An Introduction to DotA

Defense of the Ancients, or DotA, isn’t exactly the most popular game in Gotfrag. With the boys fighting over CS and CS:S, there’s very little room to discuss DotA; especially since it’s considered an appendage to its bigger brother, Warcraft III.

In the past 2 years though, DotA has grown significantly on its own – and is now relatively considered a separate game from Warcraft III. What started out as a custom game – a mod – ended up becoming an even bigger game than its source.

More people play DotA right now than Warcraft III. DotA started as a pastime for Battle.net players, to play for fun in between taxing ladder games.

With its fun and high competitive nature, DotA evolved to become what it is today – a game that stands on its own that even non-Warcraft III players know how to play it. Just ask some of the Counter-strike pros – some of them play DotA to relax from scrims!

Despite the immense popularity of DotA, there are still some people who need introduction to the game.

Like friends of friends who play DotA but reluctantly say no – since they’re used to play games such as Halo or CS and are somewhat embarrassed to enter the foray of “real-time strategy”, even though DotA isn’t really one.

Consider this article as DotA for Dummies, written by a non-professional player. I don’t have the credibility of being an über player, but being a newb writer does have its advantages.

I’ll try to keep things as simple as possible – I won’t throw technical jargon that pros usually expect people to know – and I won’t talk trash even if you’re really bad. I can sympathize – I’ve been there, so let’s begin.

The Aim of the Game

DotA is a mod out of Warcraft III, but it has an entirely different gameplay; so if you’ve touched Warcraft III and avoided it ever since, you don’t have to worry – DotA won’t be the same. The object of the game is simple: kill the other player’s main throne and the game is done.

There are two opposing sides – the Sentinel (with a world tree) and the Scourge (with a icy throne).

The World Tree of the Sentinel (left) and the Scourge's Frozen Throne (right). Whichever falls first loses the game.

Each time has usually 5 players each – sometimes people opt to play 4v4 or 2v2, whatever works. Each player controls only one hero for himself. Of course, you use these heroes to kill enemies and hopefully destroy the enemy base.

The Tavern and Game Modes

There are 8 taverns in the map – four in the Sentinel side and four on the Scourge side.

Game hosts usually put the game mode on All Pick – which means that players can choose players from both Sentinel and Scourge taverns. There are about 80 heroes to choose from in the game. Usually, you can choose heroes from both taverns when the game mode is on All Pick (or -ap).

All Pick (-ap) -- Players can choose their heroes from both the Sentinel and the Scourge side.

All Random (-ar) -- Players are randomly assigned a hero from the taverns by the game.

Easy Mode (-em) -- As what the name says, the towers are easier to kill and the game gives out more money. Games on public servers (such as Battle.net usually play -apem (All Pick, Easy Mode) or -arem (All Random, Easy Mode).

If the host does not choose a mode, the game is defaulted to Normal mode -- Sentinel players can only choose on Sentinel Taverns and Scourge side can only pick Scourge heroes.