Play them.

It's so crazy that it just might work

pub pub pub and watch the players at ti/quakecon to see how they play or which items they use and try their strategies/builds for yourself until you're familiar with each item and understand why they play the way they do and eventually you'll understand the meta in each.

Playing them is definitely the first step. Dota 2 isn't something easy to pick up the first time, it takes a lot of time but if you enjoy it, it gets better and you'll learn more each game you play. For example, you may not be good the first couple of games, but then you see another guy doing well at another hero and you learn how that hero is played, like how that hero ganks and what items he goes for, and how to use his spells and items.
Also I made a Dota 2 Guide to help out some TF2ers, but I feel like it'll never be good enough so I haven't released it yet.

If you want to get into quake comp, just play duel mode all the time on QuakeLive.

If you want to play dota... play dota and get picked up for a team.

the competitive dota scene is the hardest to break into in terms of competitive play.. but the best way is to play a lot of pub games to get used to the game, start playing some inhouse leagues and get noticed by a team, play a lot of amateur tournaments and maybe eventually you'll make it to the big leagues..

good luck!

be like admiral bulldog and play like 400something games of lone druid

other options include playing with friends and absorbing what they do, it's how i learned

dota is a game of knowledge so as long as you're learning you're getting better, whether its through watching good players play, watching youtube videos to see how items and heroes work, or through playing and learning first hand.
http://www.twitch.tv/team/dotati
http://www.youtube.com/user/DotaCinema
http://blog.dota2.com/

and comp. quake is everything but dead so... gl with that really.

I suggest just finding a group of friends that play dota and join them for in houses or 5 stacks. You get the experience from playing games like that before u can actually make a scratch into competitive.

BTW if you can't enjoy the game solo, it's probably not worth your time to play it only with friends unless they play a ridiculous amount. You end up bringing your friends down a lot and you probably won't enjoy it as much as doing something else. Make sure you can actually enjoy the game by just playing it/testing it out.

exaaactly

sounds like you're trying to force yourself into a competitive scene. Best way to learn is playing and enjoying the game... taking the step up into comp should feel natural

are you playing videogames to win money or are you playing videogames because you like playing videogames?

if its the former and you dont have some innate wonderskill going i suggest you just stop entirely

play the game you like

be prepared to lose every game of dota for a month strait while getting yelled at by your russian and brazilian teammates that have 600+ games but are still in the low que. I dont know why they are always russian or brazilian but they are.

but on a more seriouse note there are a lot of heros and items to learn so dont get discouraged if your first couple games are a little rough

this guid is pretty helpfull for playing support.
http://www.playdota.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1141787

You can actually map your progress through the dota brackets by the different languages you encounter. You'll know you've made it when the chat looks like a mandarin newspaper and not a drunken russian soliloquy.

because russians and brazilians queue up for every single queue option, including servers that they will have shit ping on and complain about. valve kind of fixed this by limiting how many servers you can queue up to, but apparently it's still happpening.

Don't just think that because a tournament is exciting, that you will like the game. I have done that before.

But, best way to play a game, is to play it. Then, even if you enjoy getting shit on while you are still bad, or are intriqued by the game mechanics, you can try to read and learn as much about the game as possible, and eventually you will be good.

a game like dota 2 has mechanical skill involved but it also takes a lot of knowledge to be good. familiarize yourself with the different heroes that are in the game. if you know a lot about a game, you can leverage that information to get good. knowing the various matchups, strategies, timings, etc. will get you far.

id say theres about as much mechanical skill in dota as there is in browsing the web without a popup blocker

http://www.teamliquid.net/

http://www.dotafire.com/

read.

what if i play video games to meet girls

just pick spirit breaker and make the other team rage at you.

getting into dota is really easy when you play with friends. my learning curve was much quicker due to me only playing with my friends instead of the shitlords that you sometimes get matched up with.

make a team with friends and play in tourneys and do so well that you actually get invited to the tourneys that are featured on the game

How did you get into tf2?

Do that

Playing with friends helps alot.

Don't swamp yourself with the finer details of the game, just learn the basics and slowly move up.

I played with my friends, I was so bad they told me to never play with them again..........................

Get really good but try to match their MMR, wait for them to queue up, queue snipe them and then laugh as you get an immortal on them and call them bad and say they were right to never want to play with you again cause they would bring you down.

But seriously, if solo queue isn't stacked with smurfs when you choose beginner MMR you should be able to start from there.

Lmao, I'll go do that.

Yeah, I think I'll start off with bot matches, as I need to get the hang of the heroes and their item builds before anything else. It's not as easy as TF2 though, TF2 is really pick up and play, DotA 2 and any other kind of game like this, you actually have to do your research or give yourself time to learn.

this is when you realize your friends are stuck in the world of MMR and you should ask them to help you get better, and if they just go, "omg u suck" then you're probably playing with the wrong people.