[DotA2] Dota 2 Website - Ideas

[Nanor]

I recently started an internship at a web design company as a back-end developer. For some reason around early Autumn there's a massive lull in client work. As such I don't have any projects to work on and I'm left to my own devices. Apart from doing QA on some client work that's nearing completion I effectively have 8 hours a day, 5 days a week to do as I please. I've played around with a few websites that my bosses have requested (namely a work blog that I can't show you due to secretzzz).

What I've got so far
I'm sure you're all familiar with Dota 2 Alt-Tab. It does what it says on the tin; serves as an alt-tab guide for a hero you've probably random'd. It's nice but I don't think I'm alone when I say it's lacking. A lot of it is superfluous with the advent of in game guides. The skill progression and the item build, namely. It also lacks tooltips for items and abilities.

I don't want to make an alt-tab guide, as such. I want to create a reasonably in-depth guide where someone can look at it in their spare time and get a good grasp of the hero while picking up a few tips and possibly submitting their own. Can you guys think of any other functionality you'd like that would actually make you use this site on a regular basis?

How I'm building it
I'm going to build it using HTML, CSS & JS (a minimal amount) with Django serving as the back-end and as a CMS. I'll host static images on my Amazon S3 and I'll host the site on Heroku for the mean time at least.

I'm more than happy if someone wants to pick up on helping me with this, either by writing guides or the design and development thing. Even just ideas for what you'd like to see.

 

[Panda with issues...]

If you look at dotabuff, they have a section for each hero with a 'most popular skill build this month'.

Similarly, if you look at http://dotametrics.wordpress.com/2013/02/11/crystal-maiden-skill-build-analysis/
they do (some) analysis of popularity of different skill builds.

It'd be pretty cool to get something which identifies the main different paths people take through the skillset, a sort of 'tree' if you will:

80% of people start with shadow wave on dazzle
20% start with poison touch

after poison touch, 99% go shadow wave etc.

If possible some sort of functionality in looking where people lane certain heroes, and lane combinations would be cool.

This could of course be well outside your initial premise.

 

[Ronin Storm]

Another thing I've not seen done elsewhere is a tool that shows how all DOTA items combine.

I was put in mind of a network starting from basic items (e.g. Ring of Regen, Sage's Mask, Iron Wood Branch) and building up to the super items, with costs and benefits identified as you go. Then you could highlight least cost routes to specific powers, such as HP regen > 10/sec, or the ability to silence combined while also getting lots of +AGI. It was a thing I considered building myself.

I suggest that building another builds and basic DOTA info site is probably not worth your while, even if you're bored, as there's a few of those to choose from already. But little tools to help planning or analysis aren't well provided, partly because they're harder than just making another CMS.

As Panda says, this may well push beyond your initial premise...

 

[Nanor]

I'm always up for a challenge. Some good ideas I plan to look into.