Dota 2

Dota 2 is an Action RTS game, developed by Valve Corporation. The title was formally announced on October 13, 2010; and was released as a Free to Play game on July 9th, 2013 for Windows, and July 18th, 2013 for Mac OS and Linux. It is the successor to the very popular Warcraft 3 mod, Defense of the Ancients, which was based on the Aeon of Strife map for StarCraft.

Basic Premise
Dota 2 is a combination of RTS including perspective and a heavy requirement of tactics and team co-ordination and RPG including itemization and leveling up. Players are split into two competing teams (Radiant and Dire), each consisting of up to five players. The main objective in Dota 2 is to destroy the enemy Ancient inside their stronghold. These strongholds are protected by multiple towers down 3 lanes. The player controls a Hero, a strategically-powerful unit with unique abilities and characteristics, which fights for them and gains strength by leveling up and buying items with gold. Experience is earned when creeps and heroes die. Gold is gained passively over time, by killing creeps, by killing enemy heroes and by destroying buildings.

Development
Icefrog was hired by Valve Software in 2009.

The beta began in 2010, officially ending in July 2013 just before The International 2013 when the Windows client was officially released to the public with a queue system to deal with high traffic. The Mac and Linux clients were released a week after the general release of the Windows client. Dota 2 runs on the Source Engine and mimics some of the quirks that were present in the original DotA game in order to preserve gameplay.

Map
The Map is the playing field for all Dota 2 matches. It is comprised of two sides, one for the faction, and one for the  faction. To win, players must destroy the opposing side's Ancient, an important building at the center of each team's base. The map is represented in the interface by the minimap.

Heroes
Heroes are all unique characters within Dota 2. At the start of each game, players are split into two teams of 5, then select a Hero from the Hero Pool. Every player controls his own Hero and any units that Hero controls, such as summoned units like Eidolons. Heroes will gain experience when enemy units are killed nearby. They start the game at level one, and as they earn experience, they eventually level up, and each level grants more increases to the hero's attributes and an ability point to spend on upgrading abilities or more attribute bonuses. Heroes are split into 3 categories: strength, agility and intelligence. Dota 2 has currently implemented 109 of the 112 Heroes.

Items
Items are used to give Heroes additional various abilities, bonus Attributes, and/or provide health or mana regeneration. Items are sold at Shops, which can be found at the base, the side-lanes, or the more secluded Secret Shops. More powerful items require several base items to be created as well as a recipe. Items take up space in the Hero's inventory, courier's inventory, or stash, all of which have 6 slots for storage.

Gold and Experience
Gold is granted periodically, but is largely accumulated by killing hostile units, such as creeps, towers, or enemy Heroes. Depending on what unit you kill, gold may be rewarded solely to the killer (such as creep bounty), or distributed to the killer's team (such as towers, barracks, couriers and Roshan).