DOTA 2 Message Board older than one year ago

Updates to Dota 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. Fixes include:

HEROES

• Added Alchemist!
  
• Ancient Apparition: Fixed the location from which Ice Blast fires.
  
• Ancient Apparition: Fixed Level 3 Cold Feet doing 1 too much damage.
  
• Bloodseeker: Fixed Rupture damaging invulnerable/cycloned units.
  
• Dragon Knight: Fixed Elder Dragon Form attack properties getting lost when he is purged/repelled.
  
• Huskar: Fixed Burning Spears working against wards.
  
• Jakiro: Fixed Liquid Fire not working correctly against siege units.
  
• Kunkka: Fixed Tidebringer working against wards.
  
• Huskar: Fixed Inner Vitality being cast-able on yourself when Magic Immune.
  
• Necrolyte: Fixed Heartstopper aura being blocked by magic immunity.
  
• Nature's Prophet: Fixed the spawn location of the Treants in Nature's Call.
  
• Omniknight: Fixed the following ability interactions with Repel/Purge: Inner Vitality, Weave, Moonlight Shadow, Overload, Holy Persuasion, Warcry, Shadow Word, Focus Fire, Sukuchi, Berserker's Call, Chilling Touch.
  
• Pudge: Fixed Dismember lasting too long on Roshan.
  
• Pudge: Fixed Meat Hook interrupting allied channel abilities.
  
• Riki: Fixed Backstab on wards
  
• Sand King: Fixed Repel stopping Sandstorm.
  
• Sand King: Fixed a bug with Epicenter doing its Ultimate Scepter number of pulses regardless of level.
  
• Shadow Shaman: Fixed Ether Shock hitting invisible units.
  
• Warlock: Fixed Rain of Chaos AoE stun not lasting longer with Scepter.
  
• Warlock: Fixed Rain of Chaos not destroying trees
  
• Warlock: Fixed Fatal Bonds disabling Blink Dagger/Regen.
  
• Warlock: Fixed Fatal Bonds damage being reduced by resistance.
  
• Warlock: Fixed Rain of Chaos not doing any impact damage.
  
• Warlock: Fixed Golem's Immolation working against Ancients.
  
• Weaver: Fixed Swarm not latching onto magic immune enemies.
  
• Weaver: Fixed Swarm losing their attack ability ability once an enemy becomes magic immune.
  
• Witch Doctor: Fixed Paralyzing Casks stun lasting 5 seconds on Roshan.
  

GAMEPLAY

• Fixed Maelstrom/Mjolnir procing on denies/wards/sieges.
  
• Fixed Helm of the Dominator life-stealing off ward type units
  
• Fixed Ring of Basilius aura not working on siege units.
  
• Fixed Janggo aura not working on siege units.
  
• Fixed item critical strikes working against wards.
  
• Fixed item selling exploit where heroes could transfer sharable items and sell them back within the sell-back time.
  
• Cleaned up juke lanes in dire top lane.
  

UI

• Fixed a bug with courier purchasing, where trying to complete an item would not take into account items held by the courier.
  
• Fixed a quick-buy bug. With Mekansm displayed, buying a branch, then headdress would result in a branch missing from the list.
  
• Added a setting to disable screen shaking.
  
• Fixed double clicking Force Staff not working if you are Repelled.
  
• Fixed Smoke of Deceit and Dust of Appearance purchase announcement not appearing when an ally buys them.
  
• Fixed Omniknight and Dragon Knight legacy keys.
  
• Enabled Warlock for Captain's Mode
  
• Error messages will no longer appear if some unit in your multi-unit selection cannot perform the requested order.
  
• Practice Lobbies now appear on dota tv (can be selected to private in game setup).
  
• Fixed not being able to access the home shop after a respawn.
  
• Creeps under the control of a player now draw using that players color on the minimap.
  
• Fixed towers that are denied in the FoW still drawing for the other team on the minimap.
  
• Made overhead gold values not fade out as quickly when your controlled hero is high level.
  
• Added a new function (defaulted to Space Bar) that moves the camera to the last pinged location (if you press it again afterwards it goes back to your hero).
  

VISUALS

• Added impact effect to Leshrac's Lightning Storm.
  
• Added burned ground to Warlock's Rain of Chaos.
  
• Tweaked Dire tree shapes.
  

AUDIO

• Added more movement lines for Dazzle, Dark Seer, Dragon Knight, Furion, Huskar, Riki, Skeleton King, Slardar, Spectre, and Jakiro.
  
• Updated Jariko's voice-overs.
  

BOTS

• Fixed bug where bots would stand under the tower in the lane they were pushing when it had backdoor protection activated. Now they should move back to their lane front.
  
• Bots no longer assume that humans will fully help out when they're deciding whether to do Roshan.
  
• Revised Windrunner's Shackle Shot and Windrun usage -
• they won't trigger as much when doing a casual retreat.
  
• In late-game, bots are more likely to go to side shops to get what they need (especially TP scrolls).
  
• Bots are no longer controllable by spectators.
  
• Improved the logic for deciding when to give up on an attack target that they haven't touched in a while.
  
• Fixed issue where bots would attack creeps rather than defend their tower from enemy heroes.
  
• Reworked how bots push lanes, they should be less likely to tank towers and should be in appropriate positions more often now.
  
• Fixed bug where heroes would leave their tower too easily when not fully recharged.
  
• Bots will now use a bottled regen rune rather than retreating all the way back to base to heal.
  
• Fixed bug in Zeus's Thundergod's Wrath usage that caused with him to killsteal with it too much.
  
• Bots should be better about harassing heroes during the laning phase -
• melee heroes should no longer be able to last-hit with impunity.
  
• Revised sniper bot skill build to be less push-oriented and more gank/dps oriented.
  
• Reduced spamminess of bots announcing the defense of a lane.
  
• Made bots better about retreating to retrieve their items.
  

#dota Most gamers know him as the guy who helped create the soulful vibe of Gordon Freeman's world in the Half-Life games. However, way before he came to Valve, Marc Laidlaw was an author with a number of published works to his name. He's kept on writing outside of video games, too, but his most recent work plops him right into another video game universe. More »

GENERAL

• Added system that temporarily removes chat functionality from hostile players.
  

HEROES

• Added Warlock.
  
• Antimage: Fixed Manabreak working through Doom.
  
• Beastmaster: Fixed him doing 10 less base damage than he's supposed to.
  
• Dragon Knight: Fixed Corrosive Breath being lethal.
  
• Dragon Knight: Fixed Breathe Fire not working on Siege units.
  
• Jakiro: Fixed Liquid Fire not working on Siege units.
  
• Jakiro: Fixed Dual Breath fire interval being a little too slow.
  
• Omniknight: Fixed Purge/Repel not removing Hex.
  
• Omniknight: Fixed being unable to cast Purification on mechanical units
  
• Shadow Shaman: Fixed Voodoo not being blocked by Linken's Sphere.
  
• Slardar: Fixed Slithereen Crush not showing an AoE indicator.
  

GAMEPLAY

• Enabled Omniknight and Dragon Knight in Captain's Mode.
  
• Fixed Heart of Tarrasque regen stacking issues.
  
• Fixes courier not responding to further deliver orders until he was issued a move order.
  
• Fixed a case where items would not combine if the owning player was disconnected.
  
• Fixed an item combine bug when giving an item to another hero who has a full inventory.
  
• Fixed Diffusal Blade's manabreak working through Doom.
  
• Fixed Satyr Trickster's Purge not canceling Repel.
  
• Fixed being unable to target Siege units with Medallion of Courage.
  
• Fixed Urn and Bloodstone resetting at 30 charges.
  
• Increased the time window allowed between double clicking abilities and items.
  
• Fixed camera position resetting to the middle of the map after receiving a full update.
  

UI

• You can now choose Southeast Asia and US East/West in the matchmaking region settings on the Today page.
  
• Matches in the Today and Watch pages are now sorted by the average rank of players in the game.
  
• Added Network Quality setting to the Options menu.
  
• In spectator hero chase mode, clicking on the top bar clears the temporary unit query as well as following the new unit.
  
• Added a cooldown sound for clicking the Glyph while it is on cooldown.
  
• Fixed commands bound to apostrophe not being properly captured by the UI. Fixes buying items in your Quick Buy slot when typing in chat.
  
• Added checkbox for practice lobbies to make them watchable via the Watch tab.
  
• Fixed courier's transfer items buff not destroying itself when another order was given to him. Fixes courier not responding to further deliver orders until he was issued a move order.
  

VISUALS

• Cleaned up some Dragon Knight effects.
  
• Updated Dragon Knight's run and idle animations.
  
• Fixed Windrunner's bowstring disappearing when she died.
  
• Fixed some visual bugs related to building destruction.
  
• Fixed gestures not being properly deleted in some occasions. Fixes Beastmaster never leaving his flail animations (and thus strutting down the middle lane like a boss).
  
• Fixed lipsync on portraits not lasting the full duration of the lines being spoken.
  

AUDIO

• Added Tower/Barrack destruction music.
  
• Fixed Heroes never commenting on first blood events.
  

BOTS

• Fixed bots trying to attack Razor's Plasma Field.
  
• Bots will now consider siege units to be creeps for purposes of laning and farming.
  
• Bots now pay better attention to incoming gank damage, so they should be quicker about retreating.
  
• Fixed bug in Earthshaker bot where he was underestimating the stun duration of Fissure.
  
• Fixed bug that was causing bots to not consider tower avoidance when attacking.
  
• Bots should now back off to more reasonable positions when pushing a tower and waiting for their creeps.
  
• Bots will no longer be scared of themselves when pushing a tower (!)
  
• Fixed a bug where bots would either never purchase from the side/secret shops or would sometimes get stuck trying to purchase from them when they had no room.
  
• Fixed bots trying to attack invulnerable units.
  
• Implemented avoidance for Batrider's Firefly.
  
• Fixed a few cases where Bane would try to cast an ability on an invalid target.
  
• Bots now wait for teammates to be relatively nearby before moving closer to a tower they're defending.
  
• Tiny bot will no longer wait to get into toss range before using any abilities on a retreating unit.
  
• Bots will no longer roam when they have a hero or creep actively attacking them.
  
• Fixed case where heroes with long attack ranges could get stuck trying to farm a lane but not being in range of any creeps.
  

Updates to Dota 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. Fixes include:

• Issue where bots would constantly roam from lane-to-lane to farm early-game.
  
• Omniknight always saying Fear Nothing.
  
• Issues with items that used the negative health regen - this fixes the interaction of Ancient Apparition with armlet.
  
• Items that modify maximum health or mana such as like Armlet and Soul Ring. These should now apply their effect correctly.
  
• An item combine bug when giving an item to another hero who has a full inventory.
  
• Inventory right click menu going away instantly if the player has an item in the stash.
  

#fineart While the game's not out yet, Valve's sequel to the super-popular WarCraft mod already gets a thumbs up from this feature for its gorgeous character art. More »

Updates to Dota 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

HEROES

• Added Dragon Knight and Omniknight!
  
• Chen: Fixed Holy Persuation not removing buffs from the converted creep
  
• Chen: Fixed Hand of God working on dead heroes
  
• Huskar: Fixed not attacking his target right after Life Break.
  
• Batrider: Fixed Firefly being purgable.
  
• Batrider: Fixed Sticky Napalm working on ancients.
  
• Storm Spirit: Fixed an exploit with Ball Lightning that could cause you to kill enemy units from your fountain.
  
• Storm Spirit: Fixed Ball Lightning's stopping a little too early when almost out of mana
  
• Huskar: Fixed the first tick of Berserker's Blood requiring you to be hurt.
  
• Riki: Fixed the Backstab sound sometimes playing when it wasn't proccing.
  
• Sniper: Fixed Assassinate reveal debuff never disappearing if the target dodges it with a blink.
  
• Kunkka: Fixed X Marks The Spot teleporting you back if you buyback while the spell is still active.
  
• Jakiro: Fixed Dual Breath not being targetable on units directly.
  
• Queen of Pain: Fixed Sonic Wave not being targetable on units directly
  
• Batrider: Fixed Sticky Napalm not temporarily revealing the area.
  
• Batrider: Fixed Flaming Lasso not ending when Batrider dies.
  
• Zeus: Fixed a bug with spamming Arc Lightning quickly while there is another one still bouncing (only happens for very large amount of units).
  
• Skeleton King: Fixed loss of vision while reincarnating.
  
• Added missing Flail and Stun animations for Kunkka.
  

GAMEPLAY

• Enabled Huskar, Batrider and Jakrio for Captains Mode
  
• Massive server performance improvements.
  
• Fixed vision range on Siege units.
  
• Fixed bounty values on Siege units.
  
• Added Legacy keys for new heroes
  
• Fixed attack damage for Centaur Outrunner
  
• Fixed limited life units (like Necronomicon units) having dramatically more duration when converted by Helm of the Dominator.
  
• Fixed backdoor protection turning off when dominated units are nearby
  
• Fixed legacy keys not working properly for a few of the recent heroes
  
• Only allow one commendation/report per person.
  

UI

• Added a separate matchmaking pool for players who have repeatedly left games. Note: Any party that contains a player matchmaking in this pool will cause the entire party to matchmake in this pool.
  
• Fixed Captain's Mode pick timer getting reset during the 2 hero pick phases once a player does the first selection.
  
• Fixed Captain's Mode random (when out of time) being able to selected heroes not enabled for CM.
  
• Added two spectator hotkeys for controlling the replay speed (
• and =).
  
• Double-hitting the "select all other units" hotkey will now add your hero to your selection
  
• Game lobby leaders can now kick players out of the lobby.
  
• You will now be notified when you are kicked from a game lobby or party.
  

DOTA 2 BOTS

• Made bots a bit more wary of taking damage when defending a teammate.
  
• Bots will no longer back off as much when defending the Ancient or Barracks.
  
• Made bots (and particularly carries) want to farm a bit more mid-game.
  
• Fixed bug where bots were considering dead enemies in their Push Tower desire.
  
• Decreased the bots' desire to go back to base to retreive cheap non-TP items.
  
• Increased the bots' desire to visit the secret shop as they accumulate money.
  

#dota Yesterday, it was announced, and today, it is happening: Valve is ramping up the numbers of participants in the Dota 2 beta. More »

If you're not already in the small group of testers for Valve's online competitive multiplayer game Dota 2, you might be soon. Announced on Valve's Dota 2 blog, the developer is upping their tester volume, thanks to an upgrade in worldwide dedicated Dota 2 server capacity. For a chance to be part of the next wave of testers, you must complete the Dota 2 Survey in your Steam client. You must have the latest version of the client for that link to work, incidentally...

#dota Having just finished their "first significant expansion of Dota 2 server capacity around the world", Valve has announced today an enlargement of the Dota 2 beta, meaning more invites. More »

Updates to Dota 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

HEROES

• Added Batrider, Huskar, and Jakiro!
  
• Ancient Apparition: Fixed a bug with Chilling Touch attack speed reduction display.
  
• Ancient Apparition: Fixed a recent bug with Ice Trail path debuff happening a little too early
  
• Beastmaster: Fixed Call of the Wild resummoning showing up as a deny.
  
• Broodmother: Fixed Poison Sting from affecting Wards.
  
• Broodmother: Fixed the wrong web sometimes getting removed when a new one is added.
  
• Broodmother: Fixed the Spiderlings and Spiderite passive abilities working on buildings and mechanical units.
  
• Broodmother: Fixed Spawn Spiderlings not being a projectile.
  
• Broodmother: Fixed Insatiable Hunger being purgable.
  
• Broodmother: Fixed Insatiable Hunger bonus damage being considered as base damage.
  
• Clockwerk: Fixed Hookshot interaction with alled units and neutrals.
  
• Clockwerk: Fixed Hookshot not stunning magic immune units.
  
• Clockwerk: Fixed the Hookshot target sometimes being able to run away before he arrives.
  
• Clockwerk: Fixed cases where Hookshot would drop you to a lower level if your target was near a ledge
  
• Enigma: Fixed Greater Eidolon movement speed.
  
• Enigma: Fixed Dire Eidolon armor.
  
• Faceless Void: Fixed Chronosphere's interaction with various passives
  
• Juggernaut: Fixed Blade Dance working on wards.
  
• Kunkka: Fixed Torrent slow not lasting as long as it should.
  
• Kunkka: Fixed X Marks The Spot ignoring Linken's Sphere
  
• Kunkka: Fixed X Marks The Spot vision revealer not working.
  
• Kunkka: Fixed Ghost Ship not having vision.
  
• Kunkka: Fixed Ghost Ship's allied buff not reducing spell damage.
  
• Mirana: Fixed vision around Arrow when it impacts.
  
• Pudge: Fixed cases where Hook would drop the pulled target to a lower level if your target was near a ledge
  
• Queen of Pain: Fixed bug in Shadow Strike slow falloff.
  
• Queen of Pain: Fixed Scream of Pain not hitting units in fog of war
  
• Queen of Pain: Fixed Shadow Strike not being castable on regular units
  
• Queen of Pain: Fixed Scream of Pain not hitting invisible units.
  
• Queen of Pain: Fixed Shadow Strike not allowing you to deny heroes.
  
• Razor: Fixed Eye of the Storm not hitting invisibile units.
  
• Riki: Fixed Backstab working on mechanical units.
  
• Riki: Fixed Smokescreen working on Ancients.
  
• Riki: Fixed the timing on Blink Strike damage.
  
• Skeleton King: Fixed Aegis not working on him once he levels up Reincarnation.
  
• Skeleton King: Fixed Vampiric Aura on mechanical units.
  
• Skeleton King: Fixed Vampiric Aura on denies.
  
• Weaver: Fixed sometimes coming out of his invisibility for Geminate Attack.
  

GAMEPLAY

• Fixed Heart of Tarrasque health regeneration from stacking.
  
• Fixed various items and abilities not interrupting channeling when used
  
• Fixed being able to revive a courier by upgrading it after it dies.
  
• Fixed courier stopping in its position whenever the hero it's delivering items to teleports.
  
• Fixed bug that caused illusions generated from a disconnected player to be controllable by the enemy team
  
• Fixed Siege units being considered as heroes for Bloodbath's distance check
  
• Fixed Chronosphere freezing other units you own
  
• Fixed issue that caused issued commands to not be executed immediately.
  
• Fixed a slight delay on many commands given to heroes.
  
• Fixed Monkey King Bar from proccing on towers.
  
• Fixed bloodstone charges stopping at 30.
  
• Fixed Armlet active bonus continuing after dropping the item.
  
• Fixed Creep Stats reseting after reaching 500.
  
• Fixed gold bounty values on creeps after that lane's barracks is down.
  
• Fixed Necronomicon not killing its previous units when used again (from Refresher, Tinker's Rearm, etc).
  
• Fixed Necronomicon Mana Burn ignoring Linken's Sphere
  
• Fixed Fountain mana regeneration being too slow
  
• Enabled Broodmother, Skeleton King and Queen of Pain in Captain's Mode.
  
• Fixed various stats on necronomicon units
  
• Fixed Satyr Hellcallers to only consider units in its vision for deciding when to cast shockwave.
  
• Fixed interaction with Roshan on Rocket Flare and Mana Void.
  
• Fixed Heart, Urn of Shadows, and Dagger not being properly Disabled by Haunt.
  
• Fixed a performance hitch when creating illusions.
  
• Fixed towers not revearling invisible non-hero units (spiderlings, hawk, etc).
  
• Wildkin Warchief's Tornado will now follow the target enemy you right-click instead of giving an error message.
  
• Fixed Kobold Taskmaster HP.
  
• Fixed Centaur Outrunner Armor and Damage.
  
• Fixed Attack type on Centaur Chief.
  
• Fixed small wolf's attack, armor and attack range.
  
• Fixed Enraged Wildkin level and XP bounty.
  
• Fixed Acquisition range on various neutrals.
  
• Fixed various minor inconsistencies on unit stats.
  

UI

• Added a commendation system, which allows you to commend players who made your game a happier experience, and report anyone being hostile. You can commend or report a player by clicking their name in the main menu, in-game scoreboard or end game score screen.
  
• Added shop hotkey labels for shop category buttons.
  
• Clicking or control clicking a unit now selects all units of that type onscreen instead of globally.
  
• Player Perspective now shows shop and shop search text.
  
• Tiny's Toss will now show an error message if he has nothing near him to toss when he reaches cast range.
  
• When disarmed (Ghost Scepter, Decrepify, etc.), you can now right-click or attack-move-click on enemies to move toward them. The "Can't Attack" error will not appear until you reach attack range of the enemy.
  
• Shift-queued orders that become invalid by the time they are executed will now show an error message.
  
• Added an error message for when your shift-order-queue is full.
  
• Fixed a problem where certain orders could be ignored if a player tried to execute them just before they became invalid, especially with a slow connection to the server. An appropriate error message will now be displayed in these cases.
  
• Fixed losing key input when you search the shop with the chat up
  
• Fixed a bug where you could swap a stash item with a channeling teleport scroll and still finish the teleport.
  
• Fixed not being able to see your last hit gold effect through fog of war.
  
• Fixed playing gold sound and visuals for things that give zero gold bounty.
  
• Fixed a control group bug when Enchantress takes one of Chen's converted units.
  
• Improved the accuracy of matchmaking parties of players. Note that this may increase party matchmaking wait time.
  
• In matchmaking, servers are now selected before matches are ready.
  
• Tooltip hover for hero stats and gold is more responsive.
  
• HP Bars no longer lose some accuracy when the target is very low HP.
  
• Fixed Necronomicon Level 2 & 3 Manaburn hotkey not working.
  
• Added a new hotkey setting to select all units you own other than your hero (unbound by default).
  
• Fixed the scoreboard and stats panels not updating while the game is paused.
  

VISUALS

• Added a specific minibash effect for extremely short stuns.
  
• Updated Queen of Pain's base attack to better match her color scheme.
  
• Updated shadow strike.
  
• Fixed lifesteal effects not being owned by their owner which resulted in them not properly culling in fog of war.
  
• Added Spell Block effect to Roshan.
  
• Adjusted the tower projectile collision so that projectiles will actually reach towers before exploding.
  
• Detailed outer cliffs.
  
• Added falling rock lava splashes added to dire base background.
  
• Added Dire side moths.
  

AUDIO

• Frost Armor sound effect now plays when the buff is refreshed.
  
• Added Broodmother's Spiderling's voice code.
  
• Heroes can now talk while dead as long as they just want to comment on a Victory or Loss.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented heroes from commenting on a rune pickup.
  

BOTS

• Bots will now attack non-hero enemies.
  
• Bots now want to attack couriers and Juggernaut Bot's Healing Ward.
  
• Bots are now very unlikely to break off attacking when the target is stunned or slowed.
  
• Bots will now buy dust/gem when playing against Sand King.
  
• Increased the bonus-to-attack when a human pings a target.
  
• Increased the impact of human pings for lane defends and pushes.
  
• Fixed issue where tower pings from Dire players weren't working.
  
• Pinging enemy heroes will also increase the desire for a Team Roam.
  
• Tightened up the precision of pinging -
• bots should no longer think you're asking for a lane push when you ping on an enemy that's near a tower.
  
• Bots now know to move to healing auras if they need some healing and aren't desperately retreating. Currently works with Juggernaut's Healing Ward and Witch Doctor's Restoration Aura.
  
• Bots will now prioiritize interrupting units that are channeling.
  
• Fixed a number of cases where bots were getting stuck trying to use an item on an invalid (magic immune, invulnerable, etc) target.
  
• Improved bot target-selection logic for Eul's Scepter.
  
• Improved bot Diffusal Blade usage -
• it will no longer cast it on retreating targets that have an incoming stun.
  
• Improved Orchid usage -
• bots will now use it to break channels.
  
• Improved Urn usage -
• bots will no longer worry about using it on allies that are being hit by creeps.
  
• Bots now take damage on their own Barracks and Ancient much more seriously.
  
• Bots are now better about defending the proper lane when in-base.
  
• Bots should tunnelvision less on tower pushes when enemy heroes are nearby.
  
• Slightly increased bot desire to attack the enemy Ancient.
  
• Bots will no longer do Roshan when any lane needs to be defended.
  
• Bots now announce when they're leaving Roshan.
  
• Human players now need to be a bit further into a lane to claim it for laning purposes at the beginning of a game.
  
• Bots should spam chat less about roaming and returning.
  
• Bots should be much less likely to go for runes if a human with a bottle is on their team.
  
• Fixed Tiny's build so he will use his final grow.
  
• Fixed bug that was causing bots to be too timid late-game if they happened to be in a lane.
  
• Decreased lane push desire when there are enemy heroes nearby.
  
• Fixed a bug where bots didn't think they could purchase their next item if it would require selling an item.
  
• Bots should be significiantly more likely to spot farming targets and roam to gank as a team.
  
• Reduced spamminess of bot chat when pushing a lane.
  
• Reduced bot willingness to tank a tower.
  
• Slightly reduced the desire to push a tower when their potential co-pushers aren't nearby.
  
• Fixed bots repurchasing a courier when their flying courier uses shield.
  
• Bots should be better about picking stuff up from base late-game when they don't have any more pressing desires.
  
• Added Team Roam chat announcements.
  
• Bots will no longer defer all runes to humans with bottles when all the human heroes are dead.
  
• Increased attack desire when a number of nearby allies are attacking, which makes bots more decisive in teamfights.
  

Remember Steven Addison, the guy who got his username onto a giant billboard to win Dota 2 beta access? Well, it worked! Icefrog has revealed the winners of the Dota 2 photo contest, and Addison is on the list with the photo above. There are plenty of great entries - we're awfully partial to this one - which you can peruse on the PlayDota forums.

In other news, the Dota 2 blog has posted quite a bit of info on the game's spectator system. While it will obviously allow players to view match replays, it sounds like it includes a lot of customizable functionality as well. Players will be able to filter replays by certain characters, certain players (friends, pros, etc) and even certain skill levels.

For example, if you're trying to learn how to use a certain character, you could search for a replay of a high level player who uses said character. Viewers can even see a replay from a particular player's perspective, including "the player's mouse cursor and input, their camera work, their HUD, their interaction with UI elements, and so on." It sounds like spectator mode could be a great resource for new players and anyone looking to improve their game.

One Dota 2 fan wanted to win a beta key in a big way in Valve's recent photo contest --like, really big. The rules stipulated entrants submit a photograph of themselves "holding a sign that reads 'Dota 2' and your 'PlayDotA.com Username' in any creative fashion," and that the image had to be larger than 600x400 px. So Steven Addison put his image on a billboard, because that's what sane people do to get beta keys.

Placing an ad on an electronic billboard in Addison's neighborhood normally costs $3,000. Addison and his friend wanted to use the billboard in a student film as well, and after Addison explained their situation, a kind Clear Channel man offered him a small amount of air time for free. We're very happy to hear that, because compared to the other submissions, even $20 seems like too much to have invested in this contest.

[Thanks, Barnz!]

#dota Freshly added to the game (well, its beta), here's the Juggernaut from Valve's upcoming DotA 2. More »

Any day where I have an excuse to make a large number of people watch a Sisters of Mercy video is a good video. You’ll find Andrew Eldritch waiting for you below. While the cane-wielding 80s poison-king has an apparent fondness for text adventures, what we’re nominally here to talk about is the new mode for multiplayer online battle arena stalwart League of Legends.

Yesterday saw the much-ballyhooed launch of Dominion, a capture and hold mode which offers a new map and supaquick rounds of about 20 minutes. It’s all described in detail for you by Captain Explanation below.(more…)

MOBA. Say it with me, now. MOOOOOBA. MO...MO...MOOOOOBA. Feels good, man.

So much about Dota 2 sounds very...up in the air. There's no announced business plan, the release date has publicly fluctuated between before the end of the year and sometime in 2012 and Valve showed the game off for the first time with a public tournament at this year's Gamescom.

It only makes sense there'd be another twist. You'll like this one, though.

Dota 2 designer and one of the original minds behind Dota, Icefrog, broke down the upcoming plans for Dota 2 in a blog post.

The "plan" was to spend the next year or so in beta, ironing out the game's kinks with the community, with an official release later.

"We’ve also seen that the folks who are already in the beta are chomping at the bit to show everyone else some of the fun games they’ve had," said Icefrog. "So we decided our original plan was dumb."

Instead, Dota 2 will become available to everyone soon. There will be a "hopefully short" invite-only period, but the idea's to give the world access to the in-development Dota 2. Updates will come regularly, and players will see it evolve in real-time.

I'm pretty sure I just heard Brad's head explode.

"There’ll be no restrictions on what players can do with it," he said. "They can release screenshots, make movies, shoutcast matches, write guides, publicly make fun of our HUD, or anything else their hearts desire."

The version that initially rolls out will feature the set of heroes featured in The International tournament from last month, but more heroes will be rolled out as development continues.

It's an unorthodox way of doing things, but this is Valve we're talking about. God bless 'em for it.

If you haven't signed up for an invite yet, make sure to do so.

Dota 2 may be coming faster than you think...

Valve’s DOTA 2 blog has word that their plans for a year-long beta “was dumb”. Here’s the brief from IceFrog:

We’re going to take the current version of Dota 2, which has The International set of heroes, and get it out there as fast as we can. We’ve still got some work to do in a couple of areas, so we’ll be keeping it invite-only for a (hopefully short) period of time. But there’ll be no restrictions on what players can do with it – they can release screenshots, make movies, shoutcast matches, write guides, publicly make fun of our HUD, or anything else their hearts desire.

Interesting! Looks like we could be in for a dose of DOTA 2 much sooner than anticipated. But will it overcome my general MOBA-reticence? Hmm. Sceptical.

Valve Software has plans to launch Dota 2 in some form much sooner than originally intended. "We're going to take the current version of Dota 2, which has The International set of heroes, and get it out there as fast as we can," project lead Abdul "Icefrog" Ismail said in a Dota 2 blog post.

The team had originally planned on "adding new features and slowly growing the number of heroes until we reached a level of parity with Dota 1" before launching the pseudo-sequel, but is moving the launch up in order to satisfy player demand. Regular post-launch updates are still planned.

Icefrog additionally notes that the game will remain "invite only" for the time being, though he's hoping to minimize that period. It's still unclear whether Dota 2 will launch as a free-to-play title like competitor League of Legends, but it seems we'll find out much sooner than later.

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Dota 2 is on its way, and although Valve has been quiet about some of the improvements it is making to the decade-old formula, the developer has already shown us many of the heroes that will make the jump from the Warcraft III mod to the sequel. For new players, one of the biggest obstacles to jum...

You think my bag of Gamescom coverage is empty? Hah! Far from it. I’m beginning to worry I’m going to spend the rest of my life documenting what I saw and who I spoke to across four frenetic days in Germany last month. This time, it’s a quick chat with Valve bigwig Erik Johnson about DOTA2 – why they made it, what’s different, whether normal humans as well as superhumans can play it, whether they’re trying to become kings of pro-gaming hill, how aggressively they’re competing with Riot Games, Blizzard, et al… He’s not the chattiest subject admittedly, and I was miserably short on time due to my next appointment being approximately eighty miles away from Valve’s stand, but let’s see what he has to say about the impending reworking of the monstrously successful mod.(more…)

Valve unveiled its new game to the world in an unconventional fashion. At Gamescom 2011 the developer hosted a large-scale player tournament with a $1,000,000 prize. Unlike many pre-release press demos some companies put together that tend to be rough around the edges, Dota 2 already looks incredibly polished and held up to fierce competitive play by some of the world's top competitors...

#quotable Valve's Gabe Newell on the genre of DOTA 2. More »

#dota Gabe Newell has a problem. More »

Valve Software's upcoming "Action RTS," Dota 2 doesn't have a business model just yet. Valve co-founder and president Gabe Newell says he hasn't even begun thinking about the pricing model. "The primary focus for us at this point is not worrying about monetization, and it's instead worrying about getting the game right," he explains in an interview with Gamasutra.

Rather, he explains that his company's goal at the moment is "on building something that cool" for the legion of hardcore MOBA fans, "and then we'll worry about monetization ... we're not going to worry about that until later." Further pressing the point, Newell adds, "Premature monetization is the root of all evil."

As the interviewer suggests, however, real world economics force many developers to consider monetization models from the design level. Newell sees this more simply. "I think not sucking is way more of an important thing to pay attention to first," he adds, referencing the Dota 2 model of extensive playtesting and iteration before discussing a financial strategy -- a development ideology that works for a successful company like Valve, but may not be possible (or of interest) to other studios. It is a position we can get behind, however.

Over the course of Gamescom 2011, IGN was running the People's Choice Award, giving you the chance to vote for your favourite game of the show - whether you were there in Cologne or not...

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In the Great Battle Of The DOTAs, Eurogamer reports that Blizzard’s own version, made as a mod for Starcraft 2, won’t be with us until 2012 now. Because they scrapped the version now assumed to release near Heart of the Swarm, and started over. The version shown at last year’s BlizzCon is no more. The reboot will apparently aim to make the game more accessible to newcomers, which it’s hard to believe isn’t a reaction to Valve’s DOTA 2. There are lots more details in the EG story. So, two DOTAs due to arrive next year, from two of the most powerful developers in the world. Now, if only I liked DOTA games.