Fringe Division — Some Thoughts On The Imminent Dota 2

Having been an avid DotA player on Twilight for many years, I’ve always wondered how long DotA and particularly the Twilight server would last. Would people ever lose interest in the game? Well that’s clearly not happening, however a death blow might be coming in the form of Dota 2.

The Warcraft 3 engine is beginning to show its strain in its limitations, understandably since it’s now over a decade old. Many DotA clones have emerged and have captured pieces of the market, HoN and LoL just to name a couple. However Twilight and DotA have stood strong since HoN and LoL both deviated from the exact mechanics of DotA and gamers REALLY don’t like a new learning curve. Dota 2, the REAL successor, will no doubt capture the largest portion of the market once it is officially released to everyone.

Its barrier to entry is extremely low since the game is going to be free to play and the revenue model is only for aesthetics. The game play is identical to DotA which should also ease in those DotA die-hards. However it is still a learning curve. Learning the looks of the heroes, items and spells does take a few games, but getting back into the swing of things doesn’t take long. The shop I’ll admit was difficult to adjust to and I really hated it at first. But once you work with the conveniences it affords you instead of looking through items manually, it gets a lot better.

Of course there will be some hold outs. People don’t like change, so some will hold out purely on resistance to change, others will hold out since they’re disadvantaged when it comes to computer hardware. Many local players are going to feel the frustration of going from a big fish in a little pond to a little fish in a very big pond.

I do however think that the local Twilight server just might lose its critical mass once Dota 2 gains full traction after launch. It would be sad to see it end up a ghost town, but the times they are a changing. I think the Twilight server has been of great service to the SA gaming community over the years and it would be a shame to see it fall into disuse.

I do however hope that a local server for Dota 2 gets hosted (maybe a WAGE) so that we can not only get better latency, but also maintain some form of this local community spirit. Because quite frankly I’m sick of playing with Russians.