This is the second series of three parts article about the games of legend.
2. DoTA (Defense of the Ancients)
Defense of the Ancients (DotA) is a map for a computer game made by blizzard in Warcraft III: Frozen Throne, based on a map of “Aeon of Strife” from the other blizzard games, Starcraft.
The main purpose of the game is to destroy enemie’s headquarters together with the team and subordinates which are controlled by computers. Players can use the powerful figure who referred to a hero, and assisted by allied heroes and the fighter (creep) which is controlled by the AI (artificial intelligence).
As in another role playing games, players can increase the level of their hero and use the gold to buy goods during the game. The game was developed using the world editor of the game Warcraft III: reign of chaos, and then changed along with the release of The Frozen Throne. There are a variety of basic concepts, which the most popular is DotA Allstars, which is run by some cartographers during it’s development.
Since it’s released, allstars appeared in several world tournaments, including BlizzCon Blizzard Entertainment and the Asian world cyber games, Amateur Cyberathlete and CyberEvolution league.
Warcraft 3 is the most popular multiplayer games now. DotA was originally made by a gamer who are addicted to warcraft 3. DotA made by Eul ( a nickname). The first map of DotA made by Eul is map 0.95. Unfortunately Eul finally quit, although the gamers, especially Americans welcome dota enthusiastically. The making of the map then handled by guinsoo. Guinsoo made some mayor changes in the hero, hero abilities, hero stats,and items. There are two new items that appear in his era: guinsoo schyte and Eul Scepter of divinity (both item name is equated with the maker). The final work of guinsoo is DotA Allstars 5.84b. This was a legendary map with the lifetime of more than 6 months. This map is full of bugs, imbalance and has a very long loading time. This map is the last generation of the “very long loading timed” map (on average about 30 minutes ).
Later, a Russian named true.rus overhaul this map and change its name to 5.84c. The both map is almost identical, the main difference is just the loading time that was shortened to about 5 minutes. After true.rus era, DotA Allstars 5.84c practically stagnant, no development at all. True.rus and Guinsoo decided to not continuing their projects.
DoTA continue to grow since the appearance of Icefrog until the present version of 6.43b. The role playing is focused to strategy and teamwork, and can be played by up to 10 people together, divided into 2 groups : Sentinel and Scourge. Sentinel team headquarters at the lower left corner while the Scourge team in the top right corner of the map. Each protected by a tower headquarters and the units controlled by the ai. At the central headquarters of the team, there are the “ancient”: a building that must be maintained by each team. If one team’s ancient destroyed, then that team loses and the game is over. Every players controlling a unit called heroes.
In the allstars, total heroes to choose is up to more than 90. Each hero has a unique Abilities which are different from each other. This game is very oriented to the teamwork. Nevertheless, there are some heroes which if played well and given plenty of time to increase it’s level, can significantly alter the course of the game, alone.
Blizzard admit that the popularity of Dota exceeds their own game: warcraft , so it has put in the Battlenet blizzard hall of fame. DotA itself has often become one of the games type that was competed in the world tournaments, such as blizzard’s BlizzCon convention in 2005, world cyber games 2005/ 2006 in Malaysia & Singapore, and the world cyber games 2006 asian championships. In the Philippines and some countries, DotA has taken over the popularity of counterstrike as the most frequently played games.
What makes this game interesting is that we can experiment in the use of items and the need of teamwork to beat the other team. Besides, the big sum of heroes will not make the gamers saturated and will always be updated either by adding a new hero or new items.
DoTA 2 planned to be released in the end of 2011. Iceforg has authorized the valve (the originator of counter strike) to develop DOTA 2. DOTA 2 estimated to have the same gameplay but with excellent graphics experience.
