Once upon a time, a long time ago, I got a game called Warcraft III. I was super excited to play it because I was expecting something very akin to my beloved StarCraft but with better graphics.

…unfortunately, it failed to live up to my expectations. Not saying it was a bad RTS, but, well, when you’ve been spoiled by StarCraft there is very little that WILL live up to your RTS expectations. The lore didn’t exactly grab me at the time either (don’t shoot me, THAT WAS THEN AND THIS IS NOW), so Warcraft III and its expansion, The Frozen Throne, went by the wayside for a bit.

Enter DotA– Defense of the Ancients– a Use-Map-Settings game that does away with the RTS style of the original WCIII completely and replaces it with this really interesting game involving Hero Units and armies trying to advance to the other side of the map. And holy cogs, it was fun.

My favorite character? Netherdrake. I think they called him “Viper” or something, but he was a netherdrake, and I loved him. I messed around with a few other characters as well, but You Can’t Stop the Netherdrake.

The gameplay had lots of deep little nuances to the point that the DotA forums were rife with theorycrafting the likes of which my virgin eyes had rarely seen before– there were dozens and dozens of items and upgrades, all with their pros and cons. And a chicken delivered them to you, by the way, which was awesome. I, for my part, ignored the theorycrafting and figured out what worked best for me and I don’t think I was too bad, either.

I played it online multiplayer a few times but the DotA community always had this weird sort of “ONLY SUPER PRO PLAYERS ALLOWED” attitude and so I, not wanting to burden any unsuspecting team with my nub-ness, stuck largely to a map that let me play against the computer. No worries, it was just as fun. Ultimately, that’s what I want in my games, you know?

DotA of course gained considerably notoriety with the release of the Basshunter song “Vi sitter i Ventrilo och spelar DotA”, which, if I understand correctly, is Swedish for “We’re sitting here in Ventrilo playing DotA”. It’s what the entire song is about, and as everyone knows, the chicks dig Ventrilo at their LAN parties:

Have I mentioned that I have a thing for Swedish guys? No? Have you seen their curling team? …what? You know what, brb, I’m moving to Sweden. (As an aside, practically every male friend I have flies into a murderous rage upon hearing that I think Basshunter is eye candy, and I’m still not sure why.)

ANYWAYS, I haven’t played DotA in a while. I think it had to do with a combination of issues getting Warcraft 3 to play nice with Linux and simply moving on to other games, such as one that starts with a “W” and ends with a “orld of Warcraft”. Still, I look back fondly on that little game. You were one fun trip, DotA, and hats off to the gaming community that imagined you up.