The latest Dota 2 premium pass includes access to tools that gives owners the ability to put other players on a personal ban list. Valve’s long-running MOBA now offers beta access to an Avoid Player feature, but you’ll have to give up at least $10 for the standard Battle Pass to use the tool.
Complaints from the Dota 2 community point out that besides charging for a basic toxic player management feature, the Avoid Player function doesn’t actually mean you won’t see those particular offenders in your future games. It only tells the system that you’d rather not play with a particular person, but matchmaking can override that notice. The Battle Pass does include a virtual high-five emote, so you can hopefully make nice and turn bad actors into buddies.
There is now a subscription option for Dota 2. Dota Plus is an ongoing, uninterrupted evolution of the Battle Passes that Valve would sell during the Majors and The International tournaments. Now that there’s a Pro Circuit featuring games all year long, the Battle Pass concept has changed to keep up. For $4 a month, subscribers will get the ability to level heroes and gain Shards, a new in-game currency, which can be traded in for goodies. They’ll also get access to special challenges for their heroes, and their subscription will allow a “free” entry to each weekend Battle Cup tournament that will otherwise cost $1 per admission ticket. Perhaps the most intriguing offer for subscribers is access to Plus Assistant, a new tool that gathers and analyzes everyone’s build decisions in real-time and offers suggestions for the user’s own build. It’s like having a personal meta-game counselor.
Valve has tactical shooting, hero shooting, and a MOBA. The two things missing from their catalog would be an MMO and a deck builder. With Artifact, Valve takes their Dota property into card flopping. Run, everybody! The 800-lb gorilla is entering the CCG room!
All we know for know for now is that it’s coming in 2018.
Ranked match eligibility in Dota 2 will require a valid phone number beginning in May. Valve has pushed out a matchmaking update for Dota 2 that will soon require an unique phone number registered to the Steam account if the player wants to be included in ranked match queues. According to Valve, the change is being made to cut down on people using multiple Dota 2 accounts and cheating. A similar policy was instituted in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive last year, however the Prime Matchmaking rules there still allow players without a phone number to play in ranked matches. CS:GO Prime players are given priority in queues, while non-Prime players are stuck with longer wait times.
The phone number registration for Dota 2 ranked matchmaking will be mandatory starting on May 4th.
Team Evil Genius has won The International 2015 Dota 2 Championship. The winning prize was $6,630,109.00 out of the $18 million total prize pool. The finals on Saturday came down to team Evil Genius from North America versus CDEC from China in a best of five match-up. After a three to one victory, the members of Evil Genius secured the top spot and claimed the coveted title. This marks the first time that Valve’s The International tournament was won by a North American team.
As the second-place winners, team CDEC will “only” take home $2,854,630.00 from the pool.
Sales of the annual Dota 2 The International Compendium have raised over $11 million in prize money for the 2015 event. This is the largest esports prize pool in history beating last year’s $10.9 million total. A quarter of the compendium sales go towards the prize pool, meaning fans have purchased at least $44 million worth of the virtual book and accessories. A number of stretch goals have already been unlocked. If the total prize pool tops out at $15 million, Valve promises to publish a comic and give participants a special item for an in-game hero. Instead, may we humbly suggest this private island getaway for a modest $11 million? Valve could just carve it up into bits like Cards Against Humanity did for their Hawaii 2 dispersal.
Dota 2 ‘s The International tournament will take place on August 3rd through the 8th in Seattle’s KeyArena.
The International is over. Valve’s Dota 2 tournament has crowned a new grand champion team. Newbee, a five-man team from China, will take home a $5 million grand prize and the satisfaction of knowing they are the best at protecting lanes, killing creeps, and destroying towers. Newbee defeated fellow Chinese team ViCi Gaming by winning three straight games in the final set.
Besides inspiring kids everywhere to take up professional gaming as a legitimate path to riches, Dota 2 can claim the record for the largest eSports prize pool in history. The $10 million pool was raised mostly from players via Compendium purchases.
The prize pool money for Valve’s Dota 2 2014 The International championship tournament is supplied by purchases of The Compendium, a virtual encyclopedia and dynamic record of the competition events that also supplies some in-game Dota 2 rewards for owners as well as general upgrades to the game for everyone to enjoy. Each Compendium purchased contributes $2.50 to the prize pool. Unlocked rewards include in-game boosts, new music, and a new random deathmatch game mode. The final $6 million goal will unlock a special cosmetic building option for owners of The Compendium. The Dota 2 prize pool is already over $5.8 million from just ten days of being on sale, so it’s likely the final goal will be reached in a matter of hours.
The International Dota 2 tournament will be held on July 18th to the 21st in Seattle. General admission to the event started at $99 and sold out in less than an hour. Last year’s prize pool was $2.8 million.
Diretide, last year’s Halloween event for Dota 2, begins today. It’s coming as part of the Three Spirits update. The patch adds new heroes to the game’s roster, new items in the shop, and coaching options for vets that want to spend time teaching new players how to make the most of their Dota 2 experience. Halloween comes to Dota 2 with festive pumpkin theming and spooky – wait a minute. Why is the Halloween event happening in November? Valve says it’s because they didn’t realize the fans wanted it, then they didn’t react fast enough to the protest.
Due to our poor prediction of your reaction, and the team being focused on the next update, we didn’t spend enough time thinking about talking to you about our decision. As a result, by the time we’d realized we’d made a bad decision, the pitchforks were out.
