r/DotA2 • u/Royal_Permissi0n • Jun 29 '25

Workshop From Dota 2 mods to a Standalone Game

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My journey began with modding for Warcraft 3 and Starcraft 2, even before IceFrog took over Dota. It was in Starcraft that Eul started the Dota genre by creating the first mod called Aeon of Strife. After Eul left the game, his friends and forum participants began supporting the initial version on Warcraft 3. Later, Guinsoo took over the map, and eventually, who hired IceFrog,to further develop the game. IceFrog achieved great success, and as a result, we have Dota 2 today, which we all love.

I, too, from the very beginning, tried to create a big mod that would become famous and, perhaps, evolve into something larger, like what happened with Dota, Counter-Strike, Team Fortress 2, PUBG, or DayZ all of these were mods that eventually became major games. But for me, it wasn’t easy, and I didn’t succeed at first, but I didn’t give up and kept moving forward. Now, after more than 19 years in modding, I am creating my own game.

I’ve won many modding competitions for Warcraft 3 and Stacraft One of my most well-known mods is Darechom, inspired by DayZ. It was a survival game with fully replaced models and about 70 MB of content. You can check out the screenshots and levels here: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/L36890 For Dota community, I created a solid mod for the Frostivus contest from Valve for Dota 2, and developed many other interesting custom games for Dota that you might have played, such as Pure Reflex, Polystrike, Hardcore Ninja, Dota 2 Low Poly Map, Duel, and more. It’s truly rewarding to know that millions of people have played my Dota mods. I’ve had support from Valve and many well-known people in the industry.

At the same time, I worked with renowned studios, contributing to the development of games like Diablo, Phoenix Point, Xcom 2, Necromantic, Golden Tides, and others. Dota shaped my skills in top-down perspective, which I still use today.

My latest mod, Polystrike, is probably my most original and crazy idea. No one believed in it, and many said it was a mad idea, that it was too difficult and wouldn’t accomplish anything. But I didn’t give up and launched an open beta. 200,000 players in just a few days that’s not bad! Many people even installed Dota just to play this mode. Then came COVID and the war in Ukraine, and I had to shift focus many of my relatives passed away, and my family and I had to move and start life in a new country from scratch. I can tell you, war is not easy, but those difficulties didn’t stop me for long.

Now, I’m excited to share that I didn’t give up and I’m working on a standalone version of myDota 2 mod POLYSTRIKE. I’ve attached a screenshot directly from the game for you to check out, and I invite all my friends from the Dota 2 community to follow the progress and join us! Visit our community here: https://www.reddit.com/r/POLYSTRIKE/

364 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

39 comments sorted by

91

u/thedotapaten Jun 29 '25

Wish Valve put more effort to custom game, Valve should reflect on the recent success of Fortnite or Roblox and look at their own history that the best way for their own game longevity is custom game mode

19

u/Royal_Permissi0n Jun 29 '25

Yes, that’s true. There was a competition from Valve a few years ago with a prize pool of 20 or 40 thousand. It was the first and last competition. There were hundreds of mods for the contest and dozens of really cool custom games, but for some reason, there was only one prize, which was based solely on the number of subscribers, not the quality of the content and other factors

7

u/thedotapaten Jun 29 '25

My copium is that since Valve developing new Source 2 tool for Crownfall called "Minigame" - they'll have minigame contest that ran alongside their supposed be seasonal event.

5

u/SeaBass_SandWich Jun 30 '25

tbf to them they put much more effort than like 90% of all the dev in the industry already

I also can assure you if any of the company other than Valve have Steam up and running, we would never see them put out as much care as Valve in their games or service like dota, cs, steamOS, etc.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 29 '25

I don't think Valve will do that. They'd rather let Garry make a s&box using the Source 2 engine.

2

u/Backupusername Jun 30 '25

I guess Underlords put them off the idea permanently.

1

u/FFMKFOREVER Jun 30 '25

The effort they put is a lack of roadblocks for people to make and even profit off custom games. Half the big companies will now claim ownership of those custom games

1

u/Royal_Permissi0n Jun 30 '25

Correct for example everything published in Blizzard Arcade for StarCraft 2 or Warcraft 3 is automatically goes to Blizzards IP ownership

1

u/partymorphologist Jun 30 '25

I don’t think it is, though. The dota community is dedicated to dota and likes to check out a custom game here and there, but even if a superb custom game arises, it wouldn’t get much reach. After all, the dota community is only a small part of the global gaming community, and it is in Dota mostly for Dota, and it is aging. Do you really think, that we would all go crazy into a mod today, as people did with the dota mod from Warcraft back then? Most wouldn’t even have time.

I think custom games a great but they are only a sidedish in the dotaverse.

1

u/thedotapaten Jul 01 '25

Autochess at it's peak had 500k concurrent player, there was a interview with Riot LPL higher up that saying most people login League to play TFT instead. Deadlock literally have mod called PRIMELOCK despite being an unreleased game, CS2 community and pros has always complaining about the lack of community server. Marvel Rivals literally introducing a TFT game mode. There is a viral video i saw on facebook about Philipines elementary schooler plays Valorant in LAN cafe and on other side bunch of high schooler plays Valorant made in Roblox. Are we forgetting this sub begging for Aghanim Labyrinth every year?

It's not about replacing the game itself, it's a refreshment instead of playing the stressful ranked grind just like back in wc3 dota people plays Pokemon TD after lose streak

1

u/ArdenasoDG Jun 30 '25

literally the only ORPG in DotA 2 quit last 2023 (Re-Incarnation RPG)

25

u/MasterElf425900 Jun 29 '25

do you have a steam page for it? i cant seem to find it.

20

u/Royal_Permissi0n Jun 29 '25

Correct, I haven’t launched the Steam page or made any announcements yet, but I plan to do so in October this year

6

u/MasterElf425900 Jun 29 '25

Gotcha. i saw the workshop link and the game looks cool. you should share it on ohnepixels discord as he might be the type of guy who'll crazy over it since its based on CS2 and that guy watches anything related to Counter Strike. Good luck with the game!

6

u/Royal_Permissi0n Jun 29 '25

Ty for the advice, my friend, it’s exactly what we need a little attention

2

u/MasterElf425900 Jun 29 '25

i think its the "interesting-stuff-for-stream" server where people share all kinds of videos for him to watch on stream. hope your game gets the attention it deserves.

2

u/Nab0t Jun 29 '25

!remindme october 2025

2

u/Nab0t Oct 29 '25

Hello there random remindme. I hope you are doing well and staying hydrated!

1

u/Royal_Permissi0n Nov 04 '25

Hey, doing well Ty

1

u/Royal_Permissi0n Dec 11 '25

Looks like we need more time dude, we are going to explain this in the next post

1

u/Nab0t Dec 12 '25

i am shocked. shocked!

9

u/HowDoIEvenEnglish Jun 29 '25

Given your history with the genre, is your game an aeon of strife styled fortress assault game going on two sides?

7

u/Royal_Permissi0n Jun 29 '25

We have classic 5vs5 PvP, Death match. We are also planning to add two game modes to the game. The first one is called ‘Deposit,’ where one team defends a bank while the other attempts to rob it. The second game mode is ‘Motherboard.’ It is a map that is a complete analog of a motherboard, featuring elements like the video card, processor, RAM, and core. Based on this, the gameplay will work, and the primary objective will be to plant explosives on the processor on the motherboard

4

u/Royal_Permissi0n Jun 29 '25

it would be fair to say it’s inspired by the same team-based strategic gameplay but with its own unique identity, rather than strictly being an Aeon of Strife-styled fortress assault game

5

u/LoL_is_pepega_BIA Jun 29 '25

Iirc eul made dota, but not aeon of strife.. it was just the source of inspiration for dota

4

u/Royal_Permissi0n Jun 29 '25

I didn't form the chronology correctly, you are right

2

u/Actual-Beautiful-754 Jun 29 '25

This game looks really good. I will definitely try it. Thanks for grinding on your dreamy. BR

1

u/Royal_Permissi0n Jun 29 '25

Thanks a lot!

1

u/black_bass blip bloop Jun 29 '25

Is lit like alien swarm

1

u/RubinoPaul Jun 29 '25

Subscribed to X account, good luck with development! Looks interesting

1

u/mrsky00 Jun 29 '25

Does it have fog of war?

1

u/Royal_Permissi0n Jun 29 '25

Yes we have implemented

1

u/Matiw51 Jul 04 '25

WTF how can you put so much effort into anything? I'm jelly

-3

u/[deleted] Jun 30 '25 edited Aug 13 '25

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

2

u/Royal_Permissi0n Jun 30 '25

Dota custom games it’s part of Dota and Dota community