This is a guest post from Stephen Kanzlemar, friend of Jake Valentine and fellow gamer/fan of the MOBA genre.
The first time I played DotA 2, I hated it. Yes, I played the original. I memorized every character’s unique
ability hotkeys, died countless times because I deselected my avatar, and raged at the QQ epidemic
(quite literally, considering Warcraft 3’s command to quit the game was F10 E Q Q) from teammates
at a player’s first mistake. It was next to impossible to play a good game if you weren’t on LAN or in a
pre-arranged match. So when HoN came out with features that solved all these problems, I jumped on
board and never looked back. Fast forward 3 years to DotA 2. It felt like Valve missed all the wonderful
advances that had been made by S2 Games and Riot and was just trying to release DotA 2 with better graphics
and a few minor tweaks. Little did I realize, that’s exactly what I wanted.
The second time I played DotA 2, I loved it, and it became my MOBA of choice. The tweaks took care of
the big things: leavers are punished more harshly than in any other game; matchmaking was introduced
and is well-balanced; the shop was consolidated to a single menu, though the secret shop and
outposts still remain and have items you can’t buy at base; backdooring is entirely prevented through a
protection mechanic (more on this later, as it’s huge to me); all the abilities are on QWER; and you can’t
deselect your toon.
It’s all the extras that really hit you though. Valve has a knack for making changes to a genre that no
one else ever considered. You can drag items from the shop to a little box below the shop menu, and
it automatically brings the courier to base the next time it’s free, loads the item onto it, sends the
courier out to you with the item, and brings the courier back to base. The old game modes that made
Dota interesting and replayable are back, so it’s not just blind all pick every game. You can modify
your character guide on the fly, and changes made to it are saved for future games. Steam Cloud
support means you have all your guides, settings, and bindings no matter which computer you use. The
characters are all fully and uniquely voiced: they announce their own runes, they taunt the enemies
when they get a nice last hit or deny (or a kill, of course), they announce their return to the game when
you buy back, and they make little comments when they pick up items considered core to them. It’s
quite satisfying when you dodge Pudge’s hook using a temporary blink and hear your character chuckle at Pudge’s bad luck (the enemy hears this as well, and Pudge will usually curse you in return).
And that backdoor protection changes everything. If the creeps from your side are not close to the
enemy tower, you cannot damage it. Period. At first this bothered me, because while backdooring has
always been considered poor manners, it was never officially condemned by the developers, and I’ve
used it to win games we would have otherwise lost. But then I realized that without it, you actually
have to play well in order to win. Valve just removed it, and it makes the game much more about team
strategy and tactical maneuvering than getting a high-damage carry or a strong pusher to their base
when they’re somewhere else. It makes the game more fun.
All these changes are wonderful, but the quality and competitive potential of a MOBA comes done
to one thing: balance. DotA 2 has it in spades. There’s no character purchasing system that gives the
developers incentive to release horribly overpowered characters so that everyone buys them, only
to nerf them two weeks later and release a new horribly overpowered character. Every player has
access to every character, which means they must all be fair for the game to work. And work it does—
beautifully, if I may say so. There’s no such thing as a bad character in Dota2, nor a broken one. This is a game of player skill, smart character picking, and teamwork—exactly what a MOBA supposed to be. Oh, and it’s still free to play.
The characters themselves deserve a very special mention. Most characters in HoN and LoL have a
collection of abilities that can all be placed into one of six categories: nuke, slow, stun, disable, summon,
and/or passive attack modifier. Every DotA 2 character is unique. Abilities range from walls that spawn
copies of any enemies who walk through them (which proceed to beat their doppelgangers to death, of
course) to combining three elements in different combinations in order to create one of nine individual
spells, only to recombine for a new spell after each cast. In LoL and HoN, there is an accepted best
playstyle for every character. That character has one role and one build with few variations. If you try to
do anything out of the ordinary, your team will harass you to no end, and you’ll lose. Dota2 characters
can all be built and played in a variety of ways that fulfill multiple roles on the team, and it works.
In fact, going the same build every game would result in losses again and again. In Dota2, you must
modify your plans to match the team you’re with and counter the team you’re against. There’s no such
thing as stacking AP and pushing R. Between this wonderful breadth of choice and the simply beautiful
animations of the characters themselves, DotA 2 is an absolute joy to play.
The pacing is quite unique as well. In LoL, you farm for 30 minutes and then push to win. HoN is so fast-
paced that failure to have perfect reflexes and timing will lose you nearly every fight. DotA 2 takes the
more moderate animation speed of the original DotA (slightly faster than LoL, if you haven’t played it)
and adds the rune and town portal mechanics that allow for easy map maneuvering. Ganking happens
constantly, but you can’t trust the element of surprise alone to get you the kill. You have to move
strategically with your team and use your abilities synergistically to make it work.
Many players (myself included at first) bemoan the lack of a concede option and the minimalist
UI, which doesn’t show enemy levels or mana pool unless you select them, but these are actually
blessings in disguise. All three essentially promote players to keep fighting and trying in situations that
would normally be considered hopeless. The games you remember aren’t the ones you stomped from
the beginning—they’re the ones you brought back from the brink of destruction and turned into an
incredible victory. This happens far, far more often in DotA 2 than it ever did in HoN or LoL, and it’s
because of these mechanics.
Community is where the largest number of advances in the genre have been made by Valve. You
can watch a friend’s (or famous competitive player’s or some random guy’s whose name you picked
off the list) game with a 1 minute or so delay (to avoid cheating by messaging players in the game).
When watching, the camera defaults to a directed view, where it focuses on the areas with the
most important events and the players making the biggest difference. Of course, you can also opt to
control the camera yourself or even view a single player’s perspective (which also shows their mouse
movements and view selections). It’s often been said that the MOBA community is the most unpleasant,
unforgiving group of people on the internet. Valve wants to do away with that. There is a reporting and
commendation system everyone can (and does) use to review the players in their games. You’re limited
to a certain number of each, and Valve reviews every claim, so they’re actually meaningful. Players with
good ratings are matched with other nice, helpful players. Leavers and asshats get to wallow together
in the filth they seem to love so much. Players who get the most positive reviews will be rewarded with
vanity items in DotA 2 and other Steam games (hats for everyone!), Steam coupons, and commendations
from Valve. There is a lot of incentive to be a decent person in DotA 2.
Valve promises to push DotA 2 to the forefront of competitive MOBA gaming, and they will do it. The
top three games happening at any time are shown on the main login screen, and spectators can talk
to each other while watching. Surprisingly, it’s actually enjoyable. DotA 2 is still in closed beta, and it’s already a
legitimate spectator sport. This level of support and promotion from the developer guarantees to keep
the game fresh, balanced, and fun for years to come.
