Anyone who knows me knows that I loves me some DotA All-Stars; it’s one of the greatest multiplayer games I’ve ever played. I won’t go into it too much here because it is also one of the most complicated games I’ve ever played (with no instructions of any kind, the barrier to entry is as tall as two Conan O’Briens). But, just like with many other highly enjoyable things, its success lies in attention to detail, and one ingenious detail is its hotkey system.
At first glance, the hotkey system doesn’t seem to make much sense. For example…
(Note the hotkey of T for this skill, partly due to A and S already being reserved for Attack and Stop). Since the player’s mouse hand will be busy (very busy) moving the mouse around, all of the hotkeys are set to rest under the player’s left hand. It’s one of those things that seems so obvious and brilliant at the same time and should be something all PC game developers should try.
Outside of a video game, if you’re slow to press the right keys you won’t die and consequently be ridiculed by your friends. Yet, I see no reason for hotkeys to force moving your mouse hand back and forth, since that defeats the purpose of hotkeys in the first place: speed. To illustrate the magnificence of DotA hotkeys, I’ve applied the concept to Quicksilver triggers, and now I can bring up each of my favorite applications with a quick hotkey, all accessible by my left hand, without taking my right hand off the mouse. It’s beautiful. Nice to know those countless hours dishing out the wtfpwnsauce were good for something.
For users of Quicksilver, here’s what my Triggers look like when I’m at work:
I guess I’ll let you make sense of that. As you can see I have one modifier for all of them (Ctl + Cmd) and pretty much all of the keys under my left hand are taken. Compared to the other ways of switching apps (clicking on the dock, F9, Cmd+Tab, invoking Quicksilver normally) this is much, much faster.
7 Responses to “DotA hotkeys”
Oct 2nd, 2006
Dota is a great game from what I can tell, but it has one of the worst learning curves I’ve ever seen. The items are really part of a tech tree, but can’t be dispalyed as an actual tree because of the limitations of the Warcraft 3 UI.
I’d like to make a similar game that anyone could learn. It could be a high res 2d game (would last many years without looking like it didn’t have enough polygons and would run on bad computers) or a 3D “batltegrounds” version (“immersive” and all). But if wishes were horses then beggers would ride.
Incidentially Steve, a Pelican (not just a duck) can fly, swim, and walk. Or maybe it can’t but a Goose can. Or something. — Sirlin
Oct 2nd, 2006
Wow, I am honored by your presence, Sirlin :) Very true about Dota’s items, it took me a good week of play to figure them out.
As great as Dota is, it is definitely restricted by the WC3 UI, as you said, and I would love to see it (or a similar project) stand on its own. As it is now, it desperately needs some form of in-game tutorial, and a matchmaking system.
And the blurb about ducks is some content I was not aware was showing, but you make another good point :)
Oct 3rd, 2006
Steve,
Here’s another big issue with the theoretical standalone game that I don’t know how to get around. Even if we could somehow create this game (all the programming, art, and design), it would still need some kind of battle.net framework on the backend, I would think. That sounds like a major undertaking in itself.
Is such a game doomed to be either a mod to another game that has a battle.net or made only by a large company who can afford to invest in backend stuff? Or perhaps I’m overestimating the task, I don’t know.
In any case, I have some questions about Dota and I need someone who is really familiar with the game. If that’s you, perhaps we could talk over IM or something about it. — Sirlin
Mar 20th, 2007
how could i apply quicksilver to DotA
Mar 21st, 2007
Ed: I guess you would make an effort to learn all of DotA’s hotkeys? :) The beauty of Quicksilver is that it’s endlessly customizable, something that DotA/WC3 isn’t, unless there is some kind of plug-in that lets you assign key macros or something (wouldn’t surprise me considering how sophisticated some of them are for WoW).
May 4th, 2007
I found something that would allow me to customize WC3 hotkeys. it’s called warkeys, go ahead and check it out it has really boosted my game play!
Aug 30th, 2008
how can get the hotkeys???