Why would you settle for anything less than both? Unless of course you're poor or a moron.

Gather around and rejoice kiddies, chapter 3 is here!

Synopsis: Much like the RTS games that inspired it, the dota genre is most commonly played with a top-down “free roaming” camera that can be moved around the map independently of the participants. The genre features many mechanics that take advantage of the free camera and most dota players favor the free camera. However, the RTS genre was designed for a world in which you are playing the role of an overhead commander, whereas dota asks you to play the role of an individual. The use of a free camera to control an individual breaks the player’s connection to the action on the screen and does it to a substantial detriment. This faulty design choice is countered by an excellent body of game design that shows it is possible to manage RTS elements from a fixed camera perspective. But ultimately, the resistance of the dota community to fixed camera elements has nothing to do with an argument of superiority. Quite simply, it is a fear of change, a fear that a fixed camera would “dumb down” the genre. It is a fear generated by a lack of familiarity with the games that have featured the fixed camera elements and done them well.

Mike Lowell

http://www.learntocounter.com/why-dota-sucks-chapter-3/

Synopsis: Some of today’s video game players have decided they are the “PC Gaming Master Race”, holding the idea that computers are fundamentally superior for gaming than consoles. This concept is rooted in the history of computer video games, but those players fail to realize that the games and hardware that created a “Master Race” were defined by high barriers of entry. Back in the day, computer video games (and computers) demanded money, patience, and intelligence. This, in turn, yielded an educated and intelligent player base. Today’s distribution services, low price point, entry-level game titles, and the ease of modern computing have redefined what computer video games are about and who they attract. Computer video games are now like every other platform: Small audience of savvy users, large audience of plebs. So if you’re identifying with the PC Gaming Master Race, just be aware: You are identifying with a culture and an economic model which does not exist anymore.

Mike Lowell

http://www.learntocounter.com/a-couple-of-thoughts-on-the-pc-gaming-master-race/

Just about. I just had to show your mother the way to the bathroom. I'll remind her to pick you up at the nursery after she's done cleaning up.

Because dota games are too distinct (and degenerate) to be considered ARTS. Take the ARTS game, Sacrifice, for example. You control a hero (in the appropriate third-person camera) and various fighting/support units, which you spawn by harvesting souls and capping zones. It's a similar map-controlling mechanism to Wargame's command zones, even when there is no former base building in either games. Remember that you aren't capturing steady resource-producing zones in dota. You don't spawn units other than your hero. There's effectively no micro-management. The income you gain is spent only on items.

I can't even begin to answer your previous questions if you don't have a basic understanding of the RTS genre.

True. I don't understand why we need fancy utilities such as multiple unit select, build queues, and waypoints in RTSes. Someone get Icefrog to develop the next LOLESPORT RTS Dune II clone. You clowns would eat that shit up.

We call them jRPGs because they share fundamental components of roleplaying games, regardless of how "shallow" they are. How about this for an identifier: MONCF (Multiplayer Online Nursery Cesspool Frolicking).

It's easier to digest and comment on each chapter one at a time, as opposed to all thirteen at once. It was misleading for me to refer to them as articles, but taking a look at the book format should clarify this.

That was clear from the start. What RTSes do you play?

Are you suggesting that "Multiplayer online battle arena" is descriptive enough to distinguish League of Legends from Quake 3: Arena? How so?

To call Dota 2 an ARTS is to associate it with a line of games—Herzog Zwei, Sacrifice, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, Guilty Gear 2: Overture, Brutal Legend, and many others—which do not have anything in common with Defense of the Ancients or Aeon of Strife

If we conveniently forget that these games ever existed, then we can suitably call Dota games ARTS. In addition, I'd hardly constitute dota games as micro-intensive. It's alright if you're 5 and selecting an item in the middle of a fight is too much for your brain to assimilate.

As we have already mentioned, modifications of the game and the game engine could not be disseminated for use on Battle.net. This meant that most custom maps were standardized around the user interface, control scheme, and game concepts in Warcraft III. Most damningly, the Warcraft III game engine does not provide native access for the “mouselook”34 mechanics now synonymous with first- and third-person action games on personal computers.35 But in addition, the peer-to-peer networking technology used for online play in most RTS games is designed for a game model with a large number of moving parts. Action games with fewer moving parts use a client-side prediction model to minimize the effects of networking latency, and not only could Battle.net not provide this benefit, the service (as designed for Warcraft III) uses a quarter-second hard-coded internet delay. While this was intended to prevent players from gaining a substantial advantage with a better internet connection, it discouraged the adoption of the concepts that are a mainstay in other excellent action games. And while the Warcraft III game engine has hosted concepts ranging from first-person shooters to Diablo-style action games, custom keyboard layouts (and the maps that used them) never caught on because they generate substantial input latency.36

So hopefully, you understand where I am going with this. It didn’t matter what game it was: Warcraft II, StarCraft,Warcraft III. Blizzard mapmakers were influenced by incredible restrictions at every step of the way, and not the kind we typically associate with the design of videogames, where designers attempted to overcome the technical limitations presented by limited hardware. Things that were considered common in other genres were impossible to distribute through Battle.net and impossible to perform in the various Blizzard RTS game engines. The result is that dota is a rarity and oddball within videogames. It is one of only two genres whose rules were foremost defined by software limitations—the limitations of Blizzard game engines and their content creation tools—instead of hardware limitations.37 Every time that Blizzard custom maps made their grand leap, there was simply another set of barriers that got in the way of “building the best game possible”.

The beginning of chapter 2 provides needed historical context. Chapter 1 addresses the barriers placed on critiquing the dota genre (i.e how skilled do you need to be and how much playtime is necessary before you can critique Dota 2), and the role of esports in placing that barrier.