Dota 2: A Nature Ramble Across The Desert Terrain

But no sandstorm

Feature by Philippa Warr Former Staff Writer

Published on Dec. 23, 2015

I've spent my afternoon watching the wildlife of the Dota 2 [official site] desert terrain. There are some newcomers who aren't native to the vanilla map which is cool - scorpions and vultures and the like. There's also a proliferation of beetles and I love looking at the new trees and the cacti. This isn't an exhaustive animal catalogue - there are definitely some butterflies and fish and spiders I wanted to include but the Reborn launch Dota crashes a lot and I was getting fed up! HOWEVER here are some nice shots of little creatures going about their business :)

I really liked the second scorpion. You'll find it near the secret shop on the radiant side, sometimes hanging out with two Hercules beetle-type insects. The pathing takes it on this interesting wander through the trees and the length of the circuit made the scorpion seem purposeful rather than simply programmed and repetitive.

With the classic Dota map the Hercules beetles tend to be confined to the Roshan pit but in the desert they're all over the place which is cool. The one below whose pathing made it look like it was hiding under a leaf with its butt out was charming.

There are a few vultures perched around the map but I think they're only visible during the day. Dota doesn't really have dusk so the vulture I was watching didn't have a window of time in which to flap away. Instead it just winked out of existence.

Tortoises are still very much a fixture on the map but the sandy ground makes their movements (and also their presence) more pronounced. I liked this one in particular because it looked like it was reacting to a passing wave of creeps.

I've been looking at images of desert trees and these first made me think they were a riff on a desert rose, or at least something from the Adenium genus with its chunky caudex, but that's because I was thinking the pink colouring was because of flowers and not leaves. It's more likely to be a boab of some kind. Either way, I really like it.

Pleasingly chunky cacti abound. The twists in the ridges on their fleshy bits help stop them from getting that uncanny uniformity. Gosh, they're just so satisfying!