MOBA Madness: a blast to the Warcraft III Dota maps past (VIDEOS)

I grew up playing the Defense of the Ancients map in Warcraft III. I played it from the very beginning in Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and I played it through Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne’s waning years. I played Dota a lot.

I grew out of the MOBA genre as I grew older—World of Warcraft stole my heart for a very long time—and now that I’m finally looking at Dota again, with its million dollar prize pots and multi-million-dollar eSports industry, I can’t help but be reminded of a simpler time when it was simply a map on Warcraft III and nothing more.

(See: Weekend time-waster: original Dota 2 icons vs. censored Chinese versions)

Here’s a look back at some of the different, really old school maps that used to be available on Warcraft III.

Defense of the Ancients v1.1

This was one of the earliest iterations of Warcraft III Dota, based off the Aeon of Strife style maps popular in Starcraft. The premise was the same as the MOBAs you see nowadays: destroy the enemy heroes and enemy base and profit. However, this particular version of Dota was extremely raw. While it did boast items and a rudimentary map, the only income you had was from creep kills. In one version close to this—maybe v1.0—you could use your hero to team kill and attack your own fountain.

The early series of Dota was worked on by Eul, of Eul’s Scepter of Divinity fame.

Defense of the Ancients v5.58

The subsequent maps with the same layout as the one above kept crashing the game, so I skipped over to 5.58. Version 5.58 was almost on its way to becoming the famous 5.84c version that people knew, loved, and refused to move from, but it wasn’t quite there yet. This was during the Guinsoo era.

(See: Gamer in Asia: why I hate MOBAs)

Defense of the Ancients v5.84

Do you remember this? This map was played closed to death, and I don’t think anyone who has experienced it can forget the super creeps that would spawn. I also once encountered a bug in 5.84b that would see the map inundated by frogs when it triggered. It was weird. The 5.84 map was the last ever in the 5.xx series of Dota maps, and it kickstarted competitive Dota.