What DOTA really is..FUNCTIONS

DotA can be played in a variety of different modes and each game name tells you exactly
what that game will be. There’s a pretty overwhelming amount of information in some of
those game names, so we’ll go over it once piece at a time, from top to bottom. Everything
we’ll cover has been underlined in red. At the top of the screen are those two arrows, which
simply refresh the list of games. If you don’t see the type of game you want, hit the refresh
button and see if one comes up.

• ap stands for “all pick,” which means that you can choose any hero you wish to play.
• apem stands for “all pick, easy mode,” which is almost the same as ap, but the game will
give you more money to use, and your hero will become stronger more quickly.
• banlists are lists that people use to keep track of certain people they don’t want to play
with. Beginners should avoid these games, because those people usually aren’t tolerant of
inexperienced players.
• ar stands for “all random” which means that everyone is given a random hero to play with
(arem is simply ar with “easy mode” enabled). This mode isn’t recommended until
you’re comfortable with most of the heroes, but it’s a lot of fun once you are.
• 4v4 undefeated is going to be a bit challenging of a game. One team is probably a group
of four friends, which is why they’re not playing a 5v5 game. Best to avoid this one.
• Noobs please is likely to be a beginner-friendly game, it’s best to start with games like
this if you can find them.
• dmarem is “deathmatch, all random, easy mode,” which means that every time someone
dies they get a different random hero. It’s a pretty popular mode, but even more difficult
than ap or ar.
• usa/ca means that the host only wants players from the U.S. and Canada, in order to
minimize lag (command delay) in the game. Other country codes of note are BR for
Brazil, RU for Russia, SG for Singapore, etc. It’s a good idea to learn your country code.
That’s certainly a lot to try and remember, but it was only meant as an example of the
different types of things you’ll encounter in games. As a beginning player, look for ap games,
preferably with beginners only as well.