In October of last year, Valve announced their second project of 2011 would not be Half Life 2: Episode 3 or Half Life 3 or Just Release Another Half Life Game Already, Goddammit, but DotA 2. Much of the gaming world’s response amounted to a collective, “Wha…who…why would…really?”
I don’t really know that, of course. That was certainly my reaction. I was stunned. Valve doesn’t make real-time strategy games. In fact, they‘ve made nothing but exquisite first person shooters since 1998’s Half Life.
Now, I’m no fool. Valve clearly models a level of competence and dedication to their products far beyond that of even a good developer and publisher. They test their games for both stability and for fun factor, then they test them again, have a meeting, and retest them. I know I sound like a fanboy, but the difference between a “fan” and a “fanboy” is the latter will stick by his or her favorite regardless of the product’s quality. Valve has made nothing but fun, amazing games with a strong support network for almost 15 years now. They have earned my faith and have never, ever let me down. They have repeatedly shamed me for ever doubting any decision they’ve made.
But…DotA 2? Really?
A Simple Plan
The first version of DotA, or Defense of the Ancients, premiered as a Warcraft III scenario designed by someone known only as “Eul” and was further developed by Steve Freak and other members of the community. A person known only as “IceFrog” still updates the game and is currently working with Valve to develop the sequel.
The beauty and fun of DotA rests in its simple premise. All action occurs on a map familiar to anyone who’s dabbled in Warcraft or one of its many clones. Two teams, five heroes per side. Each player controls a hero. Each team seeks to use the three main routes (usually called lanes) to destroy each other’s base. In the way are towers, mindless Creeps spawned and controlled by the game, and enemy heroes. Heroes gain experience and money by wiping out creeps, heroes, and enemy structures. As heroes gain experience, players can choose from a small arrangement of new abilities and augmentations. Players can also spend money on magic items of staggering variety.
And that’s it. There’s no heroes to control, no resources to gather, no building queues. It’s pure PvP action, with all of its highs and lows.
A Wretched Hive…
At its best, DotA was better than any Warcraft game. When I stopped playing, there were at least 40 different heroes available, each with different powers and abilities of varying complexity. In a game, however, your hero will start with only one ability of his eventual three. Only by leveling your character can you unlock the additional two powers as well as increase their power. DotA creates the satisfaction of leveling in an MMO without the endless hours of grinding and divorce proceedings. You kill stuff. You get money and experience. You buy stuff to kill better.
Or…you die. A lot. At its worst, DotA abandons its new players to the Learning Curve Mountaintop to be eaten by cougars. While the mechanics of controlling a hero are simpler, the nuances involve knowing the respective hero’s abilities, when to push, when to fall back, and which items to buy. It would be one of the classic “seconds to learn, a lifetime to master” games if it weren’t for a rude online community and a brutal learning curve.
When a player kills another player, he earns money and experience. Simple and fun. But when a new player or players repeatedly dies to the same player or players, it can sabotage an entire team. This victim “feeds” the enemy through bad play, creating a situation in which the enemy heroes inordinately powerful. Typical DotA teammates on the victim’s team will then flame the newbie. They won’t even bother to be creative, preferring the tried-and-true path of “urghey” and “ura fucking noob.” My first experience with “l33tspeak” was with DotA. That is not meant as a selling point.
While we’re on the topic of why Internet people suck, let’s talk about the hated “leavers.” Leavers abandon their team by disconnecting as soon as the team struggles, making a 5v5 game a 5v4. Or they leave because they can. Or just because. There’s no penalty for the scum that abandon their team, leaving their former teammates to do the best they can while down a man. Worse, once one player leaves, others soon follow, leading to wasted time, hollow victories, and broken mice.
The Key to My Blackened Heart
I probably played about 100 hours of DotA. I was never very good at it though I did benefit from a friend’s tutoring. That was another problem with the game; no tutorial. I was devoured by cougars nearly every time, unless I could find a “newbie only” game. Players without spouses and children probably don’t mind the the omission because they have time to invest into the learning curve. Players like me, those with only twenty or so hours a week to play all games, much less a single one, are food.
So for a DotA game to be supremely fun, it had to meet the following conditions:
- Teams roughly similar in playing skill
- Players don’t leave until the end
- Teammates work together, or at least don’t berate one another
Only rarely did all three apply to any given game, at least in my experience. The question, then, is can Valve fix DotA?
I believe they can. Given their exemplary record, my cynical and jaded heart believes. They promise a tutorial to teach players the basics, things I presume to be “stay behind your creeps” and “stick together.” They will program bots so players can cut their teeth against AI opponents before jumping into the PvP maelstrom. These same bots will replace leavers in-game, and even if they’re only semi-competent, I’ll take it. Valve also promises ranked training matches so “fucking noobs” can play with their own. They even–get this–will develop a coaching system in which a mentor can take a newer player under his wing.
I believe.
Email the author of this post at jasondobry@tap-repeatedly.com.
I’ve been playing Bloodline Champions by Funcom. It’s fun, but the ingame store is a rip-off really and I can’t play PVP matches without playing against NPC’s first, which is rubbish.
I’m looking forward to Valves version, the level of polish should be crazy.
Have you played Heroes of Newerth yet? It pretty much has all the things that were lacking in Dota but sticks to the classics otherwise, unfortunately, including the shitty community and the…cougars
HoN’s like DotA: when it works, it’s awesome. It addresses the leaver issue by tracking them, and players creating games can choose to block those players. It works and the lack of leavers helps the game quite a bit.
It’s also much prettier than DotA, but you’re right, db0, the terrible community and the learning curve are still present. Getting owned in DotA sucks worse than getting owned any other multiplayer game I’ve ever played.
I’m told the best way to learn DotA or HoN is to pick a hero and play him or her exclusively until you master it. The problem, of course, is I get tired of playing the same hero every game.
I’ve never even heard of this Jason but with it being under Valve’s wing now I’m sure I’ll be seeing plenty of it soon enough.
The leaving culture reminds of my time with Battlefield: Bad Company 2 on the PS3. Thanks to DICE not implementing a real-time auto team balancing feature certain games frequently descended into a handful of hopefuls facing off against a team of cowards. Me being a stubborn, stiff upper lip kind of Brit I used to stick around and try to turn the tide single-handedly — and on one occasion I managed to do it somehow — but it usually ended in expletives and hair loss. I’d like to see Valve crush this culture here because it’s just inexcusable.
Despite the fact that I prefer full RTS to DoTA play, I have to admit that I too have faith that Valve can make a good pass at the genre. The company just seems to have the vision and commitment to make quality experiences.
I love the action RTS genre almost as much as I love real-time tactical games (though Steerpike yells at me for using the term). I don’t really care for resource gathering or base building during my RTS experience, preferring instead to focus on the nuances of combat. To each his own.
DICE’s decision to exclude an auto-balance feature has always angered and confused me. It’s just too easy to implement. Yeah, it sucks to be forced to switch sides, but it sucks less than playing a 4v8 scenario. I *suppose* it could be a fun “us vs. the world” scenario, but with normal Internet jacktards, that sort of fun game experience rarely coalesces.
Gregg – you missed out on the whole “anonymous Valve employee slags off IceFrog” debacle then…?
My fear is this will end up more like Team Fort rather than a noob friendly, all inclusive Valve game. Despite owning a copy of TF, I’ve never actually played it because of its steep learning curve and less than friendly player community. Valve makes top notch games, but I hope they learned some lessons from TF on making these co-ops more approachable.
Maybe Dota 2 will be to Valve what Human After All was to Daft Punk. Specifically: proof that they are not robot gods sent from the heavens to teach us how to dance; but mere mortals. Wonderful, splendid, luminescent… but mortal.
I am in the same boat as Armand with respect to Team Fortress. I have owned a copy on Steam for over a year, but never even installed it for the very reasons he mentioned.
I really don’t play on-line games. The only on-line game I’ve ever played with any kind of consistency was Left 4 Dead and I only did that when I could get at least 3 other friend who I knew to play at the same time. And in the few instances I played with strangers, despite the fact that the Left 4 Dead community is supposed to be one of the better on-line communities out there and even that group managed to annoy me after a while.
TF2’s learning curve has gotten steeper over the years. After three years, they’re catering now more to hardcore longtime TF2 players and I think that’s a reasonable approach.
The difference in the curves between DotA and TF2 is quite different, however. While it’s no fun getting crushed in either game, it’s much more possible for a losing team to come back in TF2 that DotA. Also, one or two bad players on a TF2 team doesn’t tank the whole team like it does in DotA. Sure, it hurts a bit, but with 12 players per side, it’s much more manageable.
TF2’s player community has its jacktards like any Internet community, but they’re nowhere near as bad as DotA players.
It sounds as if Valve is indeed heeding the lessons learned from their multiplayer games with their promise of a coaching system and ranked play. Noobs can play noobs, l33ts can play l33ts, and new players can benefit from a mentor.
Like I said, Valve hasn’t let me down yet.
Fabulous literary recount of the company and the game. Kudos, Jason:)