Defense of the Ancients

                                                              DOTA

Defense of the anceint(DOTA)  is  a  multiplayer  online  battle arena  mod   for  the  video game Warcraft II: Reign of Chaos  and  its  expansion, Warcraft III : The  Frozen Throne , based  on  the  "Aeon  of Strife"  map for StarCraft. The objective  of  the  scenario is  for  each  team  to  destroy  the  opponents'  Ancient, heavily guarded structures  at  opposing  corners  of  the  map . Players  use  powerful  units  known  as heroes,  and  are  assisted  by  allied  heroes  and AI - controlled  fighters . As  in  Role-playing  games,  players  level  up  their  heroes  and  use  gold  to  buy  equipment  during the  mission.

The  scenario  was  developed  with  the  "World Editor"  of  Reign of  Chaos,  and  was updated  upon  the  release  of  its  expansion , The  Frozen  Throne . There  have  been many  variations  of  the original  concept ; the  most  popular  being  DotA  Allstars, which eventually  was  simplified  to  DotA  with  the  release  of  version  6.68. This  specific scenario  has  been  maintained  by  several  authors  during  development, the  latest  of whom  being  the  anonymous  developer  known  as  "IceFrog"  developing  the  game since 2005.

Since  its  original  release,  DotA  has  become  a  feature  at  several  worldwide tournaments,  including  Blizzard  Entertainment's  BlizzCon  and  the  Asian World  Cyber Games, as well  as  th e Cyberathlete  Amateur and CyberEvolution  leagues ; in a 2008 article of video game industry website Gamasutra, the article's author claimed that "DotA is likely the most popular and most-discussed  free, non-supported  game mod  in the world".DotA is largely attributed to being the most significant inspiration for the multiplayer  online  battle  arena  genre. Valve  Corporation  acquired  the  intellectual property  rights  to DotA  to  develop  and  release  a  stand-alone  sequel , Dota 2.