DOTA 2

[Psy]

Same here. I have a spare DOTA key going as well.

As for the game:

First Valve released game I have zero interest in

[Erratic]

My most played valve game bahaha

Edited October 19, 2012 by Erratic

[skdr]

My most played valve game bahaha

I still have way too many hours with DOD but DOTA2 is nearing that very very fast. Such a good an exciting game because I know I'll never master it.

[Erratic]

yeah now that you mention it I've definitely played wayyyy more cs than dota2, if you file it and dod as valve games.

But if I combined my war3 dota hours with dota2 they would start to stack up pretty considerably.

[Sentura]

steam has been generous enough to spare me 2 copies of this game, which apparently no longer is a beta but the real deal. if anyone is interested, let me know

[Skjalg]

Same here, looks like they are ramping up the player base

[Skjalg]

http://dota2.com/overview

[Skjalg]

Dota 2 is now released. Also they added mac support (with linux on the way) as well as a hero.

[Taylor]

Hopefully this'll bring a little influx of players and the tutorial matches won't be people with 200 wins calling everyone noobs.

 

Not that I'm bitter or anything.

[Beck]

I think I'm gonna give this a try. I'm probably going to suck hard and get blasted by "pros". But we'll see! I'm liking it so far after having killed my first tower in the tutorials. Very nice style to the game. I can see how people get addicted and rage hard though!

[Taylor]

It's definitely the best time to get into it. There are a lot of us newbies floating around now it’s been released so the matchmaking is better. And yeah, unfortunately the rage is kind of a side-effect of the mechanics; it’s full of feedback loops, highly susceptible to the Dunning-Kruger effect, and people are trapped together for 30-60 minutes, but I've not seen anything that has really shocked innocent little me.

[tr0nic]

I can't get over the terrible UI. The picking phase is a disaster compared to HoN. Hero names don't show up when hovering on enemies, when your enemies pick their heroes or your ally ( unless they random their hero, THEN it is shown in the chat... how dumb is that?) If you use the grid view to show all heroes, the top row name expand outside the screen ( cant see the damn hero name AGAIN). Creep kill/deny in bottom right corner with a font of 2 pixel.

I have played over 2000 games of dota wc3 and then I switched to HoN. At first, I thought HoN was too fast but you soon realize how "fluid and reactive" the movements are compared to Dota 1 & 2. I don't want to start a debate about which moba is better but if only Valve could fix all the annoying issues of the UI, maybe I would stop raging! (should have been fixed day 2 of beta in 2011 in my opinion)

[Beck]

One thing I'd like to know is it possible to assign the movement controls to WASD and then look around using the mouse? Rather than using the current set up?

 

I'm still doing the middle lane tutorials, done it with 4 heroes now I think and I'm getting the hang of it. I randomise every time so I don't worry about skills, I just learn as I go. 

 

The hardest bit I find is deciding what items to buy. There are so many! The recommended items are handy on the left of the shop though. Need to start learning what each stat does methinks! 

[Em']

I'm still doing the middle lane tutorials, done it with 4 heroes now I think and I'm getting the hang of it. I randomise every time so I don't worry about skills, I just learn as I go. 

 

The hardest bit I find is deciding what items to buy. There are so many! The recommended items are handy on the left of the shop though. Need to start learning what each stat does methinks!

Yup, random pick (single draft, random draft & all random) are very good to learn fast the game : each game will have a different draft and you wont see same heroes again and again. I leveled up when i switched from "all pick" to "all random" !

And you'll learn also by seing others playing heroes nobody plays, you will see redundant items on certains heroes / roles, etc..

If some macpcorians want to play few games, maybe we could setup a "clan or group", don't know exactly the ingame-name for groups.

Edited July 17, 2013 by --Em--

[sven]

I am by no means a super great player, but I have played quite a few hours of Dota 2. If anyone wants some help or coaching, feel free to send me a private message with your steam name or something. I think Dota really rewards experience and knowledge, so tips from someone who knows about most (i think) aspects of Dota might give you a better start than I had (learning from scratch).

 

In the earliest beginning, there is something to be said for sticking to one or two or three heroes (like Lich, Dragon Knight, Tidehunter, Lion, Viper), so you can focus on the general aspects of the game (farming, creep flow, ganking, vision,  etc.) instead of having to focus on "what the hell do my skills do?" and "what items should I get on this hero?".

 

Re: Terrible UI, other moba's: I have never played the original Dota, nor League of Legends, nor HoN, though I have seen some gameplay videos from all of the above. I think that if you haven't played those other games, you might not miss some of those features. For example, the last hit/deny counter is plenty big for me. It doesn't matter that much (you can generally tell how well you are doing by looking at your gold, level, items, etc.)  so the numbers do not need to be in your face imho. 

Regarding the names of the heroes being cut off during grid view pick phase: yes, that is silly and should definitely be fixed, though I never noticed.

 

Controls: I play with WASD to control the camera. Years of playing FPS make that feel very natural for me. Downside: you lose 4 hotkeys that you could otherwise use for skills or items. Upside: you can always keep your cursor on a creep you want to last hit, or the enemy you want to target, even while moving the camera. And you can always use edge-pan anyway if you want to in a certain situation.

 

Items: there are quite a few items, but generally every item has a pretty specific place in the game, depending on type of hero (support/carry/ganker/etc,, ranged/melee), stage of the game (early/late), etc. When you play different heroes, you will experience what items are good in different situations.