dota2
Latest
'Counter-Strike' tournaments will now stream exclusively on Facebook
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Pro League has got a new home. Starting February 13th, the beginning of its seventh season, it'll be streamed exclusively on Facebook, along with the ESL One Dota 2 and CS:GO tournament series. ESL, the company behind the tournaments, says that full English and Portuguese coverage will include a "much more advanced" viewing experience than fans are used to, moving beyond stories, clips and select streams, thanks largely to the success of Facebook Watch.
'Dota 2' and 'League of Legends' players might be smarter than you
People who play multiplayer online battle arenas (MOBA) like Dota 2 and League of Legends perform better on problem solving and logic tests than those who play shooters Destiny and Battlefield 3, researchers found. "The specific MOBA genre is remarkable in the sense that it already engages a vast number of players across the globe, but more generally, complex, socially-interactive and intellectually demanding video games are now ubiquitous and generate a constant stream of performance data that can be normalized against millions of other players," a team from the University of York in the UK concludes.
'Dota 2' Dueling Fates update includes extensive gameplay changes
Dota 2 is set to receive some major gameplay changes, according to Valve's newly released Dueling Fates patch notes. The update will arrive on 1st November, bringing with it the new characters teased at Valve's International esports tournament in August. They now have names: Donté Panlin, the Pangolier, is a swashbuckling melee hero with the ability to fully negate armor, while Dark Willow Mireska Sunbreeze is a ranged fairy with magical powers that can stun and inflict fear.
How the eSports community cares for injured players
Clinton Loomis, known to many by his online alias Fear, had his first experience of arm pain in Dec. 2013. For more than a decade, Loomis has been a professional esports athlete for Defense of the Ancients (Dota) and Dota 2. At tournaments, his reputation precedes him. He is considered one of the best players in the games' history, with multiple first-place finishes in global competitions, earning him six- and seven-figure sums. Similar to traditional sports, the number of people who play Dota 2 is far greater than the number of people who can make a living from it. Professional gaming requires fine motor precision, encyclopedic knowledge and relentless practice. The average gamer plays video games for five to six hours per week. Loomis estimates that at his professional height, he logged anywhere from eight to 12 hours per day playing Dota 2. A professional gamer like Loomis can average hundreds of actions per minute during those hours.
‘PUBG’ has banned over 150,000 cheaters since March
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has become incredibly popular in the few months it has been available on Steam Early Access. In August, it overtook Dota 2 as the game with the most simultaneous players and by the start of this month it had sold over 10 million units. But along with those large -- and growing -- player numbers come a lot of cheaters.
‘PUBG’ has 10 million people aiming for your skull
Last month, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds overtook Dota 2 as the game with the most simultaneous players on Steam and on September 1st, it hit another milestone. Today, Bluehole announced that the game has sold over 10 million units on Steam Early Access since its March launch.
'PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds' knocks 'Dota 2' off its Steam throne
It's no secret that PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is selling well even in its Early Access form, but it just crossed an important (if symbolic) milestone. On the morning of August 27th, the battle royale shooter overtook Dota 2 as the game with the most simultaneous players on Steam, with 877,844 fighting at once -- yes, it was more popular than the blockbuster title from the company that created Steam. It was a short-lived victory (PUBG is down to 'just' 450,000 as of this writing), but it's no mean feat when PlayerUnknown and crew were happy to have broken 500,000 just a few weeks earlier.
AI beats top 'Dota 2' players in one-on-one matches
Artificial intelligence isn't just good at playing Go -- it can also emerge victorious in the eSports arena. The Elon Musk-backed OpenAI team has developed a machine learning system that has beaten "many" of the best pro Dota 2 players in one-on-one matches, including star player Dendi during a live demonstration at The International. The trick wasn't to teach the AI how to play the game -- instead, it was to have the bot play many games against itself, and encourage ideal behavior as it learned the ropes over time.
'Dota 2' will add two new heroes in the Dueling Fates update
Some of the world's best Dota 2 players are doing battle at Valve's The International esports tournament, but they may need some more practice when they get home. That's because the company just announced it will add two more characters soon in its "The Dueling Fates" update. Neither hero has a name yet, but in the preview trailer the first attacked enemies both by rolling over them Sonic the Hedgehog-style and with a sword, while the other one flew in on fairy wings before releasing a minion to attack.
Valve reveals 'Artifact,' the official 'Dota' card game
Tonight, during Valve's "The International" Dota 2 esports tournament the company announced it's making a spinoff card game associated with its popular MOBA. Other than its name, Artifact, a brief teaser trailer and a release window of 2018, we didn't get any details, but Dota fans have been dreaming up Hearthstone-like card game iterations for years, so it should be well-received by the community when it drops. Former Double Fine developer Brad Muir (Iron Brigade, Massive Chalice) revealed he's been working on the project "for a while now" but that's all we know.
'Dota 2' won't be so intimidating to newcomers
For many rookies in Dota 2 and other multiplayer online battle arena games, the biggest obstacle isn't the game itself -- sometimes, it's the community. There are certainly helpful players, but MOBAs are notorious for jaded players who are hostile to anyone who isn't already a grizzled veteran. Valve wants to fix that. It's delivering a Dota 2 update that matches newcomers with players with reliably high behavior scores, reducing the chances that someone will berate you while you're still learning the ropes. There's no guarantee they'll be forgiving, but it's better than risking a stream of profanity just because you haven't spent 200 hours mastering your hero.
TBS to air four-part docuseries on 'Dota 2' tournament competitors
Turner Broadcasting announced today that TBS will air a four part documentary about players preparing for and competing in this year's The International Dota 2 Championships. The series is produced by Turner's eSports branch ELEAGUE, which started airing competitions on TBS last year.
Valve is taking control of the competitive ‘Dota 2’ scene
Next month, Valve will host The International 7 at Seattle's KeyArena. The annual Dota 2 tournament is all but set to break the record for prize pools in eSports for the fourth year running, with over $20 million in the kitty to date. But GabeN & Co is already looking past the headline championships to the next competitive season. While Dota 2 tournaments happen all the time, there are only three "official" Valve events: two "Majors" and The International. Next season, though, the house that Steam built will embrace the wider competitive community in a big way, sponsoring third-party tournaments and creating a new ranking system that will define how 2018's International plays out.
Valve releases the first multiplayer campaign for 'Dota 2'
Dota 2 isn't just an ever-repeating, five-on-five race to destroy your enemy's base. Every so often, Valve adds temporary cooperative game modes to the MOBA that unite the toxic player base against an entirely different end goal. In the build-up to The International 7 -- a yearly tournament that's like the Wimbledon of Dota -- Valve has just released the most elaborate of these yet. It goes so far as to call "Siltbreaker: Act I" the first multiplayer Dota campaign, since it plays more like a quest-centric RPG than anything else. Unlike the core MOBA, though, it's not free-to-play.
Valve is trying to end account smurfing in 'Dota 2'
Valve is changing the way Dota 2 is played, at least on a meta level. Beginning May 4th, players will be required to register a unique phone number to their accounts in order to queue up for ranked matches. That's one account per phone number, ostensibly placing a hard limit on the number of ranked accounts that any one player can have. Before you get any fresh ideas, Valve says online services that provide virtual phone numbers won't work in this new system. Nice try.
'DOTA 2' forum hack spills almost two million passwords
The website LeakedSource has revealed that a forum tied to the game DOTA 2 was hacked on July 10th, 2016. Attackers were able to make off with almost two million records, including usernames, email addresses, passwords and IPs. You can check if your personal details are amongst LeakedSource's records by heading over to the site and searching for your own name. Users will be able to request that their details are removed from the list using its automatic deletion tool as well.
Flagship 'Dota 2' tournament sets cash prize record
Dota 2's flagship tournament, The International 2016, is now the most lucrative eSports competition in history with a record-breaking $18.6 million prize pot. The total purse of last year's tournament was under $18.5 million, and under $11 million in 2014. The prize pool will continue to grow for another two weeks as it's funded by fans buying Battle Passes, Dota 2's new in-game digital program that will last until August 13th.
Yahoo Esports goes mobile with a dedicated Android app
If you thought Yahoo's push into esports would stop at a dedicated editorial team, guess again. Now the outfit is taking that expertise mobile with the launch of the Yahoo Esports app on Android. It's a bit sparse at the moment, though, only covering a quintet of games: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, Heroes of the Storm, League of Legends and Street Fighter V.
'DOTA 2' VR spectator mode may be as exciting as playing the game
The next time you want to follow an eSports tourney, you might find yourself strapping on a virtual reality headset. Valve just teased a VR spectator mode for DOTA 2 (scroll down to the video above "you're not starting from scratch") that gives you more information than you're used to seeing during a MOBA match. The actual game is front and center, but look around and you'll see details of each team's heroes, a visually rich map and nice-to-know stats.
Valve has fired its 'Dota 2' Shanghai Major tournament host
Gabe Newell, head honcho at Valve, has abruptly (and very publicly) fired 'Dota 2' Shanghai Major tournament host James "2GD" Harding. Newell made the announcement via Reddit on Friday, stating "We've had issues with James at previous events. Some Valve people lobbied to bring him back for Shanghai, feeling that he deserved another chance. That was a mistake. James is an ass, and we won't be working with him again." Newell also confirmed that he'd fired the production company responsible for the tournament's broadcast.
