Defense of the Ancients based on Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos
Defense of the Ancients (DotA) is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) mod for the video game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos (2002) and its expansion, The Frozen Throne. The objective of the game is for each team to destroy their opponents' Ancient, a heavily guarded structure at the opposing corner of the map. Players use powerful units known as heroes, and are assisted by allied teammates and AI-controlled fighters. As in role-playing games, players level up their heroes and use gold to buy equipment during the game.
DotA has its roots in the "Aeon of Strife" custom map for StarCraft. The scenario was developed with the World Editor of Reign of Chaos, and was updated upon the release of its expansion, The Frozen Throne. There have been many variations of the original concept, the most popular being DotA Allstars, eventually simplified to DotA. The mod has been maintained by several authors during development, with the pseudonymous designer known as IceFrog maintaining the game since the mid-2000s.
DotA became a feature at several worldwide tournaments, including Blizzard Entertainment's BlizzCon and the Asian World Cyber Games. Critical reception to DotA was positive, and it has been called one of the most popular mods of any game. DotA is largely attributed as being the most significant inspiration for the MOBA genre. American video game developer Valve acquired the intellectual property rights to DotA in 2009 to develop a franchise, beginning with Dota 2 in 2013.Development
Blizzard Entertainment's 1998 real-time strategy game StarCraft shipped with a campaign editor that allowed players to create custom levels, complete with scripted triggers. One such custom map was "Aeon of Strife". Instead of controlling multiple units and managing buildings, players controlled a single hero unit as they fought against waves of enemies.Blizzard followed StarCraft with the real-time strategy game Warcraft III in 2002. As with Warcraft II and StarCraft, Blizzard included a free World Editor in the game that allows players to create custom scenarios or maps for the game, which can be played online with other players through Battle.net. Warcraft III also featured powerful hero units that leveled up and could equip items to boost their abilities, and the World Editor enabled mapmakers to create their own. Taking inspiration from Aeon of Strife and using the expanded capabilities of the World Editor, modder Kyle "Eulogizing" Sommer created the first version of Defense of the Ancients in 2003. The heroes could now sport different abilities and level up skills and equipment. After the release of Warcraft III's expansion The Frozen Throne, which added new features to the World Editor, Eul did not update the scenario and made his map code open-source. Other mapmakers produced Defense of the Ancients spinoffs that added new heroes, items, and features. Among the DotA variants created in the wake of Eul's map, there was DotA Allstars, originally created and developed by custom map makers Meian and Ragn0r, who took the most popular heroes and compiled them into one map. In March 2004, map maker Steve "Guinsoo" Feak assumed control of Allstars development. Feak said when he began developing DotA Allstars, he had no idea how popular the game would eventually become. Feak added a recipe system for items so that player's equipment would scale as they grew more powerful, as well as a powerful boss character called Roshan (named after his bowling ball) who required an entire team to defeat.Feak used a Battle.net chat channel as a place for DotA players to congregate, but DotA Allstars had no official site for discussions and hosting. Subsequently, the leaders of the DotA Allstars clan, TDA, proposed that a dedicated web site be created to replace the various online alternatives that were infrequently updated or improperly maintained. TDA member Steve "Pendragon" Mescon created an official community site, dota-allstars.com.Towards the end of Feak's association with the map in 2005, development of the map changed hands to Neichus and then IceFrog. The new author, IceFrog, added new features, heroes, and fixes. IceFrog was at one time highly reclusive, refusing to give interviews; the only evidence of his authorship was the map maker's email account on the official website and the name branded on the game's loading screen. Defense of the Ancients was maintained via official forums. Users posted ideas for new heroes or items, some of which were added to the map. IceFrog would quickly update the map in response to feedback. Mescon maintained dota-allstars.com, which by May 2009 had over 1,500,000 registered users and received over one million unique visitors every month. Mescon's sale of the domain to Riot Games split the DotA community, and IceFrog announced a new official site, playdota.com, while continuing game development.Because Warcraft III custom games have none of the features designed to improve game quality (matchmaking players based on connection speed, etc.), various programs were used to maintain Defense of the Ancients. External tools pinged player's locations, and games could be named to exclude geographic regions. Clans and committees such as TDA maintained their own official list of rules and regulations, and players could be kicked from matches by being placed on "banlists". While increasingly popular, DotA Allstars remained limited as a custom map in Warcraft III, relying on manual matchmaking, updates, and containing no tutorials.