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the time or may enjoy again. Valve announced The International 2014 for Dota 2 this week, so
we thought we'd revisit Paul Dean's piece on the origins of the MOBA genre. This article was
originally published on 16th August 2011, so some facts and figures are now out of date, but it
still tells an interesting back-story and provides a snapshot of the genre's progress at that time,
back when Dota 2 was a barely known quantity.
It's not often that we get to declare that there's a new gaming genre in town. What began as a
hybrid of real-time strategy and role-playing game elements, stitched together by a talented
team of modders, has become a dominant online game type with millions of players. Those
millions are now the target of two of the biggest game developers in the world: Valve and
Blizzard.
This genre includes Heroes of Newerth, Demigod, in-development StarCraft 2 mod Blizzard
DOTA, League of Legends and the forthcoming Dota 2 from the mighty Valve. The latter two will
be facing off at the gamescom convention in Cologne this week: the hugely popular League of
Legends will be showcasing its latest update, Dominion, while Valve will be debuting Dota 2 by
giving away an unprecedented amount of money in a tournament.
How much money? The prize pool is $1.6 million, the largest for any single eSports event ever,
with exactly $1 million of that going to the winning team. That's how big this genre has become.
It may not have looked like much, but Aeon of Strife was where it all began.
But what is it, exactly? Where has it come from and how has all this grown from just one mod?
The jury's still out on whether to call the genre MOBA, for Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, or
DOTA, from Defense of the Ancients, one of its origins - and that may be more than a mere turn
of phrase if Valve's move to trademark the word "Dota" ends up going to the courts.
A video games archaeologist dusting off the genre's genesis would uncover its RTS roots in the
StarCraft map, Aeon of Strife. This was a considerably modified map on which, instead
indulging in the usual base construction and unit command, each player controlled a single,
powerful hero unit. While they still had a base and an army, the AI managed these, spawning
and sending waves of units against a similar, opposing base along three different lanes of
attack. These lanes were dotted with defensive towers, which the heroes and their armies
would have to take down (or defend) before reaching the base proper.
This has caused some to liken the genre to tower defence, but it's a misleading comparison.
Sure, there are towers involved, and you can defend them, but the gameplay is quite different.
In Aeon of Strife, the role of players was neither to micromanage this battle of attrition nor to
build any structures, but instead to carefully nudge the balance of the carnage by being in the
right place at the right time. By supporting their AI units, players could help them destroy enemy
defensive structures and, eventually, the base. The other side's heroes would be doing the
same and often both would clash upon the field of battle.
With the release of Warcraft 3 in 2003, a keen modder known by the handle Eul began
development on a similar map that would support up to 10 players, which he called Defense of
the Ancients (DOTA). This was where the RPG elements were further refined.
The core of the game remained the same - RTS-style point-and-click control of a single hero but now these heroes wielded wildly different abilities, could purchase a variety of different
weapons and would level up and gain even more skills. Killing opposing heroes and AI units
rewarded a player with both experience and cash - and, of course, during the time that
opposing heroes were respawning, their opponents could swing the battle in their favour.
After its release, Eul stopped work on DOTA and other modders stepped in and tried their own
versions. The most successful of these was Steve Feak, better known by his bizarre handle:
Guinsoo.
Guinsoo developed DOTA: Allstars, a kind of greatest hits mixing the best elements of other
DOTA mods and adding his own content. Allstars featured a map dotted with neutral monsters,
boasted many heroes and had an overwhelming array of special items, some of which could be
combined in recipes to create even more powerful artefacts.
Guinsoo was joined by Steve "Pendragon" Mescon. Still a teenager, Pendragon built the forum
that became the backbone of the DOTA community, allowing Allstars players to congregate, to
arrange games and, critically, to provide feedback on the game's tweaks and balancing.
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developed by Riot Games, was very much the spiritual successor to DOTA in both content and
execution - and it also built up an enormous player base.
matchmaking algorithms made sure players were paired with team-mates and opponents of
appropriate skill levels.
As Riot continually tweaked and added new content to its game, LOL sat largely unchallenged
at the head of a genre that was still niche. In 2010, Heroes of Newerth joined what PC Gamer
called this "great, unnoticed community of the PC gaming world" and though its developer S2
Games enjoyed strong sales, Newerth was unable to unseat League of Legends. Nevertheless,
a much bigger rival was just over the horizon.
for StarCraft 2 that's still in production, is its own take on the genre and the mod's heroes will be
lifted from Blizzard's various franchises, "a bit like Super Smash Bros," while a sprinkling of
resource management will be added.
With Dota 2's public unveiling taking place opposite Dominion's, the two are bound to be
compared. It's not yet clear if Dota 2 will be free-to-play, but if it is then it will be in direct
competition with League of Legends. With the Steam platform behind it, as well as Valve's
proven ability in remaking several other mods (such as Counter-Strike and Alien Swarm), Dota
2 is sure to be the first serious rival that LOL will face - and this rivalry could well dictate the
development of this genre.
boast more than just some fancier graphics, particularly if it wants to engage DOTA purists
already happy with what they have.
While gamescom will be a showdown of sorts, it may also represent something of a parting of
the ways, a chance for this new genre to flower and to flourish. Two things are for sure: it will
certainly raise the profile of the genre born from DOTA - and it will make one gaming team very
rich.