In DotA, players on each side choose one of 112 heroes, each with different abilities and tactical advantages over other heroes.

Įach human player controls one Hero, a powerful unit with unique abilities. In the center of each base is the 'Ancient', a building that must be destroyed to win the game. Each base is defended by towers and waves of units which guard the main paths leading to their base. Players on the Sentinel team are based at the southwest corner of the map, and those on the Scourge team are based at the northeast corner. Valve Corporation released a sequel, Dota 2, in 2013.ĭefense of the Ancients pits two teams of players against each other: the Sentinel and the Scourge. Since its original release, DotA has become a feature at several worldwide tournaments, including Blizzard Entertainment's BlizzCon and the Asian World Cyber Games, as well as the Cyberathlete Amateur and CyberEvolution leagues Gamasutra declared that DotA was perhaps the most popular 'free, non-supported game mod in the world'. This specific scenario has been maintained by several authors during development, with the current publicly anonymous developer known as ' IceFrog' developing the game since March 2005. There have been many variations of the original concept the most popular being DotA Allstars by Meian and Ragn0r, which eventually was simplified to DotA with the release of version 6.68. The scenario was developed by Eul with the 'World Editor' of Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, and was ported over its expansion, The Frozen Throne. As in role-playing games, players level up their heroes and use gold to buy equipment during the mission. Players use powerful units known as heroes, and are assisted by allied heroes and AI-controlled fighters called creeps. The objective of the scenario is for each team to destroy the opponents' Ancients, heavily guarded structures at opposing corners of the map. Defense of the Ancients (commonly known as DotA) is a custom scenario for the real-time strategy game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and its expansion, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, based on the 'Aeon of Strife' map for StarCraft.

When did dota 1 come out