It's never late to play PC games. They are fun, enterntaining and a great way to relax in your free time. If for you're interested in joining the DotA community, here are some main places you might want to consider visiting:
1. http://www.playdota.com/ - the blog IceFrog uses to be in touch with the community.
2. http://www.getdota.com/ - the official webpage for downloading DotA
3. http://www.youtube.com/user/WoDotA - the biggest youtube channel devoted to DotA (you can see some pro moves in the videos)
4.http://intl.garena.com/ - Garena's website, from which you can get the installer that would allow you to play online even if you don't posses an original copy of Warcraft 3.
As mentioned in the previous post you will definately need Warcraft 3 ROC and its expansion - The Frozen Throne in order to be able to launch DotA. You can get it from the official site of Blizzard or from you favorite torrent tracker (note that if you don't posses an original copy of the game, you cannot play on Blizzards severs).
That's from me! You won't hear more from me in this blog, but maybe some day we can stay shoulder by shoulder, waiting for the enemy team to come!
Friday, December 9, 2011
DotA in the world of computer games
In this post I'll talk a bit about the history of DotA, the impact of its emergence and it's future.
There's a dispute when and where exactly DotA originated. I don't intend to take sides, so the only person I'm going to give credit is the current developer - a person known as IceFrog. There are a whole bunch of people before him, but IceFrog is not only the one who have worked most on the development (he's an author of approximately 70 versions), but he's the one under who DotA emerged as the most successful Warcraft 3 mode. That's right - DotA is not a separate game, but a modification of Blizzard's famous Warcraft 3 (the predecessor of World of Warcraft). If a person want's to play DotA he has to install Warcraft 3 and load DotA through it. There exists thousands modifications of Warcraft 3, created by different developers, but is the last years 95% of the people who play Warcraft 3 do it to play DotA. Currently DotA is the only reason Warcraft hasn't fallen in oblivion and still receives support from Blizzard (like Blizzard is still maintaining the servers that people use to play online with each other, instead of using them for World of Warcraft for example).
Just for a few years DotA has turned from "just another weird game, played by the geeks" into a worldwide phenomenon. It's by far the most popular modification of any game in the world. It has millions of fans, the majority of which play from China, The Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia and Russia but there are also substantial amount of players from Europe and the US. It is played locally (the people who play with each other, sit next to each-other), nationally (for example China has huge domestic servers due to the large amount of Chinese DotA fans) and internationally. Blizzard's system of servers called Battle.net is only one of the options you can choose from if you want to play a game with people from Timbuktu, Vietnam, Canada and Norway at the same time; the servers of Garena (another online gaming platform) are currently used by the majority of international DotA players, due to overall better gaming experience (plus the fact that Garena is for free).
The popularity of the DotA and the originality of the gameplay make some people claim that DotA is an establisher of a new ganre of PC games. The idea of DotA has inspired the emergence of a couple of games, the most successful one of which is League of Legends, which won a lot of prices, including the best free-to-play game of the year in 2011. Also, Valve (major video game producer) contacted IceFrog in 2010 and hired him to lead a team that would produce an entire separate game called Dota 2. In this way DotA will become independent from Warcraft and Blizzard and will have the chance to evolve in more freely. It is a big moment for the whole DotA community - Dota 2 might lead into the world of the games of this ganre, but it can also be it's epic and ridicilously expensive downfall. Nobody knows weather DotA will contunie to grow, or weather it has reaceh its peak and will finally step down from the PC gaming scene, leaving the future of the ganre in the hands of Riot Games (the developer of League of Legends).
There's a dispute when and where exactly DotA originated. I don't intend to take sides, so the only person I'm going to give credit is the current developer - a person known as IceFrog. There are a whole bunch of people before him, but IceFrog is not only the one who have worked most on the development (he's an author of approximately 70 versions), but he's the one under who DotA emerged as the most successful Warcraft 3 mode. That's right - DotA is not a separate game, but a modification of Blizzard's famous Warcraft 3 (the predecessor of World of Warcraft). If a person want's to play DotA he has to install Warcraft 3 and load DotA through it. There exists thousands modifications of Warcraft 3, created by different developers, but is the last years 95% of the people who play Warcraft 3 do it to play DotA. Currently DotA is the only reason Warcraft hasn't fallen in oblivion and still receives support from Blizzard (like Blizzard is still maintaining the servers that people use to play online with each other, instead of using them for World of Warcraft for example).
Just for a few years DotA has turned from "just another weird game, played by the geeks" into a worldwide phenomenon. It's by far the most popular modification of any game in the world. It has millions of fans, the majority of which play from China, The Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia and Russia but there are also substantial amount of players from Europe and the US. It is played locally (the people who play with each other, sit next to each-other), nationally (for example China has huge domestic servers due to the large amount of Chinese DotA fans) and internationally. Blizzard's system of servers called Battle.net is only one of the options you can choose from if you want to play a game with people from Timbuktu, Vietnam, Canada and Norway at the same time; the servers of Garena (another online gaming platform) are currently used by the majority of international DotA players, due to overall better gaming experience (plus the fact that Garena is for free).
The popularity of the DotA and the originality of the gameplay make some people claim that DotA is an establisher of a new ganre of PC games. The idea of DotA has inspired the emergence of a couple of games, the most successful one of which is League of Legends, which won a lot of prices, including the best free-to-play game of the year in 2011. Also, Valve (major video game producer) contacted IceFrog in 2010 and hired him to lead a team that would produce an entire separate game called Dota 2. In this way DotA will become independent from Warcraft and Blizzard and will have the chance to evolve in more freely. It is a big moment for the whole DotA community - Dota 2 might lead into the world of the games of this ganre, but it can also be it's epic and ridicilously expensive downfall. Nobody knows weather DotA will contunie to grow, or weather it has reaceh its peak and will finally step down from the PC gaming scene, leaving the future of the ganre in the hands of Riot Games (the developer of League of Legends).
Thursday, December 8, 2011
The Art of Ruining Games: Leavers
As I was thinking about what a good DotA game really is, I realized that every game is a good game by default, unless someone spoils it. It's true that some games are more interesting than others, but overall DotA is entertaining all by itself, so I don't usually need anything special to happen in the game in order to have fun playing it. However, there's this group of people, who are sad and miserable in real life and whos only emotional outlet are computer games. These people are known as leavers and without me introducing them, you just won't get a complete picture of the gaming environment.
As the name suggests and as you have probably figgured out, a leaver is just a person who leaves the game before its end. Since in DotA reconnection to the game is impossible once it has started, any premature quit means that one of the teams is left with fewer players than the other one. As I already mentioned earlier, DotA is a very team-oriented game and every player in the team has a role and thus functions in a specific way that contributes to the overall performance for the team. If one of the players leaves, each one of his ex teammates has to adopt some of his functions to fill the gap. With only one leaver and appropriate hero choice this is quite possible. (Note that some heroes are not that flexible and cannot play certain roles well) However, if the leavers become two or your teammates refuse to adapt to the new circumstances the game becomes disbalanced and the enemy team can easily crush you and win.
Now, I'm trying to be tolerant as much as I can. I completely understand that sometimes the game goes bad, and if the player has a bad day already, it's just too much to keep playing - it's neighter entertaining nor fun; it happens to everybody from time to time. In this situation you just apologize, leave and look for something else to do (maybe listening to some music). However, the people I'm refering to usually join another game after they leave the current one (perhaps just to ruin the 2nd one too?) They ruin game after game causing dosens of people to curse and don't even give a shit! This being said, I hope that it's pretty clear that the so called leaver attitude is the plague in DotA. It's observed in more than 50% of the public games and it often ruins the game. That's the greatest advantage of playing with friends - you know you can rely on each-other even if the things get hard.
Here's a short video made by a DotA fan that shows his personal attitude towards the leavers. Hope more leavers see it and realize that leaving might have real and scary consequances if done in the wrong game. ;)
As the name suggests and as you have probably figgured out, a leaver is just a person who leaves the game before its end. Since in DotA reconnection to the game is impossible once it has started, any premature quit means that one of the teams is left with fewer players than the other one. As I already mentioned earlier, DotA is a very team-oriented game and every player in the team has a role and thus functions in a specific way that contributes to the overall performance for the team. If one of the players leaves, each one of his ex teammates has to adopt some of his functions to fill the gap. With only one leaver and appropriate hero choice this is quite possible. (Note that some heroes are not that flexible and cannot play certain roles well) However, if the leavers become two or your teammates refuse to adapt to the new circumstances the game becomes disbalanced and the enemy team can easily crush you and win.
Now, I'm trying to be tolerant as much as I can. I completely understand that sometimes the game goes bad, and if the player has a bad day already, it's just too much to keep playing - it's neighter entertaining nor fun; it happens to everybody from time to time. In this situation you just apologize, leave and look for something else to do (maybe listening to some music). However, the people I'm refering to usually join another game after they leave the current one (perhaps just to ruin the 2nd one too?) They ruin game after game causing dosens of people to curse and don't even give a shit! This being said, I hope that it's pretty clear that the so called leaver attitude is the plague in DotA. It's observed in more than 50% of the public games and it often ruins the game. That's the greatest advantage of playing with friends - you know you can rely on each-other even if the things get hard.
Here's a short video made by a DotA fan that shows his personal attitude towards the leavers. Hope more leavers see it and realize that leaving might have real and scary consequances if done in the wrong game. ;)
An illustration of what I mean when using the term game inasanity.
I just couldn't resist but throw that in. For the ones who don't know what's actually going on in the game (I know you're there!), in this video, one of the players (the scorpion) was about to kill the entire enemy team, but his teammate (the Siren) made them all immortal, by using his ultimate spell. I personally rate the magnitude of this stupidity 9.4/10, but everyone's different.
P.S. Siren does that twise!
P.S. Siren does that twise!
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