Dota stands for Defense of the Ancients and it started off as a Warcraft III mod, the first iteration being released by a mapmaker under the alias Eul in 2003. With the new Frozen Throne expansion released the map was not updated and eventually Guinsoo assumed its further development. His project "Dota Allstars" has seen it's last patch with version 6.01 before being passed to IceFrog.
In 2009 Valve hired IceFrog and led a team in the project of Dota 2. After 2 years of beta the game was officially released in July 2013. It is free to play.
"The International 2014 will once again be the most prestigious event of the year with 16 teams battling it out in the KeyArena, Seattle from July 18 to July 21. The first two Internationals promised the enormous prizepool of $1,600,000 with a total of $1,000,000 for the winner. The third edition managed to even top this with a total prizepool of $2,874,380 and first place reward of $1,437,190."
se Alliance
eu Cloud 9
cn Team DK
ru Empire
us Evil Geniuses
eu Fnatic
cn invictus Gaming
cn NewBee
ua Natus Vincere
my Titan
cn Vici Gaming
Regional Qualifiers
May 12 - 15th NA Qualifier
1. CNB e-Sports Club
2. No Earthspirit
3. North American Rejects
4. Osiris Gaming
5. Revenge eSports
6. Sneaky Nyx Assassins
7. Team eHug
8. Team Liquid
9. TOP5
10. Union Gaming
May 16th - 19th SEA Qualifier
1. Arrow Gaming
2. Execration
3. First Departure
4. Mineski Infinity
5. MiTH.Trust
6. MVP Phoenix
7. Orange Esports
8. Rex Regum Qeon
9. Scythe Gaming
10. Team Zephyr
May 20th - 23th Chinese Qualifier
1. CIS Game
2. CNB.cn
3. DT.NGC
4. HyperGloryTeam
5. LGD.CDEC
6. LGD Gaming
7. New Element
8. Orenda
9. Speed Gaming.cn
10. TongFu
May 24th - 27th European Qualifier
1. Aware Gaming
2. hehe united
3. Monomaniacs
4. Meet Your Makers
5. NEXT.kz
6. Power Rangers
7. Relax
8. RoX.KIS
9. Team Dog
10. Virtus.pro
Nice work!
Considering that this is pretty big game and that it's very different from both HoN and LoL I think it's good that it has it's own thread.
I'm really psyched about the qualifiers even if I don't care to much about the "lesser" teams, it will be nice to see different casters that normally don't cast together do their work. And hopefully team Dog will make it through the European qualifier.
For the big tournament itself, here's me hoping that Alliance takes it this years as well. haha
____________ "You turn me on Jaba"
- Meroe
I think that this International is going to be amazing. Unlike in other internationals where we had clear 2-3 teams that are favorites, there are just too many teams that can beat each other any day right now.
DK, IG, EG, [A], Na`Vi, Fnatic, Empire, VG... and hero pool is bigger than ever, new heroes are played a lot, and some old ones are back in the Meta(Morphling, Lycan, Invoker, Naga Siren, TI2 all over again!)
So I am really looking forward to everything.
____________
Give a man a mask, and he'll
become his true self.
Well, I think TI4's gonna be the most consistent one up until now. Big teams with good rosters and no big disparity between them. I would say EG has the biggest chance of taking it, though I'd really love C9 to win. But they seem out of balance lately, and the changes with the 6.81 patch didn't help their gameplay at all.
Latest news
"In less than a day, the Dota 2 Community has not only surpassed the TI3 Prize Pool, but has done so in record time! Hence Valve has unlocked the 6th Goal Reward for not just compendium owners, but all Dota 2 players! No it's not the Techies, but it's the next best thing. An all new game mode: All Random Deathmatch!"
It's been approximately 36 hours since it opened, right? If this keeps up all stretch goals will be achieved in the next 2 days. This is amazing. Volvo making 18.000.000$ in under 4 days and offering a total prize pool of 6.000.000$.
Crazy indeed.
I hard to say how much money it will make before it stops, but hopefully we'll get some new music and 1v1 matchmaking at least. Should be awesome.
____________ "You turn me on Jaba"
- Meroe
Dota 2 is overall a good game that I enjoy playing with friends (I hate LoL). I don't like the whole cosmetic deal about it, so I use the 'nohats' mods.
Watching competetitive DotA 2 doesn't say me much, but sometimes I like watching personal streams like Draskyl's steam. If I bothered paying for watching from in-game with full camera control, then I might actually watch the International.
Stevie, you may consider adding LiquidDota to your list - just like his father TeamLiquid and brother LiquidHearth, an all-around great website where you can find strategies, tournaments coverage (previews, live report threads, etc...), news of both the game & pro scene and that beautiful calendar to see tournaments live in an instant
____________
@Storm-Giant
Haha, I wonder why I haven't been on LiquidDota.com before or why I have never heard of it. And then I enter teamliquid and see that it has just been introduced. Very nice, it look so sleek.
@Stevie
Missed that game, but consider it's outcome I'm not that sad I missed it.
God if I was Loda that game, I would have screamed so much at that snowing Huskar!
____________ "You turn me on Jaba"
- Meroe
Just watched 3 matches with ingame ticket. Not really notable games. UG got a defwin from EHUG... poor quality so far.
Only 27 matches left Gonna pull an all-nighter here...
Edit:
Conclusion after the first day
Group 1
# Name W L
1 us TOP5 4 1
2 us SNA 4 2
3 us NAR 4 0
4 us Liquid 4 1
5 br CNB 3 3
6 pe UG 3 2
7 pe Revenge 2 2
8 us eHug 2 3
9 us NO ES 1 4
10 us SotP 1 4
11 ar Isurus 0 6