Most of the past week or so I've really getting into the DOTA 2 beta. If you haven't heard about DOTA before or what it is, it was originally a mod for the original Warcraft 3. To be completely honest... this game is pretty fucking amazing. I'm now seriously kicking myself in the ass for never really getting interested or even trying the original DOTA. The game mixes several of my favorite components of online games to start. It's a team based multi-player game. It's real-time strategy. It's role playing. It's incredibly competitive. It's purely a win.
The game play is pretty fast and simple at it's core. It's a 5v5 game where every player picks a "hero" from a pretty huge pool of heroes and then compete against each other in a Tower Defense meets RTS style match. If you've ever seen or heard about League of Legends, it's the exact same thing. Only better I think. The goal of each team is to ultimately destroy the opposing teams Ancient which is really just a massive tower which sits in the middle of each of the bases located on opposite ends of the map. To be able to destroy the opponents Ancient, the heroes must roam the map killing enemy creeps, neutral creep camps, and enemy heroes to gain experience. However, just killing units isn't enough. To gain the advantage over the enemy you also have to be someone good at planning your builds in terms of skills and also in terms of the items you purchase.
The economy system in DOTA is without a doubt the biggest challenge I can see any newcomer trying to overcome when they first start playing. In fact, depending on your hero selection, I can see how some people can become completely overwhelmed with frustration as to why some heroes have such an easy time with killing other heroes, or killing large groups of creeps for example. The items you buy and the speed at which you acquire them almost always are the deciding factor into which team will win. To buy these items you have to acquire gold, which can be done in a few ways. Naturally every player will acquire gold at a rate of 1 per second. However, you can obtain bonus gold for yourself by causing the last hit which kills an enemy creep or by killing an enemy hero outright. Either way though, you want money, and you want a shit ton of it quickly. Because the richer you are the more shit you can by and the more powerful you become.
This is the item list for DOTA 2. You can buy anything if you have the gold and each has it's own special properties. Good luck parsing this through your head when your playing when you first get started. I know i needed it...
But beyond that, you can do whatever the hell you want in the game. Especially depending on the type of hero you pick. They all come in various types and abilities. From the ones which are super tanky and can take a shit ton of damage. To the ones which work better during certain times of the day (in-game). To others which can slice your face off in a couple seconds flat even though a couple bitch slaps to the back of their head will do the same to them if they're not careful.
I've been experimenting with a bunch of heroes. I still haven't found the type that I really enjoy playing the most per se, but I do know that a couple types of heroes aren't the best fit for me. Pretty much anything tank or gank related just annoy the living hell out of me. I'm not sure if it's just the fact I can take a shit ton of damage, but don't really deal out as much and have to rely on the other people on my team to dish it out. Or if it's the fact that I haven't yet mastered the art of being stealthy enough to corner someone or pick them off in an awkward position without feeling awkward myself. I'm way more comfortable being someone quick and agile and extremely mobile. Who can get into and out of most situations relatively easily. It's kind of funny though thinking about other role-playing games I've played and how I've picked the same kinds of heroes or at least preferred them. For example, In Diablo I'm a demon hunter... In Fable, I maxed out agility first... In Elder Scrolls I was a Thief/Archer... You get the point.
That being said. I've got a lot of experimenting with this game left to do. And EVERYONE needs to pick up this game and play it. No one has a reason not to. Why? Oh, maybe because you don't want to spend your hard earned (or not) cash on it? Tough shit... it's FUCKING FREE! You just have to register on Valve's website for it and usually in a week or two they give you access. Since technically it's still in beta phase right now, but you'd never know it. The game is getting polished each week with better stuff and is still getting more and more heroes. I believe Valve has said they are dedicated to releasing 2 new heroes every week until the game's official release. So there's still a lot to come.
In the future, I think I'm going to take a break from Diablo 3 for a while and focus on this. I'm not sick of Diablo 3, but I'm starting to get burned out on doing the same repeating this of just trying to farm items and sell them for gold for days. I need to switch things up and this game definitely does that.
If you'd ever want to join up and get into a DOTA group just let me know. I'm definitely looking for others who are interested in this game since I think it'd be even more entertaining with a group of people you know. But until then...
Happy Gaming!
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