"Give Up Already!"

If you're even remotely connected to the ARTS/MOBA community you will know that DotA2 beta is in full swing with more and more invites being sent out daily. I myself have been lucky enough to receive one of these invites and I've already played several games over the course of the last few days and weeks. As somebody who started with DotA before he switched to HoN- and as somebody who has, in his lifetime, definitely played more DotA than HoN, I was (and still am) naturally excited about DotA2. From the start, there have been aspects of the game (and the company, Valve) I dislike. Nevertheless, the positive aspects of the game far outshine my petty grievances and I've already started playing the game actively alongside Heroes of Newerth.

Despite my inherent love for DotA2, I can't help but feel like a lot of the features are still missing. And obviously, this isn't surprising- because the game is in Beta. When Heroes of Newerth came out, it brought about a lot of changes that DotA players had longed for that were simply not feasible on the Warcraft 3 engine. One of these options is the concede vote, which is currently a hot topic in the DotA2 community, as people aren't seeing eye to eye.

For me, this is a non issue. The game should definitely have a concede vote- the question is simply: should it be the same as the one in HoN? As you may know, players in HoN require a unanimous vote to concede until the 30 minute mark, at which point only four players are required to pass the vote. This is definitely debatable, and I don't carry any distaste for anybody who has a differing opinion, because after all, there are pros and cons on both side of the table.

What I don't understand, however, are people who believe DotA2 should simply not have a concede vote. These so called "brave" people argue that, should DotA2 have a concede vote (even if it is only a unanimous vote), it will turn the entire community into "quitters". DotA hotshot and Glenn-Beck-of-the-DotA-Community Maelk wrote an article a few days ago promoting the idea that DotA2 doesn't need a concede option at all. To nobody's surprise, he blames LoL and HoN players for coming up with these silly ideas for features- after all, how could a glorious DotA purist come up with such a retarded idea? He would know, he's never played anything else besides DotA.

HoN and LoL players in DotA2? We need to build a wall!

I find this way of thinking hilarious, not simply because I disagree with it entirely but because it doesn't actually make any sense whatsoever. What Maelk is saying in this article is that, if five people unanimously agree that they want to stop playing a video game, they shouldn't be able to, because he knows what they want better than they themselves do. Proponents of this way of thinking argue that often players will have given up a game that is not quite lost yet.

To this point, I present a rebuttle: who cares? If five players want to give up, let them. It's a unanimous vote, the entire idea of such a vote excludes the situation of one player being on the team who doesn't want to give up. If the entire team wants to give up, who are you to tell them differently? Statistically speaking, who is in a better position to tell a team of five people that their game can still be won: The players themselves who have been playing the game for several minutes, or... some random guy on a forum? I'll go with the five guys who want to give up.

Ironically, Maelk backs up his argument saying "Most players will try harder from the get-go and are less inclined to flame and piss off their allies"- a statement I find hilarious considering a group of players who don't want to play anymore seem more likely to, you know, fuck around than a team that has already counted their losses and moved on. He also writes that he believes that the inability to concede will cause players to become better at the game, because they will have more time to sit and mope around thinking about what they've done. This seems like a silly argument to me, as I would argue playing more games equals gaining more experience and having more wisdom under your belt. He's essentially arguing that since you are "punished more" by having to sit around and waste your time, you're going to play better. Right- because I'm not actually always playing my best, I need a "time out" to bring me back in line?

"Maybe Dagon on Dazzle isn't the ideal build..."

To me, these "pros" of a lack of a concede feature are non-existant. And what's more, I haven't even started talking about why not having a concede vote doesn't even make sense in itself. DotA2 will always have a "concede vote"- its the part of the game where I sit in the fountain and AFK because the game is over. What people don't seem to realize is that DotA1 had a concede vote all along- it was the big shiny "disconnect" button that had no consequence. If I wanted to leave a game, a game which I saw as a waste of time, I could do so at any time with no problems. Banlist wasn't an effective way to stop leavers, as anyone could simply host their own game and it would always fill.

As it currently stands, DotA2 has a concede option- the ability to sit in the fountain. The only difference this makes is that the 5 players sitting in the fountain are wasting their fucking time, something Maelk seems to think everyone has plenty of. A player AFKing cannot play another game of DotA2, he must first wait for it to end, something which does not happen automatically, and in actuality hangs much in the hands of your opponents who are often all too happy to farm up for another half an hour just to spite you.

Even if DotA2 implemented an anti-AFK and a Report-a-Player option (hey look, HoN features!) into the game, do you really think people would continue to fight with all they've got until the "bitter end"? I doubt it. DotA2 is ripe with fresh and creative ways to troll your team while still walking the line of "not rule breaking".

But really, now we're just wading off into hypothetical territory; there is no excuse for not having a unanimous concede vote in DotA2. If the entire team wants to forfeit for whatever reason, they should be able to do so- it was their idea to start the game in the first place and if they all want to stop, they should be able to. A unanimous vote means that there would never be a situation where one player wants to keep fighting but is forced to quit; it would simply mean that the team doesn't want to fight anymore. The enemy team would still win, and that's that.