not really surprising, considering they have to compete with other free games, but dota2 will be free to play.

http://blog.dota2.com/2012/06/introducing-the-dota-store/

basically using a skin system like league, or maybe hats, everyone knows valve loves hats.

I thought we already knew this

Dota 2 isn't going to be anything that great IMO.

Still losing gold when dead ect, the game isn't geared to casual players at all. When MOBAs depend on people being ok with sitting down for 1 - 2 games a night, these people spending money on the game because its fun, then repeating as they release new champions.

Keeping the unfun factors in the game will just ruin it.

Its bad enough to spend like 5-10 minutes dead in a 30 minute game. You don't need to be set further back by losing gold.

I only played one game in beta so far, but my one game was way faster than the average LoL game. Not sure how it will average out, though.

This sounds pretty awesome - it's actually completely free, and thus fair, unlike LoL. The game is pretty shitty otherwise like Ismael said though from what I remember... But at least I have the full game forever without spending anything

League matches pre level 30 and sub 1k elo rarely last more than 25 mins with champ select combined.

Darius got nerfed the second week after he was released. I used to get mad at this and then realized that Riot is just like any other company tryinnna flip a dollah yahhhl.

In which case from a business perspective it makes sense to boost sales through a slightly OP champ in hopes that people will buy Riot point to gain that slight advantage. Problem? There's 6 bans in league.

Every match I've played recently has darius banned. So there is a very small, yet effective counter measure to their own pushy sales strategy built in that keeps the game fun.

IMO if Dota can change gold lost and last hitting in lanes ect and offer some form of formidable scaling for AP champs like league has done, I'm all for it. If not hopefully Blizzard Dota can make a vast turn around from the craptastic chute its in now.

Ya I'm not saying LoL is impossible without cash but even things like rune pages etc are a big deal. It also requires a pretty big time investment - if I were perma banned, there is no way I'd play again.

Its just cool that Dota 2 is free so I can play it as often as I want or super casual or whatever and know that I'll always have every champ etc

Yeah, I completely understand why Moo stopped playing LoL in regards to the leveling system.

I think there were more reasons than the leveling system that dissuaded Nick from playing league

AP champs in Dota have a different role than they do in LoL. They shouldn't scale like they do in league because AD champs scale so crazy. AP is for early game dominance and shutting the other AD down. AD's should farm up and carry late game without getting destroyed.

You don't need to buy the latest and greatest champ to be competitive in league, just ban the OP champs and play a role you're good at. The bad part of these games playing with less than 5 is that you will encounter a troll on your team more often than not. That problem persists throughout the community.

This is why I miss TDA, it was way better than the ranked version of league. cnP all day.

AREM PROS ONLY!!!!!!!!

/w tdabot !start sd18lc

There were a few reasons I stopped playing League, but the persistent leveling and hero unlocking were two big ones. The fact that DotA 2 won't have these features piques my interest quite a bit, though I hear the difficulty curve is much higher in DotA than LoL, and I was never very good at LoL.

This is kinda true, but I don't recall DotA being particularly difficult (lol I was bad). The only learning curve is figuring out where the fuck those stupid items are, what the recipes are, and how the hell you're supposed to find them on one of a million NPCs at your base, or grab an item quick after darting out of your lane. That and knowing the keystroke for every ability, and stupid stuff like that.

This...this is really the most cumbersome and difficult to learn aspect of both games, and I really wish they'd streamline it.

Anyway, once you get past that it's not much more difficult. For example, you can kill your own creep in order to deny the other team from getting the xp/gold. It's not exactly hard, though.

LoL tries to give the losing team a chance by making players with high scores worth more gold and xp. DotA makes you lose all your gold when you die and fucks you straight up the ass

That is a big issue

Doesn't matter if you can play every champ, IMO. I own almost all of them and mostly just play mid anyway. I'm not terribly good or bad at the other roles.

As far as the leveling system? Its probably the only thing aside from the enormous knowledge burden that the game has that's even semi challenging. Which is weird because isn't the complain heard around here about games a lot, somewhere along the lines of "oh, that game is super casual and easy blah blah ect ect un fun".

It's a actually a pretty happy medium. And no offense, I doubt that half the people slightly excited about Dota2 had the skill cap required in the first one to last hit, deny, harass and have map awareness. Overall, offering every single champion FTP is great yeah but its just Dota 2, better graphics? New engine kind of? Dota lacked a lot. (in other words, a leveling system with runes is much better and *no skill* required way to make the game nothing more than a *time required* thing.

As far is it being something fun to log on to and do every once in a while, I agree. It'll be as much fun as MNC was/is.

Ouch.

No?

Regardless, casual and easy aren't related at all. All the leveling system does is create a timesink for players to play catch up.