EPTRecently, the Dota 2 Winter Open took place at Ignite Gaming Lounge in Chicago, the third ever Dota 2 tournament in Chicago. Better writers have or will publish great reviews of the happenings that weekend (the dark horse winners, the de-throning of the two-time champions, the level 1 Rosh kill), so I'd like to take a chance to jot down my thoughts on the event and the local Dota 2 community in general.
Chicago (and the midwest in general) has been a quieter eSports city for a long time, especially for being the 3rd largest city in the US. However, a lot of great things are always coming from Chicago. We proudly call the developers of Octodad, Divekick, World of Tanks, and Mortal Kombat our neighbors, as well as SteelSeries. CoL_qxc, da_bears, WBC, OpTic_NaDeSHoT, roflgator, and Merlini were or still are rooted in Chicago. Red Bull also has a presence in the city and likes to rear it's head at events.
Ignite is one of the only centers in Chicago for gaming, and communities like Chicago Dota stand as a reminder that the city is full of gamers itching for more than just living room gaming. Gaming is the next form of entertainment - the next bowling alley or movie theater, and we're excitedly working towards that future.
Personally I'm very new to Dota and it's community - I played Warcraft 3 as a kid, although my only recollection of the game is being mesmerized (thanks, ASMR) by the sound of trees being chopped and their lumber being systematically carried home by peasants. I'm pretty sure that's all that I ever did in that game (hey, I was really young). I never did play WC3 online, where I likely would have learned of the custom map Dota.
I did however play a lot of custom games in Warcraft in space (Starcraft) so the idea of a MOBA wasn't entirely new to me. Only recently did I give Dota 2 a shot; it was my first time touching the genre since Brood War's tug-of-war style custom games like Lord of the Rings. I had avoided HoN and more importantly LoL for a very long time, sticking adamantly to Starcraft 2 and dabbling in other games.
Dota 2 almost immediately hooked me when I finally gave it a try, and very quickly I understood why MOBAs are so popular these days. I feel that Dota 2 appeals to me for a lot of reasons:
- There is no content that needs to be earned/unlocked with grinding, everything is immediately available.
- It feels like a game you should pay for, but it's free.
- Money won't buy you any advantages.
- The game is much easier to burn hour after hour on, because it provides a good level of excitement/fun, and is not so tiring that I feel the need to step away after an hour (Starcraft 2 is really stressful...)
- There's a huge social element - it's a game that you want to play with your friends (at least at my level)
I was familiar with the local Dota 2 community before I ever played the game - Ignite had hosted 2 tournaments in June and August, as well as a TI3 pubstomp. The age of attendees caught me off guard initially. A gaming community for an up-and-coming eSport typically consists of a younger crowd (I'm looking at you, League of Legends and much of Starcraft 2), but given Dota's history, many fans are in their twenties or older. A lot of Dota 2 players played Dota 1 (I think that as time goes on, the audience will gradually include younger age groups who never played Warcraft Dota, although I'm not sure to what extent, given League of Legends' stronghold on the younger audience.)
Many attendees of Ignite's Dota events are in college or have full-time jobs, and this makes the community a bit unique. It seems to me like a game that you hop on for a few hours after work each night with your buddies (as opposed to one where you meticulously grind 8+ hours per day, Korean-style). One would think that a community like this would primarily be interested in casual events, like pubstomps (which is absolutely true...Dota players love drinking and watching Dota), but the rate at which all 3 competitive tournaments have sold out seems to prove that Dota players are just as interested in competition, especially in comparison to it's counterpart, League of Legends, where casual events draw far more interest.
Overall I've been really pleased with the Dota 2 community, enough so that I started playing the game a few months ago (I am usually pretty hesitant to pick up new games). Now, like many, I am hooked. I hop on and play a few games with friends or coworkers almost every night and I've met a lot of new people this way. I still play the game for fun - obviously I'm not great yet, I'm still learning all of the heroes, but I find the game fantastically rewarding. It's extremely satisfying to find a lane combo that works, to save/be saved, or to counter-pick your opponent. I like that I can laugh at the silly situations that emerge from playing with friends. If that excitement ever goes away, I'll likely stop playing, but after few hundred hours in, I'm not really tired at all.
It's hard to tell where the community will go in 2014 aside from up - I can't wait to see what things look like by TI4 and beyond. In Chicago, I have every confidence that the scene will continue to flourish, and I'm probably not the only person who is really excited for that.
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