DotA- Great game, horrible Players.
I’ve been playing a lot of Defense of the Ancients: Allstars (DotA) lately. It’s a Warcraft 3 mod, and is testament to the strength of the mod tools there, as two entirely new genres (Tower Defense is the other one) have spawned from Warcraft 3 mods. For those who haven’t played it, the best way to describe it is as a massively accelerated MMO. You control one hereo from top down, and you level him up to level 25 and purchase a variety of equipment. There are two sides of heroes, and each side also gets a constant stream of NPC Creeps that head towards the opposing base. The goal is to destroy the opposing base, so success depends on a combination of dealing with Creeps and dealign with other players.
It’s quite an interesting game. Because you have to deal with both other players AND the other side’s creeps, there are a lot of choices for character development. There is also a massive number of unique heroes, 93 as of right now. You may be thinking that it’s nearly impossible to balance that many heroes, and you’d be right, but almost every hero is interesting and fun to play. When you have two even sides, and everyone is working together on a team, it’s an absolutely exhilarating hour or so of gameplay. DotA at it’s best is some of the most fun I’ve had playing games.
The problem is that when you play online, this essentially never happens. I’ve never been as frustrated and disappointed with gamers as when I try to play DotA online with random people. First, in about 90% of games someone will drop out of the game before it’s over. About half of the time it’s due to lag/network issues, and about half of the time it’s someone ragequitting. The people who DON’T leave the game spend most of their time telling you in specific detail why you suck and should end your life. This is from teammates, not the other team. Oh, and 25% of the time, someone joins the game with the explicit purpose of throwing the game and making the opposing team win. Playing DotA online is a total crapshoot in terms of fun and emotional trauma.
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