DOTA2 - Origins, Launch, and the Road to TI3
August 7, 2013 8:26 AM   Subscribe

Valve is in the middle of hosting The International 3, a DOTA2 tournament with the largest E-Sport prize pool in history - over $2.8 million dollars to be given out this weekend. This coincides with the official launch of DOTA2 itself, which saw player activity spike to over 500,000 concurrent users and 5.7 million unique monthly users. The game launched to wide acclaim, scoring an 89 on Metacritic, praised for its deep and rewarding multiplayer action [Gamespot] and "true" free to play model, where all gameplay elements are fully unlocked for everyone. [Destructoid]

Quintin Smith from Rock Paper Scissors says DOTA could never have surfaced from a commercial games development studio - the weird and at times completely counter-intuitive game is a result of natural evolution, and not deliberate design - and may in fact be responsible for this game's surprising longevity. DOTA is a one man mod project started in 2003 by Eul, with leadership passing to Guinsoo in 2004 and then to Icefrog in 2005, who remains the sole developer until today. Icefrog is famously reclusive and does not communicate with the community at all, only emerging to update the game and introduce balance changes - his Wikipedia page is only a few lines long and contains virtually everything the internet knows about him. Even his real name is unknown. In 2011, Valve announced they were collaborating with Icefrog to produce DOTA2, a free to play update of DOTA.

Valve's monetization strategy is also unique among all game companies, being completely community focused. Anyone can create cosmetics for the game, submit them to the in-game Steam Workshop for rating by the community - if it receives enough votes, and follows the extensive in-game art guidelines [PDF], it becomes available in game for purchase by other players, with the original creator receiving a 25% cut of all sales. In Team Fortress 2, another Valve free to play game, content creators have received over 10 million dollars for their contributions, and it's expected that the DOTA2 community will soon eclipse that. Valve has their own in-house artists, of course, but they cannot compete with the talent of the community, with several individuals earning over $100k per year just from item royalties. Individual artists can develop a cult following, for example, Stephanie, a freelance animator from Australia who created several iconic and recognizable item sets in DOTA2 today. Valve's community support doesn't just extend to artists - it provides a mechanism by which tournament organizers can set up their own tournaments and charge viewers to view the tournament, in order to cover costs and provide prizes and logistics for players. Tournaments are watchable from within the in-game client, complete with audio commentary from multiple languages, and the ability to watch the game through any commentator's screen or even from any of the 10 players' perspective, providing an unrivalled level of control for the viewer and cutting bandwidth requirements to a fraction of what it would normally take to view a high definition stream. Players can purchase "Team Pennants" to support the team they are rooting for. Even the International 2013 is partially crowd-funded - sales of the digital Compendium have increased the size of the prize by over 1.2 million dollars.

The Road to TI3

The Group Stages are over, and the competition for the $2.8 million prize money begins in earnest in a few hours. But first, a retrospective of how we got here - notable games in the lead up to the TI3.

The last International, held in 2012, told the story of Chinese domination of the DOTA2 scene. When the dust settled, 4 of the top 5 teams in the world were from China - IG, LGD, TongFu, DK, and EHOME. Na'vi, the 2011 International winner, was the sole Western representation in the top 8. Some were worried that this heralded an era of Chinese and SEA domination of the game, much in the same way that Korea dominates the Starcraft 2 scene.

They were wrong. 2013 saw the emergence of a new threats from the West - in particular, a Swedish team called The Alliance. They flew to China and defeated all the Chinese giants in a clean sweep at the G1 LAN finals, a feat previously thought impossible. Their unorthodox playstyle - running a tri-core lineup (with 3 heroes that get moderate amounts of gold and experience) - contrasted sharply against the Chinese "4 protect 1" playstyle (where they focus all the gold and experience on one hero). The Chinese had shown their hand in 2012, now it was the time for the Swedes to show theirs. The final match between LGD and Alliance was stomp, with LGD never getting any kind of traction at all. [VOD] The Alliance have rapidly become a fan favourite around the world, with a penchant for surprising strategies - taking on a challenge to win a game within 10 minutes [VOD], or daring to run double stealth heroes against EG when they pick Riki and Bounty Hunter [VOD] or coming up with an unstoppable level 1 Roshan strategy against DK. [VOD]

Other teams to watch for - Team DK still have the arguably the best Carry player in the world on their team - Burning. They epitomize the "4 protect 1" strategy, with the entire team working in perfect harmony to maximize the gold and experience gain on Burning. They turned in a stellar performance at the D2SL Semifinals, where Burning managed to farm a full 6 slot inventory by 30 minutes and proceed to immediately end the game against their helpless opponents. [VOD]

Na'vi, the winner of the 2011 International and runner's up in 2012, remain a firm fan favourite because of their extremely aggressive tactics and spectacular plays. They often run unorthodox and risky strategies, like running Pudge mid [VOD] in the 2013 International group stage on Monday against LGD, winning the game in 15 minutes. They ran Windrunner mid against RoxKis in The Defense 4, winning the game in only 12 minutes [VOD]. They recently beat the Alliance at the Starladder Season 6 in a highly anticipated game with relentless aggression, with Dendi on his signature mid Puck. [VOD]. Funnik, their off-laner, is also a fan favourite when he picks Bone Clinkz - one of the only players in the competitive scene to play that hero - as seen when Na'vi beat LGD at the Alienware cup, where Funnik's Bone Clinkz terrorized the entire LGD team. [VOD] And of course, The Play they made in the 2012 International has forever been immortalized in the annals of DOTA2 history.

IG, the winners of the 2012 International, have been in a slump recently - but they managed to take a game off Na'vi in the Alienware Cup when they completely outsmarted Na'vi in the draft stage, forcing Na'vi into a very unfavourable laning position, proving you can win the game before it even starts. [VOD]

The results of the TI3 group stage on Monday continue to tell a similar story with Na'vi (11-3) and Alliance (14-0) topping their respective groups. But as we head into the playoffs - this year's TI3 will be anyone's game to win.

The main event begins in a few hours at noon Seattle time, and will run for the next 5 days until Sunday. Matches are free to watch in the DOTA2 client, or on streaming channels such as the BeyondTheSummit or JoinDOTA.
posted by xdvesper (6 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: ok to re-post tomorrow -- LobsterMitten



 
Shouldn't this go here instead?
posted by daveje at 8:29 AM on August 7, 2013


Hah.. longest double ever.
posted by ReeMonster at 8:33 AM on August 7, 2013


Mod note: After consultation, it seems this is on a different subject than yesterday's, even though yesterday's post does mention this event. Carry on.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 3:35 PM on August 7, 2013


Thanks for reviving this! And great work xdvesper!

So. I hope the Alliance win now, or at least I want to see a same hemisphere final.
posted by bdz at 3:43 PM on August 7, 2013


Oh and don't forget about the Free to Play documentary (trailer), a film from Valve about the pro DOTA2 scene.

They premier it on Saturday after the main event. And hopefully will release it afterwards.
posted by bdz at 3:53 PM on August 7, 2013


Ah, thanks for the undelete, but I'm afraid it might already be too late for this post, being 25 posts down from the top. If only there was a way to bump it back to the top of the front page as well.
posted by xdvesper at 4:52 PM on August 7, 2013


« Older Red Before Bed: Better for Your Head   |   Long live the granny square Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments