Finally I’ve received my invitation into the closed beta after what seemed like an eternity of boredom and the beginnings of stale attitude towards titles launching at the time, I was ecstatic; being a big League of Legends player and following the competitive scene regarding one of the biggest and most successful games since World of Warcraft. I would watch streams of professional players as well as tournaments for hours, studying the reasoning behind why a player would make a decision, or how a mistake would turn a match all while trying to infuse it into my own gameplay in order to elevate my personal skill level. I enveloped myself in the mechanics of the game in order to fully understand the inner workings. This should, in part, explain my excitement with the announcement of DotA 2.
How could I be excited about having to relearn mechanics and retraining myself for a new engine with entirely new heroes? Simple, in obsession, we often find a dull hole to fall into. I was getting bored of imbalance and factors that became an immoveable obstacle in my path towards constant victory. I started searching for a new outlet, or a way to further myself towards the top tier of competition. My search ended with the announcement of DotA2 and the tournament that was going to be hosted at the convention it was simultaneously being revealed at. With my first glimpses of the game, I knew that my search would be over, and a new dawn was rising on my obsession.
When DotA 2 was announced, it was a big surprise due to the fact that it would not be developed by Blizzard, who were the studio responsible for Warcraft 3 in which the original mod DotA spouted from; instead it would be developed by Valve for the Steam network by the big developers of the original mod (Such as IceFrog, among others). With this announcement came the knowledge that DotA 2 would be running off the source engine, which surpassed the outdated and limiting Warcraft 3 engine in almost every aspect. Most of the mechanics, in addition to character names, skills, and items would be ported (through remaking) from the ground up into this new engine. This meant that most of the gameplay would be the same for long time players, it would just basically be a major overhaul without the crippling bugs that the original was plagued by.
In summation, the changes (As small as they seem) are welcome with updates weekly, the improvements are drastic and help out a lot in competitive environments, and the platform we’re experiencing it on gives us extreme faith in the longevity of the game. All of my impressions are positive (I can’t gripe at the learning curve because changing the game to be more accessible would probably break it) so far, and as far as predictions go; this game is gonna be a bigger hit than it’s first time around. If anyone would like to share input, tips, tricks, or exchange Steam ID’s to play; please leave it in the comments. below.
