Valve making a DOTA game?

[BigBiker05]

So I guess there are some rumors going around that Valve is working on a new Defense of the Ancients. While I'm not a DOTA fan this seems like an interesting move on Valve's part. Icefrog, the creator of DotA AllStars joined Valve some times ago and there are details that encourage us to believe that Valve is working on a standalone DotA: they registred Dota Trademark.

Source: http://kotaku.com/5610441/new-defense-o ... s-to-valve

Also Jon St. John, who is the voice behind Duke Nukem, wrote a twitt "Had a great time in Seattle last week recording for DotA. The guys at ValveSoftware are awesome!".

[bullet4o1]

interesting

[unsmart]

Oh man, the legal issues that will pop up with SC2's DOTA and this. Should be fun to watch!

Never really been a big DOTA guy myself. All the items and different heroes threw me off it. Sorta overwhelming for a beginner.

[Darklightr]

This will be VERY fun

And yes, it is very confusing for beginners, or NON_ASIANS lol

[Fraulein Arztin]

interesting

quite interesting

[BigBiker05]

Well the main issue is that Blizzard has full rights over any submitted maps. So does Blizzard has rights over the name 'DOTA' / 'Day of the Ancients' (or whatever its called, not a DOTA fan). If so, can they sue for Valve getting it trademarked? Will they even let valve get it trademarked?

[Cpt. Winky]

The DotA map in question is a custom map. I don't know if DotA is actually trademarked.

[unsmart]

What I mean is that I believe the name DOTA (Defense of the Ancients) can't be trademarked by anyone. The map existed since Broodwar, even if it had a different name back then and wasn't nearly as done out in War3. Then it has existed in Warcraft 3 where the "official" version (there are tons of knockoffs with the DOTA name) was created by a team of individuals. Even if Icefrog was the leader, without any contract ownership would be equal between the team members; Icefrog would have no right to give Valve the ability to trademark DOTA. I believe this is why past DOTA clones did not use the DOTA name, they used "Heroes of Newearth" and "League of Legends" (LOL).

Then again I am no lawyer and most of my reasoning comes from the business law classes I took in college.

[Darklightr]

Valve should go to Blizzard, and just ask politely. You never know, Blizzard may ask for a pretty good deal xD

[unsmart]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/vi ... inst-Valve

And it begins!

[BigBiker05]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/vi ... inst-Valve

And it begins!

Is League of Legends a DOTA clone? Looks like they're pissed that valve's dota clone will have the DOTA name on it.

[Darklightr]

If some members of the original DotA All-Stars team have a say, though, Valve's game won't be using the DotA name.

It won't, most likely.

[Agro]

Kind of off topic, but were all the DOTA heroes (all 90+ of them) actual Warcraft 3 heroes, or were they custom created (if so, how?) by IceFrog? I tried googling this but to no avail.
The SC2 DOTA looks and plays like a pile of crap, no offense to anyone that actually likes it.

[BigBiker05]

There are actually 3-4 SC2 DOTA's out right now. Some are copying the DOTA name and some aren't. They're all still really crappy.

As far as WC3 DOTA went it used original names but it just used models and animations found within WAR3. It didn't copy paste the heroes from the game.

[Darklightr]

No Biker, it used models, sound files and spells. It had a custom map, custom items, along with 2 custom structures, The Life Tree (Sentinals), and the Frozen Throne. Even though the Frozen Throne is found in the world Editor, it is used as a Cinematic unit, not a structure.
Anyway, the game also featured the heroes from the game, with new names and histories.

For example, for all who played the WCIII story line (both Reign of chaos and Frozen Throne), you see many characters, such as Arthas, who goes from a {rince Paladin, to the Death Knight of the Lich King. The mod changed his name to Abodon, just a regular Death Knight, but with a differnet history. It was/ is very extensive. If you do wish to play, go here to download it:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=0Y2WSTHX

Then download GArena (google it), then Run WCIII through garena, and play DotA