The struggle for domination

Despite the fact I've spent most of the last month in doing boring stuff like homework or more exciting ones like going out with friends, I definately managed to spend a couple of hours eating chips and drinking soda with one hand and trying to play DotA with the other one. The first thing that hit me (if I don't count the yells of the type "What the f**k are you doing? Are you masturbating while playing?") is the willingness of over 90% of the players to do what it takes to get the maximum amount of kills and the lowest possible amount of deaths. The motto of the avarage DotA gamer today is "Stay alive as long as you can, and kill as many as you can."

While this is probably a good model of behaviour for a begginner player, DotA is a way more sophisticated game and this way of playing it just doesn't apply to higher levels of gameplay. A person with avarage intelligence needs to play just a few games to realize that cooperation between the players is far more important than competition. For optimal performance of the team, each player plays a certain role in the game and this role determines his playing style, the share of gold he gets, the share of XP points he gets, the type of items he buys and even the number of times he dies. I may get into detail about some of these roles in later posts, but what I want to emphasize here is that the avarage DotA player doesn't seem to care what his role is; on the contrary - everybody plays their own game with the idea that they're the most important person in the team and so they're obligated to kill as much as they can and thus gaining as much gold as they can.

That being said, it's no wonder that a regular DotA public game (i.e. non-professional) looks like a mishmash. Everybody's running around, trying to get one or more of the enemy players. Team fights do not serve any higher purpose, but are viewed as a whorehouse - you go, you get something that's easy to get and you leave, not caring what you leave behind. No wonder that i like eating while playing such a game. I just don't ruin anything good.

Back to the good old DotA

Although some of you may say that simply there isn't an ex-dota player (and maybe they are right), it's a fact that it's been a while since the last time I played. There's just too much going on in college, so I don't have a few hours to spend in onwning noobs. However, no metter what my new priorities are, I can't help but smile while recalling precious memories of hundreds of hours spent with my friends, playing this remarkable game. The upset groans of the team that just got owned; the happy yells of the people who are winning an impossible game; the angry shouts of some blamers, passionately explaining the noobs what did they do wrong and most of all the huge amount of laughter which inevitably followed every ridicilous situation. Whoever said that good memories are worth more than gold, he was right.

So how did I end up giving up such a favorite game? One reason, as I said above, is just the lack of time. Some of you may be satisfied with an hour or two playing, but if I decide to play I usually end up spending 4+ hours in Garena. The main reason for that is that I almost never leave the server after a loss (imagine how worse the situation is in a bad gaming day, when I get my ass kicked almost every game). Thus, playing DotA means less time studying and less time with real life friends, which will damage my GPA and social life. (Good enough reasons for me huh?) Guess what? THEY ARE NOT! The main reason I don't play is that I currently don't have a mouse for my laptop and so it's just impossible to play and be anything more than the most pathetic player online.

Anyway, why did I title this post "Back to the good old DotA" if I don't intend to play it anyomore? You guessd right. I will play! As soon as I can, I'll go to the nearest tech center and I'll buy the best gaming mouse with all those extra buttons and fancy lights! Now I hear half of you saying "Hell yeah!" and the other half "This boy's gonna fail in life...". To the first half I'm gonna say "Keep it up boys! Soon I'll be back and the we're gonna kick some ass!", for the rest of you I can say this: "My comeback is not for the own sake of wasting my time online. Actually my time in the servers of Garena will not be just a fun time, but it will also be a time for making observations and gathering information. This information will be the material that's going to feed this blog, which is a part of my English 105 class. My goal is to examine the online DotA world and share my observations with you."

P.S. Last time I bought a mouse, I couldn't plug it in because it had different plug. :/ Hope I won't do anything similar again.