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I was ready. It was 2010 and the greatest RTS of our time was about to be released. I was in my 3rd year of university living in an apartment with two other guys, one who had also played BW and WC3 like me the other who had no experience with RTS games. We all got our copies of SC2 and logged on the day it was released. I install and go straight to placement matches. Hilarity ensues. I am having tons of fun dicking around doing whatever I want. My two roommates are watching and laughing and giving advice. One game I cannon rush someone but instead of killing them I built a ring of cannons all the way around their base without them noticing and chatted "its the police I have you surrounded" This is how terrible people were day 1.
The three of us continued to play, watching the Day[9] daily, learning to be better gamers. We were watching MLG Dallas 2010 rooting our hearts out for Idra and Huk. We were splitting the cost of GSL season passes and watching them at ungodly hours of the night despite having class the next morning. I soon found myself in diamond (the highest of leagues at the time) and my roommates in platinum and gold respectively. I also found that I was having infinitely less fun than when I was worse at the game. I no longer was able to mess around, I followed a strict workflow of build orders and responses to what I scouted. I found that the only reason I played every day was to keep my bonus pool at 0 and that the game was more a chore than something to enjoy.
A year passed in this way and suddenly I was hearing about The International 1, a million dollar Dota 2 tournament from Valve. I watched, I had played some WC3 DOTA. I signed up for a beta key, as did my roommates. We all got in and started playing. It was the beginning of playing SC2 all over again, we were messing around doing whatever we wanted having lots of fun. Somewhere in the back of my mind I worried, "Will this turn out like SC2? If I tryhard at this game will it turn into a chore instead of a game?"
August 9th 2013. Day 3 of The International 3 will start soon. I have been playing Dota 2 for about 3 years now. I que in "very high" matchmaking and I am having more fun than ever. I don't know why SC2 seemed to have an inverse relationship between skill and enjoyment but I find the opposite with Dota. After 3 years of playing I am still learning little tricks and nuances. I am making "big plays" that I never dreamed possible when I was a new baddie to the game. There is no bonus pool forcing me to play. No league plastered all over my profile to care about. I just play because I genuinely enjoy it.
It saddens me because RTS games were my first love, and I still love the genre deeply. There was just something "off" about SC2 that I can't really put into words. I don't think I will be purchasing LotV, but I really would like to find an RTS to be competitive and passionate about that doesn't end up feeling like a chore when I play it. I secretly hope that once Valve releases a map editor for Dota 2 to the community, the community will build its own RTS that will grow to be its own entity much the same way DOTA grew out of WC3.
One can dream.
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Huh. I feel the inverse for Dota 2 and SC2.
Oh well, to each his own.
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It's you, not the game.
If I play LoL more than SC2 at the moment, it's because my friends only play LoL or only want to play Monoshits. Also, because Filter is a flake and won't release his Protoss lessons faster. :p
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Yeah I switched BACK to WC3 about 6 months ago, SC2 just doesn't do it for me.
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playing quite a bit dota2 recently , like it, but it doesnt suck me in like sc2. sc2 > dota2 for me.
it's you, not the game 
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I played sc2 sense 2010. I think I stopped having fun pretty quickly. It was all about improving at the game, seeing myself play better is a psychological reward I wouldn't call fun. I played LoL for about six months non stop and had fun at first, but I ended going back to sc2. In a team game its hard to measure your individual progress when you are constantly playing with new teamates. Also, I believed at the time and still believe, that solo que LoL just is not even remotely similar to competitive premade LoL in terms of metagame and strategy. I could probably go back to LoL if I found a dedicated team for premade of equally or more skilled players. Fat chance. I think I would always pine for sc2 anyway, because it is my first love and because for whatever reason my ego is pretty closely tied in with my ladder ranking.
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On August 10 2013 04:57 mothergoose729 wrote:
I played sc2 sense 2010. I think I stopped having fun pretty quickly. It was all about improving at the game, seeing myself play better is a psychological reward I wouldn't call fun. I played LoL for about six months non stop and had fun at first, but I ended going back to sc2. In a team game its hard to measure your individual progress when you are constantly playing with new teamates. Also, I believed at the time and still believe, that solo que LoL just is not even remotely similar to competitive premade LoL in terms of metagame and strategy. I could probably go back to LoL if I found a dedicated team for premade of equally or more skilled players. Fat chance. I think I would always pine for sc2 anyway, because it is my first love and because for whatever reason my ego is pretty closely tied in with my ladder ranking.
Yes it very much got to the point where I got the same feeling from sc2 as when I finish cleaning my room. I didn't really have fun cleaning my room but it feels nice now that it is clean.
The fact that I can play dota in a 5 stack with all my old college buddies is a bonus but when I initially switched it wasn't with that in mind. I was seeking out a game that could be a competitive outlet where I would enjoy simply playing and Dota 2 has been that for me.
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Check out d2ware. It's not a full mapmaking solution, but it has allowed for some rather trivial mods to be made, and it has a small, wc3 feeling community there. You can host things with up to 3 mods (mostly things like random skills, getting random items every 5 minutes and weird gimmicky stuff) and it's a ton of fun.
Edit: My thousandth post! yay!
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EPT
