The Beginning of MOBA Game History: From a Mod to a Global Esports Game

Mobile Legends is the most popular mobile esports game in Southeast Asia in 2021. Throughout 2022, Mobile Legends tournaments often top the list of the most popular monthly esports tournaments.

With a peak viewership of 5.1 million people, the 2022 League of Legends World Championship is one of the most popular esports competitions in the world this year.

Meanwhile, The International — Dota 2’s most prestigious annual competition — always offers fantastic prize pools. Mobile Legends, League of Legends, and Dota 2 have one thing in common: all three are games with the Multi-player Online Battle Arena (MOBA) genre. Therefore, this time, I will discuss the history of MOBA, visit web dota 2.

Aeons of Strife

Mods became the beginning of MOBA history. In 1998, modder Aeon64 created a custom map for StarCraft, Blizzard’s Real-Time Strategy (RTS) game. The map is named Aeon of Strife. In this mod, four players will team up against an enemy team controlled by AI. Each player will control one hero unit. The main goal of the players is to defend their base and destroy the enemy’s base. To reach the enemy base, there are three lanes, which can be chosen by the players.

Although Aeon of Strife is the foundation of the MOBA genre, it has several differences from existing MOBA games. For one thing, in Aeon of Strife, players’ teams consist of only four people instead of five. In addition, the players’ enemies were not other players, but AI. Hero units used by players also cannot level up. Lastly, the Aeon of Strife map doesn’t have jungles full of creeps.

Defense of the Ancients

In 2002, Blizzard released its newest RTS game, Warcraft 3. Just like StarCraft, the game is also equipped with tools that allow players to create custom maps or scenarios. One year after Warcraft 3 launched, a map editor named Eul created a mod called Defense of the Ancients, which took inspiration from Aeon of Strife. Not long after Eul’s mod was released, various mod variants from Dota appeared.

Just like Aeon of Strife, in Dota, the player’s main goal is to destroy the enemy bases, which are connected through three different lanes. In this mod, players can only play one hero unit. It’s just that, Dota pits two teams played by players. So, the players are no longer fighting AI teams. Another difference between Dota and Aeon of Strife is that teams in Dota consist of five people. In Dota, the heroes that players play can also level up. Apart from that, Dota also has a jungle section, which is full of creeps.

The emergence of various variants of Dota prompted modder Steve “Guinsoo” Feak to create Dota Allstars. As the name implies, Dota Allstars combines various variants of Dota. As a result, this mod quickly became the most popular Dota variant. However, Allstars is still nothing more than a mod for Warcraft 3. That is, all assets in that mod, such as characters or items, are Warcraft 3 assets. Dota will not be able to display completely new hero characters.