Ben Wu · @MerliniDota
13th Dec 2016 from TwitLonger
"The Icefrog Block" - an alternative view to Dota 7.00 being too crazy.
Take a deep breath and let's use our imaginations for a bit. Bear with me for this. Imagine that video games are houses, all located in this special neighborhood called Funland. People come and visit Funland when they're looking for something fun to play. You see many, many houses as you walk around the hood. You hear faint gunshots in the direction of FPS Lane. You walk a little further, noticing and turning your gaze fondly upon the now decrepit Super Mario Brothers Shack. You ignore the horde of kids walking towards the Riot Mansion, assuming they'd know better once they explored more of the neighborhood. And now you start walking forward towards the familiarly satisfying Dota 2 house. How do you play? Well that's simple, you just walk into the house to play that game. And when you're done, you leave the house. Sweet neighborhood, right?
Despite there being so many different houses, you see everyone keep walking into the Dota house. The gate is always open here. It's been a bastion for a large community of gamers for almost a decade now. It even changed ownership at some point, but the house pretty much stayed the same so nobody cared. Rarely do you see the Dota house empty, or closed for repairs, and you don't even have to pay to enter! You wonder why the hell some people are walking away from Free to Play Terrace. Outside of the terrace, there are bouncers at every gate, selling keys to locked houses for $60 a pop. "Preposterous," you mumble to yourself. Moving onwards, you walk into the packed house, marveling at the sound structure. It looks like there were a lot of people inside, but the house always seems to be growing and there's always room for more. As you step inside, you check out the guest list. You see your friends on it and join them for some Dota games.
After what seems like just a few hours, it's time to go. You've spent the whole day here, and you have other duties to attend to tomorrow. You glance casually at the setting sun as you leave the Dota house. You sense your fleeting envy at your friends who can stay there for a while longer. As you make it home, you wonder to yourself for a second, how come nobody has ever built something as awesome as the Dota house? What's so special about it that keeps drawing everyone back? All the other houses around it have long crumbled into debris, and you muse to yourself, what the hell is that building made of that it eternally weathers the elements, looks so damn new every time you visit, and makes you never want to leave?
Well, this particular building is made of something super special. The Icefrog block®. People keep trying to replicate this house by hiring different contractors to copy the Icefrog block®, but nothing comes close to the original, for Icefrog only works on this one special house. Some evil people have tried to deface the Dota house by spraying graffiti on the wall, but everyone who has visited knows that the real treasure is inside. Some greedy thieves have tried to lure people away by stealing some furniture inside of the house and making it their own, but the furniture loses it lusty sheen as soon as it leaves the Dota house. Damn, this Dota house made of Icefrog blocks® is one of kind! There really is nothing like it. But why is he remodeling when you (and others) were perfectly happy with the layout of the house? Why, Icefrog, why!?
But then you start to realize, Icefrog's house has been undergoing heavy remodeling for some time now! Most people just noticed the flagship announcements of room 700's new Monkey King's Menagerie and a while back, the haunted Abyssal Underlord's Laboratory. But there were many "house-breaking" changes that have been forgotten by now. Some otherworldly-looking spell damage amplification electric blue had been used to paint over the rooms of each Intelligence hero. People thought that would break the house, but now people don't even take a second look at this particular shade of blue. Everyone thought it was crazy when they stocked half the fridges with bottles of bounty water instead of bottles of normal runed water. They were in uproar before even trying it out, and now that empty, heartbroken sadness of opening up empty fridges has been cured, long forgotten in a distant memory. Oh yes, and the introduction of Infused Gumdrops and Octarine S'mores to the shop's snack list. You vividly recall the "THAT'S HOUSEBROKEN!!!" picketing and chanting outside the house as the memory fades. Just a couple years ago, Icefrog installed some unknown foreign model of Aghanim's speakers in most of the rooms. They used to just amp up the good ol' classics, the ultimate hits, but these new Aghanim's speakers only play some fancy avant-garde music that stretches your imagination in unorthodox ways when you listen to it. They don't seem so weird anymore though. At the end of the day, you guess the opening of the Monkey King's Menagerie and the remodeling of the entire house that comes with it isn't so strange. As long as the Dota house is still made of Icefrog blocks®, there's no reason to worry. Besides, every remodeling thus far has only made the Dota house better and better. You comfort yourself with a deep sigh of relief as you finally close your eyes and go to sleep.