DOTA 2

[Orv]

[tankadillo]

chat radial for people who can't use their lips too

It also acts as an auto-translator for when you get matched with people who don't speak your language (I assume so, at least).

[Orv]

It translates into whatever language library they're using, yes.

[TheLastBaron]

It also acts as an auto-translator for when you get matched with people who don't speak your language (I assume so, at least).

This reminded me, I was playing with my friend in Germany and he was getting really upset that he couldn't figure out how to change the game language to English. He said the German translation was not very good and that he wanted to just play it in English. Maybe "really upset" is a bit strong, but he was annoyed to a large degree. I'm pretty sure all the audio was in English for him though.

[Orv]

The usual way to change that kind of thing is to go into Settings -> Interface -> Language (in the Steam client), but it also typically requires a reinstall of the game. DotA 2 might handle it a little better.

[theneverafter]

Hey guys, was just listening to the latest Idle Thumbs Cast and they mentioned that a bunch of people on here have spare Dota 2 beta keys lying around. If so, can somebody hook me up?

[Orv]

Add Orv on Steam.

[BFrank]

Either way, if you have your VOIP off by default in DotA don't play DotA.

Does it really matter when I have to mute 1-2 people a game anyway? Everyone has the exact same game information available to them, there's not much need to communicate in pub games. And if you're playing with friends, that's a whole other issue.

[theneverafter]

Add Orv on Steam.

Done.

[Orv]

Does it really matter when I have to mute 1-2 people a game anyway?

I assume that is gross hyperbole or you've managed to land in hell queues. Either way, it's not as important now as a result of the chat wheel, but it's still annoying at times.

[BFrank]

That's totally not hyperbole and I'm not in low priority or anything. I'm always completely relieved when I have a quiet team. Maybe we just have different standards of acceptable chat behavior.

[Brannigan]

I rarely ever get anyone annoying or offensive in voice chat. It happens once in a while, but usually if someone is being unpleasant, it's in text for some reason. That said it's never been bad enough for me to mute someone.

Edit 2: The most angry I've gotten with someone was actually someone who bitched me out for not calling missing. I did, over voip. He told me that he wasn't listening to voice and continued to blame me for his death. This was pre-chat wheel as well.

Edit 3: Should have kept my mouth shut! Thankfully the annoying folks calmed down after a few minutes and game went on fairly normally.

[osmosisch]

Hey guys, was just listening to the latest Idle Thumbs Cast and they mentioned that a bunch of people on here have spare Dota 2 beta keys lying around. If so, can somebody hook me up?

I see you're sorted but I also still have like seven left so for anyone who's interested: my steam's in my profile.

[Irishjohn]

So, this might sound rather silly, but I'm a bit afraid of Dota. I have played LoL a fair bit and was ok at it. That is, I had fun playing in low quality games. I come and go from it and am about to start up again but I figured I would give Dota a try. However, I played HoN once and people sucked.

Yeah, I'm a baby, whatever, but I'm really busy at work and time at home is often spent with my wife rather than in front of the computer. So I can't really put a lot of my efforts into getting really good at something. Also, I'm bad at games. I got to silver league in Starcraft 2 once. It was incredibly exciting.

So, is it mad to have a go at Dota or am I just completely over-thinking this?

[youmeyou]

I have played a few games and haven't run into any assholes. Most people offer help when I tell them I am a newb. And oh boy, am I a newb. Newb enough to make a HoN player burst every blood vessel in his body in frustrated anger.

[Irishjohn]

I have played a few games and haven't run into any assholes. Most people offer help when I tell them I am a newb. And oh boy, am I a newb. Newb enough to make a HoN player burst every blood vessel in his body in frustrated anger.

Ha! Cheers. Well I'm looking forward to it then. Seems like it's been a big hit around here.

[osmosisch]

The best way to go about it is probably to try and play only with people you know and/or Thumbs on your team. That way everyone knows what to expect going in.

As far as the community goes, as long as not many people report you for being abusive, you'll largely meet nonabusive people (by LoMa standards anyway) because the abusive people get shunted into their own queue.

[darkripper]

I'm a new player and I'm willing to team up with people at my level. I usually play in single draft, because it's a great way to learn new heroes and I've found out people are less obsessed about results, feeding, etc.

I also have a bunch of invites if there's still someone lacking one (I doubt it).

I'm up for friendly matchmaking at night, especially the weekends. steamid there.

[bowlercaptain]

Hello! I'm one of those jerks who just listened to "The Ship Economy" and is going to make an idle forums account just to ask for a Dota 2 key, so TL;DR, Can haz key plz. EDIT (addition): on steam as bowlercaptain, have added darkripper and osmosis. (who needs to capitalize names?! does it count if the official handle is uncapitalized?

NTL;GTR (not too long; going to read):

I'm one of those jerks who will ask for a key, but I at least feel guilty about it. I've been meaning to join the Idle Forums for a while, but apparently needed greed to push me over the edge. Forums have never been exactly my best medium for participation - I'll meet you in an IRC channel any day, but when I read a forum thread, it often feels like something locked in the past tense, or otherwise a conversation that I wish I had been there for, but was not. I don't get to make the decision of exactly when to chime in, because I basically only get to check once a day. I probably would figure out how to gel now, because the last time I really tried my hand at participating in a forum I was in middle school - I'm ever-so-slightly better at dealing with people now.

As for LoMas, I've played quite a few games of LoL, although not enough to become too invested in that game specifically. I "figured out" that LoMas have whatever strategic, competitive depth that makes them so popular after successfully landing a grab-and-pull attack on someone who was running away, allowing me and a teammate to kill them. It wasn't huge, and it was more luck than skill, but I realized that there was certainly more there than the kind of flailing desperation with which I played RTSes. I'm probably never going to play this enough to really be competitive, but it would be cool to play enough to understand what people are talking about.

So is it just mandatory to have snap-encyclopedic knowledge of all the items and characters and moves in the game? Or is there just a small set of best strategies that everyone uses? That's sort of the most daunting part to me - I spent a section of time at the beginning of my time playing LoL bewildered at all the item options, and all of the time after that not having enough time to care because oh my god they're attacking the tower and you're still at home base what are you doing I need you at top right now dude!

[osmosisch]

I didn't get an invite from a 'bowlercaptain' as far as I'm aware. There seems to be only one bowlercaptain on steam (http://steamcommunity.com/id/sompm) so I added that guy; if that's not you I dunno.

I found that the item/hero knowledge largely accumulated through two channels: playing games and picking random, and building the recommended stuff, and watching pro matches and listening to the commentary.

I currently tend to play more LoL games because they take shorter than Dotes and are also more forgiving to me sucking (ie. I don't lose all my gold for playing badly).

[Luftmensch]

I watched some videos of and about LoL and it didn't really appeal to me. Aesthetically, it's far too bright and saturated for my tastes, and LoL pretty bluntly gives all of its female characters skimpy clothes and boob socks, which I personally think is really obnoxious and tiresome. Dota 2 still has a lot more cleavage than makes sense, but given the number of shirtless dudes in the roster, I can forgive most of it, especially when I compare this to this (that's not to say it's all better*. I don't know how well Riot responds to its community, since I'm not involved, but I have heard that Valve is very attentive to being accused of sexism and tries to change).

On a less superficial level, I've gotten the impression from watching games and from people's descriptions that the games between Dota and LoL take much less dramatic swings. It seems like Dota is a very high-adrenaline tense experience, while LoL is much more forgiving and comparatively relaxed. Is this at all an accurate impression? Personally, what really drew me into Dota 2 was the tension. When I play games, sometimes my goal is to unwind, like with TF2, Torchlight, or Solitaire, but more often what I really want is a game that really pushes and challenges me, like Super Meat Boy, Offspring Fling (when you're trying for the best times), and VVVVVV. I don't think I'm great, and I certainly never come out on top when I play Dota (and I'm just in the first tier), but it's damned exciting. To be honest, since I'm already playing Dota, I don't really want to switch over to LoL anyway, but is my prejudice justified or is it all confirmation bias?

*Despite what people say, I don't think the concept of the succubus is inherently sexist, but it makes for some really silly character designs

[osmosisch]

Riot listens.

I'm not going to get into a league vs. dotes argument, that shit's been done to death.

There's a male version of the succubus so it's not inherently sexist.

[Luftmensch]

That's good to hear, although frankly if you literally make the decision to have your assassin pole-dance and put that as a normal in-game animation, I'm still going to have some reservations after you take it out, and the explanations of why the characters are dressed the way they are isn't very encouraging. I don't want to put too much emphasis on that because it's completely superficial, but for me it's a little repulsive.

Yeah looking around I've seen Dota v LoL debates and comparisons, but they've seemed to focus mainly on the perceived learning curve. I'm intrigued about the gameplay arc and how the experience feels once you know the game well.

And yeah, the Incubus is part of why I call bullshit on succubuses being inherently sexist. I do think it's interesting that a succubus is traditionally a temptress, while an incubus is usually a rapist.

[Brannigan]

I've played a ton of both at this point. LoL feels like dota for babies!!1! Really though, I enjoy both, but I do prefer dota's depth and complexity. LoL is very much a distllled and sped up dota experience. That's not really a bad thing, for some people it's what they prefer. It's easier to get into, and these days the games are overall quicker and less punishing. If you're already getting into dota, you may as well stick with it. Part of my preference certainly is LoL burnout, I played a TON of that, but at this point nothing really feels new, I can just jump on any old lord blindly and do fine. With dota I still will jump in like that, unless it's invoker. But even when I get a new lord in dota I still feel like I'm learning something new in the game, I don't get that stimulation in LoL anymore. Dota's good enough for me to risk solo queue, which I outright will not do in LoL. Largely these days if I play LoL it's because of friends that predominately play that game still. On the character design...yea LoL is very bubblegum anime BOOOOOOOOOBS, which gets a bit old. Also LoL doesn't have russians yelling completely insane things at me over voip.

[Irishjohn]

So a couple of my friends and I got together today to have a go. We didn't have a clue what we were doing. I found the shop more confusing than LoL... I guess there are recipes of some description? Anyway, I picked the Brewmaster, which doesn't really gel with how I play LoL (I prefer to support mostly) and we jumped in against bots to practice and figure out what was going on. An hour later, we had somehow won, mostly thanks to the sterling work of Lucille bot. I don't think we'll play again. It seems like the learning curve is pretty steep and though we all want to play online together none of us really have the time for Dota if one game is going to take forty-five minutes to an hour. I am tempted to go back to LoL though.