by Enzo Duenas

If there ever comes a time that you find yourself in an internet café for anything whatsoever, chances are, you’d almost always hear sudden outbursts of “GO! GO! GO! PASOK NA! HOY FREE HIT SI <name>” probably followed by excessive swearing. Even if you can’t see the game they’re playing, you could safely assume that it can be DotA, HoN, or LoL (I haven’t played DotA2, so I can’t accurately review it). Before continuing, let me briefly explain what these games are, for those who might be confused.

In these 3 games, there are three lanes, most commonly called top, middle, and bottom lane. In between those lanes is the jungle, and in the middle of the map is a river that bisects the lanes. Now, the common goal for either side is to destroy at least 3 towers in one lane, the special troop building¹ for that lane, the 2 final defense towers and lastly, the main building, which when destroyed, usually ends the game. An alternative way is to get the opposing team to surrender, either by game function, or by rage quit. Of course, to accomplish these, the game gives you various tools. Every few seconds, a periodic wave of minions mindlessly marches from their side to the other. Technically, these minions can eventually win the game for one side, but that would take hours, so we are introduced to the concept of champions² and items. Each side can have up to 5 champions that can have up to 6 items each. Champions (which you could control), basically earn gold through various means, such as killing minions³, heroes, or buildings on the opposing side to buy better items that makes winning easier. With these concepts, players can devise strategies to win a game.

With all that out of the way, you may ask yourself: why bother making so many separate games when they all basically have the same goals? Why spend so much time, money, and effort to make replicas of the “same” game? Well, while it is true that the basic gameplay, mechanics, and concepts may be similar between games, it takes actual experience playing the game to see that they are all actually quite different from each other in one way or another. These games have their own pros and cons, their own play styles, different art styles, and even a different market.  Now, instead of just saying these, let me introduce you to the actual games.

Literally starting the list is Defense of the Ancients, more commonly known as DotA. Well, this game is basically the origin of HoN, LoL, and other similar games. Word of mouth says that it was inspired from a campaign in the actual game, where there was only one road from the protagonist’s base to the opponents; everything else was either covered by the fog of war, or some random impassable terrain. In this one road, periodic masses of random, uncontrollable troops spawn in waves from each base to fight. Well, taking that concept, why not use the whole map, add more roads, and introduce a wider variety of champions to use? As a game, DotA isn’t just fun, it is addicting; it isn’t uncommon to have friends or classmates cut or fail a class just for this game. And since this is a team game, it is also not uncommon for more than one person to go missing. Because of this, there have been so many issues of having parents, teachers, and prefects of discipline trying to shut the game down, but of course, we can all come to the conclusion that it hasn’t gone too well, right [evil laugh]? Leaving that aside, the game can’t just be played by any random person; it needs skill. Unlike the campaign counterpart of this game, you’re either fighting other players, or smarter computer controlled AI. Depending on how good (or bad) you are, there will be times when your team absolutely dominates another team in one game, and subsequently loses the next game to insane bots⁴. Truth be told though, most of the time, one side will always dominate so much that the other team just has no chance of winning, or retaliating. If a carry⁵ gets fed early, it means that:

1. He gets more gold to buy better stuff to kill with.
2. The player he keeps eating will lose gold and experience, while the carry gains gold and experience.
3. The carry kills the other opposing players.
4. The carry’s teammates get stronger than their counterparts.
5. Absolute curbstomping for the rest of the game.

To the winning side, the game gets really fun: instead of trying to best their opponents, you see teammates fighting each other for higher kill counts. For the losing side, it’s the worst feeling ever. After all, you didn’t play the game just to be farmed like cattle, right? While most of the time, this situation happens, there will come a time when raw skill, timing, and luck just comes into play, and turns the tables around, giving the losing side a chance to bounce back and win the game. Moments like these turn a worst possible feeling into the best drug you could ever have; it’s as if your body just pumps up with adrenaline throughout the duration, and just like any other drug, this gamer’s high is addicting. You will always want to revive that feeling, bonus points if you’re with friends. Now, while DotA started all, or most of, these concepts, it is still limited by the fact that it is only a custom map. Of course, Warcraft allows imported sounds, textures, effects, models, and whatnot, but it still won’t change the fact that DotA is just a custom map of another game. No matter how much they want to, the creators cannot exactly touch Warcraft, as it is copyrighted by Blizzard. Modding⁶ a game is one thing, going to jail for changing it without permission is something else.

DotA

                What happens though, if you take DotA, and give its own client, servers, and package it as a whole new game? Answer: you get HoN. A more logical answer would be DotA2, but as I haven’t played it, I cannot review it. HoN, or Heroes of Newerth, basically takes DotA, recreates the champions with a similar, but slightly altered play style, improves the graphics, creates a whole new area for customization, such as custom announcers, couriers, and many various others. The champion skins⁷ of HoN, in particular, I feel are very well made compared to, let’s say, the ones made in LoL, as the skins in HoN actually experiment with different champion models, skill particles, voice actors, and even genders. Gameplay-wise, I’m not as experienced in HoN, as I’ve only started about 2 years ago, and with probably less than a hundred games altogether. What I can say though, is that it is practically a remake of DotA with added features that allow ease of use. A notable example would be the skill hotkeys, as opposed to DotA, HoN (and LoL) use the buttons ‘Q’, ‘W’,’E’,’R’ to activate skills, as opposed to DotA, where you needed to know which hotkey does what. Also just like in DotA, skill is very critical in HoN. Skill is needed to last hit⁵ minions to get the gold bounty earned from killing them, skill is needed to deny your own minions (and towers), skill is needed to walk around, as some champions actually have a longer turn time, backswing time, projectile speed, so on and so forth. Another semi-useful feature that may be subjective, is how you can choose which server you want to play on/with, and by server, I mean country. You can actually play on/with other Southeast Asian countries, like Singapore, or Vietnam, if the Philippines gets too repetitive.

HoN

                The last of the 3 games would be the League of Legends, or ‘LoL’ for short. Now, I’m really biased towards LoL, just simply because I’ve played it way more than I’ve played DotA or HoN. I can’t exactly say that LoL is very similar to DotA or HoN, as there are some key features that distinguish this game from the others. First of all, LoL caters to a wider market. While DotA and HoN may have been usually played by schoolboys and competitive gamers, LoL caters to just as huge a variety of students and competitive gamers, with the added bonus of catering to trolls, kids, and even more girl gamers. Yes. LoL is the kind of game where you can play unconventionally AND competitively at the same time. If DotA had an int⁸ hero building unconventionally, it wouldn’t benefit as much from building agi⁹ items as much as an agi hero would. If you see a Kardel with a Vladimir’s Offering, you would probably facepalm right then and there. In LoL, if you see a Fiddlesticks with an Infinity Edge, you would probably facepalm as well, and then proceed to hear the sound of your champion dying. Unlike DotA and HoN, skills in LoL scale with certain attributes, whereas the skills in the other 2 games are mostly flat damage. If my champion was presented as an attack damage (AD) type, but has ability power(AP) ratios, always expect to see a player trying to play that champion unconventionally. The scary thing is that sometimes… it works.

Moving on, the general interface of LoL is very welcoming, and user friendly. You can choose to show the ranges of your spells, with special indicators in some cases, you can see just how far you can attack, and you can even choose from 6 different pings¹⁰.

LoL

Gameplay wise, I feel that LoL is more heavily reliant on working together as a team than DotA or HoN. Of course, all 3 games need and utilize teamwork to varying extents, but the thing in LoL that I’ve grown to appreciate is the fact that dying doesn’t make you lose gold, and dying a repeated number of times makes you worth less, while being on a killing streak makes you worth more to the enemy. Since gold is not lost on death, it means that during a super late game, both teams would probably have all their items bought, and would rely on a good clash to win the game. No matter how fed you are early game, you will never turn into an eternal one man army. Champion-wise, LoL has two things DotA and HoN fail to show: a story, and champion interactions. Champions have lores, and although the other games also do, the LoL lores are connected to each other. Through the lores, you can learn that one champion is actually the sworn enemy of another, or that one champion is the brother of another. If that isn’t enough, there are releases of a kind of newspaper that documents different things that happen in the LoL-verse. Even in game, the player can choose to make a champion perform one of four interactions, namely the /joke, /taunt, /dance, and /laugh. Lastly, there’s the LoL fandom. The LoL fandom trumps those of DotA and HoN by a mile. They’ve created all sorts of art splashes, comics, drawings, custom skins, custom mods, animations, memes, and so much more. If I search for all the possible works of art for DotA, HoN, and LoL in one site, the number of pages of artwork LoL has just dwarfs those of DotA and Hon combined. Of course, what kind of artwork I’m talking about is for you to interpret. HUE.

Some useful sites:

The official DotA site: http://www.playdota.com/

HoN PH: http://hon.garena.com/

LoL PH: http://lol.garena.com/playnow/aatrox/

Special Troop building(s) – in LoL, there is one inhibitor, in DotA and HoN, there is the Ranged, and Melee Barracks. Destroying these special buildings upgrades your minions to be way more powerful than they used to be. For the sake of shortening the sentence above, I generalized (somewhat) what those buildings were

Champions – the LoL counterpart to DotA/HoN’s “Heroes”. For the sake of not being redundant in the article, I used just this term instead of “Champion/Hero”. Plus points since it sounds cooler (imo).

Minions – the LoL counterpart to DotA/HoN’s creeps.

Bots – Bots are computer controlled opponents that require varying levels of skill to beat. The easiest bots can be eaten alive in the blink of an eye. The hardest bots make you prepare your anus.

Carry – As the name suggests, the carry “carries” a team to victory, through a specific way. Usually has categories like the “right click” to win carry, or the use spells to win carry. Also check Strength, Agility, and Intelligence.

Modding – The act of changing a specific part of the game, which may be custom or officially made. Examples may be skins (see below), sound effects, skill particles, and other stuffs. Not to be confused with reworks, which involve changing a champion’s skills and/or looks.

Skins – Basically a different outfit for a certain character or model, to put it bluntly.

Last hit – The act of waiting for a minion’s health to fall low enough for the character to finish it off. A champion that last hits a minion gets bonus gold and experience. Related to farming, which involves last hitting multiple minions repeatedly. Contrast to kill stealing (ks), which involves last hitting champions that weren’t meant for you to kill.

Agi – Short for agility. DotA and HoN use this stat to show which heroes can deal out huge amounts of damage.

Int – Short for intelligence. DotA and HoN use this stat to show which heroes primarily rely on spells to do anything.

[Str] – Not mentioned in the article, but it’s the last stat with agi and int. Short for strength, DotA and HoN use this stat to show which heroes can take damage and live through fights.

Ping – A visual alert usually shown on the mini-map. May be used to “say” things without typing it in chat. Common pings can usually mean: “I’m on my way there”, “get the hell out of there”, “something’s happening here”, or “haaaaalp”.