Even though today is Monday, there is a reason to raise Clarity, empty Bottle and join the Brewmaster cause. Exactly five years ago, on July 9, 2013, the beta test of Dota 2 ended. From now on, anyone can get a free copy of the game. What has happened over the years? We recall the main points.
During the two-year beta test, Dota 2 became the largest community in Steam, the game is visited by more than 3 million users a month, and the peak online is more than 300 thousand. Link to the very news.
Statistics Steam now
One of the first trailers of the game, from which many began acquaintance with Dota 2
Tournament system
For five long years Dota acquired a tournament system that is supported by Valve... Over the past year, 22 official tournaments, part of the prize fund of which were investments from the creators themselves. Some of the announced events were postponed or canceled for one reason or another, but this season was only a test of the pen - next year DPC-the system will not go anywhere, but will appear before fans and e-sportsmen in an updated format.
Dota 2 Reborn
One of the most controversial actions of the developers was to Dota a breath of fresh air. The game interface was completely changed, custom games and their editor were added, and the engine was replaced with a more modern one Source 2.
Updates and v7.00
All this time, the developers have been making changes to the game, changing the balance or making certain edits. On the this moment in Dota 2 all original characters were added, but the creators did not stop there - new, up to this point, unseen heroes appeared in the project. And this is only the beginning, because ahead Artifact, which is designed to expand the lore of the world MOBA.
The largest in the history of Dota 2 was 7.00. A talent tree has been added to the game, some characters have been reworked, and new buildings have been added to the map.
Criticism and problems
Not without the negative. IN Dota 2 there are still a lot of bugs, and the creators are often criticized for the long absence of events or an item policy. Server problems arise even during qualifiers for major tournaments, and the story about Australian servers has long been a meme of the English-speaking community.
But developers still pay attention to community feedback. This year, an active fight against cheaters began, and key bugs are still being fixed (albeit after they were used in tournament games). We sincerely hope that the brainchild Icefrog and Valve will change only for the better and will celebrate more than one anniversary.
Congratulations, friends!
DotA - deep and even bottomless game that addicts to the head. That is why fans of this game spend all their free time on it. All sorts of guides, tips and advice from Dota masters is littered with the entire Internet. But all this information, again, is for fans only. All other players are more interested not in the inner subtleties of the game, but in the history of its phenomenal success. From a simple but unusual modification, it has grown to the title of the most popular esports discipline in the world. A very unusual case that attracts attention to itself. At a minimum, it should be of interest to developers who want to replicate at least some of this success.
Quite a lot of historical articles about Dota have already been written in English and Chinese. But Russian-language articles about this can be counted on one hand. The information is very scarce, inaccurate, and looks more like folk legends, and not like a collection historical facts, although not much more than 10 years have passed since the events took place. Here's what I could find on the Internet about the history of Dota:
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1. "Page on Wikipedia". The story is described in a few lines, and does not contain anything interesting. (Even initially, I knew more about the game than this, although I was not a fan of it, but only circled in the circles of the creators of maps for WarCraft and watched the success of DotA from the side).
2. “History of Dota. Part 1". The most informative article (it was, before this one). Interestingly, the article was originally written by a Chinese with the nickname CtChocula, then it was translated to English, later in 2011, one of the Belarusians translated it into Russian. This article was gradually stolen across all Russian-language Dota fan sites, of which there are already hundreds and thousands.
Let's talk about this article now. Everyone copied the words of the Belarusian exactly, without adding anything from themselves, although in the comments many users boasted that they knew much more. At the same time, many do not display the copied images in the article, and no one does anything about it. And in the text right in the title it is written that this is only the first part of the story, but for some reason no one had a desire to find and publish the second part (and there were seven of these parts!).
I personally took up this business. It was very easy to find a copy of this article, and after that it took a long time to find out where the original translation was. As I said, the original was found on the Belarusian site:
In subsequent copies of the article, careless copy-pasters cut off links to the original source, and in the original translation, the link to the English version remained, but ... the foreign article on gosugamers.net and playdota.com (playdota.com/forums/329512/dota/) was already there by that time removed. Still, I managed to find a saved copy of the English-language article on one of the fan wikis:
It turned out that it was in the first part of the article that there were the main milestones in the development of the game, and in the next 6 parts only specific championships, the best players, leagues, preferred tactics, minor changes were described. That is why no one translated them. If you are interested in this information, read it in full in the original source.
I have made a concentrated extract from a series of these articles, and in the author's translation and with the addition of some facts and clarifications from me personally. As a result, the story of the formation of almost an entire genre, and not a single game, turned out. So, on to the article itself, enjoy!
1. Aeon of Strife (Prototype)
dota creation history
2002 year... For the game "Starcraft: Brood War", which was released back in 1999, a fan addition was released - the map "Aeon of Strife" (AoS). The author of the modification was a player with the nickname "Aeon64" (according to other information - nickname "Gunner_4_ever").
In this map, the standard strategic rules of the game have been changed. There was only one unit to be controlled in it. The map was designed for 8 players - 2 teams of 4 heroes. There were four corridors on the territory, along which ordinary units constantly walked from both sides under the control of a computer. By killing creep units, or rather, by inflicting the last blow on them, the heroes received minerals for development. To win, it was necessary to kill all 4 enemy hero units or get through the defense towers and destroy the main headquarters. Later, a version was released for a smaller number of players - 2v2.
As you can see, the main game mechanics was invented precisely in AoS. But in "Starcraft" there was still no ramified system of heroic abilities and level development.
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2002, July 3... Came out legendary game Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos by Blizzard Entertainment. Included with the game was a convenient, affordable and very effective map editor "World Editor". Soon after the release, enthusiasts created the Aeon of Strife map already on the Warcraft engine, which allowed the heroes to have 4 abilities each, carry items, level up from 1 to 10. Thanks to new features, the idea of the map developed significantly. AoS gained its first popularity, and many mapmakers began to copy its mechanics. Among Russian players, AoS cards were usually called "Three Corridors".
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2. DotA from Eul (Title)
dota 2 history
2002, autumn-winter... The user with the nickname Eul created the map "Defense of the Ancients" (DotA). Translated into Russian - "Protection of the Ancients". Eul copied the mechanics from AoS, and borrowed a lot of developments from other clones of this map. In the initial version, there were 32 heroes to choose from and 39 items to buy. But for now this card nothing remarkable stood out from dozens of others.
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2003, July 1... Blizzard Entertainment has released an expansion pack " Warcraft iii: The Frozen Throne ". The plot of the game has 4 new companies, a neutral hero, new textures, units, items. But the main thing is that in the editor "World Editor" there are new features that were previously blocked for ordinary players: it was possible to change maximum amount levels of heroes, transform any ordinary unit into a hero, functions for displaying leaderboards, and hundreds of smaller changes have appeared.
2003, autumn-winter... Eul redesigned his map for a new expansion and called it "DotA 2: Thirst for Gamma in TFT". The ported version of the map proved to be less successful than the original, and Eul soon abandoned map development.
Leaving the mapmaking community, Eul made the source code of his map open source. And based on the original Dota, players started making many of their own versions of this wonderful map. Here are some of the names of the cards that were more popular than the rest: "DotA DX Series", "DotA Unforgiven", "DotA Outland".
3. DotA Allstars (Version 0.95)
dota 2 download
2004, February 3... Two mapmakers Meian and Ragn0r have put together the best of many mods and named their brainchild "DotA Allstars". The authors posted the beta version v0.95, but never brought it to a full-fledged release. The most difficult thing turned out to be to straighten out the balance between completely dissimilar heroes (by the way, the balance in Dota is still subject to numerous edits and changes).
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4. Age of Guinsoo (Versions 2.0 - 5.84)
dota 2 who is the creator
2004, March... For polishing the balance best collection Dota was taken over by another mapmaker - Steve Feak under the nickname Guinsoo. He began to actively clean up the mistakes of previous authors. In the beginning, Guinsoo did this to create a more comfortable version for himself and his friends, but soon got a taste for it and took up further development cards. In a short time DotA from folk hodgepodge with a lot of gameplay distortions has turned into a full-fledged high-quality project. Versions of the game changed at lightning speed. The first version from Guinsoo was v.2.0. By the end of March, v.3.0d had already been released.
It was Guinsoo who created the modern item system in Dota. Already in the initial versions, there were items of various tiers and price categories, but players usually made purchases only in the final stages of the game. This was caused by the fact that in Warcraft the heroes have only 6 slots for items, and in order to take more powerful items, you had to lay out and sell the old ones at half price. Nobody wanted to spend gold on temporary bonuses, everyone saved up immediately for top things. Guinsoo solved this problem by introducing a recipe system - stronger items were collected from several weaker ones, and now there was no need to sell them and lose gold.
Another of his ideas is the constantly appearing runes in the center of the map. This feature gives an advantage to those players who have time to control the entire map. This greatly increased the mobility of players, it became unprofitable to just stand on the same line.
But the main merit of Guinsoo is that he understood the genre of Dota better than others, skillfully emphasized it and developed it. Early versions of AoS and DotA were like a fast-paced hero-leveling competition. The main emphasis was on the destruction of creeps, and the battles of heroes and intrigues against each other were only a tool in this struggle for experience. Guinsoo shifted its focus from PvE to PvP. To do this, he:
1) increased the reward for killing enemy heroes (part of the killed person's gold began to go to the one who struck the last blow),
2) introduced a delay before the revival of heroes, depending on the level (death became a very unpleasant event, players began to value their hero more),
3) added sounds and rating system from the network shooter Unreal Tournament(after that, killing enemy heroes became much more profitable, more fun and more honorable, because every player dreams of hearing titles from "Anrial" in his honor: First Blood, Tiple Kill, Rampage, Godlike, Unstopable).
The gameplay has become much sharper, more dangerous and more emotional than in other AoS clones. The map from the genre "Strategy with RPG elements" moved to the genre "Deathmatch in RPG format". It was this change that led to the emergence of DotA Allstars to a leading position in its genre.
2004, April 26... DotA Allstars v.4.0a released. In this version, in the adjacent forests, besides the usual monsters, a huge boss, Roshan, appeared. The boss was named after a bowling ball owned by Guinsoo. The idea was taken from online games, where team raids took place on especially dangerous bosses. An attack on Roshan requires the efforts of several players at once, defeating him can bring a powerful artifact, but during an attack on the boss, the whole team is in a vulnerable position, leaving the allied towers and exposing their backs to the blows of rivals.
Guinsoo impressed the gaming community with its hard work and high quality of the project. On the wave of success, the talented mapmaker began to help co-authors - Neichus, Abdul Ismail "IceFrog", Steave Mescon "Pendragon", and the lesser-known Syl-la-ble, Zetta, Mortred & About 11. Together they organized the Team Dota Allstars clan ( TDA).
The first semi-official DotA forum was formed at 9nid where players could discuss DotA issues.
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2004, October 14... The clan-creators of TDA now have their own website DotA-Allstars.com. The site is managed by Pendragon. Here they began to lay out new versions of the map, here the authors began to receive full feedback from the players, listening to comments and wishes. With the rise in popularity of DotA, the forum has grown to over 1 million visitors each month, 1-10 million page views each day, and a staff of over 100 volunteers.
The development of the game went on as usual. Tidehunter was added in version 5.74. In version 5.75, the Ursa Warrior and Atropos were introduced. Version 5.76 introduces Ezalor, Tinker, Ogre Magi, Pudge 2.0 and Sand King, fixing most of the old heroes.
2004, November... The final 5.xx version has been released - "DotA Allstars v.5.84c v2". With this version, Dota got stability. This version was of extreme historical significance, the number of players increased several dozen times. The official competition began with this particular version. Even after the 6.xx line was released, this card remained popular.
Participated in the creation legendary card and our compatriot. Russian mapmaker True.Rus added its own fast loading algorithm to the standard 5.84b map, renaming the map to 5.84c, as a result, the map loading time has decreased from 3 minutes to 20 seconds. It was this optimized map that began to be used all over the world.
At the same time, in November, the first serious competition on the Dota map took place. The competition was held by the International Gaming Syndicate (IGS). The battle took place between the House of Zed and 4DTA teams.
Special versions of Dota, the so-called AI cards, where bots were placed instead of real players, began to appear for trainers.
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5. Legacy Guinsoo (Version 6.01)
when did Dota 1 appear?
2005, February 28... Guinsoo is releasing the map DotA Allstars v.6.01 and soon announces that this is the final version, he is no longer going to engage in further development of Dota. (According to rumors in the gaming community, Guinsoo has been invited to join the "World of Warcraft" development staff). The map is supported by the remaining co-authors - IceFrog and Neichus.
2005, March... After Guinsoo, there are 69 perfectly balanced heroes left. Neichus actively took on the expansion of the game, adding more and more new playable characters. During the first 6.xx versions, he created: Earthshaker, Tiny, Chen 2.0, Stealth Assassin 2.0, Phantom Lancer, Enchantress, Enigma, Ax, Shadow Fiend, Visage 2.0, Nerubian Weaver, Bloodseeker and Dazzle. In addition, Neichus came up with the idea of creating a courier that delivers items to the heroes, thereby eliminating the need for players to return to base.
But with such an amazing performance, Neichus forgot about the main component of the game - about balance. The players were dissatisfied with the creativity of the new leaders of Dota, and continued to use old version maps (a professional Dota tournament from World Cyber Games was announced in March, and it was held on the 5.84c version of the map). Neichus could not bring his innovations to mind, he soon left, leaving only IceFrog at the helm of Dota.
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6. IceFrog. First trial and error (Versions 6.1x)
dota 1 who created
2005, June... Icefrog got everything that Neichus broke in a fit of free creativity. Although IceFrog himself started with serious mistakes. He released DotA Allstars v.6.10, adding his first own hero, Invoker, with 31 spells - the most egregious example of imbalance in Dota history. Invoker was not used in official tournaments for a long time, and only much later its power was diminished, and the number of spells was reduced to 10, so that you could compete with it on equal terms. Still, IceFrog learned the principles of the Guinsoo guru better, and over time began to correct the mistakes he made.
To overcome the popularity of the 5.xx series, IceFrog has taken a course towards improved map support, and further expansion of the game audience. For this, they began to produce localized versions of maps. In June 2005, a version of Dota v.6.12 was released, for the first time it was not only in English, but also in Chinese. As a result, the popularity of the game in China has increased dramatically.
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7. IceFrog comes to the fore (Versions 6.2x)
dota full name
In version 6.20, Icefrog fixed most of the gameplay bugs, and also changed the unpopular winter landscape from The Frozen Throne to the old evergreen texture set from version 5.84, which has not undergone any drastic changes to this day. A new hero has been added - Prince Arthas from story company Warcraft 3.
2005, October 23... The Clanbase and Electronic Sports League has included Dota in the list of official esports disciplines.
2005, November... IceFrog releases DotA Allstars map v.6.27b. Only with the release of this version, Aisfrog managed to get out of the shadow of the 5.xx series, released by Guinsoo a year ago. This version was distinguished by a fine-tuned balance, and the amount of its innovations could no longer be ignored. Map 6.27b has been announced as the official version for use in leagues and championships. One of the first tournaments held on this map was the Singapore World Cyber Games 2005.
In version 6.28, the heroes Witch Doctor and Specter were added, the command –cs (statistics screen for killing monsters) was added, the loading screen was changed.
Version 6.29 came out with critical bugs. Version 6.30 fixed a few things, but it was released in a hurry, due to the great interest of the community in new versions, and therefore also contained bugs. Therefore, the players used versions 6.27 and 6.28 for a long time.
8. Development of eSports (Version 6.3x)
dota release date
2006, April... DotA Allstars 6.30 released. Starting with this version, it became possible to participate in the game as an outside observer. Warcraft 3 maps have a maximum player limit. In total, 12 seats are available to players, 10 of them were originally used for players in Dota, the remaining 2 seats were previously blocked, and now they have been turned into spectator seats. This increased the convenience of recording the matches of the game, and brought Dota one step closer to the title of a full-fledged eSports discipline.
2006, May... Version 6.32 has been released. The Chinese version of 6.32 was released only in August. This was due to the fact that the translator Heintje decided to add a small tutorial in the format of questions and answers (FAQ) to the map in order to lower the threshold for entering the game. The tutorial explained how to farm gold correctly, where the secret shops are located, according to what rules the effects from orbs are added.
Popular teams and star players
The first team with a sponsor appears. She was the clan PluG (coL) team from North America. Thus, the first "stars" appeared among Dota players. The most famous players are coL.Fear and coL.ezy.
The coL.Fear player was distinguished by a high level of microcontrol and the ability to play equally well for all the numerous heroes of this game. He quickly grew to the status of a legend; a huge number of players watched replays of matches with his participation.
coL.ezy became a very famous farmer and popularized this trend in the game. For a while he was even the best in this, but later lost this title to the player JMC.Merlini. Nowadays, a lot of DotA players strive to complete the final strikes against monsters in time in order to get more gold. Previously, almost no one paid attention to this, although this mechanic was basic, and was laid down in Aeon of Strife. Replays with coL.ezy clearly showed what a great advantage a competent monster farming can give.
The following teams received the status of "star": Fang and Gang (FAG), later changed to Apex; team ADA (Arrogant DotA Arseholes) - tPD.
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Basic tactics and selectable heroes
In version 6.32, the main strategy was the use of abilities that affect the whole area (Area of Effect, AoE), for which many players called this version "AoE Era".
All 5 players on the team chose heroes with AoE-abilities, or the tactic "four protect one" (4-protect-1) was chosen, when all possible experience and gold were given to one player, and as a result, such a superhero gave an advantage over the other team. Such tactics required a great deal of cohesion, and the teams of that era were distinguished by high quality teamwork.
A fairly common item "Mekansm" did not have a limit on the number, and they could be collected by 6 pieces in the inventory, this made it possible to constantly heal the whole team, and more actively push enemies.
Gradually, the 4-protect-1 tactic became dominant, for example, almost everyone used it Chinese players... Also at that time there was a tactic of conducting ganks (helping a hero from another lane to quickly destroy enemy heroes), but it was not very popular.
2006, September 10... IceFrog releases DotA Allstars map v.6.37. Due to the widespread use of AoE effects, their usefulness has been reduced in the new version. In 6.37, the popular basic items "Vanguard" and "Bottle" (an empty bottle that allows you to collect and store runes) first appeared. The standard Tango treatment is now more effective. The destruction of towers, which had never been awarded in any way, began to bring 200 gold to each member of the team. All these small changes have greatly changed the tactics of player behavior. The most popular strategy has become "fast push" - support your monsters for the earlier destruction of enemy towers.
2006, September... Dota became so popular that professional developers noticed its success. Riot Games studio has announced the development of a new game "League of Legends" with game mechanics from DotA. This is how the first potential competing games began to emerge. But the game itself was released only 2 years later.
2006, October... The major Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) championship was held in China.
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2006, November 6... The MyM PriDe # 1 (Prime Defending) tournament was held. It was this event that later significantly increased the popularity of the game as an e-sports discipline.
At this tournament, the audience saw for the first time a new tactic of controlling the entire map. Specifically, this was done with the help of the hero Tinker with the item Boots of Travel, which made it possible to perform ganks in time on all lanes. But after seeing this, the players began to look for new ways of such global control, and IceFrog added several new heroes in the following parts, sharpened precisely for such tactics: Clockwerk Goblin, Ancient Apparition, Gyrocopter.
The Russian team "Say Plz" began a successful ascent to their triumph, after a while they already competed on equal terms with the stellar team "coL".
In version 6.38, the items "Arcane Ring", "Mjollnir", "Vladmir" s Offering were added. The flying courier appeared. The hero "Priestess of the Moon" was added.
In version 6.39, the heroes "Geomancer" and "Dazzle" were added.
9. Entering the world arena (Versions 6.4x)
dota competitions
2007, February 7... In the new version v.6.41, the standard All Pick (-AP) game mode has been replaced with League Mode (-LM). The Chinese version of the map was released on February 28. Localization delays were now minimal.
2007, February 28... The first big Dota tournament - Russian ASUS Winter Open was held in Russia. 1st place was taken by the Russian team "MaGe" ( Magic aGe). 2nd place - "DoTa", 3rd place - "Say Plz".
2007, March 7... The MyM PriDe # 4 (Prime Defending) tournament was held with 137 teams participating. The tournament was remembered for the fact that three Russian teams “Say Plz”, “MaGe”, “SD” were removed from the competition. Officially, the reason was that the player under the HoroN account was listed in all three teams at once. The coach of the champion team Say Plz admitted the mistake, but considered the punishment too harsh, and in response accused the organizers of corruption. But in the end, the little-known Russian team "DoTa" won. After that, both teams and organizers became more demanding in their approach to following the rules.
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2007, March... DotA Allstars v.6.43 has been released.
2007, April 12... Time after time, the MyM event expanded in scope. The fifth tournament was attended by 200 teams from all over the world. The passing MyM PriDe # 5 was referred to as "World Cup of the DotA".
2007, May 8... The famous Russian team "VP" ( Virtus Pro). It includes players from the old teams "MaGe" and "DoTa". They lost their debut tournament "ASUS Spring 2007 Tournament" to the more experienced team "Say Plz", but after that they began to dominate the esports world. Already in the summer tournament "ASUS Summer 2007" they took the 1st place, having displaced "Say Plz" from the throne. Two gangsters were especially singled out in the VR team: "ARS-ART" and "Vigoss". The team became so famous that they began to set the fashion for all other participants in the competition. It was VR that invented and popularized the "Full Pressure Gank" tactics and the widespread use of the "Blink Dagger" item.
2007, June 8... The organizers of MyM have gained experience over the five tournaments that have been hosted and eventually reformatted their event into the international league MyM Prime Nations. Only one team from each country could participate in the league. This is how the first real international Dota championship was born. MYM Prime Nations # 1 featured 18 national teams. The victory was won by the Russian team.
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2007, September 29... Asia has organized its own big tournament "Asian DotA Championships (ADC)" on the "Garena gaming platform".
2007, November 4... Another MYM PriDe # 8 tournament gathered 400 teams from all over the world. The finalists were MYM, VP, KS (Kingsurf) and SK.
2007, December 20... The discipline "DotA" was added to the big esports event ESWC 2008.
2008, January 27... The second international tournament MYM Prime Nations # 2 brought together 60 national teams. Again, the prizes were taken by the Russian-speaking teams. The Russian national team took the 1st place, the Ukrainian team - the 2nd place.
10. The first games competitors (Demigod, LoL, HoN)
games similar to dota 2
2008 year... The first competitor of Dota - the game “ Demigod"From the developers of" Gas Powered Games ", better known for their games in the genre" Action RPG". Demigod's launch failed despite a massive advertising campaign and the advantages of a full game format over an expansion. The success of DotA was due to the fact that it appeared already on the ready-made fan audience of "WarCraft 3". Demigod had to develop from scratch, in an empty field. This multiplayer genre requires millions of players to play comfortably, and auto-match picks your peers. The developers did not master such a scale, and the game faded very soon, and did not have time to flourish in full force.
2008, October 7... Another game in a new Dota-like genre has been released - “ League of legends"(LoL). The game was created by Riot Games under the leadership of Marc Merrill. It is worth noting that Riot Games is not quite a professional development studio, it was originally a large group of game fans.
League of Legends very quickly became a real competitor to DotA in its genre. Having all the advantages of Dota, the new LoL also offered new advantages: 1) the whole game was easier to install, 2) the possibility of automatic updating appeared, 3) the game server began to automatically select participants for parties, and in Dota all this was done manually, 4) a single server made it possible to collect statistics, show in real time the ratings of players, their effectiveness, successes, achievements, 5) the game became completely free for everyone (although Dota was free, it required a purchase to install it licensed copies"WarCraft 3: TFT").
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2010 year... The game " Heroes of newerth"From S2 Games. This game did not receive much popularity, but it also took over a small part of the Dota audience.
2010 year... At BlizzCon 2010, Blizzard unveiled an early prototype of its Blizzard DOTA game powered by StarCraft II. In October 2013, it was renamed “ Heroes of the storm". Alpha testing began in March 2014, and on June 2, 2015, the game became available to all players.
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11. Rebirth (DotA 2)
dota 2 when it came out
2010 year... There was a rift in the team of creators. Returning Guinsoo invited his co-creators to the League of Legends development team. Pendragon agreed, but IceFrog refused and continued to support the DotA card. Pendragon previously maintained the DotA-Allstars.com Site, but closed it after this event. PlayDota.com became the new official site of Dota, and the term "Allstars" was removed from the name of the map.
With the appearance of the first real competitors, serious technical shortcomings came to light in Dota. What happened automatically in the new "LoL", and once again did not bother the player, in "Dota" had to be done manually: look for allies for yourself, look for suitable opponents, set up the mode through the command line. When any of the players left, the match did not count towards the standard WarCraft rules. The Battle.net server was counting the progress of the players on standard maps but completely ignored fan add-ons. It was convenient to play Dota in big gaming clubs and championships, LoL became convenient to play on any computer connected to the Internet.
Technically, Dota is outdated, and IceFrog has decided to move the game to a new engine that is independent of both WorldEditor and Battle.net. Valve took over the role of publisher.
2010, October 13... Valve Software has officially announced the DotA 2 game. But a year earlier, IceFrog announced that he was going to work together with Valve on a new project.
2011, August... On the game GamesCom exhibition 2011, which took place in Cologne from 17 to 21 August, Valve held a five-day trial Dota 2 tournament called "The International". It was at this competition that the game was first introduced to the general public. The prize fund was $ 1.6 million. 16 strongest teams from Europe and Asia were invited. The Ukrainian team Natus Vincere (NaVi) became the champion of The International 2011.
2011, November 3... Closed beta test "DotA 2" has begun with the involvement of tens of thousands of ordinary players.
2012, February... A trial between Blizzard and Valve took place over the rights to the DOTA trademark. Oddly enough, the court was won by "Valve", which is not directly related to the creation of the brand, and "Blizzard" was left with the right to use the "DOTA" trademark only in custom modifications.
2012, June 1... Paid jewelry items and a premium store have been added to the game. Now you can buy access to the closed beta version of the game.
2012, August... The International 2012 was held in Seattle from August 26 to September 2, 2012. The prize fund of the tournament was $ 1.6 million. The Chinese team Invictus Gaming became the champion of The International 2012.
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2013, August... The International 2013 took place from 3 to 12 August 2013. The prize fund of the tournament was $ 2,874,407. At that time, it was the largest prize pool in the history of esports. The Swedish team Alliance became the champion of The International 2013.
2014, July... The International 2014 was held from July 8 to July 21, 2014. Thanks to the efforts of the community, the prize pool amounted to more than $ 10.9 million, thereby surpassing last year's record several times. The main part of the tournament was held at the 17,000-seat Key Arena in Seattle. Team Newbee from China became the champion of The International 2014.
2015, June... A new beta version of "Dota 2: Reborn" has been released, based on the new Source 2 game engine.
2015, August... The International 2015 was held from 3 to 8 August 2015. The total prize pool consisted of a base fund of $ 1,600,000 and a percentage of ticket sales of $ 16,816,970, ultimately reaching $ 18,416,970. The main part of the tournament, as well as last year, took place at the Key Arena in Seattle. The Evil Genuises team from the USA became the champion of The International 2015.
2015, November... In 2015, The Major started a series of tournaments organized by Valve. The first one took place in November 2015 in Frankfurt.
2016, March... Second tournament of The Major in Shanghai.
2016, June. Third The Major in Manila.
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12. Current state of affairs (2016)
which is better dota 2 or lol
Now, under the wing of a large and experienced publisher, the game has degenerated into a completely new project of higher quality. Now "Dota 2" is more convenient, more accessible and more beautiful than its first part. But the ideal release time was missed, the previously released League of Legends had already managed to lure over to itself most of the audience of players who were not familiar with the original Dota.
"Dota 2" is super popular in Russia, in China, but in other countries the time of its dominance has passed. LoL currently occupies 66% of the global MOBA games market, while Dota 2's share is only 14%. In addition, a new, but very dangerous competitor, HotS, is starting to step on its heels, gaining 7% of the world market for this genre in a couple of years.
Although, if you look at it from the other side, everything turned out to be fair. League of Legends was created by Gunsioo, and DotA 2 was created by his former assistant IceFrog. It is logical that the game of the master turned out better than the game of his apprentice.
The increased popularity of DotA 2 in Russia is explained by the fact that Russian cybersportsmen very often took first places in world tournaments in this game. The fans are still hearing famous Russian teams: "DoTa", "Say Plz", "MaGe", "NaVi", "VP" (Virtus Pro).
And while the Dota tournaments (The International) are the largest budget competitions in eSports (table of eSports budgets). LoL is gaining popularity among ordinary players, and DotA 2 continues to attract the most famous esports players.
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The question of what "Dota" is is very relevant today. Probably few people have not heard of such a computer game as Dota. Oddly enough, there is not much advertising. But even without it, everyone knows these letters. Let's take a look at what Dota is.
First of all, we are talking about a computer game with an emphasis on playing with real opponents (that is, over the network). In English it sounds like DoTA - Defense of the Ancients, and in Russian - rather funny - "Defense of the Ancients". Let's consider the essence of the game. There are two teams of five players each (both real people and a computer can play). The task of each of the teams is to defend their sanctuary and try to destroy the enemy.
The first time I saw the light this game as an amateur add-on to Warcraft 3. To be precise, it was not even an add-on, but rather a map with the aforementioned scenario. However, the players accepted this map so joyfully that soon updates to it began to appear, which corrected the balance of power, introduced innovations and new heroes. Few people will remember how many there were at the very beginning. After all, almost once a month or so more and more new versions of "Dota" appeared.
Today almost the whole world is absorbed in the official second part of the game called "Dota-2".
This is no longer a standalone map or add-on. Dota-2 is a full-fledged independent game with a new graphical and interface, graphics and other delights in the form of a new type of heroes, animation and so on. What is Dota today? She is the same as she was at the very beginning. After all, the idea remained the same: it's a good one in which each person can hone teamwork skills, coordination, and reaction. This is a beautiful world to plunge into after a hard day at work. The creators of the second part of the game - Valve - approached the creation of the game very competently and, in order to remove the monotony, introduced seasonal events that transform the game into a new genre. For example, on New Year's Eve, players can defend the Ice King's throne from the advancing waves of demons and all kinds of evil spirits.
At the beginning of each match (or event), players need to choose their own hero. For this, today the game already has about 112 heroes and in the near future there may be even more - after all, the update of "Dota-2" occurs almost once every few days. The map on which the battle itself takes place is quite simple and straightforward. Three paths are drawn from each sanctuary towards each other through the forest: the upper (in the game jargon sounds like top-line), middle (mid-line), and lower (bot-line). Every 30 seconds, a small detachment of troops is released along these paths, which is controlled by the computer. They are called "creeps" or "creeps". They are led by the same purpose as the heroes. So each team throughout the game also encounters allies and enemy creeps. In addition, there are neutral creeps on the map. Any kill, be it an enemy hero, creep or neutral (neutral creep), gives you valuable experience and gold. We spend the first on learning new abilities that will help in battles, and for the second we buy powerful weapon and artifacts. Moreover, not all artifacts are valuable for each hero, but only those that are suitable specifically for his class.
"Dota" is a game in which there are three classes of heroes: strong and mighty warriors, agile and agile killers, wise and dangerous sorcerers. And the priority of their indicators is corresponding: for the first - strength; for the second - dexterity; for the third - intelligence. Most often, warriors are melee heroes, dodgers can hit both close and from a distance, and sorcerers use spells to get rid of opponents at a distance. Although there are rare but valuable exceptions everywhere. Artifacts and weapons for each of the classes give their nice bonuses. Swords, hammers, armor and amulets give warriors valuable health and increase their power to strike. Blades, bows, and fetishes give Dodgers more abilities to dodge enemy strikes and inflict mortal wounds. Mage cloaks, runestones, and staves increase the spell power of sorcerers, allowing them to deal massive damage.
Although there are exceptions: some heroes can collect not quite the artifacts that correspond to their class. This happens due to the specifics of the hero himself or, conversely, the types of enemy heroes. For example, if there are many wizards in the enemy team, it makes sense to purchase a cloak that absorbs some of the magic damage. Many weapons and artifacts are capable of adding even more deadly combinations and making heroes almost unstoppable machines of victory. But whatever mythical amulets the hero is wearing, they are far from deciding the outcome of the game.
What is everything described above. But the most important thing is the skill of the team. Of course, there are super-pros who can single-handedly lead their faction to victory. But joint game much nicer. Teamwork, tactics, reaction, adequacy - all these are the main criteria for victory when playing with real people on one side. Without them, the players, no matter how cool they are, will not do anything good together. The victory depends on the precise work of all parts of the team. Many say that "Dota" is a breeding ground for foul language, an abyss into which time flows, and a source. But let's look at it in an adult way. Today, there is addiction, foul language and a waste of time everywhere. The state of our children and our own depends precisely on how we educate ourselves and them, what values and concepts of ethics and morality we inculcate.
So 2012 has come to an end. During this period, a lot of changes were released in Dota 2, heroes, cosmetic items... The balance of the game has been adjusted more than once. Valve delighted us with two great in-game events, thanks to which we could feel the spirit of the holiday in the game as well.
We can say that this year Dota 2 fans got everything they expected from the developers. And what we have not yet seen in the game, awaits us already in the next 2013, which is about to come. It won't be long to wait!
Let's summarize.
In 2012, the number of Dota 2 players increased by more than 2 million, reaching 3,000,000 in mid-December. And this is all despite the fact that only beta testing is available to players at the moment.
During this time, more than 78 million games have been played, including most of were held as private games (43,300,000), the remaining 35,700,000 were public games.
Giving more preference to the mode All pick, players did not disregard such modes as Single Draft, Random draft and Captain "s Mode.
The European server remains the most popular among Dota 2 players. The number of games played on it is much larger than on other servers. I do not know what is the reason for such a great gap, whether people in Europe do not suffer from "brain dota", or the number of players in this region is really greater.
The "Russian region" ranks third in terms of games, yielding only to the Asian server.
During this year, the developers have done a lot of work to create heroes. They changed their appearance more than once, refining every small detail of texture, model, effects and pictures of abilities. With each update, Valve never ceased to delight us throughout the year, receiving for this respect of existing players and interest in the project of new ones.
This table lists the heroes in their order of release this year.
| January | February | ||||||
| Spirit breaker | Silencer | Invoker | Clinkz | OutworldDestroyer | |||
| January 12 | January 19 | January 26 | 16 february | ||||
| March | April | ||||||
| Bane | Shadow demon | Lycanthrope | Lone druid | Brewmaster | |||
| March 1 | March 15th | March 22 | 28 march | April 19 | |||
| May | |||||||
| Phantom lancer | Treant protector | Ogre magi | |||||
| May 3 | May 17 | May 24 | |||||
| June | |||||||
| Chaos knight | PhantomAssassin | Gyrocopter | Rubick | Wisp | Luna | ||
| June 11th | June 20 | June 28 | |||||
| July | |||||||
| Undying | Disruptor | Templar assassin | Naga siren | Nyx assassin | Keeper of the light | Visage | |
| 5'th of July | July, 12 | July 19 | 26 July | ||||
| September | October | November | December | ||||
| Meepo | Magnus | Centaur | Slark | Timbersaw | |||
| 13 september | The 4th of October | the 25th of October | 15th of November | December 13th | |||
In addition to heroes, balance, bug fixes, the Valve developers have surprised us twice this year with their interesting approach to the game, introducing two in-game events for such holidays as Halloween and New Years.
Thanks to these events, players were able to take a break from the constant battle for the Throne, in exchange for an exciting battle for candy, fleeing in fear from the angry and hungry Roshan and felt like they were in the shoes of a grivil, saving Christmas.
And for that, they still got gifts such as items for heroes, couriers, and so on.
Yes, Valve knows how to make a real party for their users!
A variety of things in Dota 2 can be envied even by the owners of a wardrobe of 10 by 10 meters.
For every hero that is available for processing this year, at least 3 sets have been created. Each player can dress his hero as his heart desires.And after the competition from Polycount their number has increased even more. In addition to the kits that won prizes in the competition, items were also added to the game that the developers considered to be of higher quality and more interesting.
Added new chests for heroes, wards.And the couriers! What are the hatched eggs worth? Greevil's, Baby Roshan and added to the game recently Silly Dragon.
Valve definitely great! Having given the opportunity to create objects for ordinary players, for ordinary people, they made it possible for everyone to show their talent, thereby making it easier for themselves, but not to the detriment of the game, but even vice versa!
Fly in the ointment: not everything that we expected came true. Someone did not wait for Medusa, someone - the release of the game, and someone - the end of the world =) But the first two of our desires will certainly come true in the inevitably Coming (like mega-creeps) New Year!
Without a doubt, this year Valve did a good job on Dota 2. And now they, like all of us, are going to rest and celebrate the winter holidays.
Happy New Year!
DotA- team tactical game, in which each player controls only one hero. As the game progresses, the participant receives levels for the development of the hero's abilities and the money that he spends on the purchase of various things.
There are many variations of DotA, but the most popular one is DotA Allstars developed by a mapmaker Icefrog... DotA Allstars gained some popularity in relation to other custom maps and was presented as one of the disciplines in the championships. computer games- Blizzard Entertainment Blizzcon, Asian world cyber games, Cyberathlete Amateur and CyberEvolution.
HistoryDotA ForerunnersThe first map similar to DotA is considered Aeon of strife for Upgradeable heroes Warcraft 3 turned out to be a natural continuation Aeon of strife, so similar maps began to appear for Warcraft 3. The second step to DotA was the "corridor" maps ( 3 Corridors, 5 Corridors etc.). These cards also used heroes from Warcraft, which led to balance problems: the player controlled one hero, not an army, and some heroes in this mode were too strong, and some were completely unusable. However, playing four or more resulted in interesting fights with a lot of tactical tricks, and before DotA There were very few "corridor" cards left. DotA creationMap creator Defense of the ancients was Eul... However, after the release of the addon Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne Eul has not released new version, but opened the source code. Numerous variations of this map were created, but it was "Allstars" (development Guinsoo) has become the standard de facto. With version release 6.x, the development of the map was taken over by the developer Icefrog... Now Icefrog finalizes the map, doing everything from balancing the opposing sides to increasing the stability of the map on different operating systems... New versions added new items, heroes, abilities and numerous changes to the game. Changes can be both cosmetic (for example, from version 6.48 you can change the environment to rainy or snowy), and improving the balance. In the DotA Allstars forum, players can submit new ideas for heroes and artifacts, the best of the suggestions are added; IceFrog also created a competition on the forum "Model-to-hero". In parallel, the version of the map is being developed. DotA intended for playing with real people, but Version numberingAfter DotA 5.84 departed to Icefrog’Y, he gave his versions numbers 6.xx, while the numbering after the dot was continuous (without gaps). If it was required to make a release that did not change the balance (for example, fix a bug, close an exploit, or ensure compatibility with a new Warcraft patch), such releases are marked with letters starting with "b" (for example, 6.38b). The record for fixes is version 6.52, whose numbering has reached the letter "e". rulesTwo teams play, maximum five to five (the remaining two positions are reserved for observers and referees). In the lower left corner "light" ( "Guardians", eng. "The Sentinel"), in the upper right - "darkness" ( "Scourge", eng. "The Scourge"). Each side in the base has four taverns in which heroes are hired (in 6.59c their number reached 93). At the beginning of the game, everyone chooses one of them. IN DotA there is no army management, no base building - the player controls only one hero (and, possibly, a small number of summoned creatures). From each of the bases along three paths are computer-controlled creatures - "creeps" (eng. creeps). Over time, creeps become stronger, and even a high-level hero without allied creeps nearby can be vulnerable. With each recruited level (there are 25 of them), the hero's abilities grow. With the available money, the hero can buy artifacts. From weaker artifacts with the help of "recipe" scrolls, stronger ones are made. Purchase necessary artifacts- an important aspect of the game; the choice of artifacts directly depends on the combat potential of the hero and the team as a whole. The killed hero does not participate in the game for a while and loses some of his money. The higher his level, the longer he is out of the game and the more money he loses. Instead of waiting, you can redeem; the higher the level, the more expensive the ransom. Runes periodically appear in two places on the map (between the flanks and the central passage), which give a temporary bonus: an increase in movement speed, an increase in the speed of recovery of health and mana, an increase in damage done, invisibility, the creation of doubles. Boss Roshan is located near the center; to kill him, the players usually gather with the whole team. After death, an artifact drops out of it Aegis of the immortal(Aegis of Immortality), which gives the player the ability to instantly be reborn upon death. In addition, experience and money are given to all players for killing Roshan. After death, Roshan will reappear after a while. The third Roshan contains two artifacts, in addition to the first one that restores life and mana. The task is to destroy the enemy's towers (there are 3 of them on each path), break through to his base and destroy the main building ( World tree the light ones, Frozen throne in the dark). ... If the path falls and the barracks located behind the tower are destroyed, the creeps of the attacking side on this path become stronger, which is fraught with the destruction of the entire base (the reward for such creeps is less). After destroying all barracks, creeps turn into megacreeps, which are almost impossible to stop. The rules are simple, but due to the variety of heroes and artifacts, the number of possible strategies increases significantly. Recognition and reach among playersDotA has gained some popularity over time. Blizzard officially recognized the map as noteworthy and even featured it in the Battle.Net Hall of Fame, after only six maps had been given such attention before. After the map was presented at Computer Gaming World For more information, see the section on new maps and mods for Warcraft III. It should be noted that sometimes tournaments are held in DotA... For example, the Defense of the Ancients tournament was held once in a championship DotA has also been featured in some Asian countries such as Malaysia and Singapore at World Cyber Games 2005, 2006, and World Cyber Games at the Asian tournament 2006. DotA is now included in the list of games in the international leagues Cyberathlete Amateur League and CyberEvolution. Easter eggs
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