Saturday 9 February, 2008

GAMEPLAY
So I thought I would delve deeper into the mod game playable on Battle.net called DoTA (Defense of the Ancients). After doing a little research it turns out that Dota is the most played game in the Philippines and Thailand and in the top 100 of several other countries. It is based on the original Custom Map Settings mod "Aeon of Strife" for Starcraft. It has had many different developers, which become almost immortalized in the gaming world for their free contribution to gaming. As far as its similarities to Warcraft, it basically stands on its own as a completely different game. Each team of 5 people chooses a hero and tries to turn the tide of battle across a river. With almost 100 unique heroes and hundreds more items to choose from the depth is no less impressive than the original Warcraft game.
DoTA has basically taken over battle.net like WoW has taken over MMORPGs. It is by far the most popular aspect of the game and offers a kind of RPG/RTS hybrid, a combination that works very nicely. I have played my fair share of dota as well, and I must say it has to be the most popular mod ever created in any game or platform. Thats a strong statement, but i honestly believe it. Part of what makes it so enjoyable is the unlimited possibility of ten humans making decisions at once in the same game. That combined with the strategic complexity of the heroes and items offers crazy replay credentials.

DESIGN

The simple fact that human minds are almost always better than AI helps make DoTA incredibly engaging. The innovative combo of RTS elements with a RPG level and ability system makes this game hard to categorize. Its immense popularity stems from its uniqueness.
Constant exhibition of emergent complexity keeps the game incredibly complex throughout. It also spawns entire social networks and fosters a dedicated community. There are several websites devoted solely to Dota strategy and forums. So this community is constantly trying new strategies as new patches update the details and add new features. This serves to provide a kind of constant reward structure outside of the actual gameplay, as new rewards are constantly being added.
This game is a very good example of what you can do with a good idea for design. Dota borrows all its artwork and mechanics from the actual Warcraft but it is undeniably its own game and stands alone completely. An impressive foresight of Blizzard to include such a powerful Map Editor. This game is especially interesting because it symbolizes a new open source approach to gaming where the the input of the gamer is constantly being considered and addressed. The future of gaming is in mods and Blizzard is smart enough to realize it. Why do the work when the gamers are happy to assist you?

You have a nearly perfect entry; the only thing I would say you lack is showing some actual gaming aspects that happened while you play. While i enjoy your analysis ,which is quite good, you need to analyze what happened in your game a little bit less generally. As a person who has been playing Warcraft 3 until I discovered dota almost two years ago, i feel like it cannot be hard to analyze a game of each and give examples of things that made it enjoyable, or annoying.

Alon Chanukov(grader)