I first hit upon Defence of the Ancients 2 thanks to the fine fellow that is games writer extraordinaire, Adam Barnes – no relation to rapping sensation, John. We were having a random games chat as us famous, erm… infamous, erm… awesome (that’ll do) games journo types are want to do and he sent me a link to ‘Defence of the Ancients 2’
‘It’s free to play from Valve. You should give it a shot.’ he says.
“I will” says I (becoming a pirate for some reason) “I haven’t dared to give it a shot, myself.” he replied.
Dared to give it a shot? It’s not like Amnesia, is it? That was a scary ass game for those of us with a nervous disposition (AKA fraidy cats). Maybe I should Google DOTA 2 before I give it a go…
Based on a Warcraft III mod…
You control a hero and must destroy the enemy base…
NPC minions…
Three lanes…
It doesn’t sound particularly scary…
Then I found the problem:
“Certainly, there will be people who make it their business to tell you that you suck. I sometimes feel like the hostility of the Dota community is overstated, but there’s no denying that abuse occurs with regularity.”
“You are going to feed. You are going to ruin games, and someone is going to be happy to tell you why. DotA was originally played in Warcraft 3, and they had the most bad mannered, whining, assholes on the gaming internet”
Censored because this is a family website… take my word for it, the guy is a douche…
Ah, so if I play and I’m rubbish, people will hate me? That’s a worry. While I like games, I’m far from professional; I played Starcraft online a couple of times and was dead before I knew what was happening. I umm-ed and ahh-ed about it for a day or two, then figured ‘screw it, what’s the worst that can happen?’
I didn’t see what all the fuss was about; my first couple of games went swimmingly. I chose the Juggernaut and used his magical healing flag thingumy to take out a few towers. Despite not really understanding what I was doing, I was winning, and winning convincingly. Then I met my first ganker and probably cost my team the game, as I was repeatedly and ruthlessly murdered. For the uninitiated, a ganker is a hero that specializes in killing other heroes, often using the element of surprise. The next game, a Bounty Hunter victimised me and I became a total liability to my team. I must have died at least 20 times and we crashed to a brutal defeat. I kept my eyes off the chat window and chalked it down to a learning experience.
This dude is cool, right?
I then played a couple of games where I couldn’t pick my Juggernaut hero, so had to try something different. Without a clue how to use these new heroes, I got my butt kicked. I stayed clear of the gankers, but I offered precious little to help my team.
I took a little time off and fortunately, when I came back, Valve had made a tutorial. Hooray!
After a couple of tutorials, I discovered just how little I actually knew and how lucky I had been to win any games at all.
So, it isn’t dying that lets you get your items, but going back to the shop in the base…
That’s why people buy those couriers…
You only get cash for last hits, you say? I was wondering about that…
Killing your own creeps can be a benefit to your team? You don’t say…
My God, I seriously knew nothing! My team mates must have hated me; I’m surprised that they didn’t find out where I lived and come round to give me a good shoeing…
I have a couple of tutorials left to get through, then I’m going to take a deep breath and get back into disappointing my fellow team members. Wish me luck!
PictoPirate will be back soon to let you know how he got on. If, in the meantime, you’d like to help him learn or give him a beating and laugh, hit him up on Steam (PictoPirate) or drop him an email pictopirate@expansivedlc.com
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