Roots
Strategy games have gone through so much evolution in the years passed. New Genres are constantly being developed and the old ones just keep getting better and better. While more and more genres and variations are created, one genre is getting so much attention in the world of competitive gaming. Real Time Strategy gaming, or better known as RTS, has gotten so famous to the point that the prize pool in the big league tournaments amount to millions of dollars. Only a handful of games within this genre can pull this off - in comes Dota 2.
Dota 2 is not your regular RTS though, it belongs to a subgenre of RTS called Action Real-Time Strategy (ARTS) or more famously known as Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) games. To put it in simple english, it basically has the same concept as RTS but instead of using multiple units at a time, you just stick to, and roll with, a single unit equipped with multiple abilities at your disposal.
The World of the Ancients
Dota 2 has a very unique history in fact, you can trace it all the way back to the famous Warcraft III: Frozen Throne mod called DotA Allstars. This is one of the few games where I followed all of the patch notes night in and night out. I learned all the glitches of the game, I read how-to guides, I even wrote my own hero guides. I grew up with it. You can check out my blog about DotA.
As a kid who grew up in the 90's and who got into gaming in the 20's, all I ever played on PC were games such as Counter-Strike, Age of Empires and Unreal Tournament. I played a little bit of StarCraft but that's about it. I didn't even know that StarCraft belonged to RTS genre back in the day. Heck, I didn't even know about RTS until recently. I knew about the games, how to play them, but I never really knew what genre they belonged to. To me, games were just games - that's it.
Gameplay and Skins
As a huge fan of DotA Allstars I can testify that Dota 2 really impressed me. While Dota 2 is behind with the total number heroes live that are available to play compared to the OG DotA, that is probably the only issue I have. I was saddened when valve developers took out my favorite bug exploits such as Mirana's legendary "back-arrow" move and that mythical "Forcestaff-Blink" instant transmission technique. These game glitches were so fun and so difficult to execute in-game that if you were able to pull it off during multiplayer match it'll give you a lifetime's worth of bragging rights.
Aside from that, the overall gameplay on Dota 2 is very smooth and it gives you a different yet welcoming feel to both new players and veteran players alike. Valve implemented Skins that allow players to give a custom feel to their hero pool. My personal favorites are Phantom Assassin's Manifold Paradox Bundle, Pudge's Murder of Crows, Legion Commander's Blades of Voth Domosh, and Sven's Forge of Ironwill set.
Community and Updates
Dota 2 has a huge fan base. And like every game, the community is divided between the good and the bad. Luckily for us, majority of the population are pretty chill while the rest are either douchebags or trolls. But fear not, I have never cued in a matchmaking where all 9 players playing with me are the bad boys of the league. Update-wise, valve releases patches available to be downloaded in steam every often. Especially when The International tournament is approaching. Hero nerfs and item changes gets released when Icefrog decides to, which now happens every month. And just a month ago, they unleashed a huge map change. I will put up a blog to show the difference between the map then and the map now. Good thing about Dota 2 is if you're new to the game, you'll pick up pretty fast because of all of the guides available online now compared to 10 years ago. If you're a veteran and you stopped playing for a very long, long time - things might be a little bit on the downside for you. But fear not, like I said, there's a huge pool out there to guide you through all the changes.
My Take
Dota 2 is a VERY competitive game. People will come at you tooth and nail just to win, whether you are a friend or foe. Despite this, Dota 2 has a huge amount of fan base out there. Majority of the community is friendlier than you think. Updates and patches come out often, and Valve's support team is very active. All in all, I will put it out there that Dota is a great game, and I am not saying it because I'm biased or anything, I am saying it because I've known the game pretty much my entire life. And all I could say through out the years that I've watched Dota grow is that I have never seen a sequel to a game I've loved so much as good as this one. That's everything. I hope you guys picked up useful information from this. Peace out!
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