The Story Behind the Hero Name Changes in Dota 2

Playing Dota 2 or watching esports you can still hear players calling heroes different names than in the game. Where does it come from and why? How come some heroes have unique names and some don’t?

The History of Dota 2

Dota 2 is a more than a decade-old video game still one of the most played on Steam. Its roots go even beyond its release in 2013, to Defense of the Ancients mod for WarCraft III. Since mid-2000 Dota has been on a scene growing audience, raising players, and developing esports.

Many of the Dota 2 players, even those currently competing professionally, played DotA or at least they remember it in some ways. But many haven’t. Younger pro players like Stanislav "Malr1ne" Potorak (19) of Team Falcons and Ivan "Pure" Moskalenko (20) were born around the time DotA was released. And we saw them both competing at this year’s The International 13 in Copenhagen and very successfully if I might add. In fact, many players playing Dota 2 casually today have no interactions or knowledge of its history.

Still, we can hear commentators and players calling heroes different names. Furion instead of Nature's Prophet, Lifestealer is often called N’Aix, and so on. The answer lies in it’s history (of course!). The problem is that WarCraft III is a property of Blizzard Activision, and Dota 2 vas developed by Valve.

The Legal Issue

It would make no sense to develop Dota 2 if players couldn’t relate to the original DotA heroes. The issue of character and game naming had to be settled by both Blizzard and Valve. In 2012, Valve and Blizzard reached a settlement regarding the DOTA trademark. Valve was granted the right to use the name commercially for Dota, while Blizzard retained non-commercial rights related to community-created content in both Warcraft III and StarCraft II. This settlement allowed Valve to move forward with Dota 2 without legal issues from Blizzard, which had previously argued that Valve's trademark application was too similar to Blizzard's use of the Dota name. Keep in mind that Blizzard later published Heroes of the Storm, which occupied a similar space as Dota 2 but with no comparable success.

Although Valve has chosen not to seek legal action against third-party DotA games, this does not diminish the power of either trademark in specific contexts. Additionally, while specific character designs can be copyrighted, general character concepts are not. This distinction allowed Valve to create heroes inspired by characters in Warcraft III, as long as they changed the names and some aspects of their designs to avoid direct infringement. For example, Necrolyte was renamed Necrophos, and Windrunner became Windranger to distance them from their Warcraft origins.

Creativity Also Plays an Important Role

Since Dota 2 is set in an entirely different universe than Warcraft III, Valve had the leeway to develop completely new lore for each of their heroes. This often involved creating new backstories that would fit into the lore the character was being placed into, and sometimes it even meant reworking abilities to better suit the narrative they were writing. For example, Brewmaster was a Pandaren in Warcraft III, but in Dota 2, he is simply Mangix and has nothing to do with Warcraft lore. Many heroes received completely new names that reflect their personalities or abilities rather than their Warcraft III counterparts.

As a player, I had never put too much emphasis on lore and background stories in MOBAs up until recently. I have changed my mind. Not every player may be interested, but eventually, a well-developed universe and backstory can create a connection between players and specific characters. It also helps in attracting new players in the same way League of Legends has done with Arcane. By the way, not much effort was put into the lore of LoL and Dota 2 right from the beginning—that development came later.

Players are also natures of habit. They stick to what they know and like to learn from each other. Some old names persisted, and I guess, they always will. What are some of the original names of current Dota 2 heroes you can check out here. So, what do you call N’aix?