What is Dota 2?

ABOUT DOTA 2

Dota 2 is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game developed and published by Valve Corporation. The game is a sequel to Defense of the Ancients (DotA), which was a community-created mod for Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and its expansion pack, The Frozen Throne. Dota 2 is played in matches between two teams of five players, with each team occupying and defending their own separate base on the map. Each of the ten players independently controls a powerful character, known as a "hero", who all have unique abilities and differing styles of play. During a match, players collect experience points and items for their heroes to successfully defeat the opposing team's heroes in player versus player combat. A team wins by being the first to destroy a large structure located in the opposing team's base, called the "Ancient".

Development of Dota 2 began in 2009 when IceFrog, lead designer of the original Defense of the Ancients mod, was hired by Valve to create a modernized remake in the Source game engine. It was officially released for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux-based personal computers via the digital distribution platform Steam in July 2013, following a Windows-only public beta phase that began two years prior. As the game is fully free-to-play with no heroes needing to be bought or unlocked, revenue is made from microtransactions, specifically loot boxes and a battle pass subscription system called Dota Plus, which all offer non-gameplay altering virtual goods, such as cosmetic hero armor and weapon replacements, in return. The game has also been updated with various other features since release, such as support for virtual reality (VR) and a full transition to the Source 2 engine in 2015.

Despite some criticism going towards its steep learning curve and complexity, Dota 2 was praised for its rewarding gameplay, production quality, and faithfulness to its predecessor, with multiple gaming publications considering it to be one of the greatest video games of all time. Since its release, it has been one of the most played games on Steam, with over a million concurrent players at its peak. The popularity of the game has led to official merchandise for it being produced, including apparel, accessories, and toys, as well as promotional tie-ins to other games and media. The game also allows for the community to create custom game modes, maps, and hero cosmetics, which are uploaded to the Steam Workshop and curated by Valve. A digital collectible card game featuring the characters and setting of Dota 2, called Artifact, was released in November 2018. Developed by Valve as well, the games will have content updates that are created in tandem with each other.

Dota 2 has a widespread and active competitive scene, with teams from across the world playing professionally in various leagues and tournaments. Premium tournaments featuring the game often have prize pools totaling millions of U.S. dollars, the highest of any eSport. The largest of them is known as The International, which is produced annually by Valve and most commonly held at the KeyArena in Seattle. Valve also manages an event format known as the Dota Pro Circuit, which are a series of tournaments held prior to Internationals that award qualification points based on results for getting directly invited to them. For most tournaments, media coverage is done by a selection of on-site staff who provide commentary and analysis for the ongoing matches, similar to traditional sporting events. Broadcasts of professional Dota 2 matches are streamed live over the internet, and sometimes simulcast on television networks, with peak viewership numbers in the millions. The game has also been used in machine learning experiments, with a team of botsknown as the OpenAI Five showing the ability to compete against, and sometimes defeat, professional players.

GAME PLAY

Dota 2 is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game in which two teams of five players compete to collectively destroy a large structure defended by the opposing team known as the "Ancient", whilst defending their own. As in Defense of the Ancients, the game is controlled using standard real-time strategy controls, and is presented on a single mapin a three-dimensional isometric perspective. Ten players each control one of the game's 116 playable characters, known as "heroes", with each having their own design, strengths, and weaknesses. Heroes are divided into two primary roles, known as the "carry" and "support". Carries, which are also called "cores", begin each match as weak and vulnerable, but are able to become more powerful later in the game, thus becoming able to "carry" their team to victory. Supports generally lack abilities that deal heavy damage, instead having ones with more functionality and utility that provide assistance for their carries, such as providing healing and other buffs. Players select their hero during a pre-game drafting phase, where they can also discuss potential strategies and hero matchups with their teammates. Heroes can not be switched mid-game, and once one is selected, they are removed from the drafting pool and become unavailable for all other players.

All heroes have a basic damage-dealing attack, in addition to powerful abilities. Each hero has at least four abilities, all of which are unique, which are the primary method of fighting. Heroes begin each game with an experience level of one, only having access to one of their abilities, but are able to level up and become more powerful during the course of the game, up to a maximum level of 25. Whenever a hero gains an experience level, the player is able to unlock another of their abilities or improve one already learned. The most powerful ability for each hero is known as their "ultimate", which requires them to have an experience level of six in order to use. In order to prevent abilities from being used without consequence, a magic system in the game exists. Activating an ability costs a hero some of their "mana points", which slowly regenerates over time. Using an ability will also cause it to enter a cooldown phase, in which the ability can not be used again until a timer counts down to zero. All heroes have three attributes: strength, intelligence, and agility, which affect health points, mana points, and attack speed, respectively. Each hero has one primary attribute out of the three, which adds to their non-ability basic damage output when increased. Heroes also have an ability augmentation system known as "Talent Trees", which allow players further choices on how to develop their hero If a hero runs out of health points and dies, they are removed from active play until a respawn timer counts down to zero, where they are then respawned in their base.

The two teams—known as the Radiant and Dire—occupy fortified bases in opposite corners of the map, which is divided in half by a crossable river and connected by three paths, which are referred to as "lanes".The lanes are guarded by defensive towers that attack any opposing unit who gets within its line of sight. A small group of weak computer-controlled creatures called "creeps" travel predefined paths along the lanes and attempt to attack any opposing heroes, creeps, and buildings in their way. Creeps periodically spawn throughout the game in groups from two buildings, called the "barracks", that exist in each lane and are located within the team's bases. The map is also permanently covered for both teams in fog of war, which prevents a team from seeing the opposing team's heroes and creeps if they are not directly in sight of themselves or an allied unit. The map also features a day-night cycle, with some hero abilities and other game mechanics being altered depending on the time of the cycle. Also present on the map are "neutral creeps" that are hostile to both teams, and reside in marked locations on the map known as "camps". Camps are located in the area between the lanes known as the "jungle", which both sides of the map have. Neutral creeps do not attack unless provoked, and will respawn over time if killed. The most powerful neutral creep is named "Roshan", who is a unique boss that may be defeated by either team to obtain special items, such as one that allows a one-time resurrection if the hero that holds it is killed. Roshan will respawn around ten minutes after being killed, and becomes progressively harder to kill as the match progresses over time. "Runes", which are special items that spawn in set positions on the map every two minutes, offer heroes various temporary, but powerful power-ups when collected.

In addition to having abilities becoming stronger during the game, players are able to buy items from set locations on the map called shops that provide their own special abilities. Items are not limited to specific heroes, and can be bought by anyone. In order to obtain an item, players must be able to afford it with gold at shops located on the map, which is primarily obtained by killing enemy heroes, destroying enemy structures, and killing creeps, with the latter being an act called "farming". Only the hero that lands the killing blow on a creep obtains gold from it, an act called "last hitting", but all allies receive a share of gold when an enemy hero dies close to them. Players are also able to "deny" allied units and structures by last hitting them, which then prevents their opponents from getting full experience from them. Gold can not be shared between teammates, with each player having their own independent stash. Players also receive a continuous, but small stream of gold over the course of a match. Multiple game types in the game exist, which mainly alter the way hero selection is handled; examples include "All Pick", which offer no restrictions on hero selection, "All Random", which randomly assigns a hero for each player, "Captain's Mode", where a single player on each team selects heroes for their entire team and is primarily used for professional play, and "Turbo", an expedited version of All Pick featuring increased gold and experience gain, weaker towers, and faster respawn times. Matches usually last around 30 minutes or more, although they can theoretically last forever as long as both Ancients remain standing. In Captain's Mode games, an additional "GG" forfeit feature is available to end games early.

Dota 2 also occasionally features limited-time events that present players with alternative game modes that do not follow the game's standard rules. Some of these included the Halloween-themed Diretide event, the Christmas-themed Frostivus event, and the New Bloom Festival, which celebrated the coming of spring.  The move to the Source 2 engine in 2015 also saw the addition of community-created custom game modes, known as the "Arcade", with the more popular ones having dedicated server hosting by Valve. Various games in the Arcade have also been created by Valve themselves, including the Halloween-themed capture point mode "Colosseum", the combat arena mode "Overthrow", and a 10 versus 10 mode. Starting in 2017, Valve began releasing special seasonal gamemodes as a part of each year's International battle pass, such as "Siltbreaker", a story-driven cooperative campaign mode, in 2017, and "The Underhollow", a battle royale mode, in 2018.

DEVELOPMENT

The Dota series began in 2003 with Defense of the Ancients (DotA)—a mod for Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos—created by the pseudonymous designer "Eul". An expansion pack for Warcraft III, titled The Frozen Throne, was released later that year; a series of Defense of the Ancients clone mods for the new game competed for popularity. DotA: Allstarsby Steve Feak was the most successful, and Feak, with his friend Steve Mescon, created the official Defense of the Ancientscommunity website and the holding company DotA-Allstars, LLC. When Feak retired from DotA: Allstars in 2005, a friend, under the pseudonym "IceFrog", became its lead designer. By the late 2000s, Defense of the Ancients became one of the most popular mods in the world, as well as a prominent esports title. IceFrog and Mescon later had a falling out in May 2009, which prompted the former to establish a new community website at playdota.com. Valve's interest in the Defense of the Ancientsproperty began when several veteran employees, including Team Fortress 2 designer Robin Walker and executive Erik Johnson, became fans of the mod and wanted to build a modern sequel.  The company corresponded with IceFrog by email about his long-term plans for the project, and he was subsequently hired to direct a sequel. IceFrog first announced his new position through his blog in October 2009,  with Dota 2 being publicly announced by Game Informer a year later.

Valve adopted the word "Dota", derived from the original mod's acronym, as the name for its newly acquired franchise. Johnson argued that the word referred to a concept, and was not an acronym Shortly after the announcement of Dota 2, Valve filed a trademark claim to the Dota name. At Gamescom2011, company president Gabe Newell explained that the trademark was needed to develop a sequel with the already-identifiable brand. Holding the Dota name to be a community asset, Feak and Mescon filed an opposing trademark for "DOTA" on behalf of DotA-Allstars, LLC (then a subsidiary of Riot Games) in August 2010. Rob Pardo, the executive vice president of Blizzard Entertainment at the time, similarly stated that the DotA name belonged to the mod's community. Blizzard acquired DotA-Allstars, LLC from Riot Games and filed an opposition against Valve in November 2011, citing Blizzard's ownership of both the Warcraft III World Editor and DotA-Allstars, LLC as proper claims to the franchise.  The dispute was settled in May 2012, with Valve retaining commercial franchising rights to the "Dota" intellectual property, while allowing non-commercial use of the name by third-parties. In 2017, Valve's ownership of it was again challenged, after a 2004 internet forum post from Eul was brought to light by a Chinese company known as uCool, who had released a mobile game in 2014 that used characters from the Dota universe. uCool, who was previously involved in a lawsuit with Blizzard in 2015 for similar reasons, along with another Chinese company, Lilith Games, argued that the forum post invalidated any ownership claims of the intellectual property, stating that the Dota property was an open source, collective work that could not be copyrighted by anyone in particular. Judge Charles R. Breyer denied uCool's motion for summary dismissal, but allowed the case to be moved forward to a jury.

An early goal of the Dota 2 team was the adaptation of Defense of the Ancients's aesthetic style for the Source engine. The Radiant and Dire factions replaced the Sentinel and Scourge from the mod, respectively. Character names, abilities, items and map design from the mod were largely retained, with some changes due to trademarks owned by Blizzard. In the first Q&A session regarding Dota 2, IceFrog explained that the game would build upon the mod without making significant changes to its core. Valve contracted major contributors from the Defense of the Ancients community, including Eul and artist Kendrick Lim, to assist with the sequel. Additional contributions from sources outside of Valve were also sought regularly for Dota 2, as to continue Defense of the Ancients's tradition of community-sourced development. One of the composers of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, Jason Hayes, was hired to collaborate with Tim Larkin to write the original score for the game, which was conducted by Timothy Williams and performed and recorded by the Northwest Sinfonia at Bastyr University. Valve had Half-Life series writer Marc Laidlaw, science fiction author Ted Kosmatka, and Steam support employee Kris Katz write new dialog and background lore for the heroes. Notable voice actors for heroes include Nolan North, Dave Fennoy, Jon St. John, Ellen McLain, Fred Tatasciore, Merle Dandridge, Jen Taylor, and John Patrick Lowrie.

The Source engine itself was updated with new features to accommodate Dota 2, such as high-end cloth modeling and improved global lighting. The game features Steamintegration, which provides its social component and cloud storage for personal settings. In November 2013, Valve introduced a coaching system, which allows experienced players to tutor players with special in-game tools. As with previous Valve multiplayer titles, players are able to spectate live matches of Dota 2 played by others, and local area network(LAN) multiplayer support allows for local competitions. Some of these events may be spectated via the purchase of tickets from the "Dota Store", which give players in-game access to matches. Ticket fees are apportioned in part to tournament organizers. The game also features an in-game fantasy sports system, which is modeled after traditional fantasy sports and feature professional Dota 2 players and teams. Players are also able to spectate games in virtual reality (VR) with up to 15 others, which was added in an update in July 2016. The update also added a hero showcase mode, which allows players to see all of the heroes and their cosmetics full-size in virtual reality.

As part of a plan to develop Dota 2 into a social network, Newell announced in April 2012 that the game would be free-to-play, and that community contributions would be a cornerstone feature. Instead, revenue is generated through the "Dota Store", which offers for-purchase cosmetic virtual goods, such as custom armor and weapons for their heroes.  It was also announced that the full roster of heroes would be available at launch for free. Until the game's official release in 2013, players were able to purchase an early access bundle, which included a digital copy of Dota 2 and several cosmetic items. Included as optional downloadable content (DLC), the Dota 2 Workshop Tools are a set of Source 2 software development kit (SDK) tools that allow content creators to create new cosmetics for the heroes themselves, as well as custom game modes, maps, and botscripts. Highly rated cosmetics, through the Steam Workshop, are available in the in-game store if they are accepted by Valve. This model was fashioned after that of Valve's Team Fortress 2, which had earned Workshop designers of cosmetic items of that game over $3.5 million by June 2011.  Newell revealed that the average Steam Workshop contributor for Dota 2 and Team Fortess 2 made approximately $15,000 from their creations in 2013. By 2015, sales of Dota 2 virtual goods had earned Valve over $238 million in revenue, according to the digital game market research group SuperData.  In 2016, Valve introduced the "Custom Game Pass" option for creators of custom game modes, which allows them to be funded by way of microtransactions by adding exclusive features, content, and other changes to their game mode for players who buy it.

Dota 2 includes a seasonal Elo rating-based matchmaking system, which is measured by a numerical value known as "matchmaking rating" (MMR) and separated into different tiers. MMR is updated based on if a player's team won or lost, which will then increase or decrease respectively. The game's servers, known as the "Game Coordinator", attempts to balance both teams based on each player's MMR, with each team having roughly a 50% chance to win in any given game. Ranked game modes with a separately tracked MMR are also available, which primarily differ from unranked games by making MMR publicly visible, as well as requiring the registration of a phone number to their accounts, which help foster a more competitive environment. To ensure that each player's ranking is up to date and accurate, MMR is recalibrated around every six months. Players with the highest possible medal rank are listed by Valve on an online leaderboard, separated into North American, European, Southeast Asian, and Chinese regions The game also includes a report system, which allows players to punish player behavior that intentionally provides a negative experience.  Players who get reported enough or leave a number of games before they have finished, a practice known in-game as "abandoning", are then placed into "low priority" matchmaking, which remains on a player's account until they win a specific number of games, and only groups them with other players who also have the same punishment. Other features include an improved replay system from Defense of the Ancients, in which a completed game can be downloaded in-client and viewed by anyone at a later time, and the "hero builds" feature, which provide integrated guides created by the community that highlight to the player on how to play their hero.

Dota 2 Reborn

In June 2015, Valve announced that the entirety of Dota 2 would be ported over to their Source 2 game engine in an update called Dota 2 Reborn. Reborn was first released to the public as an opt-in beta update that same month, and officially replaced the original client in September 2015, making it the first game to use the engine.  Reborn included a new user interface framework design, ability for custom game modes created by the community, and the full replacement of the original Source engine with Source 2.  Largely attributed to technical difficulties players experienced with the update, the global player base experienced a sharp drop of approximately sixteen percent the month following the release of it. However, after various updates and patches, over a million concurrent players were playing again by the beginning of 2016, with that number being the largest in nearly a year. The move to Source 2 also allowed the use of the Vulkan graphics API, which was released as an optional feature in May 2016, making Dota 2 one of the first games to offer it.

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