DotA 2 - Valve's up and coming hat simulator

[Bayar]

As far as I can tell, living in a college dorm, the only person who really cared much about "real" PC games, CounterStrike, DotA, SCII, etc, was me and a guy who grew up in Malaysia (I grew up in Asia too, what a surprise).

edit: Though I do admit that I knew 2 guys that were insane about Japanese Arcade games. But the rest? Its all about Halo: Reach!



I suppose this is true. In fact, its one of the worst things about America, if you ask me. Most of my favorite memories my high school years were Friday afternoons when me and my friends would play DotA and CounterStrike for 2-4 hours straight. Then we'd spend another 30 minutes/hour just hanging out, smoking and talking. So much fun.

What do you do here in the US? You play in your room, alone, online, maybe with Vent/Mumble/Teamspeak. Its fun, but its not the same.

Well, Mumble/vent/TS is preety good when most internet cafe's are ridiculously overpriced, full of chain smokers and FIFA enthusiasts. And people playing GTA with cheats only to kill as many pedestrians without even finishing the first mission. But yeah, in high school, all computers in the laboratories had either CS or War3.

[Grif]

As far as I can tell, living in a college dorm, the only person who really cared much about "real" PC games, CounterStrike, DotA, SCII, etc, was me and a guy who grew up in Malaysia (I grew up in Asia too, what a surprise).

Oh? A Malaysian? Heh, our cybercafes here exclusively cater to the DotA population over here. It's no surprise it's also massively popular over here, akin to a game of it's own. (To the extent Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne is virtually unknown. They refer to it as DotA instead. It makes me cringe when they refer to Jaina Proudmoore as CM.)

[Meta]

As far as gaming went at my university:

Only about 6 people I've known to play DotA. PC gaming might increase a bit if you expand to other games.
More than a few dozen, less than a hundred play D&D.
Hundreds play on consoles.

Which is fine by me. Anyone who came over could play some castle crashers or mario kart, and feel at a home with a controller. We've had a few groups (I think there are three currently) of D&D spring up. We just hit epic tier (epicly!) at the end of last year, so we should finish up this final year I hope. Finally, I've never met someone in person as good as I at DotA, which my friends will freely admit, so if I want a less than serious game, I can fool around with them, but if I'm looking for more competitive matches, I go online.

Given the relative competitiveness of each of these games, it all breaks up pretty well.

EDIT: About 1500 people live on campus, I believe.

[Tazar]

What do you do here in the US? You play in your room, alone, online, maybe with Vent/Mumble/Teamspeak. Its fun, but its not the same.

Hey, speak for yourself! I LAN DotA, L4D and TF2 with friends all the time.

[toasty]

Well, Mumble/vent/TS is preety good when most internet cafe's are ridiculously overpriced, full of chain smokers and FIFA enthusiasts. And people playing GTA with cheats only to kill as many pedestrians without even finishing the first mission. But yeah, in high school, all computers in the laboratories had either CS or War3.

A) 70% of the male population of Bangladesh (where I lived) smoke. However, it seems to me, an equal number of people (and a LOT more girls) smoke on my college campus. >_>

B) Cafes in Dhaka were damn cheap. It cost 100tk (about $1.5) to play a single round of bowing per person. It cost 30tk (<$.50) to play an hour on a computer. Yes, there were those guys that played GTA with cheats, and when WCG came around we got an influx of FIFA players, but 80% of the people in there (the regulars) played competitive DotA/CS/Modern Warfare. Some of those guys, I swear they lived in the cafe, and they were damn good at DotA. Never forget the game where we're losing and my friend is like, "we should just surrender," and I'm like, "nah, look at Proudmore, he has 300 CS." He ended up buying pretty much every damage item in the game and carried us to victory.

[Tazar]

I do envy you guys those LAN cafes; they seem like very fun places to be.

Here's hoping the legitimization of games such as Starcraft as E-sports leads to a rise in such locations in the US, although I think it may not be likely.

[toasty]

I do envy you guys those LAN cafes; they seem like very fun places to be.

Here's hoping the legitimization of games such as Starcraft as E-sports leads to a rise in such locations in the US, although I think it may not be likely.

It's unlikely because internet is so common place. In Dhaka one of my friends didn't even have internet at his house. I had internet, but playing a game like League of Legends on the Ameican server meant 300 ping if no one else was on, 400+ (LOTS OF LAG) if someone was skyping or watching a youtube. We had good internet, but the standards of that country.

[Grif]

I do envy you guys those LAN cafes; they seem like very fun places to be.

Here's hoping the legitimization of games such as Starcraft as E-sports leads to a rise in such locations in the US, although I think it may not be likely.

Not quite. Over here at least, at least half of the players in LAN cafes are wannabe hooligans of some sort. There have been fights over the damn game. Not a very pleasant place to be sometimes.

[Keld Denar]

How good do you think DotA2 will be about stopping Maphackers? Thats one of the reasons I stopped playing on Garena. Every game had 3-5 BLATENT map hackers, and probably 1-2 more subtle ones. Maphacking is so lame...

Also, anyone got a vent channel for some "Vi sitar har i venten och spelar lite dota"? WHEN I get my Beta key, I'll play with you guys. I'm no pro, but I'm FAR from a noob (I can deny, block, harass, gank, etc, just not so good at the metagame).

[toasty]

Not quite. Over here at least, at least half of the players in LAN cafes are wannabe hooligans of some sort. There have been fights over the damn game. Not a very pleasant place to be sometimes.

I think we kicked most of those people out of our cafe.

How good do you think DotA2 will be about stopping Maphackers? Thats one of the reasons I stopped playing on Garena. Every game had 3-5 BLATENT map hackers, and probably 1-2 more subtle ones. Maphacking is so lame...

Also, anyone got a vent channel for some "Vi sitar har i venten och spelar lite dota"? WHEN I get my Beta key, I'll play with you guys. I'm no pro, but I'm FAR from a noob (I can deny, block, harass, gank, etc, just not so good at the metagame).

I'm assuming that the GITP LoL MUMBLE Server will add something for DotA. If it doesn't, we can play there anyways.

[Meta]

How good do you think DotA2 will be about stopping Maphackers? Thats one of the reasons I stopped playing on Garena. Every game had 3-5 BLATENT map hackers, and probably 1-2 more subtle ones. Maphacking is so lame...

Also, anyone got a vent channel for some "Vi sitar har i venten och spelar lite dota"? WHEN I get my Beta key, I'll play with you guys. I'm no pro, but I'm FAR from a noob (I can deny, block, harass, gank, etc, just not so good at the metagame).

I think it is going to be more challenging to hack dota 2 than it is wc3. I don't have any evidence aside from that most of the sneaky hacks are known to icefrog et al. at this point, and valve should be able to build a better system than wc3's. Especially if they're using some sort of competitive ladder. That's pretty pointless if you don't crack down hard on hacking.

A couple different clans I frequent have vent channels. Any chance you'd mind playing DotA on USEAST for a night? We mostly play scrims or inhouses; how's your familiarity with roaming and tri-lanes? Ward spots? If low, we can always run through some pub games first. I should be on later tonight, around 9 PM forum time if you wanna play.

EDIT: On the subject of internet cafes in America: A friend had this on his FB. Could be a step in that direction. Now if somewhere only showed competitive frisbee, I'd be gold...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...736084234.html

[Bayar]

A) 70% of the male population of Bangladesh (where I lived) smoke. However, it seems to me, an equal number of people (and a LOT more girls) smoke on my college campus. >_>

B) Cafes in Dhaka were damn cheap. It cost 100tk (about $1.5) to play a single round of bowing per person. It cost 30tk (<$.50) to play an hour on a computer. Yes, there were those guys that played GTA with cheats, and when WCG came around we got an influx of FIFA players, but 80% of the people in there (the regulars) played competitive DotA/CS/Modern Warfare. Some of those guys, I swear they lived in the cafe, and they were damn good at DotA. Never forget the game where we're losing and my friend is like, "we should just surrender," and I'm like, "nah, look at Proudmore, he has 300 CS." He ended up buying pretty much every damage item in the game and carried us to victory.

I don't mind smoking. I mind when there's so much smoke, even your underwear will stink of it, so thick you can cut it with a knife. And it costs about 2 $ to use the computer for 1 hour at our IC. About 6 $ to rent a bowling lane for 1 hour. At that prices, we are better off using Hamachi, Garena or even setting up a neighborhood LAN server (had one for about 3 years, until everybody could afford their own broadband connection).

[toasty]

I don't mind smoking. I mind when there's so much smoke, even your underwear will stink of it, so thick you can cut it with a knife. And it costs about 2 $ to use the computer for 1 hour at our IC. About 6 $ to rent a bowling lane for 1 hour. At that prices, we are better off using Hamachi, Garena or even setting up a neighborhood LAN server (had one for about 3 years, until everybody could afford their own broadband connection).

Oh, yeah, well they don't let people smoke inside the cafe... that's dumb.

Edit: 2 bucks an hour is a really good price. ITs worth the experience, IMO.

[LansXero]

I do envy you guys those LAN cafes; they seem like very fun places to be.

While Im the first to criticize the standard LAN-goer of my south-american countries (unwashed ignorants and half-addicted kids), LAN gaming vs online adversaries is an amazing experience, if shared with the right people (as in, friends). Even in-LAN fights are much better than whatever you can get from online only. The trash-talking, yelling, excitement, etc. is much greater and you get a degree of accountability from the guy being right there. WoW raiding is one of the things I can only bear with due to LAN gaming, and it goes from mind-numbing tedious to lots of a fun just by that change. SO yeah, envy away xD.

[Tazar]

Oh, I do know the joys of LAN gaming, I do it with my friends often. We just don't have those cafe places.

[Bayar]

Oh, yeah, well they don't let people smoke inside the cafe... that's dumb.

Edit: 2 bucks an hour is a really good price. ITs worth the experience, IMO.

An average romanian earns 200 $ a month. It's not really expensive, but considering the alternative of being at home without the "complications", it's less appealing to go to an IC, especially nowadays.

[LansXero]

Oh, I do know the joys of LAN gaming, I do it with my friends often. We just don't have those cafe places.

Well, the thing is, LAN at a house around here is exceedingly rare, so maybe thats why we all (even though we each have our own broadband lines and computers) still attend cafes as a group. And so do other groups. With whom we can play and challenge them and stuff. House gaming with friends is like playing baseball on your backyard; all going to a Cafe to "pwn some n00bz" or whatever is like taking your backyard team into the local little league.

[Keld Denar]

A couple different clans I frequent have vent channels. Any chance you'd mind playing DotA on USEAST for a night? We mostly play scrims or inhouses; how's your familiarity with roaming and tri-lanes? Ward spots? If low, we can always run through some pub games first. I should be on later tonight, around 9 PM forum time if you wanna play.

The issue with that is that I don't have my TFT CD anymore. Well, I still have the jewel case with the CD keys on it, but I can't install without the disc. I lost the files somewhere when I was juggling programs when I upgraded to Windows 7. So I can't really install TFT, and DotA doesn't run with just RoC installed.

So...yea...

[toasty]

The issue with that is that I don't have my TFT CD anymore. Well, I still have the jewel case with the CD keys on it, but I can't install without the disc. I lost the files somewhere when I was juggling programs when I upgraded to Windows 7. So I can't really install TFT, and DotA doesn't run with just RoC installed.

So...yea...

There are less than legal means that cannot be discussed on these boards that will accomplish what you desire.

[Winterwind]

The issue with that is that I don't have my TFT CD anymore. Well, I still have the jewel case with the CD keys on it, but I can't install without the disc. I lost the files somewhere when I was juggling programs when I upgraded to Windows 7. So I can't really install TFT, and DotA doesn't run with just RoC installed.

So...yea...

I'm pretty sure that if you have the CD key, you can download the full content of the CD for free from the Blizzard website. No need for any illegal means.

[Keld Denar]

I'm pretty sure that if you have the CD key, you can download the full content of the CD for free from the Blizzard website. No need for any illegal means.

Do you have a link to this? That would be awesome!

[Winterwind]

Do you have a link to this? That would be awesome!

Go here.

Create a BattleNet account, if you don't already have one, and log in.

At the bottom, under ACCOUNT, there is a list of options including "Add Game". Click on that.

Enter the CD-Key in the window that opens then.

You should now have a "Download Client" option. Click it.

[Meta]

Just finished up a scrim, and gonna pub with some friends if anyone wants to jump on east.

[Tazar]

I'd be up for a regular pub group or something, don't think I'm quite inhouse/scrim material though. I plan to play with an eye to improving competitively once DotA2 comes out, but right now I mostly just pub with friends.

[toasty]

I might be interested in playing this weekend (Saturday night?) I haven't played DotA since Christmas, but I played LoL everyday. Before I quit DotA for LoL I basically only played Death Knight and Shadow Shaman, but I'd be open to playing new support/tank heroes (I've always been a support/tank player).

[Tazar]

I mostly do support as well (albeit probably badly, as I'm quite rusty.) Preferred heroes are Windruner, CM, and Harbinger (the only carry I really play), although I'm trying to pick up a good variety as I figure that'll be necessary if I want to ever get any higher than pub level.

Thinking of trying to learn Lina (nukes are fun), Magus, and Broodmother and Brewmaster (for something different) as well.

I am gonna miss Empath from HoN (the only thing I'll really miss about that game), she was a lot of fun.

[Volatar]

I'm assuming that the GITP LoL MUMBLE Server will add something for DotA. If it doesn't, we can play there anyways.

All games are welcome on the GitP Mumble server. When the DotA2 beta comes out poke Djinn and he will create some channels for the game for you guys. Just keep the rage down

[Inhuman Bot]

I mostly do support as well (albeit probably badly, as I'm quite rusty.) Preferred heroes are Windruner, CM, and Harbinger (the only carry I really play), although I'm trying to pick up a good variety as I figure that'll be necessary if I want to ever get any higher than pub level.

Thinking of trying to learn Lina (nukes are fun), Magus, and Broodmother and Brewmaster (for something different) as well.

I am gonna miss Empath from HoN (the only thing I'll really miss about that game), she was a lot of fun.

I'm really going to miss Rampage. There was something fun about screaming that SOL'S POWER FLOWS THROUGH ME and dragging a guy to his horrific death as you stampede onto another dude on the other half of the map.

I'll miss the personality of HoN's animations and character models, too. That, and I really doubt you'll see something like Captain Flint/Phantom Defiler/Mermaidon availabe with ingame currency in DotA 2.

Spiritbreaker sucks.

I might be interested in playing this weekend (Saturday night?) I haven't played DotA since Christmas, but I played LoL everyday. Before I quit DotA for LoL I basically only played Death Knight and Shadow Shaman, but I'd be open to playing new support/tank heroes (I've always been a support/tank player).

Try Guardian Wisp.

[Meta]

Wisp is a good one, but I think Tidehunter would be a better one to move to next. He's less skill dependent than wisp, naturally tankier, more effective in team fights, needs little farm to be effective, and not banned in -cm mode (a lot of what's played in scrims/Ihs)

OD sees some play depending on the opposing teams lineup. Unfortunately, support heavy disable lineups are the current mode. Which means BKB is all the rage, which is very bad for poor OD. The other two are great heroes to have skill with, especially WR.

I'd also suggest looking into Lich. He usually lanes where WR does (long lane solo) and is really easy to maintain lane advantage with.

I won't be on tonight or saturday afternoon/evening, but any other time this weekend I should be good to play (barring spontaneous plans, more east coast earthquakes, etc.) I'm cool inhousing or scrimming with anyone if they have experience or just doing a little teaching and playing some pubs if not.

EDIT: mixed some of the quotes up, so that advice is a little misdirected. oops.

[Tazar]

Thanks for the advice! I'll take a look into Lich as well; I played Plague Rider a bit in HoN, and I don't recall him being particularly difficult, so he shouldn't be too hard to pick up.