DotA-Allstars.com is dead

[Shoox]

Dear playdota.com community,

after one year of fighting against decreasing number of users it seems that our good old friend DotA-Allstars.com just passed away. I want to say some words to our beloved friend.

The first time I played DotA - I can still remember that day - I was excited. It was a game not comparable with any other I've seen before. Some days passed by and I really enjoyed the game, it was funny, it was ... was just amazing. Around a half-year after this memorable day I met you the first time.

Oh boy, all the people you brought together, from every nation of the world, some very wise guys, some very nice guys and some funny idiots too. It was maybe not the best community but the funniest I've ever seen. You made something really big, you lived a dream.

As time passed by you got bigger and bigger. Thousands of new people every month, it was unbelievable what you were able to manage. Some of those people brought ideas, ideas which were very important to the evolution of DotA. You provided us with enough room to share those ideas, our thoughts, our qq. Moreover you didn't say a word as we complained about certain heroes, you didn't say a word as we complained about bugs, you didn't say a word as the trolls came, you never complained about us ... and you didn't say a word as IceFrog left you.

Yeah, as IceFrog left you ... a very hard day for everyone of us but specially for you. It was the day everybody knew that you won't last forever. We saw the end coming...

Today I'm writing here to thank you for everything you did for us. I want to thank you for the great time we had. I want to thank you...


Rest In Peace good old friend.
You'll remain in our hearts

Originally Posted by 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!)

Should you wish to contact me, you can reach me at:
AIM: Gippis
MSN: DotA-Allstars@hotmail.com
Email: Pendragon@dota-allstars.com

Sincerely,
Pendragon

Source: Letter from Pendragon - dota-allstars.com

[Atilla]

R.I.P

Who wrote this btw?

[ParaDise.-]

For some unknow reason the page doesn't open
I was feeling something like that happening

Great life to DA

[Shizzy-]

Those forums were the beginning and what caused PD to become what it is.

[aegis]

so sad

[Shoox]

Originally Posted by Atilla

R.I.P

Who wrote this btw?

A guy who was searching for some old stuff. Well, I've no evidence beside that the site don't open anymore. It's just a guess.
All the wisdom which was saved on the server is gone.

[Zoron]

so who wrote this ?

[Doovad]

NO. What's going to happen to all the good stuff, like the joke guides, the ms paint rage dump thread, and all of the mechanics stuff!?!?!

[Wurmple]

^gone :S

R.I.P DA (._. )

[Ayekee]

Atleast we have PD, just hope for the best

[Wurmple]

Originally Posted by Ayekee

Atleast we have PD, just hope for the best

It's not like we lost the place where we could be a community, we lost the origins of this community, it all started in DA.

[Doovad]

Dude, we lost fucking 390 pages of ms paint rages.

[Kriegskanzler]

DA is finally gone, huh? Sad. I learned a lot from there, especially from the guides...

... and the paint rages...

[Lemon]

sucks, the owner of the DA site was offered 1M$ to sell the site in the past.

shoulda sold it imo.

[Nicolback]

I remember posting my first QQ thread there, and read some guides. RIP DA, and all the wisdom and guides you have.

[savestheday]

so sad...

[Shizzy-]

Originally Posted by Lemon

sucks, the owner of the DA site was offered 1M$ to sell the site in the past.

shoulda sold it imo.

That's %100 bullshit.

A forum website isn't worth $1,000,000. 6 ZEROS.

[Nox.knight]

R.i.p. Da

[DoomSlayers]

Goodbye.

[BareScare]

I see grammatical errors. o.o