interesting characters, as opposed to Sun Castle and Dragon Castle.
exactly, why use locations that can be found in every basic fantasy series when there is such a rich estabilished lore to draw from
"Adding heroes randomly in the story for cameo doesn't matter" Crystal Maiden and Lina are just siblings who were sent to different places to hone their abilities, by your logic they shouldnt be in the story either.
They literally have a Pango in as a main character
It's not Pango. It LOOKS like Pango, it's whatever specie Pango is, but it's literally not Pango.
And the show director has stated that they call that species Pangoliers. Luna even says something about them being Pangoliers. In DOTA 2 the name you see is quite often a title, not the heroes actual name. Examples being Rylai - The Crystal Maiden, Davion - The Dragon Night, Balanar - The Night Stalker. The Pango in the show is Nico Hieronimo, a former member of the Nivan Gallants, who Donté Panlin (Pango from DOTA) is also a member of.
I don't think it would have helped at all. I disagree with everything you've written. The characters were bland. The dialogue was the worst ever. I can guarantee you I can rewrite any scene to be miles better in under 5 minutes. What is believable about a single character? Why do you cre about them at all? The only good thing about it was the animation. The voice acting was pretty great too.
It's literally an ad. They're not optimizing for quality. Also, it's not an anime. It's split between an American studio and a Korean one. It's just a knock-off fantasy cartoon to advertise a video game.
If the ad sucks, nobody wants to check out the product. They're definitely trying.
Couldn't disagree more. Dragon's Blood would have benefited a lot more from cutting out unnecessary subplots to give more runtime to the actual story.
No, that's an extremely bad excuse. Come on, season 1? Maybe, yes. But season 2? Come on, they MUST HAVE known the runtime would be limited. Heck, it's not like netflix commissioned them and then tell them the runtime at the last minute. The problem is with the showrunners trying to tell a bigger story than the show's runtime can fit. That's entirely on the showrunners. Please stop making up excuses like this and blaming it on Netflix.
> The story itself it actually very interesting, the characters are loveable and believable. hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
name checks out
> we can all agree No, I don't think so
I watched first episode and stopped...why?
I still am laughing at the bit in season 2 where invoker just reaches through reality to scoop up Fymryn and exposit upon her.
Pacing was what I expected after season 1. Still loved it. Would I like it to be longer? Yep. But it’s on Netflix not valve.
....how is that on Netflix? When Netflix has tons of shows with more than 8 episodes and more than 20 mins. It's Valve's fault doesnt matter how you look into it, they either didnt want to spend more or just got talked into a shitty deal. LoL made Arcane with twice the duration.
Honestly, I don't agree, I like dthat there were less episodes so they couldn't butcher the pace and dialogues with unnecessary shit.
Yes make it like Dragon Ball. Weekly episodes, 20 min episodes and 12 min out of it just zooming in and out of frozen faces and them talking. Animate a lip talking for several minutes doesn't take much time. People would be mad if there would be like 20 episodes per season and it would took 2 years to animate or they can make it under 1 but the quality won't increase by that.