Tomfoolery Tuesday - Dota 2 (The Game Sequel Of The Mod)

Hello and welcome to Tomfoolery Tuesday; the day of the week where I talk about a game that is the sequel to the mod that inspired the other game that I hate. (Also, Russians)

If that description sounds confusing... Don't worry. It's intentional. (Teehee) Make sure to read the image captions, they tell a story mostly separate to the blog article.

If you're anything of a gaming veteran, then chances are good that you have probably heard of Dota or it's now rather (in)famous sequel Dota 2. Considering how often I mention League Of Legends, a game which is effectively based on Dota, I thought it only fitting that I do a review of Dota 2 as well.

A rather funny result of the topics I choose to talk about on this blog is that my passing references to my experience playing League of Legends has become almost as common as my references to the sudden impact of my head against my desk. So it makes sense that after my friends dragged me into playing a game of Dota 2 with them, I would have to do a review of it in order to get a fair balance of opinion between the games. (Before you ask, I think they're both good in their own right. There's no choice of "which is better" to be found in this article.)

First and foremost, Dota 2 is the famous Free to Play, Valve made MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) which is sequel to the original Dota which was actually a mod for Warcraft 3 and the first MOBA ever made. (You get all that? No? I don't blame you.)

All set to go with my randomly chosen death knight support champ. (I thought. I should point out that I am really bad at these games.)

Starting out, I should point out that MOBA type games have to met specific terms in order to be classified as such. So if you've played any MOBA in your life, be it League of Legends, Smite, the original Dota, etc, you will likely feel relatively comfortable with the way that Dota 2 works. (This does mean that I'm probably going to be mentioning what I wasn't used to mainly...)

Dota 2 involves 5 champions on each side fighting down 3 lanes of minions, (often referred to as creeps) and towers to ultimately destroy the enemy Ancient (Their base basically.) This is done by earning gold which is used to buy items which improve your chosen champion, and earning experience which improves his abilities, so that you can outperform the enemy and ultimately win. (That's the simple version. There's a lot more strategy to it than that.)

The shop is fairly much like you would expect it to be, except some slight differences in gameplay means that LoL veterans won't be quite at home with Dota 2.

However, what makes Dota 2 notable to me are, as I said, it's differences to League Of Legends. There are a multitude of gameplay changes firstly. Things like a special defensive buff for structures that can be activated every five minutes, (I had no idea what it did the first time I clicked it.), a day/night cycle, the ability to pause, requiring portal scrolls to teleport to your base, the availability of couriers to bring items you buy to you instead of fetching them from base, and even the fact that there are actually multiple shops throughout the map rather than just the one at your base. These things all through me off quite badly the first time I played Dota 2, but I found that by my second match, I understood how things worked enough to not be utterly terrible. (For those of you who haven't played a MOBA before, this paragraph probably made no sense to you. I fear only playing the game will help with that.)

However, it is not just the inherent differences in gameplay that make Dota 2 and interesting and discernibly different counterpart to League of Legends, but the way that Steam and Valve run it which truly changes the experience.

"Heh. This doesn't look so hard." I thought for the first and last time...

Firstly, while League of Legends has a large selection of champions of which a selection is made free to play every week; Dota 2 bars absolutely no content in any way, except for the cosmetic items which it uses, like League of Legends, to make it's money in a way that does not affect the experience of the users. While I can't say either system doesn't have it's pro's or con's, I'm most likely simply enjoying the refreshing differences after so many years playing League Of Legends.

Dota 2 does also offer a fair deal more choice in terms of how you want to play it. While there is not exactly a wide range of maps, (a common issue in all MOBA's), there are a fair deal of customization options for how you play that I had not expected. Options ranging from captains picking for their teams to building a champion from a pool of abilities are not exactly standard, and had me fairly surprised when I found them. Considering that Dota 2 boasts Steam Workshop modability while League of Legends bans anything more than client side aesthetic changes, it clear to see which has the greater choice in gameplay options.

Not to say that League of Legends was stale to any degree, their bi-weekly updates ensured frequent changes and a necessity to adaptation that Dota 2 avoids by not releasing new champions constantly. Both again have their pro's and con's.

I happened to be first blood in this match...

In terms of performance on my frankencomputer with it's dual core Amd Athlon and Nvidia 6800, Dota 2 is a clear winner in terms of not freezing and maintaining a fairly constant Framerate unlike League of Legends which freezes frequently and dependably. (I cannot buy an item in LoL without the additional cost of 5 seconds for my computer to come out of it's coma.) Both have a fair deal of graphical options to choose from, though my obvious default setting is to just put everything down to the minimum and cross my fingers.

Which brings us finally to the subject which was pretty much the entirety of my League of Legends review. The community. Unfortunately, a side-affect of being a South African is that I cannot speak with much authority on the subject, and can only pass on what I know through secondhand knowledge.

Firstly, Dota 2 is interwoven with the Steam community features, and makes playing with friends and teammates quite easy and painless. It also allows for the creation of ranked teams and even the in-game browsing of championship and league games. Mostly what you would expect, but very easy to use.

The reason I cannot so much comment of other players behavior however is due to my inability to connect to any of them. I sat in queue for 30 minutes, and the one time I found a match, I was busy making something to drink and got promptly kicked from the queue. I didn't bother to try again. However, if the steam reviews article by Kotaku is to be believed, the Dota 2 community is as toxic as the League Of Legends community. The game is also very good in their opinion... but then again, so is the word "cyka" if those steam reviews are to be believed. (There were also references to Russian Learning Simulator 2014 and a loss of dignity. What on earth are they talking about I wonder? Teehee. You should definitely read that article.)

I was also second blood...

In any case, in the end, Dota 2 is a good game, and has yet to have the fun of it brutally stripped away from it by the competitiveness of it's community. It's differences are still interesting while it's familiarity dispels the brutal difficulty that learning a new competitive game usually has. I will probably play it some more in the future and will perhaps comment on the community in the future if you guys are interested. If you are, or just want to tell me about something else I should have spoken about, be sure to let me know in the comments below or over Facebook or Twitter. Also, if you have any friends looking for something new to play or wondering what Dota 2 is like, be sure to share this review with them. I'm sure they will appreciate it. And of course, if you would like to keep up to date with all the latest articles and upcoming changes to the blog, be sure to like my Facebook page and/or follow me on Twitter so that you can get them, as they're made.
Regardless of what you do however, I thank you for taking the time to read this review; hope that you have/had an absolutely FANTASTIC day, and I will speak again tomorrow.

Proshchay moi druz'ya.

As usual, there are additional screenshots below that I couldn't quite fit into the post. Their captions tell a story separate to that of the review, so be sure to peruse them at your leisure.

And *cough*... third blood

I got pretty good at running by this point. Dota 2 champions are far squishier than LoL champions, and things hit harder to boot.

Thankfully, I figured out how not to die after this point...

Aesthetically, I quite like Dota 2's preference for realism over the slightly cartoony LoL artstyle.

Not really an issue, but I'd never realized quite how flat the LoL maps were until I played Dota 2.

At this point, I almost felt proud of myself for eventually getting strong enough to squash bots.

There are a few more elements to the base that League of Legends has, but the overall impact on gameplay in comparison is negligible.

I would feel proud if I hadn't been playing with bots on Easy difficulty.

If the goal was to be the lowest leveled character on the team by the end of the match... I won.

A decent selection of champions, immediately available for use no matter what.

A fair selection of items grants a fair deal of versatility to your champion builds.

Integrated character builds and steam guides. At least they're easier to find and manage than in League Of Legends. Not that I'm likely to ever use either.

Of course. A valve game without hats would be blasphemy. Dota 2 goes one step further with hats, horses, clothes, weapons, names, etc. A steam card traders dream.

Steam Workshop integration means that people can change things up if they like... Last I checked somebody was making a League of Legends mod for Dota 2 *facedesk*

As you would expect, there's a fair deal of competitive play involved in Dota 2.

While I do like the way that Dota 2 works in terms of matches and playing the game. I fear there's a distinct problem for South African Gamers.

After waiting patiently 25 minutes in the South African queue for a match, I went away for 2 minutes to wring out a kidney and get a drink, only to come back to this. Suffice to say my patience promptly flew out the window.