Monday, November 4, 2013

Blog Absence - Dota2 and WoW take over

Well, apologies to anyone who has been reading this, but Dota2 has now taken over my gaming time.  My wife has also dragged me back into World of Warcraft, which I thought myself free of, but when WoW can suddenly become "time spent with the wife", then it's hard to say no...

For anyone interested in getting into or even trying Dota2, which I find to be a great game, it's available for free on Steam, and here are a few good starter Dota2 articles, in order:

In my own words, what's so good about Dota2:
  • It's free to play and free to download.  It's totally free.  Did I mention free?
  • It's a team game.  You can play with friends, and if you lose, it's (usually) not all your fault.
  • Your SC2 micro skills are valuable
  • You get to buy items / collect "loot"
  • Low time block commitment:  A game takes slightly longer than an SC2 game, but it's still a "sit down for a 0.5-1 hour type of game.  Game ends, you walk away and do other stuff.
  • The computer AI doesn't suck.  Well, it does, but it will continue to challenge you for some time to come.  You can also just play games against the "bots" when you feel like winning.
  • Ladder play:  unlike the SC2 ladder, you don't have to know your ranking, so you don't know when you're not achieving the ranking that you think you want.  Instead, you're just placed against another team of similar skill level.
  • Reporting system:  if a player is a jerk, you can easily report his behaviour.  Also, disconnectors / game abandonment is penalized in the sense that people who do that, get placed with others who do that.
  • Lots of variety and gradual skill improvement.  There are 120+ heroes to choose from, meaning you'll get never bored of the choices, and even months after you start, you'll notice you're still gradually improving.
  • There are lots of events to take part in, and professional casts and videos to learn from .