apparently the beta is open for signups, but lots of news sites says that the signup page has been taken down for these tournaments. Anyone here heard differently?

I think the aggressive nature of European DOTA also benefits quite a bit more for a new game like this where things aren't totally figured out and imbalances abound.

The beta was open for signups yesterday. I am not sure about now.

Yea the euro scene is known for the ganks where as the chinese mainly were known for farming. I think that is a factor in what messed up CCM (iG) earlier today when ehome suddenly decided to go with a ganking strat. I think another factor is that not all of the heroes are available. I know that the chinese like to play a small core of specific heroes whereas the euros are used to playing more heroes. A lot of the heroes the chinese like are not in dota2 yet. I have rarely seen sven played in an Asian game yet he is already being played in this tourney multiple times because of the limited number of heroes.

iirc MYM were pretty much the best around back in the day, but theyve been unimpressive in the two games i've seen.

Don't recognise names other than those from m5/navi/mym, so i'll have to root for them. Really suprised at the number of asian teams, they were definitely inferior to the euros a couple of years back but i guess i'll have to wait and see what they can do!

I don't think the Chinese scene farms that much anymore, they just don't engage unless if they are fairly certain they can win.

With regards to Sven, the Malaysian/Singaporeans use Sven alot but yeah its hardly ever seen in Chinese DOTA.

I think teams facing the top 3 European teams should definitely ban Chen, Enchantress, Prophet. Those 3 are just wreaking havoc.

hasn't really been a big international LAN tourney since ESWC 2009 in which EHOME just wiped the floor with everybody. Its hard to call now since the Euros have caught up and also everyone is on fairly equal footing since its a new game.

MYM is still regarded as the best team in dota by many. Some will say CCM. Some will say Na'vi. I believe there was a dota boom in Asia a couple of years ago which would explain why you do not know any of the asian teams. One of the best chinese teams LGD, also disbanded as soon as this tourney was announced because some rich son of a billionaire decided to persuade or sponsor 4 of the 5 members of that team because there was some bad blood between that one member and another team they purchased CCM becoming (iG). Most people agree that the asian teams are better compared to the euro teams besides maybe mym and na'vi. M5 is definitely very good as well though.

Recently the chinese have not farmed as much as they used to like zsmj's 700 cs game but they still farm more than the euro's from what I have seen. They also stopped picking dusa and making linkens on morph which does go along with you saying that the Chinese are not farming as much anymore. Although i definitely have seen much more chinese games compared to the euros so perhaps I have some bias or perhaps the games i've seen were not good indicators.

Ye I'm kinda interested in this game, never actually played dota before, you can still sign up for the beta, iirc it's soonish, just go to the dota2 in steam and sign in and sign up for beta.

just saw that they changed the page...am signed up now!

dota is a great multiplayer game, definitely recommend it, and also League of Legends. LoL is free to play, so probably best to try that in the meantime, the games are pretty much the same.

Is dota2 confirmed as f2p? Or is it going to be $$s up front?

the metagame in dota has changed from 3-1-1 chinese rice style to more aggro jungle push hence the rise of some euro teams like MYM and ukraine ultra-aggressive Navi and EHOME's star shining slightly less bright


Also its funny that GGnet went 0-3, their practice partner is MYM and according to a ggnet player kebap they were thrashing them pretty good during dota2 scrims, winning 70% of games prob

EHOME's star shining less bright is because their team is completely different than the one that won ESWC, losing both Burning and KingJ and also due to the rise of a number of Chinese teams such as CCM.

There hasn't been an international competition since ESWC so how European teams would fare against Chinese teams in DOTA1 remains to be seen.

Rice style hasn't been seen in Chinese DOTA in a while. Nobody really picks say Medusa or Phantom Lancer anymore. Even less late game carries that used to dominate the metagame (morphling) aren't really seen anymore.

The current DOTA1 metagame consists of strong midgame carries that can push (syllabear, lycan, weaver, spectre) mixed with double jungle roaming and big teamfight monsters/mecha carriers (Lich, Veno, AA, Invoker, WR, Pugna).

No ****ing way it's gonna be subscribtion based or f2p. If it is, then Valve is stupid.

I am just not fan of the cartoony graphics/artwork. That said, I'll play it and decide between it and hon, depending on metagame. More action packed game wins. Ricingis boring.

metagame can always change depending on patches, etc... Besides, the metagame for progamers rarely affect pub play.

God, I hate watching these Dota2 streaming vids and having to sit through 10-15 minutes of team picking.. just go right to the game for Fs sake.

Ya I don't think Dota 2 is a viewer friendly Esport. I caught one live match with a lvl 6 first blood. Pretty yawn inducing.

yeah this pretty much. i watched alot of the stream and im disappointed .

games take waaaaaay 2 long too.

just make the game shorter, buff heros/items nerf towers/creeps, its not that hard.

It exists, it's called em mode

Keep in mind that these guys are playing for a million dollar first prize.

Their goal at this point is to not **** up at all costs. This probably translates to more passive play.

Ever watch the first 2 days of WSOP main event? "What's that, I don't have AA KK or AKs? Fold"

Their goals were to make it through the group stages in as good of shape as possible. They might loosen up later. Just like WSOP play loosens up as you get closer to the money.

This, there's no reason the games can't on average be completed in half as much time (20 minutes is ideal IMO)

EM Mode isn't quite right though because the denies/cost of dying and some other things don't quite balance out the negative impact spectrum of events.

For the amount of 'action', either ganking on larger scale team fights, theres like maybe 2 minutes of action per game... and they last like 40 minutes.. most games consist of 5 minutes of people pausing, 10 minutes of team selection etc.. yawn.

Welcome to pro dota.

I can assure you that pug games are not ANYTHING like these pro games.

They'll have a forfeit system in place, and the only games that will go beyond 30 minutes will be the epic back and forth.

I am so disappointed in the graphics. I do not fall over graphics easily but this looks so ****ty and the animations look like they were created 10 years ago.

As Inso0 already stated most of what you guys are complaining about is part of pro dota. There is a lot of in depth strategy during the 10 minutes of picking and banning which you find annoying. For the casual viewer it will definitely be a turn off, however anyone who enjoys pro competitive dota should find the picking and banning phase interesting to say the least.

I don't think any person who plays dota thinks a 20 minute game is ideal unless it is an extreme push strategy in which the other team is caught completely off guard. Dota is a game that probably aims for a time frame of 30-50 minutes usually due to the progression of items. Anything shorter would cause dota to lose the balanced competitive nature of the game.

Every team plays differently also with regarding the amount of "action". Yesterday was not a good example of pro dota in my opinion. There were a lot of times where they would pause the game because of lag. The lag will not be an issue in the future. The observer of the replay also was not very good since there were times where a fight would be occurring yet it would focus on a part of the map where nothing was occurring. The prize pool of 1.6million is definitely a huge factor as well.

If you want more action play a pub game. People will be dying left and right. No one is forcing anyone to watch a pro game where people actually know how to avoid ganks by themselves or whether it be with a teammate helping them.

I think the graphics are fine however I am a bit disappointed regarding some of the animations.