DotA’s best/early hype was not about patch-quality, but Discovery & DotA1 nostalgia.

I'm really curious about what changes will come this weekend, but since the 6.** era, not a single patch had a significant impact with regard to "bring back the hype & glory". Steamdb full graph tells the story.

If you check the graph, the growth timeframe (until almost 7.0 "Reborn") covers the period when everything was yet to discover and DotA heroes were gradually added to the game. In those times it wasn't even about mmr but trying crazy things with your friends and waiting for your favorite hero to be ported.

Once they officially moved to the "new 7.0 chapter" the players count went down and established on numbers corresponding to 2014 level. The only thing that boosted the activity since then was the BattlePass & TI periods, external factors like Covid Lockdown or HailMarry operations like the SwagBag free Arcana.

The name is still here, but it's almost like the game's evolution is no more made with DotA1 & HoN players in mind but actual MOBA players to be attracted from elsewhere, and modeling the game to ease their transition.

That being said, still curious to see what's inside 7.33 !