-Atchucan May 15 2009
I've been around the DotA All-Stars community since the old Dota forums although I didn't sign up right away to the new one (DotA-AllStars.com)
Back then, all was good. There were still some other DotA versions like the Mercenaries franchise that was still on life-support. There was no Garena yet at that time. DotA was being played on Battle net and in numerous other small LAN emulators and independent PvPGNs.
The year was 2005.
A few months before that, Icefrog took the reins from the abandoned Guinsoo project. This was a welcome change. From the old AOS custom that was being bashed by other members of the map making community for being overrated, it was slowly turning into something more polished.
DotA All-Stars was growing at an unbelievable rate.
With new players being added to the fold everyday and more and more newbies looking for DotA resources, the old timers felt that it was time for DotA to have it's own home since admit it or not, the old forums was what we call... "in disarray" actually.
Then Pendragon stepped in to provide the domain and all the prerequisites for the founding of a new home. Thus, DotA-AllStars.com was born.
It was a young site. There were problems with it. But when all these were fixed thanks to the dedication of Pendragon and the various community members that are long gone from these forums.
A new DotA map was released... This time, endorsing www.DotA-AllStars.com on the loading screen and then BOOM! Community registrations shot off the roof. It was now easier to share strategies, guides, report bugs, etc. The DotA AllStars forum went through a metamorphosis. The forum was undergoing rapid changes.
And here comes the 1st symptom that manifested: Not allowing the discussion of other Warcraft custom maps. Other wc3 communities tolerated this since they understood that Warcraft maps were meant to be enjoyed. Pendragon's DotA community wanted monopoly. There were various theories but it nothing was ever confirmed till the next event happened.
On October 2008, League of Legends was announced.
Despite all the contributions Icefrog, Guinsoo and Pendragon gave to the development of DotA, they were not allowed one thing. It is stated in Blizzard's terms and conditions that everything you create using the Warcraft World Editor remains as Blizzard property. Thus, you are not allowed to PROFIT from DotA. Even if DotA AllStars is one of the biggest gaming communities in the world, the creators and their affiliates are not allowed to take even a single cent.
Enter League of Legends - the commercial venture of some of the people involved in the DotA project who wanted to turn a profit. This was a legal way of earning money. By creating a game not running on the Warcraft engine, the game developers could not be prosecuted legally by
Blizzard Entertainment.
A few weeks ago, Pendragon's grand plan was revealed starting with the pimped up new servers to solve the slow forum problems. Next was the redesign and overhaul of the DotA-AllStars website. Then just over 24 hours ago, the first newsfeed was released to all your e-mail accounts together with the public announcement of a new unneeded program - the controversial DotA Patcher.
This is where the interests of both parties conflict. Read on for the best part:
Pendragon and his crew want to continually move DotA All-Stars to something more commercial. They are going through phases to make the target market of League of Legends soften up to a commercial version of DotA All-Stars. By harnessing the power of the existing DotA-AllStars.com communiity with it's millions of registered users, Riot Games would have a ready market for it's baby.
Icefrog wants DotA All-Stars to be what it currently is: a free to download Warcraft map that is meant to be enjoyed even if the game developers do not get a single cent from dedicating their time on it.
You won't get any official statements explaining the whole story from any of the parties involved since it benefits no one.
Please take note that the developers of LOL have made a substantial investment. If Icefrog releases his side of the story, majority of the DotA players
would boycott the League of Legends product. Nobody wants that. Icefrog made the right decision.
He left DotA-AllStars.com to be free to develop the game without sacrificing his principles while having the integrity of League of Legends left intact at the same time.
