The genre of Dota 2 is MOBA, which can be deciphered as Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. This can be translated as "online multiplayer fighting arena." MOBAs are a distinct genre of games that combine the core principles of role-playing games (RPGs) and real-time strategy games (RTS). The peculiarity of the MOBA genre is that the location is usually a balanced arena in which any team does not have any advantages. And Dota 2 is exactly like that, because it only has one map.

Actually, Dota itself (still the first) is the founder of the MOBA genre; it was after its appearance that developers from different companies began to release analogues. It is not at all surprising that the MOBA genre in general and Dota 2 in particular are very popular. Such games have all the components to be successful:

• Game balance, the one who plays better and has more extensive knowledge wins (this can be applied to the peak of heroes in Dota2);
• A variety of strategies, tactics and game situations. Thanks to this, MOBA games do not get boring;
• Playing as a team is always more interesting than playing solo.

Any game in the MOBA genre has exactly the same basic elements as Dota 2. These are the presence of heroes that can be pumped up, the presence of neutral or allied units that are controlled by the computer (creeps in Dota 2), the lines along which they run, and also a symmetrical and balanced map. Although, there is some controversy regarding the latter, regarding Dota 2, since Roshan is formally located in the territory of the Forces of Darkness.

Also, the vast majority of these games are characterized by the fact that they are free and do not have donations. That is, there is no opportunity to invest real money and gain gaming advantages over your opponent. In fact, this method of monetization is very profitable, but in the case of massive MOBA games, this is abandoned simply because it is more profitable to have tens of millions of players than hundreds of thousands who will donate. After all, the majority play because victory depends on real playing skills, and not on the thickness of the wallet.

If we assume that Dota 2 will introduce the ability to gain a game advantage for real money, then it is quite obvious that a very large part of the audience will move to other games of a similar genre. After all, the key feature of such projects is equal chances of winning and good game balance.

The MOBA genre remains one of the most popular, however, it is worth recognizing that it will be very difficult for new projects to win an audience, since it is already divided between several projects, which, in addition, are also e-sports disciplines with a large number of tournaments, which themselves contribute to the influx of new audiences and retention old.

DotA is a deep and even bottomless game that is addictive. That's why fans of this game spend all their free time on it. The entire Internet is littered with all kinds of guides, tips and advice from Dota masters. But all this information, again, is only for fans. All other players are more interested not in the internal subtleties of the game, but in the story of its phenomenal success. From a simple but unusual modification, it has grown to the title of the most popular eSports discipline in the world. A very unusual case that attracts attention. At a minimum, this should be of interest to developers who want to repeat at least some of this success.

Quite a few historical articles about Dota have already been created in English and Chinese. But Russian-language articles about this can be counted on one hand. The information is very scarce, inaccurate, and looks more like folk legends rather than a collection of historical facts, although not much more than 10 years have passed since the events that took place. Here's what I could find on the Internet about the history of Dota:

1. “Page on Wikipedia.” The story is described in a few lines and contains nothing interesting. (Even initially, I knew more about the game than this, although I was not a fan of it, but only hung around in the circles of WarCraft map creators and watched the success of DotA from the sidelines).

2. “History of Dota. Part 1". The most informative article (there was one before this one appeared). Interestingly, the article was originally written by a Chinese person with the nickname CtChocula, then it was translated into English, and later in 2011 one of the Belarusians translated it into Russian. This article was gradually stolen across all Russian-language Dota fan sites, of which there are already hundreds and thousands.

Let's talk about this article now. The Belarusian’s words were copied exactly, without adding anything of his own, although in the comments many users boasted that they knew much more. At the same time, many people do not display copied images in the article, and no one does anything about it. And in the text right in the title it is written that this is only the first part of the story, but for some reason no one had the desire to find and publish the second part (and there were seven of these parts in total!).

I personally took up this matter. It was very easy to find a copy of this article, but after that it took a long time to find out where the original translation was. As I already said, the original was found on a Belarusian website:

In subsequent copies of the article, careless copy-pastors cut off links to the original source, and in the original translation the link to the English version remained, but... the foreign article on gosugamers.net and playdota.com (playdota.com/forums/329512/dota/) by that time had already deleted. And yet, I managed to find a saved copy of the English-language article on one of the fan Wiki systems:

It turned out that the first part of the article contained the main milestones in the development of the game, and in the next 6 parts only specific championships, best players, leagues, preferred tactics, and minor changes were described. That's why no one translated them. If you are interested in this information, read it in its entirety in the original source.

I made a concentrated extract from the series of these articles, in the author’s translation and with the addition of some facts and clarifications from me personally. The result is the story of the formation of almost an entire genre, rather than a single game. So, let's move on to the article itself, enjoy!

1. Aeon of Strife (Prototype)
dota history of creation

2002. For the game "Starcraft: Brood War", released back in 1999, a fan-made addition was released - the map "Aeon of Strife" (AoS). The author of the modification was a player with the nickname “Aeon64” (according to other information, the nickname “Gunner_4_ever”).

In this map, the standard strategic rules of the game have been changed. In it you only had to control one unit. The map was designed for 8 players - 2 teams of 4 heroes. There were four corridors on the territory, along which ordinary units constantly walked from both sides under computer control. By killing creep units, or rather, delivering the final blow to them, the heroes received minerals for development. To win, it was necessary to kill all 4 enemy hero units or get through the defensive towers and destroy the main headquarters. Later a version was released for a smaller number of players - 2 on 2.

As you can see, the main game mechanics were invented in AoS. But Starcraft did not yet have an extensive system of heroic abilities and level development.

2002, July 3. The legendary game “Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos” from Blizzard Entertanment has been released. Included with the game was a convenient, accessible and very effective map editor “World Editor”. Soon after its release, enthusiasts created the Aeon of Strife map using the Warcraft engine, which allowed heroes to have 4 abilities, carry items, and increase level from 1 to 10. Thanks to the new features, the idea of ​​the map developed significantly. AoS gained first popularity, and many mapmakers began to copy its mechanics. Among Russian players, maps in the AoS genre were usually called “Three Corridors”.

2. DotA by Eul (Title)
dota 2 history

2002, autumn-winter. A user with the nickname Eul created the “Defense of the Ancients” (DotA) map. Translated into Russian - “Defense of the Ancients.” Eul copied the mechanics from AoS, and borrowed a lot of developments from other clones of this map. The initial version had 32 heroes to choose from and 39 items to purchase. But so far this card has not stood out in any way from dozens of others.

2003, July 1. Blizzard Entertanment has released the Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne expansion pack. Plot-wise, 4 new companies, neutral heroes, new textures, units, and items appeared in the game. But the main thing is that the World Editor added new features that were previously blocked for ordinary players: it was possible to change the maximum number of hero levels, transform any ordinary unit into a hero, functions appeared for displaying record tables, and hundreds of smaller changes.

2003, autumn-winter. Eul reworked his map for the new expansion and called it “DotA 2: Thirst for Gamma in TFT”. The ported version of the map was less successful than the original, and Eul soon abandoned development of the map.

Leaving the mapmaking community, Eul made the source code of his map open source. And based on the original Dota, players began to make many of their own versions of this wonderful map. Here are some map names that were more popular than others: “DotA DX Series”, “DotA Unforgiven”, “DotA Outland”.

3. DotA Allstars (Version 0.95)
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2004, February 3. Two mapmakers Meian and Ragn0r put together the best of many mods and called their brainchild “DotA Allstars”. The authors posted a beta version of v0.95, but never brought it to a full release. The most difficult thing turned out to be correcting the balance between heroes that were completely different from each other (by the way, the balance in Dota is still subject to numerous edits and changes).

4. Guinsoo Era (Versions 2.0 – 5.84)
dota 2 who is the creator

2004, March. Another mapmaker, Steve Feak under the nickname Guinsoo, took on the task of polishing the balance of the best Dota collection. He began to actively clean up the mistakes of previous authors. At first, Guinsoo did this to create a more comfortable version for himself and his friends, but he soon got a taste for it and began further developing the card. In a short period of time, DotA has turned from a folk hodgepodge with many gameplay distortions into a full-fledged high-quality project. Versions of the game changed at lightning speed. The first version from Guinsoo was v.2.0. By the end of March, v.3.0d was already released.

It was Guinsoo who created the modern item system in Dota. Already in the initial versions, there were items of various levels and price categories, but players usually made purchases only in the final stages of the game. This was caused by the fact that in Warcraft, heroes have only 6 slots for items, and in order to take more powerful items, they had to lay out and sell the old ones at half price. No one wanted to spend gold on temporary bonuses; everyone immediately saved up for top-end items. Guinsoo solved this problem by introducing a recipe system - stronger items were collected from several weaker ones, and now there was no need to sell them and lose gold.

Another idea of ​​his was constantly appearing runes in the center of the map. This feature gives an advantage to those players who manage to control the entire map. This significantly increased the mobility of players; it was no longer profitable to simply stand on the same line.

But Guinsoo’s main merit is that he understood the Dota genre better than others, skillfully emphasized and developed it. Early versions of AoS and DotA resembled competitions for quickly leveling up heroes. The main emphasis was on destroying creeps, and the battles of heroes and intrigues against each other were only a tool in this struggle for experience. Guinsoo has shifted its focus from PvE to PvP. To do this he:

1) increased the reward for killing enemy heroes (part of the gold of the killed began to go to the one who dealt the final blow),

2) introduced a delay before the revival of heroes depending on the level (death became a very unpleasant event, players began to value their hero more),

3) added sounds and a rating system from the network shooter Unreal Tournament (after this, killing enemy heroes became much more profitable, more fun and more honorable, because every player dreams of hearing titles from Anrial in his honor: First Blood, Tiple Kill, Rampage, Godlike, Unstoppable).

The gameplay has become much sharper, more dangerous and more emotional than in other AoS clones. The map from the “Strategy with RPG elements” genre moved into the “Deathmatch in RPG format” genre. It was this change that determined DotA Allstars to take a leading position in its genre.

2004, April 26. DotA Allstars v.4.0a has been released. In this version, in addition to the usual monsters, a huge boss appeared in the adjacent forests - Roshan. The boss was named after a bowling ball owned by Guinsoo. The idea was taken from online games where team raids took place against particularly dangerous bosses. An attack on Roshan requires the efforts of several players at once; defeating him can bring a powerful artifact, but during an attack on the boss, the entire team finds itself in a vulnerable position, leaving allied towers and exposing their backs to attacks from their opponents.

Guinsoo impressed the gaming community with its efficiency and high quality of the project. On the wave of success, co-authors began to help the talented mapmaker - Neichus, Abdul Ismail “IceFrog”, Steave Mescon “Pendragon”, and lesser-known Syl-la-ble, Zetta, Mortred & About 11. Together they organized the “Team Dota Allstars” clan ( TDA).

The first semi-official DotA forum was formed on 9nid, where players could discuss DotA issues.

2004, October 14. The clan that created TDA now has its own website, DotA-Allstars.com. Pendragon took over the management of the site. Here they began to post new versions of the map, and here the authors began to receive full feedback from players, listening to comments and suggestions. With DotA's growing popularity, the forum has grown to over 1 million visitors every month, 1-10 million page views every day, and a staff of over 100 volunteers.

The development of the game went on as usual. In version 5.74 Tidehunter was added. Version 5.75 introduced Ursa Warrior and Atropos. In version 5.76, Ezalor, Tinker, Ogre Magi, Pudge 2.0 and Sand King were introduced, most of the old heroes were fixed.

2004, November. The final 5.xx version has been released - “DotA Allstars v.5.84c v2”. With this version, Dota received stability. This version was of extreme historical significance, the number of players increased several dozen times. Official competitions began with this version. Even after the release of the 6.xx line, this card remained popular.

Our compatriot also took part in the creation of the legendary map. Russian mapmaker True.Rus added its own fast loading algorithm to the standard map 5.84b, renaming the map to 5.84c, as a result, the map loading time decreased from 3 minutes to 20 seconds. It was this optimized map that began to be used around the world.

Then, in November, the first serious competition took place on the Dota map. The competition was held by the International Gaming Syndicate (IGS). The battle took place between the House of Zed and 4DTA teams.

For training, special versions of Dota began to be released, so-called AI maps, where bots were installed instead of real players.

5. Guinsoo Legacy (Version 6.01)
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2005, February 28. Guinsoo releases the DotA Allstars v.6.01 map and soon announces that this is the final version and he is no longer going to engage in further development of Dota. (According to rumors in the gaming community, Guinsoo was invited to join the staff of World of Warcraft developers). The map was supported by the remaining co-authors - IceFrog and Neichus.

2005, March. After Guinsoo, there were 69 perfectly balanced heroes left. Neichus actively took up expanding the game, adding more and more new playable characters. During the first versions of 6.xx he created: Earthshaker, Tiny, Chen 2.0, Stealth Assassin 2.0, Phantom Lancer, Enchantress, Enigma, Ax, Shadow Fiend, Visage 2.0, Nerubian Weaver, Bloodseeker and Dazzle. In addition, Neichus came up with the idea of ​​​​creating a courier who delivers things to the heroes, thereby saving players from having to return to base.

But with such amazing performance, Neichus forgot about the main component of the game - balance. The players were dissatisfied with the creativity of the new Dota leaders, and continued to use the old version of the map (in March, a professional Dota tournament from World Cyber ​​Games was announced, and it was held using map version 5.84c). Neichus was never able to bring his innovations to fruition; he soon left, leaving only IceFrog at the helm of Dota.

6. IceFrog. First trial and error (Version 6.1x)
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2005, June. Icefrog got everything that Neichus broke in a fit of free creativity. Although IceFrog himself started with serious mistakes. He released DotA Allstars v.6.10, adding his first custom hero - Invoker, who has 31 spells - the most glaring example of imbalance in Dota history. Invoker was not used in official tournaments for a long time, and only much later its power was reduced, and the number of spells was reduced to 10, so that it could be competed on equal terms. But still, IceFrog better understood the principles of the Guinsoo guru, and over time began to correct the mistakes made.

To overcome the popularity of the 5.xx series, IceFrog set a course for improved map support and further expansion of the gaming audience. For this purpose, localized versions of maps began to be released. In June 2005, Dota v.6.12 was released, for the first time it was not only in English, but also in Chinese. As a result, the game's popularity in China has increased greatly.

7. IceFrog comes to the fore (Version 6.2x)
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In version 6.20, Icefrog fixed most of the gameplay bugs, and also replaced the unpopular winter landscape from The Frozen Throne with the old evergreen texture set from version 5.84, which to this day has not undergone drastic changes. A new hero has been added - Prince Arthas from the Warcraft 3 storyline.

2005, October 23. The Clanbase and Electronic Sports League has included Dota in its list of official eSports disciplines.

2005, November. IceFrog releases DotA Allstars map version v.6.27b. Only with the release of this version did Icefrog manage to emerge from the shadow of the 5.xx series, released by Guinsoo a year ago. This version was distinguished by a perfect balance, and the number of its innovations was no longer possible to ignore. Map 6.27b was announced as the official version for use in leagues and championships. One of the first tournaments held on this map was the Singapore World Cyber ​​Games 2005.

In version 6.28, the heroes Witch Doctor and Specter were added, the –cs command was added (monster killing statistics screen), and the loading screen was changed.

Version 6.29 was released with critical errors. Version 6.30 fixed some things, but it was released in a hurry due to the community's great interest in new versions, and therefore also contained bugs. Therefore, players have been using versions 6.27 and 6.28 for a long time.

8. Development of eSports (Version 6.3x)
dota release date

2006, April. DotA Allstars 6.30 has been released. Starting with this version, it became possible to participate in the game as an outside observer. Warcraft 3 maps have a maximum player limit. A total of 12 seats are available to players, 10 of them were originally used for Dota players, the remaining 2 seats were previously blocked, and now they have been turned into spectator seats. This increased the convenience of recording game matches, and brought Dota one step closer to the title of a full-fledged eSports discipline.

2006, May. Version 6.32 has been released. The Chinese version 6.32 was released only in August. This was caused by the fact that the translator Heintje decided to add a small tutorial in the format of questions and answers (FAQ) to the map in order to lower the barrier to entry into the game. The training explained how to properly farm gold, where secret stores are located, and what rules apply to the effects of orbs.

Popular teams and star players

The appearance of the first team with a sponsor. It was the team clan PluG (coL) from North America. Thus, the first “stars” appeared among Dota players. The most famous players were coL.Fear and coL.ezy.

The player coL.Fear was distinguished by a high level of microcontrol and the ability to play equally well for all the many heroes of this game. He quickly rose to the status of a legend; replays of matches with his participation were watched by a huge number of players.

coL.ezy became a very famous farmer and popularized this trend in the game. For a while he was even the best at it, but later lost this title to the player JMC.Merlini. Nowadays, many DotA players strive to perform the last hits on monsters in time in order to get more gold. Previously, almost no one paid attention to this, although this mechanic was basic and was laid down in Aeon of Strife. Replays with the participation of coL.ezy clearly showed what a great advantage competent farming of monsters gives.

Next, the following teams received star status: Fang and Gang (FAG), later changed to Apex; team team ADA (Arrogant DotA Arseholes) – tPD.

Basic tactics and selectable heroes

In version 6.32, the main strategy was the use of abilities that act on an entire area (Area of ​​Effect, AoE), for which many players nicknamed this version “AoE Era”.

All 5 players on the team chose heroes with AoE abilities, or the “four protect one” tactic (4-protect-1) was chosen, when all possible experience and gold was given to one player, and as a result, such a superhero gave an advantage over the other team. Such tactics required great cohesion, and the teams of that era were characterized by high quality teamwork.

The fairly common item “Mekansm” had no limit on quantity, and they could be collected in groups of 6 in the inventory, this allowed the entire team to be constantly treated and to push enemies more actively.

Gradually, the “4-protect-1” tactic became dominant, for example, almost all Chinese players used it. Also at that time, there was a tactic of carrying out ganks (helping a hero from another line to quickly destroy enemy heroes), but it was not particularly popular.

2006, September 10. IceFrog releases DotA Allstars map version v.6.37. Due to the widespread use of AoE effects, their usefulness has been reduced in the new version. In 6.37, the popular basic items “Vanguard” and “Bottle” (an empty bottle that allows you to collect and store runes) appeared for the first time. The standard Tango treatment has become more effective. Destructions of towers, which previously were not rewarded in any way, began to bring 200 gold to each team member. All these small changes greatly changed the tactics of the players. The most popular strategy has become “fast pushing” - supporting your monsters to destroy enemy towers earlier.

2006, September. Dota has become so popular that professional developers have noticed its success. Riot Games studio announced the development of a new game “League of Legends” with game mechanics from DotA. This is how the first potential competing games began to appear. But the game itself came out only 2 years after that.

2006, October. A major championship, the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL), was held in China.

2006, November 6. The MyM PriDe #1 (Prime Defending) tournament was held. It was this event that later significantly increased the popularity of the game as an eSports discipline.

At this tournament, spectators saw for the first time a new tactic of controlling the entire map. Specifically, this was done with the help of the hero Tinker with the Boots of Travel item, which made it possible to perform ganks on all lanes in a timely manner. But after seeing this, players began to look for new ways of such global control, and IceFrog in the following parts added several new heroes tailored specifically for such tactics: Clockwerk Goblin, Ancient Apparition, Gyrocopter.

The Russian team “Say Plz” began a successful ascent to their triumph; after a while they were already competing on equal terms with the star team “coL”.

In version 6.38, the items “Arcane Ring”, “Mjollnir”, “Vladmir's Offering” were added. A flying courier appeared. The hero “Priestess of the Moon” was added.

In version 6.39, the heroes "Geomancer" and "Dazzle" were added.

9. Entering the world stage (Versions 6.4x)
dota competitions

2007, February 7. In the new version v.6.41, the standard game mode All Pick (-AP) has been replaced by League Mode (-LM). On February 28, the Chinese version of the map was released. Now localization delays were minimal.

2007, February 28. The first big Dota tournament was held in Russia - Russian ASUS Winter Open. The Russian team “MaGe” (Magic aGe) received 1st place. 2nd place – “DoTa”, 3rd place – “Say Plz”.

2007, March 7. The MyM PriDe #4 (Prime Defending) tournament was held, in which 137 teams participated. The tournament was memorable for the fact that three Russian teams “Say Plz”, “MaGe”, “SD” were withdrawn from the competition. The official reason given was that the player under the account “HoroN” was listed on all three teams at once. The coach of the champion team “Say Plz” admitted the mistake, but considered the punishment too cruel, and in response accused the organizers of corruption. But in the end, the little-known Russian team “DoTa” still won. After this, both teams and organizers began to be more demanding in their adherence to the rules.

2007, March. DotA Allstars v.6.43 has been released.

2007, April 12. Time after time, the MyM event increased in size. The fifth tournament already attracted 200 teams from all over the world. The ongoing MyM PriDe #5 was called nothing less than “World Cup of the DotA”.

2007, May 8. The famous Russian team “VP” (Virtus Pro) was organized. It included players from the old teams “MaGe” and “DoTa”. They lost their debut ASUS Spring 2007 Tournament to the more experienced team Say Plz, but after that they began to dominate the eSports world. Already in the summer tournament “ASUS Summer 2007” they took 1st place, displacing “Say Plz” from the throne. Two gangers were especially highlighted in the VR team: “ARS-ART” and “Vigoss”. The team became so famous that it began to set the fashion for all other competition sites. It was VR that invented and popularized the “Full Pressure Gank” tactic and the widespread use of the “Blink Dagger” item.

2007, June 8. The MyM organizers gained experience over the five tournaments they held, and eventually reformatted their event into the international league MyM Prime Nations. Only one team from each country could participate in the league. This is how the first real international Dota championship appeared. 18 national teams participated in MYM Prime Nations #1. The Russian team won.

2007, September 29. Asia organized its own big tournament “Asian DotA Championships (ADC)” on the “Garena gaming platform”.

2007, November 4. The next MYM PriDe #8 tournament brought together 400 teams from all over the world. The finalists were teams MYM, VP, KS (Kingsurf) and SK.

2007, December 20. The DotA discipline was added to the large eSports event ESWC 2008.

2008, January 27. The second international tournament MYM Prime Nations #2 brought together 60 national teams. Again, Russian-speaking teams took the prizes. The Russian team took 1st place, the Ukrainian team took 2nd place.

10. First competitive games (Demigod, LoL, HoN)
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2008. The first Dota competitor has been released - the game " Demigod"from the developers "Gas Powered Games", better known for their games in the "Action RPG" genre. Demigod's launch failed, despite a major advertising campaign and the advantages of a full-game format over an expansion pack. DotA's success was due to the fact that it emerged from a ready-made WarCraft 3 fan base. "Demigod" had to develop from scratch, in an empty field. This type of online game requires millions of players to make the game comfortable, and automatic selection will select players of equal strength. The developers couldn’t cope with such a scale, and the game very soon faded, never having had time to blossom to its full potential.

2008, October 7. Another game has been released in a new Dota-like genre - “ League of Legends"(LoL). The game was created by Riot Games under the leadership of Marc Merrill. It is worth noting that Riot Games is not exactly a professional development studio; initially it was a large group of gaming fans.

League of Legends very quickly became a real competitor to DotA in its genre. Having all the advantages of Dota, the new LoL also offered new advantages: 1) an entire game was easier to install, 2) the possibility of automatic updating appeared, 3) the game server began to automatically select participants for parties, while in Dota all this happened manually, 4) a single server made it possible to collect statistics, show player ratings in real time, their effectiveness, successes, achievements, 5) the game became completely free for everyone (“Dota”, although it was free, required the purchase of a licensed copy of “WarCraft 3: TFT” to install it) .

2010. The game has been released Heroes of Newerth"from S2 Games. This game did not gain much popularity, but it also captured a small part of the Dota audience.

2010. At the BlizzCon 2010 gaming exhibition, Blizzard showed an early prototype of its game Blizzard DOTA on the StarCraft II engine. In October 2013 it was renamed " Heroes of the Storm" Alpha testing began in March 2014, and on June 2, 2015, the game became available to all players.

11. Rebirth (DotA 2)
dota 2 when it came out

2010. There was a rift in the team of creators. The returning Guinsoo invited his co-authors to join the development team for the game “League of Legends”. Pendragon agreed, but IceFrog refused and continued supporting the DotA map. Previously, Pendragon regularly maintained the DotA-Allstars.com website, but after this event it closed it. The new official Dota website was PlayDota.com, and the term "Allstars" was dropped from the map name.

With the advent of the first real competitors, serious technical shortcomings were revealed in Dota. What in the new “LoL” happened automatically, and once again did not strain the player, in “Dota” had to be done manually: look for allies, look for suitable opponents, configure the mode through the command line. If any player left, the match did not count according to standard WarCraft rules. The Battle.net server counted players' progress on standard maps, but completely ignored fan additions. It was convenient to play Dota in large gaming clubs and championships, and it became convenient to play LoL on any computer connected to the Internet.

Technically, Dota is outdated, and IceFrog decided to move the game to a new engine, independent of both WorldEditor and Battle.net. Valve took over the role of publisher.

2010, October 13. Valve Software has officially announced the game DotA 2. But a year before that, IceFrog announced that he was going to work together with Valve on a new project.

2011, August. At GamesCom 2011, which took place in Cologne from August 17 to 21, Valve held a trial five-day Dota 2 tournament called “The International.” It was at this competition that the game was first presented to the general public. The prize fund was $1.6 million. 16 strongest teams from Europe and Asia were invited. The Ukrainian team “Natus Vincere” (NaVi) became the champion of “The International 2011”.

2011, November 3. The closed beta test of DotA 2 has begun, involving tens of thousands of ordinary players.

2012, February. A trial took place between Blizzard and Valve over the rights to the DOTA trademark. Oddly enough, the court was won by Valve, which was not directly related to the creation of the brand, and Blizzard retained the right to use the DOTA trademark only in custom modifications.

2012, June 1. Paid decoration items and a premium store for purchasing them have been added to the game. There is an opportunity to buy access to the closed beta version of the game.

2012, August. The International 2012 was held in Seattle from August 26 to September 2, 2012. The prize fund of the tournament was $1.6 million. The champion of The International 2012 was the Chinese team Invictus Gaming.

2013, August. The International 2013 took place from August 3 to August 12, 2013. The tournament prize fund was $2,874,407. At that time, it was the largest prize fund in the history of eSports. The Swedish team Alliance became the champion of The International 2013.

2014, July. The International 2014 was held from July 8 to July 21, 2014. Thanks to the efforts of the community, the prize pool amounted to more than $10.9 million, thereby exceeding last year's record several times. The main part of the tournament took place at the 17,000-seat Key Arena in Seattle. The champion of The International 2014 was the Newbee team from China.

2015, June. A new beta version of “Dota 2: Reborn” has been released, created on the new Source 2 game engine.

2015, August. The International 2015 was held from August 3 to August 8, 2015. The final prize pool consisted of a base fund of $1,600,000 and a percentage of ticket sales of $16,816,970 for a final total of $18,416,970. The main part of the tournament, like last year, took place at the Key Arena in Seattle. The champion of The International 2015 was the Evil Genuises team from the USA.

2015, November. In 2015, a series of The Major tournaments, organized by Valve, started. The first of them took place in November 2015 in Frankfurt.

2016, March. Second tournament of The Major in Shanghai.

2016, June. The third The Major in the city of Manila.

12. Current state of affairs (2016)
which is better dota 2 or lol

Now, under the wing of a large and experienced publisher, the game has been reborn into a completely new, higher-quality project. Now Dota 2 is more convenient, more accessible and more beautiful than its first part. But the ideal time for release was missed; the previously released “League of Legends” had already managed to lure away most of the audience of players who were not familiar with the original Dota.

“Dota 2” is extremely popular in Russia and China, but in other countries the time of its dominance has passed. Now “LoL” occupies 66% of the global market for MOBA games, while the share of “Dota 2” occupies only 14%. In addition, a new, but very dangerous competitor is beginning to step on its heels - “HotS”, which in a couple of years gained 7% of the global market for this genre.

Although, if you look from the other side, everything turned out fair. "League of Legends" was created by Gunsioo, and "DotA 2" was created by his former assistant IceFrog. It is logical that the master's game turned out better than the game of his apprentice.

The increased popularity of DotA 2 in Russia is explained by the fact that Russian cybersportsmen very often took first place in world tournaments for this game. Fans still hear famous Russian teams: “DoTa”, “Say Plz”, “MaGe”, “NaVi”, “VP” (Virtus Pro).

And so far, Dota tournaments (The International) are the largest budget competitions in eSports (table of eSports budgets). “LoL” is gaining popularity among ordinary players, and “DotA 2” continues to attract the most famous e-sportsmen.

Dota 2 is one of the brightest representatives of the MOBA genre, which, although it is inferior in the number of players to the game League of Legends, remains an enduring classic, continuing the spirit of Dota All-Stars, a custom map of Warcraft 3.

MOBA(Multiplayer Online Battle Arena), which literally means "multiplayer online battle arena"- this is the name of the genre of computer games that combine elements of RTS (real-time strategy) and role-playing RPG games.

DotA is considered the ancestor of all MOBA games, which are often called "DotA-like games" or "DotA-like games." The term ARTS (Action Real-time strategy) is also often used.

Gameplay in MOBA games

In MOBA games, players are divided into two teams that are at war with each other. Typically, the number of players on each team is five, and each of them selects and controls one hero from a list of available characters, each with different abilities, and units under his control. As the game progresses, the heroes develop, gain experience and buy enhancing artifacts with the gold they earn for killing opponents and computer-controlled enemies.

Main goal of the game— destroy the enemy’s main structure (in Dota this is Ancient or the Tron).

In its classic form, the map of most MOBA games looks like something like this:

Light lines mean the so-called “lines” along which a simultaneous attack on the enemy base is carried out: top, middle and bottom. Blue circles are towers blocking the path of advance. The orange circle is the enemy’s base, within the boundaries of which are the main buildings that must be destroyed. You can compare the schematic map above with the one below.