Is it too late for me to get into DotA?

[CL4P-TP]

The title pretty much says it all. I've always heard about this mod being amazing, and finally decided to give it a whirl. I was never much of an RTS fan, but I have owned the WC3 games for years.

I gave it a couple goes, and just got sworn at a lot (like, a LOT), and told to play it with AI, which I did, and still got slaughtered.

There must be something I'm missing here, because even the AI was getting to level 6 when I had just reached level 3. Even if after a lot of AI practice, would I still never reach the level in skill that most pub players crank with DotA?

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

DotA's community is famously unkind to the new player. Unless you really want to play the game, I'd suggest looking elsewhere as the experience of learning will not be pleasant.

 

[CL4P-TP]

DotA's community is famously unkind to the new player. Unless you really want to play the game, I'd suggest looking elsewhere as the experience of learning will not be pleasant.

I guess you just mean AI slammin', Eclectic?

 

[Fenring]

Waaaay too late. Play an updated version, like LoL, maaaaybe HoN, or Monday Night Combat. You could also wait until DotA 2 or whatever Valve is calling it. LoL and MNC are probably going to be the most fun for newbies.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

DotA's community is famously unkind to the new player. Unless you really want to play the game, I'd suggest looking elsewhere as the experience of learning will not be pleasant.

I guess you just mean AI slammin', Eclectic?

The trouble is that DotA, like any strategy (even when somewhat abstracted as it is in DotA) game's AI will do little more than teach a player the way to play the game mechanically. To put this in perspective, out of a thousand games or so of Dawn of War 2, I've played perhaps three games where any given participant was worse than the AI. If you play until you can always best the AI, then you are at least ready (in terms of being able to input commands and recognize stimulus correctly) to set foot online. But my previous warning remains.

If you don't have friends who are veterans of the game, and you aren't a glutton for punishment, I'd suggest avoiding the game online. The community has a poor reputation in this regard and at this point has been distilled to a core of players who are very good at playing. Victories will be rare at best and failure (and even victory much of the time) will be accompanied by lots of dickish behavior.

 

[CL4P-TP]

Waaaay too late. Play an updated version, like LoL, maaaaybe HoN, or Monday Night Combat. You could also wait until DotA 2 or whatever Valve is calling it. LoL and MNC are probably going to be the most fun for newbies.

I didn't even think to compare MNC with DotA! Of course! Haha, that game is hella fun on topic, I'll look into League of Ledgends. Thanks!

 

[Choppaduel]

yes, very yes.

I still have the v4.0 wc3 map.

 

[CL4P-TP]

This

Thanks man. If it weren't for you I would still be killing bots 'till the cows came home and still getting my ass handed to me. I have no friends that play this game anymore, really. Just wanteed to try it out.

 

[Frozengale]

I'd say stay away from DoTA and any of it's predecessors.

DoTA's community is unkind at the best of times and will hunt you down and kill you in real life at the worst.

League of Legends has an okay community but the game isn't as innovative as the original DoTA and being free is actually a downside since it means you will have to spend 100+ dollars if you want to have access to all the characters or waste somewhere around 500 hours to unlock everything via the in game currency

Heroes of Newerth is basically a complete clone of DoTA offering nothing new and the community is basically the same.

You could try to wait for DoTA 2 but I'm not hopeful for that game either.

 

[SomeLameStuff]

I'd start you out on League of Legends instead. LoL is basically a less complicated version of DotA, so its a good starting point. And its Free to Download. Note: Free to download, because you have to fork over cash to buy the heroes you want, or grind like crazy to get in-game currency to buy them.

Then you can choose to stick with LoL, or continue on to DotA or Heroes of Newerth. Heroes of Newerth is DotA with upgraded graphics, some improvements and a couple new heroes. Downside is there isn't a single player AI like DotA. It also costs US$30, and HoN also recently implimented their own in game store, though its mostly for hero skins and announcer packs, heroes remain free.

EDIT: One more thing, the online community for all three games are terrible. Try to ignore them the most you can.

 

[smithy_2045]

Play LoL til you get the basic idea, then move to HoN. And don't pay too much attention to the raging nerds when you don't meet their impossibly high standards.

 

[Herbivore]

As pretty much everyone above me has mentioned, the communities in DotA, LoL, and HoN are terrible.
LoL is considered a bit of a joke in the community of the other games, because it is a simplified version of DotA and therefore it won't teach you the finer aspects of this type of game like the other two can. For example, you can't 'deny' creeps in LoL. The major pluspoints are that its a free game (sort of), and it is more beginner friendly being less complicated.
If you want the full-on experience you need to look into either DotA or HoN, HoN costs 30 bucks but it has clearer visuals than DotA and that can help make things more comprehensible. However it helps a lot to have a friend who plays who can teach you at least the basics, because just throwing yourself into it is almost never a good idea. HoN has a clan called LN, ludus novicus I think, which hosts games for new players where stats arent recorded (kill/death ratio etc.) and the games are being monitored by higher tier playes which then give advice. I don't know much about the DotA community, but there's probably something similar. There are lots of forums and guides to be found for all the games though, where you can learn the basics and more specific stuff about the individual heroes.