Defense of the Ancients (DotA)

In middle school and high school I played a real time strategy game called Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and later the expansion pack Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. The game provided a feature that allowed individuals to play custom made games. Around 2005, a custom game was developed called Defense of the Ancients (DotA) that had role-playing features. The map was created with the world editor. There have been many variations of the original concept of the game and it is constantly being updated. Players are divided into two teams of five; the Sentinel and the Scourge. The goal of the game is to destroy the opposing team’s ancient structures at separate corners of the map that are guarded by strong units and heavy defences. Players choose from variety heroes, each with unique and specialized spells and abilities. Certain heroes have tactile advantages over others. Players gain experience points and level their units by fighting mobs, destroying base structures and killing hostile creeps. Players collect gold to purchase items from local merchants to enhance statistics and increase damage. The game revolves around strengthening individual heroes although the game relies heavily on teamwork. DotA has received a lot of attention since its release; it quickly became a feature at various worldwide gaming tournaments including the world renowned Blizzard Entertainment’s BlizzCon. I currently play the Starcraft 2 version of DotA and I look forward to the future release of Defense of the Ancient 2 currently being developed by the commonly known Valve Software (Developers of Counterstrike, Team Fortress and Half-life). The following links are general information and video clips of DotA.

General Information:

http://www.playdota.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients

Videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ4vwU_m3Oc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD_2REs95pY