Dota: a hobby, a game and a practice
Apr. 11, 2014Dota: a hobby, a game and a practice
Oh Dota, where would I be without you. Having logged over 980 hours on Dota 2 on my very first Steam account back when you had to pay for it this game really captured my interest. This game really has its ups and downs but if you stick with it it will reciprocate your time and love for it. For those unfamiliar with the game let me explain just what Dota is, how it works and the more finer aspects of it.
Dota’s objective is to storm your enemy’s (the Radiant or the Dire faction, depending on who you are allied with) towers, break them down and reach their ancient to destory it. Your next objective after this is to destroy the ancient, winning the match. Dota, being a MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) game has a 3-lane may layout where heroes are required to man each lane in order to have a sturdy offense and defense against your enemy.
Now Dota does have some hindering negatives to it. Many people interested in the game could potentially be put off by many things. One excerpt from Wikipedia provides an example I too can support. “Dota 2 was criticized as having a steep learning curve and inhospitable community. The game has become the most played on Steam, with daily peaks of over 700,000 concurrent players.” From what I can gather from friends and my own experience it takes an average of roughly 350 hours to gain a moderate understanding of the 100+ heroes, their fullest capabilities and how to use them, nevermind fully utilize them. There are also hordes of insulting, elitist players who are all but too eager to mock an inexperienced new player. One has to simply muscle through all of this to reach the finer things below the crude skin. There are some wonderful people in the community and a real sense of teamwork is evident in a hospitable team, since the game requires co-operation for you to have a chance to succeed.
The beauty in Dota is that if you suffer through all of this you can learn a lot – how much of a thick skin you’ve grown against people putting you down, how to appreciate something greatly, memorizing patterns and powers – it may feel awful to have to get someone to coach you for a very long time in order to simply play a game to a low level, to deal with pretentious, angered veterans and having matches drag on but the game is really quite wonderful when you understand it. Overall a great way to kill time and learn more about your patience I suggest Dota to anyone who is a fan of LoL, has a load of spare time and/or wants to argue with many, many Russians.
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Faith_
So if the barrier to entry is so high, how does one get caught into it? I can understand for a solo element but when online is a must and everything is competitive I wouldn’t really feel the need to stick around – how did that work for you?
I am fairly new to the moba scene, in terms of comparison to most people(Started around 6 months ago and still only now have a rough understanding of how to play). I play League of Legends, and have been tempted to play Dota 2 for a while now, though after hearing comparisons like “If League of Legends is Algebra, Dota 2 is calculus” I’ve been avoiding trying it.
A friend of mine once described it to me as “a bunch of angry Australian people telling each other that they suck all the time.” Though apparently there is a bunch of angry Russians as well
You have successfully persuaded me to try it, even though I would be lacking any mentor into the gameplay(I had someone really, really good at League of Legends teach me how to play).
