10 Ways Life Would Be Better if it was Dota 2

Dota 2 is the most popular game on Steam. With peaks of over 900,000 players dai…

NO. Who wrote that other article? A lunatic, no doubt. There is not a chance in Doom‘s rec room that life would be better if it was blended with the madcap murderfest that is Dota 2.

It doesn’t matter if it IS the most popular thing in eSports since 1991’s $24 million live cage match between Zangief and Blanka. Killing each other? Hiding in the trees and then dying anyway? Losing money to lowly neutral creeps? None of these things sound appealing, but since Valve nixed my Carebears-inspired retelling of Dota 2, starring Funshine as Lina, I have no recourse but to disagree with everything in the previous article and veto it a la Captain’s Mode. Here are 10 reasons life with Dota 2 would be inherently awful:

Your Friends Would Constantly Get You Into Shitty Situations and Then You’d Die

Consider this a public service announcement. If life were more like Dota 2 your friends would constantly be getting you murdered. “Hey, let’s hit up the Mac’s Milk and grab a Bounty Bar,” he’d say. “But Tinker, Tidehunter, Abaddon, Clockwerk, and Ursa are standing there looking pissed,” you’d reply. “I’ll just get around them,” he’d say, wandering over. You figure you will be judged as a bad Samaritan if you don’t help your friend, so you go to help and he ends up bolting while you get your face detonated by heat-seeking missiles and anchors. “Sorry, brah,” he’d call as your body fades into the sidewalk.

Perpetual Fear of Assholes

Real life is already full of assholes. So just imagine the biggest asshole you know and then equip him with Wraith Lord’s hammer or Invoker’s whirlwinds or Zeus’s god damn Thunder Wrath. That same guy who swerved to cut you off while driving on the 401 is now sniping you from the off-ramp. That teenage girl who has her knapsack taking up an available subway seat is now multiplying herself to block three seats. You’d be walking down the street and pranksters would just hook you out of the friggin’ bushes and then run off. Then, when you try to get up to make your way to the Radiologist, BOOM! The mayor’s tekkie mines. Eventually you just sit at home, horrified to go outside while all your friends think you’re A Fucking Koward (AFK).

Allergies

Being in the woods is bad enough – pollen, mold, spores and animals – but a forest with a damp, chilly river running through it is an even greater burden on one’s nose and sinuses. In addition to being the location of three unique bloody battles every 30 seconds, the water flows right through Roshan’s lair and that guy never moves. His feces have undoubtedly rendered the whole flow unpotable. The world would be nature at its smelliest and most cloying – enough to make your eyes water and throat itch worse than being hugged by Pudge. And does the Side Land Shop sell Clairol? Nope. Just broadswords and orbs of venom.

There Would Be Only Three Ways to Go, They Would All Lead to the Same Place, and All of Them Would Have Creatures Trying to Kill You

Not much different than voting, really.

Everyone Would Blame You For Everything

On that note, if the world of Dota 2 merged with ours everything would be your fault all the time. Bought too much milk from the store? What a waste of money! Bought too little milk? What a foolish mistake! Bought the right amount of milk? That milk should have been bought by someone else! Didn’t buy milk from the store at all? You should have bought 2 milks from the store! (exception: if you bought a Mekanism instead). There is no consolation when everyone dies. The afterlife yields a bounty of exonerating data but your innocence will evoke no comment.

Capitalist Structure Forces You to Bash Head Against Wall

“Play or be played.” That’s IceFrog’s motto, and truer words have never been passed on via hearsay. You will never make a decent wage if you don’t get out there and compete in the post-Dota 2 world. Even if you work as hard as you can, a few untimely deaths at the hands of a lucky Ogre-Mage will set you back to square one, where you’re low-level, penniless, and staring at the good items in the Secret Shop like Tiny Tim standing in front of the Eaton Centre on X-mas morning. Your success depends entirely on gold, like you’re Fort Knox or Flava Flav. Despite knowing that you will never be as rich as the Joneses (you know, Yurnero, Traxex, and Riki Jones with that white fence down the street), you must still respawn out of bed every morning and get out into the rat race. Sadly, you’re too far behind and you will just be beaten down again, and even if you win, the Joneses will just pay to live again before calling up Dendi to mock you.

You’re Stuck With Yourself

Don’t like who you are? As humans we can always change, grow, and expand our horizons to improve and learn a variety of skills. However, in Dota 2 Land, you must live with the choices you made at the beginning, no matter how many other buddies of yours also think it would be fun to be a person who can become invisible. Whatever you are, you’re stuck that way forever. Yes, you have four mighty abilities. But talk about predictable. Everyone’s going to have you figured out by the time you’re, like, 9 or something. “Oh, is that Jason? Yeah, he’s just going to throw casks that will bounce off our heads for a bit, then he’ll run. Stun him if he ults.” Suddenly, all that glee you experienced when taking control of new powers has been sucked away by that turd down the street who realizes all it takes is a mini-stun to ruin your beautiful Freezing Field. Should have picked Bloodseeker.

If You’re Not Wearing Boots You Can’t Do Shit

In the real world your boots protect your feet and keep the elements at bay, but otherwise offer little improvement over, say, a sandal or typical sneaker. With Dota 2 life in effect, you are effectively a screaming body tied to the rumbling train tracks if you leave the house without your boots on. “No problem,” you say. “I’ll buy boots with my birth-gold.” WRONG. You will be heaved into a pit of starving rats by your allies and none shall question the decision. Respect the boots. They can later be upgraded to Air Jordans or weird green loafers if you’re a nerd and you shove a bunch of rings into the toe of your foot.

Right When You Think You’re Winning, You Lose

Dota 2 used to be so predictable. If your team was winning at the 15 minute mark you were almost guaranteed a victory. Then they realized that doesn’t make good TV. So now heroes get more gold and EXP for defeating heroes who are at a higher level to help balance the scales, basically ensuring a comeback will crush all your happiness the moment you let your guard down. Implemented in real life, it’s like an impending hurricane when you haven’t put up the storm windows or a recognition that the company you work for will soon downsize and you’ll be out the door. Physical doom, financial doom – neither matters to the new Dotaverse that will flip your fortunes no matter how well you did for the first half of your life.

The Learning Curve is Always Faster than You Are

All children born since the merger would live in a colicky hell, fear etched into their souls from the searing weight of the learning curve, their mouths silently cursing the eternal death of optimism.