Did you get started playing it back when it was just a Warcraft 3 map? I know a guy that worked on the Defense Of The Ancients team, when it was just in Warcraft 3. It was weird to see it become its own game.
I know I shouldn't be mean, but you'll have to forgive me for wanting to virtually smack you. I mean, practically daily exposure to some of the nastiest, most spiteful, childish antics on the internet, and I just get tired of questions that should be obvious. Yes, of COURSE I played it back when it was a WC3 custom map. I did say I'd been playing it for over a decade, and back then (only up till 2011, in fact) it's been a WC3 map. Sure, for a couple years in-between
Defense of the Ancients and Dota 2 there was HoN and LoL to bridge the gap, but I'd just refer to them as "An ARTS/MOBA (respectively) game based on Dota", not Dota. =) I was playing it back when it was a
Reign of Chaos mod, and back then I fucking hated it. I hated it up till late 2005, even, but I finally warmed up to it and officially designated myself as "addicted" by late 2006. I could easily count Dota as a main contributing factor to my dropping out of my Fall semester in 2006. Played too many games when I should've been going to classes... >_<
But I'm not joking or utilizing hyperbole when I say "I've lost count of how many times I've quit the game"; I really have no idea how many times I've tried to quit, only to simply come crawling back. It's just TOO GOOD!!! As much as I loved a couple particular MMOs to the point that it caused serious anxiety to attempt to tear myself away from them, ultimately one of the bigger factors that made it so difficult was the fact that I was paying $30 every 3 months for the service, and I felt compelled to make the most of that investment. While I was absolutely head-over-heels in love with GTAV, I had enough of it after about 3 months, and while I keep telling myself that I really had fun and I ought to pick it back up... I just haven't. But Dota? Times like when it was affecting my studies, or times like when the caustic community worsened my depression, or many other countless times like those simply left me thinking to myself, "Y'know, I'm done. Been a great ride, but I'm quitting!" But there's never been any other game like Dota that pulls me back in with its amazing gameplay. To be honest, I hate the gameplay in New Vegas. I fucking love the GAME, but I wish it was attached to an entirely different engine. I adore the totality of both FO1 and FO2, but I can't really say it's because of the gameplay. I enjoy it, but I'd be lying if I tried to say that the gameplay hasn't aged poorly at all. I keep coming back to the
Fallout games for reasons besides the gameplay, and the series as a whole comes at a decently close second right behind Dota in terms of addiction. But second, nonetheless.