We are standing here with the DotA legend: Loda. So you're playing DotA with team LOST. How has it been so far?
-"It went pretty good, we got in an extremely hard group with two Asian teams. One from China which probably is the best team in the world at the moment and a team from Singapore which are very good as well. It went both good and bad, we managed to beat the Singapore team, AEON. But, we got raped by the Chinese and that's all there is to say. We started out pretty even but as the game dragged on they showed us that playing DotA is their job."
I've heard that the Chinese are much better at DotA. How come? Is it because the train a lot more?
-"It's very much people that play over there, and it's so big that it is shown on television. When we were there to play, the game was watched by 20-40 million people. They take it much more seriously and they bet a lot of money on the games, the teams has managers which think up strategies and tells everybody what to do. The entire scene is just much more professional in addition, they train all the time and that's their job!"
Now the latest, DotA vs. HoN. You play both, right?
-"Yes, I play both."
Which is your priority? Is it to train to single tournaments? Or do you like one game more?
-"I think DotA is more fun because it requires a higher skill level to play and there are more heroes which you can play in different ways. I haven't played HoN that serious yet, I was a stand-in for Druidz at DreamHack. It's kinda hard for a high-level DotA player to go to HoN because the skill level is so much lower there. To go to a team which consist of so much lower skilled players than my teammates in DotA is a hard thing to do. I like HoN though, it is very fun to play in public games and there isn't that much turtle strats around and therefore it's more fun to watch."
What do you think about the future? Will DotA die and HoN take over, or do you think it is it still unclear?
-"It's hard to tell, I think HoN will survive. As for DotA, I think it will die when IceFrog, the creator of DotA, releases DotA 2. I personally think that DotA 2 will be better then HoN but I don't think any of them will die."
There is a lot of copies of DotA, have you played any of the others, LoL for example?
-"I've played League of Legends, it's not as fun as DotA or HoN because it's not that much competition. There is no space to make those skilled things, so the skill level is not as high as it is in DotA or HoN. Then I've played Avalon Heroes as well, I was at CeBIT to promoted the game. It is much worse than the rest. But they are trying to make it big in South Korea. I would say that HoN is the best choice (among the DotA clones)."
We got some beta keys to Bloodline Champions at Rakaka.se, it is a bit similar to DotA. What do you think about it?
-"I think it's pretty fun but it's more like WoW-arena stand-alone game. I think it's more fun to watch than WoW arena but I wouldn't say that it is in the same category as DotA."
Credits to Mr.Greedy- for finding the interview and Jules_Winnfield for the translation.
