DotA: Allstars
Following the retirement of Defense of the Ancients' creator, Eul, in the wake of the release of Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, a plethora of DotA variants emerged, all vying for acknowledgement as the true successor to the original map. Two map makers called Meian and Ragn0r compiled favorable elements from the different variants and released a map called DotA: Allstars. On April 26, 2004, Steve Feak, a member of the TDA clan, became the developer of the map, ensuring the establishment of his variant as the dominant one. To improve the gameplay, Feak recognized the need for JASS coding for the more advanced mechanics, thus recruited fellow TDA members, Neichus and IceFrog in October of 2004. Feak would continue releasing massive updates at a steady pace until he decided to leave the project to find time to play World of Warcraft on February 28, 2005, when he handed the project to Neichus, with IceFrog serving as a co-collaborator. IceFrog quickly inherited the full responsibility of the project and has remained the lead designer to this day, which led to the culmination of the sequel, Dota 2, developed by Valve Corporation.
Riot Games
After several years away from the game development scene, Feak was brought on by the newly-founded game developer Riot Games, with the intention of creating a stand-alone DotA spin-off with altered gameplay elements called League of Legends. The video game was released in late 2009 and within two years, it had become one of the most-popular titles in the world.
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