DOTA 2 Message Board older than one year ago

Valve co-founder Gabe Newell has confirmed that Dota 2 will be a free to play game, as expected, but also mentioned the payment structure will "have some twists." This information came out of a podcast with Seven Day Cooldown. No specific details were given beyond that, but Newell did hint that ...

Back when DOTA was nothing more than an elaborate WarCraft III map, it used to be my way of relaxing. Sure, I wasn’t some unholy whirlwind of might and magic, but it was an experience that fell somewhere on the spectrum between “pleasant” and “killing a million things.” Flash forward to today: I don’t really play LoL very often. It’s stressful! If I can get a couple friends together, sure, but the community’s a grab-bag of mean people who use curse words. So, how does Valve plan to avoid walking down a similarly suicidal lane with DOTA 2? How does an oddly utopian-sounding player-driven wonderland strike you?

(more…)

Valve's Dota 2 has been in beta testing for a quite a while now, steadily adding more players and gaining popularity on Steam. There's still no release date or pricing structure, so while we wait, here's a look at Earthshaker, a strength hero...

As is their wont, players have been rustling through some of the test build files for Valve's upcoming Dota 2, and they've found signs of some interesting (but still unofficial) features already. First and foremost, Valve hasn't yet determined exactly what the monetization model for the game will be, but it seems microtransactions will be a part of that model, as there are various announcers (including Half-Life's Dr. Kleiner), character taunts and skins, new hero items, and a few other goodies that may be purchasable either with an in-game currency, or with real money.

There are also new kinds of couriers to buy (animal pets, basically, that will ferry items back and forth from your base), and there's one more consumable: Something called souls. A "Repentant Soul" will supposedly get players out of the "low priority punishment queue" when used, which suggests some sort of "pay or be punished" system. Gabe Newell mentioned just such a system last year, where he talked about Valve charging players "based on how much fun they are to play with." In other words, act stupid in game, get punished, and then you may have to pay your way out of jail.

Finally, "treasure caches" are mentioned in the files. They'll probably work the same way that Team Fortress 2's crates do, where you get items that need to be unlocked with a key. This is all good news for those waiting for Dota 2 -- since Valve said it wouldn't worry about monetization until the fun was in there first, the game must be almost done, right?

LAN support is a dying breed in modern PC gaming. But don't tell the upcoming DOTA 2 this, as Valve's game will let you drag a dekstop, pizza and sleeping bag to your friend's place to your heart's content. [PC Gamer] More »

#dota It's no box of chocolates or a rose - or a diamond ring - but it'll do. More »

DOTA wouldn't exist without Warcraft III, which is a huge part of Blizzard's claims to the name.

The future of DOTA is now in the hands of the legal world.

A trademark dispute filed by Blizzard Entertainment against Valve has been unearthed, which I’ve spent the better part of an hour looking at and trying to make sense off alongside Mr. Shoemaker.

Blizzard filed its original complaint on November 16 (read it here), and Valve filed its response on December 22 (read that here).

Valve is pushing forward with DOTA 2, having acquired one of the principal creative minds behind the original DOTA, Abdul “IceFrog” Ismail, back in 2010. Blizzard doesn’t believe Valve has the right to call its game DOTA, and makes several arguments to support this.

The argument Blizzard makes most frequently involves the fact that DOTA was developed as a mod for Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. When you install Warcraft III, you must agree to Blizzard’s EULA (End User License Agreement), which states all material created with the game’s tools, including the editor that helped birth DOTA, is the property of Blizzard.

Thus, Blizzard owns DOTA. So says Blizzard, anyway.

“Over the past seven years, the mark DOTA has been used exclusively in connection with Blizzard and its products, namely Warcraft III,” reads Blizzard’s filing. “Most notably, DOTA has been used as the popular name of a Warcraft III software "mod" file that has been distributed, marketed, and promoted by Blizzard and its fans (under license from Blizzard).”

Blizzard allowed its community to use the term DOTA “under license.” Valve’s argument appears to hinge on the EULA not actually granting Blizzard any real-world rights to the term--or at least enough to stop Valve from using it--and when Valve decided to officially trademark DOTA in August 2010, Valve assumed legal control of the term.

Valve did not get into many specifics in responding to Blizzard’s arguments, however.

“Valve admits that the EULA contains a non-exclusive license agreement,” reads parts of Valve’s response. “The terms of the EULA speak for themselves and no admission or denial regarding the legal effect of the terms of the EULA is required.”

Some of the artwork that first surfaced for DOTA 2, when the trademark issues first came up.

“Valve denies the use of DOTA marks by Valve and its predecessors in interest is under license from or for the benefit of Blizzard,” it continues.

It could be the better part of a year before this is sorted out, including a scenario where this goes back-and-forth until February 2013, when Blizzard’s final rebuttal period would end. Given that Valve would probably want to release DOTA 2 sometime in 2012, movement before then (perhaps a settlement) seems likely.

Blizzard commented on the situation in both 2010 and 2011.

“Certainly, DOTA came out of the Blizzard community,” said Blizzard VP of game design Rob Pardo to Eurogamer back in 2010. “It just seems a really strange move to us that Valve would go off and try to exclusively trademark the term considering it's something that's been freely available to us and everyone in the Warcraft III community up to this point.

This was echoed by Blizzard president Mike Morhaime last fall.

"I can share that our opinion about the situation is that the DOTA name really should belong to the community,” said Morhaime, again to Eurogamer. “I think that it's been part of the Warcraft 3 community for a very long time, and we would like to see the community continue being able to use that name, and having an exclusive mark owned by a competitor doesn't feel right to us."

Which giant company has the rights to the fan-created, community-promoted word "Dota?" That's up to the courts now. Blizzard has filed a Notice of Opposition with the US Patent and Trademark Office, seeking to block Valve's registration of the word. The word has been used exclusively in reference to a (mod of a) Blizzard game, the document explains. "By virtue of that use, the DOTA mark has become firmly associated in the mind of consumers with Blizzard, including to signify a highly popular scenario or variant of one of Blizzard's best-selling computer games, Warcraft III."

Valve, the document goes on to claim, hasn't used the word for anything yet. There's also a lot of history of Warcraft III, which is a really strange thing to read in a legal document. The case is in discovery now, with pretrial procedures taking place throughout this year and into next. We hope this court proceeding doesn't delay either of the games, as those companies are quite capable of delaying their games on their own.

A lot of people are intimately familiar with DotA, its massive roster of heroes and its complex inner workings. This series isn't so much for the hardcore crowd as it is for those new to the title. We're highlighting the heroes on Dota 2's roster one by one, showing off their abilities and play styles. We know that entering into Dota 2 is going to be daunting for a lot of people, and choosing a hero is no simple task. We hope this helps you make that choice...

Valve has a tradition of updating the Dota 2 beta every Thursday. Except when they don't, which is sometimes. Today they totally did, though, and in today's update they added Bone Fletcher (AKA Clinkz)...

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

GAMEPLAY

• Added Clinkz!
  
• Added Legacy Key support for Invoker.
  
• Fixed Invoker's Quas, Wex, and Exort not giving Invoker bonus stats properly when upgraded.
  
• Fixed Invoker's Invoke to properly swap the invoked abilities in the 1st and 2nd slots if the spell already existing in the 2nd slot is invoked again.
  
• Fixed Cold Snap not being castable on Roshan
  
• Fixed EMP cast range
  
• Lane creeps will now stand still if they become unable to attack, such as when hit by Invoker's Deafening Blast, instead of charging past enemy creeps and towers.
  
• Enabled Invoker in CM
  
• Fixed gold-transfer hack, the sellback cooldown is now reset when combining stacks where the items have different owners.
  
• Fixed Sticky Napalm triggering off of Orb of Venom
  
• Fixed Glaives of Wisdom being usable while silenced
  

INTERFACE

• Made chat messages HTML safe.
  
• Fixed some buttons in the hero selector being broken after playing in a CM game.
  
• Added a chat -ping command
  

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

UPDATE January 20th, 2012:

• Fixed Invoker's Quas, Wex, and Exort not giving Invoker bonus stats when upgraded.
  
• Fixed Invoker's Invoke to properly swap the invoked abilities if the new spell already exists
  
• Fixed Sticky Napalm triggering off of Orb of Venom
  
• Fixed Glaives of Wisdom being usable while silenced
  
• Fixed Cold Snap not being castable on Roshan
  
• Fixed EMP cast range
  

Our e-sports correspondent is ESFI World’s Samuel Lingle.

E-sports in 2012 got going quickly as a number of January events opened the year. The Global StarCraft 2 League (GSL) kicked off their new season. The fighting game community knocked off APEX 2012, featuring Super Smash Bros and various other titles. The DotA 2 beta continues to chug along with various tournaments and leagues. The biggest of the past week, though, was the StarCraft 2 tournament at HomeStory Cup IV. Coverage and results right here.(more…)

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

6.73 PARITY

• Alchemist: Chemical Rage Base Attack Time reduced from 1.45/1.35/1.2 to 1.45/1.3/1.15.
  
• Alchemist: Goblin's Greed bonus gold limit increased from 18 to 26.
  
• Anti-Mage: Reverted the 6.72 Base Attack Time improvement, BAT from 1.35 to 1.45.
  
• Anti-Mage: Armor reduced by 1.
  
• Axe: Aghanim's Culling Blade cooldown from 10 to 6.
  
• Axe: Base Int from 14 to 18.
  
• Axe: Base HP regeneration from 1.25 to 2.
  
• Axe: Battle Hunger gives Axe a 4% bonus movement speed per target it affects.
  
• Axe: Berserker's Call cooldown from 14 to 10.
  
• Axe: Counter Helix damage increased from 100/125/150/175 to 100/130/160/190.
  
• Axe: Counter Helix proc cooldown decreased from 0.7/0.65/0.6/0.55 to 0.65/0.6/0.55/0.5.
  
• Axe: If Culling Blade kills a unit, Axe unleashes a war cry, giving nearby allied units (600 AoE) a temporary movement bonus (25% for 6 seconds).
  
• Blood Seeker: Thirst no longer partially reveals invisible heroes below 40% health.
  
• Blood Seeker: Thirst now fully reveals invisible heroes below 20% health.
  
• Blood Seeker: Rupture duration improved from 5/7/9 to 7/8/9.
  
• Blood Seeker: Rupture cooldown now scales from 70 to 70/60/50.
  
• Bounty Hunter: Track gold bonus for Bounty Hunter increased from 75/150/225 to 150/200/250.
  
• Dark Seer: Ion Shell duration increased from 15 to 20.
  
• Dark Seer: Ion Shell AoE from increased 225 to 250.
  
• Dark Seer: Ion Shell cooldown increased from 7 to 10.
  
• Dark Seer: Ion Shell damage increased from 30/45/60/75 to 30/50/70/90.
  
• Dark Seer: Wall of Replica illusions are now semi-transparent to enemy players.
  
• Doom Bringer: Scorched Earth duration increased from 8/10/12/14 to 10/12/14/16.
  
• Dragon Knight: While in Dragon form Dragon Tail's cast range increased from 150 to 400.
  
• Drow Ranger: Base Agility increased by 4.
  
• Enchantress: Movement speed from 305 to 310.
  
• Nature's Prophet: Wrath of Nature cooldown rescaled from 90/60/60 to 90/75/60.
  
• Jakiro: Ice Path cooldown decreased from 16/15/14/13 to 12/11/10/9.
  
• Jakiro: Macropyre duration increased from 5 to 7 seconds.
  
• Juggernaut: Omnislash random damage improved from 150-250 to 175-250.
  
• Juggernaut: Omnislash hit count increased from 3/5/8 (5/7/10 aghanim) to 3/6/9 (6/9/12 aghanim).
  
• Kunkka: Strength growth increased from 2.7 to 3.0.
  
• Kunkka: Ghost Ship's CoCo's Rum duration increased from 5/6/7 to 8.
  
• Kunkka: Tidebringer cleave AoE improved from 380/420/460/500 to 500.
  
• Kunkka: Torrent slow increased from 30 to 35%.
  
• Kunkka: X Marks The Spot cooldown decreased from 30 to 20 seconds.
  
• Death Prophet: Witchcraft movement speed increased from 3/6/9/12% to 4/8/12/16%.
  
• Skeleton King: Reincarnation slow duration increased from 3 to 4 seconds.
  
• Skeleton King: Reincarnation cooldown decreased from 300/220/140 to 260/160/60.
  
• Leshrac: Movement speed increased from 310 to 315.
  
• Leshrac: Pulse Nova AoE increased from 400 to 450.
  
• Lich: Added a 0.2 second buffer time between Chain Frost bounces.
  
• Lina: Base intelligence increased by 3.
  
• Lina: Dragon Slave travel distance increased by 100.
  
• Lina: Dragon Slave final AoE increased from 125 to 150.
  
• Lion: Mana Drain level 4 increased from 100 to 120 per second.
  
• Lion: Mana Drain now drains at 0.25 second intervals instead of 1 second (596884).
  
• Mirana: Fixed Arrow damaging but not stunning invisible units.
  
• Morphling: Base agility increased by 5.
  
• Morphling: Adaptive strike cooldown decreased from 20 to 10.
  
• Necrolyte: Death Pulse AoE increased from 375/425/450/475 to 475.
  
• Necrolyte: Heartstopper damage increased from 0.4/0.6/0.8/1.0% to 0.5/0.7/0.9/1.1%.
  
• Necrolyte: Sadist level 4 now restores 600 mana if you kill a hero.
  
• Pudge: Flesh Heap now has a overhead notification when strength is gained.
  
• Pugna: Life Drain damage increased from 95/140/185 to 100/150/200 (and Scepter from 150/200/250 to 175/225/275).
  
• Pugna: Life Drain duration increased from 9 to 10 seconds.
  
• Queen of Pain: Base damage increased by 4.
  
• Queen of Pain: Scream of Pain AoE increased from 400/425/450/475 to 475.
  
• Razor: Static Link duration, after it finishes draining, increased from 13 to 18.
  
• Razor: Static Link cooldown rescaled from 35/30/25/20 to 25.
  
• Sand King: Epicenter's slow is no longer blocked by magic immunity.
  
• Sand King: Caustic Finale buff duration increased from 2 to 8 seconds.
  
• Shadow Fiend: Movement speed increased from 300 to 305.
  
• Shadow Fiend: Agility growth increased from 2.4 to 2.9.
  
• Shadow Fiend: Necromancy soul cap increased from 8/15/23/30 to 8/16/24/32.
  
• Sniper: Shrapnel AoE increased from 325 to 350.
  
• Spectre: Dispersion damage no longer disables items like Blink Dagger.
  
• Riki: Backstab damage bonus increased from 0.25/0.5/0.75/1.0 to 0.5/0.75/1.0/1.25 of agility.
  
• Storm Spirit: Overload bonus damage increased from 30/45/60/75 to 30/50/70/90.
  
• Sven: Great Cleave increased from 20/30/40/50% to 30/40/50/60%.
  
• Sven: God's Strength is no longer purgeable.
  
• Sven: God's Strength damage buff increased from 100/125/150% to 100/140/180%.
  
• Sven: Warcry duration increased from 6 to 8 seconds.
  
• Sven: Warcry cast time removed.
  
• Tinker: Laser's miss duration increased from 2 to 3 seconds.
  
• Ursa: Armor increased by 1.
  
• Ursa: Enrage damage increased from 4/5/6% to 5/6/7% of current HP.
  
• Ursa: Earthshock AoE increased from 365 to 385.
  
• Ursa: Earthshock cooldown decreased from 7 to 6.
  
• Ursa: Fury Swipes damage increased from 10/15/20/25 to 15/20/25/30.
  
• Warlock: Infernal's Flaming Fists trigger chance increased from 40% to 60%.
  
• Warlock: Infernal's Flaming Fists damage increased from 75/115/150 to 100/150/200.
  
• Zeus: Arc Lightning level 4 damage increased from 130 to 145 damage.
  
• Zeus: Lightning Bolt cooldown decreased from 6.5 to 6.
  
• Zeus: Static Field now affects creeps.
  
• Zeus: Static Field no longer requires unit visibility to take effect.
  
• New Item: Rod of Atos.
  
• New Item: Heaven's Halberd.
  
• New Item: Ring of Aquila.
  
• New Item: Abyssal Blade.
  
• New Item: Tranquil Boots.
  
• Boots of Travel: Recipe cost decreased from 2200 to 2000.
  
• Boots of Travel: Movement speed increased from 95 to 100.
  
• Bloodstone: Initial charges increased from 5 to 6.
  
• Bloodstone: Respawn time reduction increased from 3 to 4 seconds per charge.
  
• Butterfly: Evasion increased from 30 to 35%.
  
• Divine Rapier: Damage increased from 250 to 300.
  
• Ethereal Blade: Ether blast cast range increased from 700 to 800.
  
• Eul's Scepter of Divinity: Movement speed bonus increased from 25 to 30.
  
• Linken's Sphere: Added +10 damage to account for component bonuses.
  
• Linken's Sphere: No longer triggered by Medallion of Courage.
  
• Linken's Sphere: No longer triggered by Urn of Shadows.
  
• Magic Wand: No longer loses charges when upgrading from Magic Stick.
  
• Mask of Madness: Berserk's movement speed bonus increased from 20% to 25%.
  
• Mjollnir: Chain lightning bounce count increased from 4 to 8.
  
• Necronomicon: Archer's Mana burn cast range increased from 250 to 600.
  
• Necronomicon: Archer's attack damage increased from 31/61/91 to 40/80/120.
  
• Necronomicon: Warrior's attack damage increased from 21/41/61 to 25/50/75.
  
• Orb of Venom: Cost decreased from 450 to 350.
  
• Orchid Malevolence: Recipe Reworked: now requires 2 Oblivion Staffs and a 775 gold recipe.
  
• Smoke of Deceit: Dispel AoE for nearby heroes increased from 950 to 1025.
  
• Refresher Orb: Added +6 Intelligence to account for component bonuses.
  
• Stygian Desolator: Desolator recipe cost decreased from 1200 to 900.
  
• Vanguard: HP Bonus decreased from 275 to 250.
  
• Veil of Discord: Recipe now requires only one Robe of the Magi, completed bonuses are the same.
  
• Couriers: Now give 150 to each enemy player, instead of 300 to the killer.
  
• Couriers: No longer drop items when they die.
  
• Couriers: Respawn 3 minutes after death, the items they have are inaccesible during that time.
  
• Couriers: Flying courier no longer has invulnerability shield.
  
• Couriers: Basic courier is magic immune (like flying courier, most spells did not work on couriers already).
  
• Buyback cooldown increased from 4 minutes to 5.
  
• Heroes now respawn with full mana.
  
• Gold over time from 0.875 intervals to 0.8.
  
• Runes will no longer spawn the same rune type 2 times in a row.
  
• Forest Healing Troll now has a Mana Aura (+2 MP/sec).
  
• Forest Healing Troll's heal cooldown from 0.75 to 0.5 seconds.
  

GAMEPLAY

• Added Spirit Breaker and Silencer.
  
• Added Tournament version switch.
  
• Fixed a bug where if you issued commands in rapid succession, some commands could be ignored.
  
• Alchemist: Fixed Unstable Concoction stunning Alchemist when he is magic immune.
  
• Axe: Fixed Counter Helix doing the damage when the attack impacted rather than started.
  
• Bloodseeker: Fixed being able to cast Bloodrage on Magic Immune allies/self.
  
• Bounty Hunter: Fixed it being possible to use Jinada cooldown without triggering a critical strike.
  
• Bounty Hunter: Fixed Jinada working on denies.
  
• Bounty Hunter: Fixed Jinada and Shadowblade affecting buildings.
  
• Bounty Hunter: Fixed Track giving bonus gold for dead illusions.
  
• Bounty Hunter: Fixed Track not being dispelled by Time Lapse, Repel, Purge, etc.
  
• Bounty Hunter: Fixed Track debuff icon not showing.
  
• Broodmother: Fixed Spawn Spiderite working on wards.
  
• Clockwerk: Fixed Hookshot hitting couriers.
  
• Dragon Knight: Fixed Dragon Tail ignoring Linken's Sphere.
  
• Nature's Prophet: Fixed not being able to see the teleportation end point if it is in FoW.
  
• Huskar: Fixed Lifebreak being dodgeable.
  
• Leshrac: Fixed Pulse Nova turning back on when out of mana sometimes.
  
• Lifestealer: Fixed Rage not properly dispelling negative debuffs
  
• Lifestealer: Fixed Open Wounds healing towers.
  
• Lifestealer: Fixed Infest not working on Mud Golems.
  
• Nevermore: Fixed Presence of the Dark Lord not working on siege units.
  
• Night Stalker: Fixed Hunter in the Night working on Illusions.
  
• Omniknight: Fixed Repel taking Shadowblade invis buff off
  
• Omniknight: Fixed Repel causing Burrowstrike to fail if used during the movement period
  
• Omniknight: Fixed Holy Persuation working on magic immune allies.
  
• Omniknight: Fixed Repel revealing Broodmother while under Spin Web.
  
• Sand King: Fixed Refresher Burrow Strike not hurting affected units
  
• Shadow Shaman: Fixed Ethershock hitting units in the FoW.
  
• Storm Spirit: Fixed Overload charge being used up if the target dies before impact.
  
• Tidehunter: Fixed Refresher Ravage not hurting affected units.
  
• Tidehunter: Fixed Kraken Shell not reducing tower damage.
  
• Tiny: Fixed the timing of when the stun happened with Craggy Exterior.
  
• Ursa: Fury swipes should only work on organic units and Roshan now.
  
• Ursa: Fixed Illusions not dealing bonus damage on a unit that has Fury Swipe stacks already.
  
• Venomancer: Fixed Plague Ward collision size
  
• Fixed Satanic being dispellable.
  
• Fixed Janggo Aura not affecting lane creeps.
  
• Fixed Vladmir Aura's mana regen stacking with Basilius.
  
• Fixed Necro Warrior's Mana Burn ignoring Linken's Sphere.
  
• Fixed Refresher Orb not geving bonus int.
  
• Fixed Power Treads movement bonus being off by 5.
  
• Fixed Force Staff not giving an error (and wasting cooldown) when used on allied magic immune.
  
• Fixed Unobstructed vision working on Illusions.
  
• Fixed Bash against wards.
  
• Fixed a hero not leveling up multiple times if they received enough XP in one go.
  
• Fixed some Legacy Keys.
  
• Enabled Ursa and Bounty Hunter in Captain's Mode.
  
• Fixed Bottle usage cooldown.
  
• Fixed couriers losing behaviors and being removed from unit selections and control groups when they are upgraded to flying.
  

UI

• Updated the minimap texture.
  
• Dominated and summoned creeps now draw larger on minimap.
  
• Fixed shop keys getting unbound.
  
• Fixed a case where dragging a non-controllable unit's inventory item would result in a drag of the player's hero's item instead.
  
• Fixed control clicking on an active item showing a confusing error.
  
• Added a Animate Portrait setting to the video config.
  
• Fixed Cheap Water setting being backwards.
  
• Fixed the quickbuy purchase shortcut not buying items if they existed in both the secret and side shop, when at the side shop.
  
• The shop button now highlights when you are in range of the shop.
  
• When using Alt, minimap hero names are now icons.
  
• When using Alt, there are now TP icons to show which teammate is teleporting in.
  
• When using Alt, illusions draw smaller and semitransparent.
  
• Disallowed item moves from the stash to the main inventory while reincarnating.
  
• Minimap lines for muted players are no longer drawn.
  
• Added an overhead indicator for flesh heap.
  
• Added a tooltip to the courier button.
  
• The courier button shows as inactive when there are either no couriers, or only dead couriers.
  
• Fixed the reliable/unreliable gold tooltip showing up for non-hero units.
  
• Fixed hero images not showing up in the top bar and scoreboard until their entities came out of dormancy.
  
• Fixed being able to select units previously part of a multi-unit selection by clicking on the space where they were displayed, after returning to single-unit selection.
  
• Added health number on the player's hero's floating health bar.
  
• Fixed a case where the stash would show the wrong item icon.
  
• Added "Auto Speed" feature to Directed mode in the spectator HUD when watching a replay.
  
  • Will automatically speed up the replay when nothing is happening, and slow down when action occurs.
    
  • Will do super slow-mo at moments when heroes are killed.
    
  • Only works on replays recorded after this release.
    
• Fixed bug where the stickly slot would sometimes, mysteriously, change items.
  
• Fixed not being able to buy stackable items from side shop with a full inventory (ie. teleport scroll).
  
• Fixed channel bar not going away when querying a channeling hero that enter fog of war.
  
• Shift-clicking a unit in multi-unit selection hud element now deselects the unit.
  
• Fixed Top bar clicks not going to the correct heroes when playing back demos.
  
• Taskbar icon will now flash when a game is paused/unpaused, if the game doesn't already have focus.
  
• Added attack icon and ping for enemy structures.
  
• Mana and health regen values are no longer drawn in the hud when querying enemies.
  
• Practice lobby settings are now shown to all lobby members.
  
• Improved scrollbars and scrolling views.
  
• Winner and duration are hidden on the match details screen by default.
  
• Fixed default date range when searching for replays.
  

VISUALS

• There is now an impact effect on enemies who are damaged by Dazzle's Shadow Wave.
  
• There is now a splash effect when Morphling takes an illusion's position.
  
• Removed track casting effect from enemy vision.
  
• Changed how Dark Seer's illusions look — smaller and illusion color for both teams.
  
• Fixed Ursa turning bright yellow on lower-end cards.
  
• Made Lifestealer's Rage effect slightly more subtle.
  
• Made Pudge's Rot way less subtle.
  

AUDIO

• Death Prophet will comment on her ghosts returning when they begin turning back instead of when they're done returning.
  
• Slightly lessened the volume of the Match Ready sound.
  
• Made warning about Ancient being under attack always play, even if there are heroes nearby defending it.
  

BOTS

• Enabled bot difficulty selection. Currently all bots in the match will use the same difficulty setting.
  
• Fixed cases where bots would want to gank a nearby invisible unit.
  
• Bots will now wait a couple seconds before using a TP scroll to ensure that their desire to go to a location wasn't just momentary.
  
• Fixed case where bots would say "Defending none" when they were defending their base.
  
• Fixed bug where you would lose your assigned lane if you moved too close to the base.
  
• Fixed bug that was causing bots to use TP scrolls less often than they should when doing long pathfinds.
  
• Fixed bug that was making bots think Windrunner was way more powerful than she actually was when she had the Focus Fire buff active.
  
• Increased desire to not move with Rupture.
  
• When bots are pushing a tower, and allies have signed up to help out, they will do a better job of waiting for them to show up before actually doing the push.
  
• Made bots more likely to stick with Roshan when his health is low, even if they think it's dangerous.
  
• Added slight buyback delay so bots aren't superhuman about buying back into the game.
  
• Improved Tidehunter's Ravage usage, he will now consider using it even when retreating.
  
• Made bots more likely to commit post-allied-Ravage.
  
• Fixed bug where bots would gather up for a tower push when no more reinforcements were coming.
  
• Fixed bug that caused bots to be jerks and prematurely retreat with extremely high priority when a teamfight happened and one of their teammates was being attacked.
  
• Made bots more likely to break off Roshan (and not decide to do Rosh) if any hero fights are happening nearby.
  
• Increased tower avoidance at mid-range health values, should help avoid some ill-advised tower-dives.
  
• Made bots focus a bit more on a tower/rax push rather than swapping off to attack a hero.
  
• Made bots less likely to ignore very high-health enemies.
  
• Made bots less likely to tank creeps when attacking an enemy's minons.
  
• Bots now have the ability to figure out which enemy heroes are illusions and which aren't, and they will adjust their ability usage accordingly.
  
• Fixed a few cases where bots would try to cast an interrupting stun on a magic-immune enemy that was channeling.
  
• Made bots a bit less aggressive about buying dust.
  
• Made bots a bit more scared of Juggernaut's Blade Fury when at low health.
  
• Fixed bug where bots would sometimes buy a duplicate courier.
  
• Improved how bots infer ganks, tower pushes, and tower defenses from human players.
  
• Bots are now more likely to automatically help out humans with tower pushes, tower defenses, and doing Rosh.
  

A lot of people are intimately familiar with DotA, its massive roster of heroes and its complex inner workings. This series isn't so much for the hardcore crowd as it is for those new to the title. We're highlighting the heroes on Dota 2's roster one by one, showing off their abilities and play styles. We know that entering into Dota 2 is going to be daunting for a lot of people, and choosing a hero is no simple task. We hope this helps you make that choice...

A lot of people are intimately familiar with DotA, its massive roster of heroes and its complex inner workings. This series isn't so much for the hardcore crowd as it is for those new to the title. We're highlighting the heroes on Dota 2's roster one by one, showing off their abilities and play styles. We know that entering into Dota 2 is going to be daunting for a lot of people, and choosing a hero is no simple task. We hope this helps you make that choice...

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

HEROES

• Added Ursa!
  
• Broodmother: Fixed Insatiable Hunger working against illusions.
  
• Death Prophet: Fixed Crypt Swarm not allowing unit targets.
  
• Nature's Prophet: Fixed Treants spawning the maximum amount regardless of the number of trees present.
  
• Razor: Fixed Static Link not showing bonus damage on the modifier
  
• Razor: Fixed Static Link interaction rules.
  

GAMEPLAY

• Fixed Necronomicon truesight not revealing wards.
  
• Fixed bug that was causing item chests in the world to sometimes disappear.
  
• Mjollnir's Static Charge buff used to double hit entity that triggered the effect, now it only gets hit once.
  
• Mjollnir's Static Charge buff will now only fire once a second. It used to have no cooldown.
  
• Enabled Lifestealer and Death Prophet in Captain's Mode.
  

UI

• Added Suggested Item Editor. Access this from the shop, all your new builds will be saved to the cloud.
  
• In multiselection, units with active abilities are now sorted ahead of units without active abilities.
  
• Buying an item while dead no longer puts it in the main inventory. Fixes an exploit of buying items while dead with Aegis or as Skeleton King and respawning with the item.
  
• Instead of dropping items on the ground, we now show an error when trying to buy items from the side or secret shop that would not all fit in the inventory.
  
• We now allow courier to purchase items away from base (they go into the stash).
  
• Fixed right clicking on items in the stash with the courier selected.
  
• Game client will remember and automatically rejoin custom chat channels.
  

VISUALS

• Fixed a bug where ground blood wasn't showing up for a bloody Infest emerge.
  
• Fixed dropped items occasionally disappearing.
  
• Units will no longer run in place after the game ends.
  
• Added victory and defeat animations to creeps.
  

AUDIO

• Illusions will no longer comment on victories or losses.
  
• Witch Doctor will now express his frustration when performing a terrible malediction.
  

BOTS

• Added "-dumpbots" chat command for dumping the bot state.
  
• Improved how bots handle defending a building that's within their base.
  
• Fixed bug where bots would accidentally know about invisibile enemy heroes nearby.
  
• Reworked how commit-to-attack calculations are done. Bots should be better about evaluating their surrounding threats and in particular should no longer walk by each other like ships in the night.
  
• Improved bot last-hitting performance.
  
• Fixed item build issue with Earthshaker Bot.
  
• Tidehunter will use Ravage more intelligently now (tries harder to hit multiple enemies ).
  
• Increased bots desire to do Roshan even if they don't happen to be nearby, when it's safe to do so.
  
• Made bots better at defending the base when there are enemy creeps inside it.
  
• Fixed bots not trying to avoid the enemy fountain.
  
• Fixed bots never using Shadow Blade.
  
• Fixed bots never farming when they've decided that they want to save money for a buyback.
  
• Fixed bug where bots would move back and forth just within tower range when waiting for pushing creeps to arrive.
  

#dota Stanley Lau is one talented artist. Kotaku previously featured him on Fine Art for his wonderful Street Fighter work. Today, it's time to look at some stunning DotA 2 art. More »

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

HEROES

• Added Death Prophet!
  
• Lifestealer: Fixed Feast working on denies
  
• Nightstalker: Updated suggested item build.
  
• Huskar: Fixed Burning Spears working through silence.
  

UI

• When purchasing while dead, items can go to the main inventory ( previously were sent to the stash ).
  
• Fixed some item buffs not working when combined while the hero is dead.
  
• Fixed ability tooltips not working when the game is paused.
  
• Revamped the waiting for players (loading) screen.
  
• If a player fails to connect and load, we now kick all the players back to matchmaking so we don't end up 4v5.
  
• Removed chat from game end panel, we now just show regular hud chat during scores.
  

VISUALS

• Hooked up occasional flinches to lane creeps.
  
• Reduced random blood splatter chances from creep to creep attacks.
  
• Fixed Broodmother's webs not showing up if you connected after they were created.
  
• Screenshakes now work during the end game cinematic
  
• Fixed character shadows sometimes not showing up.
  
• Units are now pushed away from the ancient when it's destroyed.
  
• Updated pine tree foliage.
  
• Added unique tree destruction and tree stumps
  
• Added WIP radiant ancient destruction
  
• Changed impact effects to have a specific hero variation
  
• Fixed blood coming from mechanical units
  
• Fixed Weaver afterimage effects not rendering properly
  
• Fixed character shadows staying off if they were first rendered as invisible on a client
  

AUDIO

• Alchemist's concoction lines are now heard by other players nearby.
  
• Riki will only say "This is Redundant" when picking up an Invisiblity Rune while invisible.
  
• Fixed not hearing the ancient destruction sound effects if the camera was too far away.
  
• Enabled the Unit Speech option in the settings panel.
  
• Altered processing on Jakiro voices (in 12/1/11 update).
  

DOTA 2 BOTS

• Fixed bug where bots would fail to attack Roshan.
  
• Fixed bug where bots wouldn't deny their own creeps.
  
• Fixed spectating players still being able to control bots while spectating.
  
• Fixed bug where bots would grab Aegis over humans if the human's inventory was full. Now they'll assume the human will drop an item for Aegis.
  
• Fixed bug that could sometimes cause no one on a team to pick up Aegis.
  
• Fixed bug where bots would freeze when they encountered a dropped item that they wanted to destroy.
  
• Fixed bug where bots were only avoiding the outermost towers in each lane.
  
• Bots now try to avoid each other somewhat, so they should no longer stack on top of each other as much.
  
• Bots will now attack pets, controlled creeps, and minions in general.
  
• Fixed case where heroes would backtrack after blinking.
  
• Added bot avoidance to Ancient Apparition's Cold Feet.
  
• Bots will now use Glyph if their base is under attack and there are no humans on their team.
  
• Fixed bug in Crystal Maiden bot that was preventing her from using Freezing Field.
  
• Fixed bug where bots would tank Roshan until they died.
  

Dota 2 is pretty much just DotA. It's been said in many previews of Valve's next game on IGN and elsewhere around the Internet. Though many played the original and have been very interested in how Valve's handling development, many commenters around IGN continue to express confusion as to what exactly this game is and why it's interesting...

A lot of people are intimately familiar with DotA, its massive roster of heroes and its complex inner workings. This series isn't so much for the hardcore crowd as it is for those new to the title. We're highlighting the heroes on Dota 2's roster one by one, showing off their abilities and play styles. We know that entering into Dota 2 is going to be daunting for a lot of people, and choosing a hero is no simple task. We hope this helps you make that choice...

A lot of people are intimately familiar with DotA, its massive roster of heroes and its complex inner workings. This series isn't so much for the hardcore crowd as it is for those new to the title. We're highlighting the heroes on Dota 2's roster one by one, showing off their abilities and play styles. We know that entering into Dota 2 is going to be daunting for a lot of people, and choosing a hero is no simple task. We hope this helps you make that choice...

A lot of people are intimately familiar with DotA, its massive roster of heroes and its complex inner workings. This series isn't so much for the hardcore crowd as it is for those new to the title. In this series of videos we highlight the heroes on Dota 2's roster one by one, showing off their abilities and play styles. We know that entering into Dota 2 is going to be daunting for a lot of people, and choosing a hero is no simple task. We hope this helps you make that choice...

A lot of people are intimately familiar with DotA, its massive roster of heroes and its complex inner workings. This series isn't so much for the hardcore crowd as it is for those new to the title. In this series of videos we highlight the heroes on Dota 2's roster one by one, showing off their abilities and play styles. We know that entering into Dota 2 is going to be daunting for a lot of people, and choosing a hero is no simple task. We hope this helps you make that choice...

A lot of people are intimately familiar with DotA, its massive roster of heroes and its complex inner workings. This series isn't so much for the hardcore crowd as it is for those new to the title. In this series of videos we highlight the heroes on Dota 2's roster one by one, showing off their abilities and play styles. We know that entering into Dota 2 is going to be daunting for a lot of people, and choosing a hero is no simple task. We hope this helps you make that choice...

A lot of people are intimately familiar with DotA, its massive roster of heroes, and its complex inner workings. This isn't for you. This is a series where we talk about the roster of Dota 2 hero by hero from a broad perspective. We know that entering into Dota 2 is going to be daunting for a lot of...

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

Added save/load functionality to private games. Every minute a new save file is automatically created. This happens in the background so you won't notice it. The lobby leader will be able to load any of the saved games from the Game Setup option when creating a new lobby.

A lot of people are intimately familiar with DotA, its massive roster of heroes, and its complex inner workings. This isn't for you. This is a series where we talk about the roster of Dota 2 hero by hero from a broad perspective. We know that entering into Dota 2 is going to be daunting for a lot of people, and choosing a hero is no simple task. We hope this helps you make that choice...

It happened. It finally happened. After months of near-begging, Valve has seen fit to let IGN into the Dota 2 beta. If you're unfamiliar with DotA, it originated as a mod for Warcraft III. It pits two teams of five players against each other, with each player controlling a single powerful hero unit....