A Letter from Pendragon, Creator of DotA-Allstars.com
Posted by drew on July 23rd, 2010 |I’m republishing a letter currently splashed on the Dota-Allstars.com website, written by its creator, Pendragon.
DotA-Allstars.com Visitor,
Some of you may know me; many of you probably won’t these days. This website was born on October 14th, 2004. It was a mere 2 months after I turned 18, and it was the first website I’d ever made. Guinsoo was the lead developer (before Icefrog), DotA had no competitive scene and maybe 5% of the players that it does today.
In the years that followed, the site turned from a small forum with only 30,000 users to a massive community with over a million visitors every month, a million page views every day, and a staff of over 100 volunteers. It’s been incredible discovering the generosity of individuals who selflessly donate their time to create a positive experience for others.
In the summer of 2008, I met Guinsoo in real life for the first time. He and his boss were in town and they wanted to meet up and go out for a steak, (how could I say no!?). I soon learned that they were working on a game based on DotA, free from all of the limitations of the Warcraft III engine and Battle.net. Several months after meeting them and after several trips to their offices to learn more about the project, I joined the Riot Games team working on League of Legends.
When I first joined the team in September of 2008, my original intent was to work on League of Legends full time and continue to build DotA-Allstars.com into an awesome thriving DotA community after Icefrog’s departure.
While I originally intended to leave this out of this letter, in light of the fact that this information is now out in the open, I think it’s important to set the record straight. Many believe that Icefrog left because I wanted to commercialize, and he did not. In reality – I had learned that Icefrog had been secretly working for S2Games after conducting a series of meetings where he was attempting to sell a full DotA game concept to a number of companies (including Riot). The differences of opinion that we had were merely that I chose to be transparent and honest about the project that I was working on, and the direction my career was going.
After working on and launching LoL, I began to realize that – in addition to having no free time anymore – with LoL available to play I no longer possessed the passion for DotA which once drove me.
The traffic on the website slowly began to decline, settling where it’s at now (about 50% of where it was a year ago), and I recently realized that I had a decision to make. I could either continue to say that I would rebuild the website as a strong DotA community, knowing that my heart wasn’t really in it, or I could archive the site, ending an almost 6 year chapter of my life that I’ve invested thousands of hours into. Ultimately I believe that the right decision here is to not trick myself into thinking that this site will be rebuilt into what it once was, and to shift my full focus and time to my new project, with an eye towards the future.
This website and the DotA community will always hold a special place in my heart. It’s been an amazing experience working with so many wonderful people and gaining so much insight about communities, people, and ultimately myself. There are more people deserving of thanks than I could possibly remember – so rather than leaving anyone out, I’ll simply thank everyone who has volunteered or contributed to this site over the last few years, and everyone who helped make it one of the premier DotA websites in the world.
The website will be offline for the next week or so while the database is moved to its new permanent home where its contents will remain archived and available to the public for the sake of historical preservation.
In the meantime, I hope some of you will join me and over 3 million other players for a game of League of Legends (it’s free!)
Sincerely,
Pendragon
July 23rd, 2010 at 6:21 am
Thee has been cleansed from your sins Pendragon.
July 23rd, 2010 at 6:48 am
Nooooooo!
July 23rd, 2010 at 9:38 am
This is surprising.
July 23rd, 2010 at 10:05 am
Do what’s best for yourself. That’s how things work in the real world, ladies and gentlemen.
July 23rd, 2010 at 10:13 am
Damn…im confused…
July 23rd, 2010 at 9:27 pm
Yeah this really does make a lot of sense. Anyway if you want the truth just have a friendly game of LOL on vent with Pendragon one day… you’ll probably learn that this is a lot more that pendragon left out… out of politeness.
July 24th, 2010 at 12:41 am
There is no shame in abandoning a sinking ship full of trolls.
yeah come on lets play league XD
July 24th, 2010 at 5:12 am
This spells the start of the end for DotA :S
We all saw this coming…
July 24th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
What will be the name of the website you’ll move it
July 25th, 2010 at 5:30 am
I’m not surprised to this(except for the fact that icefrog is talking to companies and Pendragon going to LoL) because DA lost its popularity when PD rise to the scene. Making DA not the official site of DotA. As what I’ve seen, many people from DA went to PD. The going over the fence also occured when DA is in reconstruction,
So I’m not really surprised by this. I though to myself that DA will soon fall.
July 25th, 2010 at 7:21 am
Obviously this just means that DS will overtake DA. *evil laugh*
July 25th, 2010 at 7:11 pm
A giant has fallen in the DotA. Thankfully though, pendragon_ is not gone, just switching focus. He’s right, this is the best decision for him to make, and it was a really good choice to archive the website rather than just close it and let it die. Good luck in the future pendragon! (although u may never see this :P)
July 26th, 2010 at 1:04 am
Pendragon never did anything for the DotA scene besides the DA forum.
Talking trash about other people like this is dirty, the guy is just bitter and is acting a little bit like an attention whore.
He was given the opportunity to profit with LoL and of course he wasn’t going to say no because he was nobody in the DotA world.
Farewell loser.
July 26th, 2010 at 2:23 am
omg
so furions epic guide is now gone
same for naix’s agha dagon guide and trollwarlords aghadagon guide?
NOOO
July 28th, 2010 at 12:17 pm
This guy just closes his sinking fansite, a mean who the hell cares? Of course you won’t manage a dota site when you working on league of legend. Any it seems his nobody his only achivement is that he met guinsoo.
July 28th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
oh and I forgot: It is a freakin LOL advertisement!
July 31st, 2010 at 8:18 am
LOL is free but blocked in my country, where there are many DOTA players.
July 31st, 2010 at 8:36 am
DotA will never fall….. i hope…
July 31st, 2010 at 9:42 am
I only fear that the trolls from Dota-Allstars.com will come and join the DS community.
August 1st, 2010 at 10:03 pm
sad to c u go mate
take ur place amng guinsoo eul and neichus
peace
August 4th, 2010 at 4:15 am
dota is the best
August 4th, 2010 at 7:27 pm
@ite
It will never die and fall
it will live and fly
August 5th, 2010 at 10:24 pm
Playing the blame game Pendragon? Dislike…
August 9th, 2010 at 7:47 am
lol advertisement! its sad that anybody related to LoL never fails to advertise man..anywhere and everywhere seriously! and abt the site..dont continue anything thats not profitable. i mean we got DS..never needed DA
August 11th, 2010 at 12:47 pm
COMPLETE AD FOR LOL. he abandoned his noob fansite. Yippeee. Not like this game will end we have DS AND PD
August 15th, 2010 at 8:02 am
this is old news why posting it now?
August 20th, 2010 at 10:22 pm
dota will never die. I have played lol (it sucks horrible graphics) and hon but dota is d original. DotA will never fail!!!
August 24th, 2010 at 9:59 pm
If League of Legends will be a game that overtakes DotA on graphics,gameplay and other stuff,but is exactly like the DotA we love,I think that the veteran players wont like it too much and will stick to the game we all love and have seen developing fo many years!I
September 6th, 2010 at 7:15 am
Heroes of Newerth.
October 13th, 2010 at 7:24 pm
[...] harmonious. Last July 23, 2010, one of Dota’s creators, Steve Mescon aka Pendragon, posted a lengthy message explaining his falling out with IceFrog. IceFrog didn’t want to commercialize as what [...]
December 30th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
I’ve played DotA for… a year and a half now? I’ve tried LoL once, and seriously, I was disapointed : much less pinpoint strategy (no more deny… WHAT?!), requires higher pc specs than Wc3 (I don’t have a good gc on my laptop), and ended up dying no matter what… kthxbye.
As a final note : Wc3 TFT DotA shall live on!
February 3rd, 2011 at 8:33 pm
-DotA is the from ALL…q3w
February 3rd, 2011 at 8:34 pm
-BEST from ALL rather…PENDRAGON…