I found out about the game in an e-mail from Hi-Rez Studios inviting me to play the beta. I made an account with them to play Tribes: Ascend but that game has recently gone out of development. I hope this means more time spent on developing Smite.
Playing the game, I can't help but feel that it's not as popular as it should be. I don't know why that is, exactly, because it's not like I'm seeing the same names over and over. Something about it just feels small and indy, which I like, but at the same time it's hard to get my friends to pick up a game like this when they're already accustomed to playing League of Legends.
There's a trend in gaming, I think, to only play the games your friends are playing. Maybe it's a wider trend in sociology, but I spend my social time gaming so that's where I can see it. Games like World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, League of Legends, or Starcraft 2 get to be these titans of their genre, and the little guy is stuck trying to collect the scraps. At the same time there's all this attention being given to games and ambitious projects getting made, but the general desire from the gaming public is to flow into these really limited avenues. Starcraft 2 is not the be-all and end-all of RTS gaming, yet I don't have anyone asking me to play something else. From what I can tell, this is the same phenomenon that drove Xbox 360 sales through the RRoD fiasco--I bought one because my friends all bought one.
So I'm recommending Smite, not because I love all the game modes but because I had fun playing it, it's free to play, and I like at least a little variety in my MOBAs.
P.S.
I really like that Smite offers a variety of gametypes:
-Conquest: Your classic DOTA-style game with three-lanes and a jungle.
-Assault: The same as Conquest but without that pesky jungle.
-Joust: Again, largely the same as Conquest, but played 1v1 or 3v3 for a change of pace.
-Domination: A King-of-the-Hill gametype with three turrets as bases that score points for your team.
-Arena: Smite's Arena Mode is the real gem. It is a gaming experience I've missed since the good old days in World of Warcraft's Ring of Trials with jungle buffs on the side. 5v5, this mode is about learning to communicate and team fight. I've found that some of the new Gods added by Hi-Rez seem to be geared towards this gametype while others are definitely not. I recommend downloading Smite for this experience alone.
-Match of the Day: These matches vary from Conquest, to Assault, to Arena etc. and include special rules. Sometimes all players start at max levels, or with a mountain of gold, or with randomly selected gods. New types are added and sometimes they hit, sometimes they miss. The point is they're trying out new things, and this provides a fresh way to play every day.
