Video gaming has been evolving and a new type of game has emerged.
Moba, which stands for multi-player online battle arena, is a part of the particular game which is called Defense of the Ancients.
This is the founding father of mobas.
The game originally started off as an offshoot of a popular game called Warcraft, but has now developed its own distinct personality and fan base.
But there is something very special about this game in that it does something that most games do not.
First, I’ll explain what dota is. DotA 2 is a new game being developed and is currently in beta stage. The game is like an incredibly complex mix of chess and rock, paper, scissors.
There are two teams of five on opposing sides of a map. Each team has two goals: to destroy the enemy base, while simultaneously protecting your own.
Each player is assigned a hero with different skills, play styles and roles.
Success in dota is in knowing your role, the role of your allies and that of your opponents.
Beyond that you also need to know every inch of the map and how best to enhance and use your income in the game.
This game is special because it has real life lessons to teach and, like globalization, is bringing people of different backgrounds together.
Each time you play the game you will have a different experience.
In some games there will be a leader among your team who carries the team to victory while other games may be completely dependent on teamwork.
Your teammates could be Canadian one day and Chinese the next.
The game puts you in different situations each time you play and forces you to adapt.
You have to both be quick thinking and have long run structured planning.
Some tactics include hit and run, gang attacks, also known as ganking, or a cooperation based defensive strategy. You have to know yourself as well as the people you play with.
An experience that captures everything above was a game I played once with a couple of Russians.
When I and the other American players realized they were Russians who couldn’t speak or understand any English there was a collective groan and annoyance because we knew our game just became a lot more difficult because communication is a big part of achieving victory.
We needed to know that these Russians had our backs and they needed to know that we had theirs.
So, one Russian teamed up with me, and the other teamed up with one of the other Americans playing the game.
Without any verbal or typed communication we established some rules based on trust and the hope that the other player knew what they were doing.
Simply by playing the game and sticking to our respective roles we came to understand each other, and we won the game.
We congratulated the Russians and we assumed they congratulated us in Russian at the end of the game.
I learned from that game that when people have mutual interests, even language isn’t a strong enough barrier to facilitate cooperation.
Perhaps politicians should be locked in a room and forced to play dota?
Comments about this opinion can be sent to salim.y.ali@live.mercer.edu.
