EPTI signed up for it on a whim. All I knew about DotA was that it was a very popular game that started as a Warcraft III mod.
But, much in the same way that StarCraft II brought me back into StarCraft: Brood War (i.e. I started watching Gom.tv when those SC2 Battle Reports came out, and someome linked Tasteless and SuperDanielMan saying they feel like Jedi when they order cigarettes XD ), I figured I could just learn stuff about it if I actually got into the beta (unlike the waiting I did for that SC2 Beta key :'( ).
And then I got the email saying I'd been invited to join.
It felt like a nice surprise, and I figured it was as good a time as any to learn about the game I was going to be playtesting. I decided that the swiftest way to learn about a new video game is see it in action, so I Youtubed "DotA 2, this week" and the top video was a DotA 2 Guide to Broodmother.
Watching the video, I was filled with a great respect for the graphics and what looked like a complicated system of heroes, skills, and items. So I decided to find out more about this game.
Needless to say, a lot of time was spent studying DotA, and now I have a pretty broad view of all the heroes, their abilities, and the items. I even know a few heroes' item and skill builds.
I've had a few games, with a win rate of a whopping 33%. And I'm happy to say, that I tried not to drag the team down on those wins. I was especially important in fun game where our team had a lot of late game potential, while the opponents were more towards mid-game.
As you can imagine, they had taken two sets of barracks and had managed to damage our ancient before we'd even knocked down all of their tier 2 towers. Eventually, a Skeleton King and I (Lina) defended the base against a slew of late game creeps, and a Furion furiously teleporting (who took a Laguna Blade to the face and took a dirt nap), while the rest of our team, an Anti-Mage, Sniper, and Juggernaut, pushed mid with everything they had.
Their opposition? A Pudge, Bloodseeker, Clockwerk, Batrider, and Nature's Prophet.
It was here I learned that Lina is freaking amazing at laning, by the way. She has great AoE spells, and her attack speed gets ridiculous when you stack her passive. She's doing more than twice her DPS after three stacks; but I digress.
Listening to the news feed, I hear that we've taken a tower, then a monster kill, followed by another tower, a barracks, and another monster kill, a godlike, more towers, at which point I glanced over and saw that our assault had reached the ancient, until we finally finished it off for the win.
You might think that the other team threw the game away, but all that really comes down to is that the better team wins in the end.
So, I guess what I'm saying is, it's a pretty fun game, and I'm glad I get to be apart of the experience. If you've been waiting for a beta key without knowing anything about it, or even someone that's never heard of DotA in the first place, I just want you to know that it's worth having to learn a new skillset to enjoy a pretty fantastic game.
(Also, people should play more Lina. She's really good at ganking, pushing, and can late-game semi-carry if you get the gold.)
