An Aside on a game

DoTA. Ever heard the term? Warcraft 3, at least? Well, i'm sure you will have if you're active in any way in the gaming scene.

A little history. Warcraft III is a Real Time Strategy PC game based in a fantasy setting, with the prerequisite orcs, dwarves, elves and humans. When it first came out, there was the usual craze of micromanagement fanboys who migrated from the original Starcraft to Blizzard's next best thing, the first fully 3D game from Blizzard if i remember correctly. Well, to make a long story short, i did pick up this game for awhile, finished the campaigns and quickly got bored of it, cause winning just boiled down to micromanagement instead of true strategy. Who levelled up his hero fastest, wins. No contest. It was true with the expansion as well, so its been sitting in the box collecting dust.

Fast forward several years later, 2005. By this time, a crapload of mods (for the uninformed, "mods" is short for modification, and are custom content created by the users themselves and put into the game. Modding is currently exclusive to PC games only since computers are potential code/art asset development platforms unto themselves) for the game have already sprung up, and some already well into their advanced stages.

One of those mods has caught on in cybercafes in PJ, an evolution of one of the original Warcraft multiplayer modifications called Dawn of The Ancients, or DoTA for short. Since the whole game is basically centred on the hero characters, the creators took one step further and made the game into an RPG hybrid, allowing the player to control only a hero character to gain levels, abilities etc.

The heavily modded version of this concept completely changed the game. Now, the typical DoTA game consists of 2 sides: the Undead Scourge and the Sentinels. Each side has their own set of unique hero types to choose from, with their own playing style, stats and range of abilities from specialised anti-hero, anti-building, stealth, melee, ranged etc characters.

The map itself is square, with 3 paths in all that connects the opposing sides: the top and bottom which runs along the sides of the map, and one directly through the middle. The middle path is naturally the fastest route, but also the hardest to break through. Each path has two towers along regular intervals on each side, to prevent rushing tactics (rushing is simply gathering your forces and attacking quickly).
Another major aspect of the game is the normal attack units that automatically spawn at regular intervals (otherwise known as cannon-fodder or "creeps" in Warcraft III slang), which run along all 3 paths at the same time and attack any enemies they come across.
Its up to the hero to tip the scales of the evenly matched creep forces, and attack the enemy base with their assistance. They are important to "level up" a hero character since they give experience to gain levels, and also money to buy items (more on this later). Add an opposing force with an enemy hero, and its all up to the player's skill in using their avatar's abilities to pull out a victory or defeat from a situation.

Another factor that can tip the scales in a hero's favour ar items. There is a very large range of items that have various benefits like boosting stats, damage, attack speed, rate of movement etc. Of course, they all cost money, and the really powerful items can only be acquired by buying two or more basic items and then "combining" them into one extremely powerful item for more money, but they're worth the trouble. However, even with these powerful items, you need to work hard to bag a win since the enemy won't give up without a fight either.

In conclusion, this game type is interesting, since you can see the ebb and flow of the battlefield as it responds to the influence of the hero characters. And although certain characters still require a fair amount of micromanagement, its easier to focus on your character and the result is a better paced game, leisurely but still frantic enough to keep you on your guard at all times. But the most important thing in the game is teamwork, coordinate your moves properly and you'll soon get a checkmate. While the game is fluid, and has a strong element of chance, the amount of strategy involved makes the analogy to chess quite appropriate.

Anyways, to everyone who's taking their term finals, good luck!