DotA 2

Over the past few weeks, I have regained the enthusiasm for DotA that I once had when I first heard about the game. I remember being an overly eager and curious pest after my brother told me about the new War Craft 3 custom game map. It's been a long time since that day, and I have now forgotten what the original game looked like. As a tradeoff, I now have a great deal of information on its successor, Valve's DotA 2, safely stored in my unreliable memory bank.

The idea of this particular game concept went against most of my personal gaming principles at first. I'm not the kind of person to play competitive multiplayer and I sure as hell didn't like the concept of not being able to hold on to a permanent trophy as a reward for countless hours of gaming. Playing too many MMOs taught me that one ought to be able to show off their roster of high level characters and rare equipment to indicate the amount of dedication that they have put into a particular game.

The reservations that I held on to previously were, to an extent, resolved with the arrival of DotA 2. While technically a free-to-play title, DotA 2 provides its players with the option to personalize their in-game characters through purchasing or earning custom items. Players also gain experience and their levels through the completion of various matches and game modes. The number of victories are also documented in their own DotA 2 profile. These characteristics allow the tracking of performance throughout a player's DotA 2 career. In other words, the game has created mechanisms that allow people like me to show off their accomplishments (or lack thereof).

I don't really know why I became interested in playing this game again. It's a good thing that it has an option to play against computer controlled bots available. This is pretty much the only game mode that I play. I suppose it makes me a wuss, but I don't think I can do very well against other players yet (I suck). And I hate losing.