Published on May 25th, 2013 | by Gaurav Dutta

Why you should be playing DoTA 2 right now

So you are done with Bioshock Infinite, Crysis 3, CoD: Ghost etc and are now without an aim in life. Well, how about I suggest you a game which will probably last till doomsday(it’s one of those rare games) or till Rahul Gandhi stops calling himself a “yuva” (he’s 42 in case you’re wondering).

WELCOME TO Defence Of The Ancients 2 or DoTA2:

Why is it awesome?

It’s completely Free to Play! Yeah, a game by one of the most reputed giants out there, Valve. You don’t need to spend a single penny to enjoy this game.
Some may argue it’s in “Beta” but there are thousands of keys being given out for free. Trust me, it’s very very easy to get one.
The “Beta” tag of the game also ensures that the developers will often implement player suggestions and rollback changes if they are booed down by the players.
Also, F2P means that players who spend $1000 in game and players who spend $0 are on the same level. Still need more convincing? Read on.
What is Dota?

DoTA 2 is the spiritual successor to Dota which was one a mod based on Warcraft 3 created by “Eul”, “IceFrog” and “Guinsoo”. I have no idea about where Eul is but Icefrog went with Valve to head the development of Dota 2 whereas Guinsoo went on to create the infamous League of Legends.
A MOBA styled game, it pits 2 teams of 5 players each against each other. The objective? Simple. Destroy the enemy Ancient, the Ancient being the main building you need to defend as well as destroy in order to win the game.
Players select a hero and join the game after which they need to slowly make their way to the opposing ancient towers with the help of allied creeps which spawn infinitely after a set time interval. As easy as it may sounds, trust me when I say its not.
Ancients are protected by sets of towers which defend the ancient fiercely. Players are able to earn in game gold through last hitting creeps and taking down opposing heroes and towers which they can use to buy items in game to get more powerful and break their oppoenent’s faces.
There are currently 101(at the time of writing this article) heroes released in Dota2 out of 110 heroes in the original Dota.
The game is maintained by micro transactions through cosmetic items exclusive to each hero. These items do not affect gameplay in any way, their only purpose is to make your hero shiny and other players jealous.
There is also a thriving trading system which allows you to trade these cosmetic items between players. The trading market is very very deep and I will go through the details some other day.

Not enough?

If the above points did not convince you yet, well then these should do the trick.
The aforementioned cosmetic items are also created by the players of the game and they earn a 25% of the sale of each item. Sounds too good right?
This assures a steady supply of new items every week in the weekly update.
The trade market also allows you to earn money upto ridiculous amounts of $2000-$3000 through the sale of a single set for a hero. No, I’m not joking.
You will find proffesional traders in the game whose sole purpose is to make money out of trading.

The Competitive Scene of DoTA2:
Dota2 has a very rich competitive scene which sees pro teams go at each other in league matches and tournaments.
The International 3 qualifiers are going on as I write this with a prize pool of $2 million which is steadily increasing.
Did you hear that? The prize pool is powered by players purchasing a “Compendium”. A sort of virtual collection of the tournament information which rewards the players with unique items as the prize pools increases.

Last words:

I was dragged into this beautiful game about a year back and there was no coming back. The game is very deep in terms of mechanics and I’m still learning new tricks everyday, which also means the game never gets old.
If any of you reading this article need a beta key just comment with your steam profile and I will gift you one. I can spare some keys.
so that’s all for a little introduction to this wonderful game.
Cheers!

Tags: dota, eul, guinsoo, icefrog, moba, valve

About the Author

Gaurav Dutta An undead zombie from the future, here to warn the planet about the inevitable future and save the planet. He likes black metal and drinks beer with Satan on weekends.