Dota 2: Know your enemy in the internet
The Dota 2 is a multiplayer variation of a RTS where you only move a hero around the one same level. The hero has a level up -mechanism that opens up their skills. The game has 2 teams with 5 players in each, and the goal is to destroy the opponents home that ends the game. Or alternatively to piss off every player from the opposite side.
The game has 80+ different heroes and skillsets you can choose from, yet there's not many bad choices there, although lots of players select from a pool of about 10 different heroes. Some heroes seem to be counterheroes for other heroes.
The graphics, backstories and about everything about this game is awful, but there's one thing that puts me to play this game again: Other players.
RTS games have usually following problems for multiplayer with strangers:
- The intenet play consists of a lobby: The lobby is full of "public" servers that each kick you out before you get to play. People misuse these lobbies and ruin it for everyone else. I'm about on the edge of asking for refund from Civilization V because they hold this problem although it's a sequel of a sequel. They should have fucking figured this out four times already if they had ever played their game themselves.
- People leave before 5 minutes has passed, in a game that requires players to persist for 60 minutes or more to be meaningful.
- There are severe version conflicts that prevent you from playing with others.
- There is one combo or setting that always wins without skill whatsoever.
Dota 2 doesn't have these problems. The result is that you get to "know your enemy" in other setting than a FPS that still manages to be in a controlled environment.
Half of the reasons why you can lose in Dota 2 are your allies though, but once you understand that, you can use that on your advantage too. It is possible to affect a lot about how people behave if you know how to nudge them.
There are players that manage to mess with you as much as you manage to mess with them. Or try some age-old trick on you and you may fall on it. They are sort of a reason to play any game, if the game manages to frame things right to let them shine.
Most of other players in Dota 2 are raging kids that just attack you savagely and preferably in a crowd, but they're more fun than any AI the game designers have come up with recently. If you don't play like them, they call you a coward, idiot or noob. That's just perfect. I love it!