Veterans, sit with me by the hearth and tell me your story

So, NFUA uploaded a TI1 game some time ago.

This got me thinking, what the hell were those items that they got? Not even a Bloodstone on Storm Spirit. Doom rushes Vanguard, and Pudge wasn't played mid. Im not too sure about the Mirana safelane either. The game has almost no right click power and each teamfight was quite long with the lack of damage from either team.

So tell me guys, how was the meta during that time? Why are the items so strange? And I am probably in no position to say this, but.. why do they make terrible plays? Like an invis Pudge suiciding against two heroes, or a juke to the trees and get stuck while you can just walk straight to your base.

Enlighten me.

TI1 was still in beta and im talking like ... EARLY beta. the graphics were horrible the aniations were **** basically it was very bad. but leading up to TI1 they cleaned heaps up and fixed so much BUT the mechanics were different and new so a lot of DOTA 1 players were still getting used to the new mechanics like doom not cancelling rot or the whole universal magical damage types. so you could say the TI players were still "learning" the game as they played it.

That's strange, shouldn't those people be veterans from dota 1? So Na'vi has no experience whatsoever in dota 1 and won? If so, where are the veterans? They should've rekt.

What smuggels said, and there wasn't many items before, and some items did different things. Also heroes were played differently. Now people just finds the "best" way of playing a hero, and it becomes what we know now. Have you ever looked at the basic recommended items for a hero? They're weird for 90% of the time. Well, those items used to be build before. That's simply how it goes. I mean people will keep finding new items that'll fit a hero. I mean I'm not a veteran but it's simple to explain.

Also yeah they were veterans from dota 1, but they were way more bad back then. Merlini's jukes as zeus were never seen before on dota 1. Today it's a simple move that everyone can do, but it wasn't this way back then, it was new stuff...

The game, the meta, everything keep evolving, and it'll continue...

^^^basically. like for example Naix? they completely changed his skills.

new items new spells new mechanics.

like google differences between dota1 heroes and dota 2 and just be baffled at how broken some skills were ...

and no Na'vi had a lot of experience in dota1. dendi used to be a pro dota1 player and so did xboct and artstyle. puppey loda s4 they all played professional dota1.

and even they had trouble with the new dota... watch some TI qualifier games and see some stupid stuff haha

People used to think Bloodstone was a "bad" item. Like, never worth building. You've got to remember that the game balance was different then - strats, builds, stats, etc.

So partly it was because this was the "right" set of builds at the time, partly because the meta was very different and a lot of the "new" builds simply hadn't been invented yet. People are always experimenting and finding new things. A lot of "new" builds are recycled old ones which were deemed "bad" at the time.

Things are always moving forward...but they're also very cyclical. There's no doubt that several years of competitive pro play have lead to rising standards though.

Remember that there were way less heroes out then.
Drafiting a strategy or even countering the opponents draft isnt really possible.
Also the quality of dota has just massively improved over the years. Skillbuilds and itembuilds have been perfected.

If you look at navi in that game the extend of their strat was throwing themselves at highground with tide ult, and you can see ehome walking in ravage range even before their bkb's. Teamfights were way less complex without blink, force, euls and stuff like that.

About the vanguard, i dont really know what the deal was with that, but almost every hero got one. Beastmaster, enigma, spectre... And it goes on.

http://www.datdota.com/tournament.php?q=1&tournament=The%20International%202011&p=heroes
The most picked heroes ^^

Just look at the low amount of carries for example.
AM was highly contested. So was weaver, what remains are either unreliable carries like sven or tiny, or heroes that were just worse then they are now.

Just go and watch some vids of dota 1 too and you can see how different the game was. (it even looks easier to LH in dota 1 then in dota 2)