Ever since I got my first Xbox in the sixth grade, I’ve been into video games. I mostly played more casual, cut and dry games like Call of Duty or Halo. At least I did until August of 2013, when my good friend Mark introduced me to this game he discovered called “DotA 2”, short for “Defense of the Ancients”. Little did I know I was about to be tossed into a realm of confusion, frustration and eventually, satisfaction. DotA 2 is without question the most complex discourse community I can think of. Not only does it have endless amounts of lexis, genres, and skill levels, it is also nestled within a much larger discourse community, that of competitive gaming, and gaming as a whole.
Before understanding the complex layers of the discourse community that is DotA 2, one must first understand the basic principles of the game. The game is played in matches, where two teams of five face off to destroy the other team’s base or ‘ancient’. Each player picks a ‘hero’ from a pool of 112 to take control of for the match. Each hero has different abilities, and ultimately suit different play styles when utilized properly. The map, or playing field is split into two sides divided by a river: one side for the Radiant and the other for the Dire, the names of the opposing teams. Three lanes – top, middle, and bottom – lead from the ancient of one team to the ancient of the other. At the start of the game, the players decide which lane is best for their hero, and split up accordingly. They follow their lane until they reach the river, where they will undoubtedly encounter their enemy, who they will fight for control of the lane. The players do not go without assistance, however. An army of computer-controlled ‘creeps’ spawn in each lane every 30 seconds to help fight against the enemy heroes, and creeps. Early in the game, players kill as many enemy creeps as they can, which earns them gold, the main currency in the game. If they successfully kill more creeps than the opposing hero, they will accumulate more gold, and be able to buy better items. Items are purchasable with the gold, and make your hero stronger in different ways. Much like the hero pool, the item pool is quite massive, with 150 to choose from. And, as you can imagine, different items are better suited for different heroes. This constant cycle of killing creeps for gold and fighting for lane dominance continues for roughly the first 15 minutes of the game, until heroes are strong enough to fight each other. After this initial phase, players tend to quit worrying about the creeps, and focus on killing the enemy heroes. At this point, players employ heavy strategy, and brilliant tactics to ultimately push the enemy team back into their base, and destroy their ancient.
After reading that, I’m sure you’re already overwhelmed with the lexis, and sheer amount of information that is required to play the game even at the most basic of levels. Truth be told, the description I gave is more in depth than the game tutorials, which really only shows you how to move your character, and how to use your items. It took me days, even weeks, before I remotely had a clue what was going on. I resorted to watching YouTube videos to speed up the learning curve as much as possible. After close to three months of frustration and ass-whoopings, things began to look up. I had pretty much learned all of the heroes, their abilities, and most of the items. I was familiar with the functions of the game, and had begun to discover my play style. It wasn’t until this point that I actually felt like I was a member of the DotA 2 community. Unlike most other discourse communities, initiation into the DotA 2 community requires a large amount of literacy within the community. There’s no guaranteed way to join, it kind of just happens over time.
My most distinct memory of learning how to play DotA was without a doubt meeting two new online friends that have stuck with me, even while away at school. I had probably been playing the game for about a month, and by then I was used to the fairly toxic community that surrounded the ‘noobs’, or new players. While in a match, you have two options to communicate with your team: voice chat and text chat. When in low skill level games, the amount of cussing, insults, and blame that passes through these mediums of communication is just uncanny. However, these two were different. Their online alias’s, which is how we refer to each other, are ‘Force Tree’, or Force, and ‘I’m Ragies’, or simply Ragies. I could tell from the start that they had a lot more experience with me, but unlike the others they were supportive, and gave me tips on how to earn gold quickly, and how to properly position myself during skirmishes. Our personalities meshed really well, and we were having a ton of fun so we just kept on playing together. At first we lost almost every game, getting completely demolished most of the time. But honestly, that didn’t matter to us, we were still having a blast. As time passed, we began to learn each other’s play styles and habits, and we finally were to winning. The three of us started taking the game more seriously, so we decided to get a team started. For about a year we were competing in amateur events, and tournaments, our goal to make a name for ourselves, and achieve high standing within the community. However, between school, work, and personal lives, we never had enough time to reach that level. Even though we didn’t make it into the semi-pro scene, we still had crazy amounts of fun trying, and the bond we built was priceless. Even if we never play DotA together again, the three of us will be friends for a long, long time.
As you would expect for a discourse community as deep as DotA 2, there is absolutely no shortage of genres. I said before that a major player in my learning of the game was YouTube. I watched all kinds of videos, whether they be basic guides or simply games of high skilled players. Although it is not your typical text based-genre, YouTube is definitely a big one in the DotA 2 community. Many aspiring players watch countless videos, that can teach them anything from advanced techniques like the proper way ambush or ‘gank’ someone, to the basic aspects of ‘farming’ or making money. Another genre that I most certainly utilized is the in-game library. The library contains descriptions for every item and every hero in the game. For heroes, it describes each one of their moves, complete with statistics and even some lore. For items, it tells about the origin of the item, but more importantly what it actually does for you when bought. This genre, much like the videos, walked me through the beginning stages of learning the game. However, unlike YouTube, the library is not nearly as geared towards experienced players. The last main genre for Dota 2 are the third-party guides. These guides can be found on forums like Reddit, or Steam, and can tell you anything you need to know about the game. I mostly utilize these when I play a hero that I’m not comfortable with. They tell you which abilities to use and when, what items to buy, and how the hero should be played in general. The best part about the guides is they have a range in skill level. So as you move up in the ranks, they are still relevant to your level of play. Although it is impossible to name all the genres of the DotA 2 community, it is safe to say that YouTube, the in-game library, and third-party guides are the most prominent three.
Although there are 112 heroes currently in the game, they are not all played equally. In fact, the hero “Pudge” has been played over 100,000,000 more times than any other hero in the game. This is understandable because in my opinion, he is one of the most fun, and interesting heroes in the game. His background tells the story of a butcher gone rogue, who dismembers bodies on the battlefield to feed the crows. However, “while he always had a taste for the butchery, over the ages, Pudge has developed a taste for its byproduct as well. Starting with a gobbet of muscle here, a sip of blood there…before long he was thrusting his jaws deep into the toughest of torsos, like a dog gnawing at rags.” This is how the in-game library describes his descent into madness. But what makes Pudge so fun to play are his abilities, primarily the “Meat Hook”. This skill allows the player to hurl Pudge’s massive hook, attaching to the first thing it touches – whether it be a creep or hero – and pulling is to Pudge. As you can imagine, this skill makes the game very interesting, because Pudge is able to pull enemy heroes to their inevitable demise without them knowing what hit them. For this reason, Pudge is known as a ‘ganker’ because he is the master of surprise attacks. Pudge’s second ability creates a toxic cloud around him, damaging himself and any unlucky enemy stuck within the vicinity of him. This skill is appropriately named “Rot”. His last skill, “Dismember”, stuns the enemy he uses it on for about five seconds, and does massive amounts of damage. These three skills are incredibly effective when used together. The basic combo starts with a hook on an enemy hero, who gets pulled into Pudge, then the activation of Rot starts dealing damage to the enemy, and Pudge casts Dismember, trapping the enemy within the Rot cloud, while also dealing that massive damage. For obvious reasons, Pudge is the most played hero in DotA 2, and he makes matches very interesting to both watch and play.
DotA 2 as a discourse community is infinitely massive, I mean the name itself is an example of lexis. Between its grueling initiation process, never-ending list of specialized vocabulary, and a comparable amount of genres, there is just no way to cover it all. Not to mention the hundreds, to even thousands of hours of playtime it takes to be respected by the community. When it comes down to it, DotA players speak an entirely different language, and have massive amounts of knowledge in strategy and tactics that really doesn’t apply anywhere else, to include 112 heroes, each with at least 4 abilities and a different playing style, and 150 items. But even further, the game creates the opportunity to create lifelong friends, and is rich in interesting background. If that’s not the definition of a discourse community, then I don’t know what is.