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DotA Allstars is a variant of the custom map Defense of the Ancients for Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. It is a team strategy game focused on hero combat. The objective is to destroy the opponents' base using one's own hero along with allied heroes and allied AI-controlled fighters called "creeps". The most recent version is 6.45.

Gameplay

Each player controls a single hero, which is a powerful unit with unique abilities. Players choose one of the eighty-eight heroes available between the two teams, as of version 6.45. DotA allows for a maximum of ten players in a five versus five format and an additional two slots for referees or observers, and games are usually played with even numbers of players on each side. Along with his or her teammates, a player fights alongside one of the two battling computer-controlled powers—the Sentinel and the Scourge, which are thematically represented as good and evil, respectively. Each team has a computer-controlled base on opposing corners of the map. The objective of the game is to breach the other team's defensive base towers and destroy their main structure (World Tree for the Sentinel and The Frozen Throne for the Scourge). The towers act as fortresses and are very important to the game, as they must be destroyed in order to reach the main base.

As Dota Allstars gameplay revolves around the use of individual heroes, it does not require one to focus on resource management and base-building, which is common in traditional Real-time strategy games. Instead, a player's attention is focused on their hero, and their time is devoted to gaining experience by killing weak enemy units, gaining gold by getting the killing blow on these units(called "last-hitting"), and skirmishing with the opposing heroes. The typical resource-gathering of Warcraft III is replaced by a combat-oriented money system. In addition to a small periodic gold income, heroes earn gold by killing creeps, base structures, and enemy heroes. With their gold, players buy items to strengthen their hero and gain additional abilities. Certain items can be combined along with 'recipes' to create more powerful items. Buying items to suit one's hero is an important tactical element of the game.

A typical DotA Allstars game lasts between thirty and ninety minutes, depending on the players' skill, their heroes and the game mode. The variety of game modes available dictate whether people can choose their own hero or be assigned one randomly, or can change the difficulty of the game. Additionally, game modes can be combined, leading to extremely flexible game rules.

Although there are heroes that have an edge over others, the game is designed with balance in mind. Heroes tend to be assigned roles on a team, such as tank (a high-strength hero meant to absorb lots of damage), nuker (a hero with powerful offensive spells), disabler (a hero who excels at incapacitating enemy heroes), or support (a hero who is able to heal his or her teammates and/or improve their effectiveness in battle). However, not all heroes are confined to such strict roles, and many heroes have versatile skills allowing them to perform many functions. Because of these roles, every hero may be effective if played properly, but some may not be suited to a certain game. As such, proper hero selection is important in DotA; a team consisting entirely of high-strength melee heroes will be ineffective against a team with several ranged attackers and disablers, for example.

Recognition and popularity

Blizzard has officially recognized DotA Allstars as its first Spotlight Map entry in the Battle.net Hall of Fame. It was also an independent tournament item at the debut of Blizzard's BlizzCon convention in 2005. Dota Allstars was also featured in the Malaysia and Singapore World Cyber Games 2005, 2006, and the World Cyber Games Asian Championships 2006. DotA is included in the game lineup for the internationally-recognized Cyberathlete Amateur League, and the CyberEvolution league.

As its public profile has increased, so has DotA Allstars' popularity among players around the world, as observed on the Battle.net servers. In addition to competitive play in Asia, Europe, North America, and South America, casual games are played in every Battle.net region. Though the map is developed in North America, players are increasingly joining clans and leagues in other areas, challenging more established North American clans.

DotA has inspired significant fan art. One of the most famous DotA-inspired songs is "Vi sitter i Ventrilo och spelar DotA" by Swedish musician BassHunter. There are many other amateur songs, often in Hip-Hop genre, known and created by players. Fans also created the artwork displayed while the map is loading. DotA has been regarded as one of the fastest growing e-sports.

Development

The development of DotA Allstars has been long and continual, and has resulted in many versions and forks. The heroes and items are updated frequently to ensure balance in the game. The map has been contributed to by many designers, notably including Eul, Guinsoo, and currently, IceFrog. The map's popularity sparked a controversy over who ought to be credited for its fame.

5.xx Series

Bugs in version 5 of Allstars prompted many to offer fixes to Guinsoo but the development of the code was opaque and release schedules were discretionary. As such, the map forked in version 5.84c with Guinsoo releasing version 6.

Guinsoo ended the version 5 series with the creation of DotA Allstars 5.84, which added new heroes and a few bug fixes. Still, several errors and unbalances were overlooked in 5.84 leading to the release of a corrected version immediately, known as 5.84b. A Russian developer named True. Rus developed an unofficial fork named 5.84c and then 5.84d. These did not feature any new functionality or heroes, but he did fix several skills that were functioning improperly due to a recent Battle.net patch and optimized the loading time of the map, reducing it from 6-10 minutes to 30 seconds-2 minutes. You can also deny (kill your own creeps) in order to reduce gold gained by opposing heroes.

6.xx Series

The 6.x series was released on February 28th 2005. Changes including new heroes, new items and a new grassy terrain were released in version 6.0, though the terrain was later changed back to almost match that of the 5.84 series. The original changes in 6.0 were quite drastic at first, causing some players to resist and stick with the 5.84c version.

Shortly after the release of 6.01, Guinsoo devoted his time to World of Warcraft and discontinued development of Allstars. In Guinsoo's absence, IceFrog stepped up along with Neichus. IceFrog is now the main programmer for the map, doing anything from implementation and balancing to debugging. With each consecutive version released by the team in the 6 series, bug fixes, new heroes and additional spells have been introduced.

6.27b onwards

On October 31, 2005, with the new endorsement from Blizzard Entertainment and the opening of a Cyberathlete Amateur League division dedicated to Defense of the Ancients, another era of Allstars began. With the introduction of DotA into league play, there came a new wave of team strategy that evolved out of normal public play. Whereas previously players ran around the map trying to get hero kills to fund the best items, league strategy is based on team synergies which focus around picking heroes with complementary skills.

During each successive CAL season, league strategies have become more and more advanced as new balances have been introduced and tactics have been discovered. In Season 1, the normal strategy was to find a balance flaw such as the item Necronomicon and aggressively exploit it. In Season 2, strategies emphasized mid- and late-game team combinations which required split-second timing and team synchronization. Season 3 saw the introduction of "lane control" as a new factor in DotA strategy.

In contrast to previous seasons' lane combinations which relied on teaming up on individual enemy heroes, and timing, lane control is the technique of establishing dominance of one's lane very early in the game through superior micromanagement and aggressively attacking and subduing the enemy if their hero choice is inadequate. Lane control has taken a dominant role in competitive play, forcing players to abandon many late-game-oriented heroes in favor of those that can satisfactorily hold a lane. However, recent changes to deemphasize experience denial are viewed as the first step along a path to redeem heroes that have been deemed unsuitable for league play and create more focus on last hitting for gold to "farm up" for late game rather than denying experience to the opponent.

Since 6.27, the map used in league matches is usually several versions behind the most current map, giving time for the league version to become considered stable and bug-free.

DotA Allstars AI versions

In the more recent versions of DotA Allstars, AI versions have been released for the official stable maps. Although normally DotA is meant to be played between human players, Cloud_Str has written AI scripts to allow the computer to control heroes. Its purpose is to help human players train and to improve their skills. In addition to providing practice for newer players, the AI maps are useful for testing new item and skill builds.

Bots play adequately, but are not much threat to an experienced player as they are not programmed to use teamwork or complex strategies. Additionally, they are not difficult to kill since they have low awareness of the amount of damage they are likely to receive in the near future. Their item builds and skill builds never vary from game to game, so they cannot adapt to the heroes they fight. Recently, more features have been added to allow players to control the actions of the "bots", namely to defend the base when necessary. To partially compensate for these weaknesses, the AI-controlled heroes gain experience at a much faster rate than human controlled heroes. The most recent versions of the AI provide a better challenge to players as the bots have better tactics and strategies compared to the initial versions. The AI maps are available from GetDota.com.

References

1. ^ DotA-Allstars.com - Frequently Asked Questions, retrieved 2007-02-19
2. ^ Lim, Marco, Hey Now, You're an All-Star..., Starcade: Philstar.com's Official Gaming Site, retrieved 2007-03-01
3. DotA-Allstars.com Hero Database, retrieved 2007-02-19
4. DotA-Allstars.com Items Database, retrieved 2007-03-01
5. Batchelder, Matthew (2006-06-12), DotA Game Modes, retrieved 2007-02-19 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
6. Battle.net Hall of Fame, retrieved 2007-02-19
7. About WCG Asian Championships, 2006-08-05, retrieved 2007-02-19
8. CyberEvolution - Warcraft 3: Defense of the Ancients - Series 1, retrieved 2007-02-19
9. Stanley, Lau (2006-08-27), DOTA Loading Screen Wallpaper, retrieved 2007-02-19 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
10. DotA Allstars 6.36 Change Log

External links

• DotA Allstars official website
• GetDotA.com, the official download site for DotA Allstars
• Battle.net Map Vault Hall of Fame - DotA Allstars entry as the first SpotLight Map
• DotAPortal.com
• DotA Allstars Strategy
• Indo-DotA Indonesian DotA Community

International Leagues

• CAL - Official CAL DotA international league
• MYM - Meet Your Makers international league
• Dota-League - international league

• Articles to be merged from June 2007
• Warcraft custom games