Historic week - Obama and DotA

What does DotA has to do with Obama? Both are related through just one word: History.

Change has come to America

The victory of Barack Obama as the first black president of the US is a historic moment for the US. Many would agree that this was a positive development in the eradication of discrimination throughout the world. His message of change and hope reverberated throughout the globe, capturing the imagination of world citizens. This once again proves that America is still the land of opportunity - leading the world in terms of democracy, citizen rights and free speech.

Obama addressing the crowd following his election victory. (Photo by Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images)

Thinking of my beloved home country Malaysia (although I'm not a first class 'privilaged' citizen here), I wonder when change will finally come to Malaysia. The issues of race and religion that politicians keep harping on is downright unproductive. Enough said. If I were to get really fed up of all this in the future, then maybe migrating to the US will be an option, but I would rather have the US culture of democracy be brought to Malaysia instead.


The day I got hooked on DotA

This was some sort of historic moment in my personal history. It was just last week that I officially became a DotA player, albeit a latecomer in the DotA scene. Many of my friends started playing DotA when they were in Form 4. I remained largely unaffected by that trend, probably because I don't go to cybercafes, so I had little or no clue of what DotA is all about. Like the Malay proverb, you can't love something if you don't know it (tak kenal maka tak cinta).

For those who have no idea about DotA at all, let me give a short introduction. DotA is not a game on its own, but a modification (mod) of Warcraft III's gameplay. In DotA, you will only get to control a hero, while the rest is taken care of by AI. DotA stands for Defense of the Ancients, which pretty much sums up the objective of this game: defend your 'ancient' and destroy your enemy's. An ancient is just a useless (it does nothing) structure that must be defended at all costs. There are two teams - Sentinal and Scourge, each with their own unique 'ancient'. During gameplay, you can level up your hero, learn new spells and not forgetting buying stuff to enhance your hero's power.

Since DotA is a mod of Warcraft III, it can be classified as a Real-Time Strategy (RTS) game. I used to be a great RTS fan, starting from the days of Red Alert and moving on (in no definite sequence; might miss out a few) to Red Alert 2, Age of Empires, Age of Empires II and Rise of Nations. However, I'd been playing few RTS games lately, the latest being Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, but then I stopped playing after two weeks or so. This is because RTS games have become too homogeneous, i.e. they have many things in common: build a base, defend it, create an army and then overwhelm your enemy. Each game can be said to be different in terms of units and storyline only. DotA brought a new concept into the RTS line, and I can say that I'm finally experiencing the thrill of playing RTS games once again.

How did it all started? I first played DotA when I got a copy of it from Kelvin a few months back. At that time, I didn't really have a clue on what I should be doing in the game. With no training mode, I moved my selected hero round the map, killed some creeps, get killed, finally declaring this game 'moderately interesting' and I never touched it again until last week. That day was Monday, when Soon Yin came to my room to finish up his lab report (we were doing the same experiment). I'd finished it already so since I don't have much to do at that time, I fired up DotA and had him as my 'war adviser'. Once I knew the basics, the fun has begun and there's no turning back.

On Tuesday, Soon Yin together with Kelvin, Wei Ping and I had a 'DotA Nite' together in our unit. Soon Yin appeared as early as 8 pm and we played three rounds altogether until it was past 11 pm (talk about wasting time). Worse, Wei Ping and I had a test the following day, luckily it was just an English test... The next day we had another 'DotA Nite', this time at the computer lab, but we played only one round. Our next 'DotA Nite' is scheduled on Monday, because we except Soon Yin were going back on Thursday.

To master this game, it does take quite a lot of effort like familiarising yourself with the 90+ heroes and various items used in the game. I'm starting to wonder how this is going to affect my studies.


Change has come to America and to my daily routine. The former is beneficial, but the latter?