Dota 2

Super fun addition to dota2, I am digging the Warchasers mod at the moment.

This is something I still need to check out, but sounds awesome.

The custom games will really change how people play DoTA 2. The interface is much nicer and it runs better on lesser hardware which is a huge win for people on laptops.

I thought this was a very interesting documentary. Really makes me want to quit my job and just play video games all day though lol.

It was pretty good. I didn't want to quite my job to play DoTA 2 though, it seemed.... very hard to get to a level where it would be worth it. Plus, didn't the video seemed to say old people can't win at professional DoTA 2?

Being that I am both old and very near death.

Yeah, but I have too much ego to let a 20-something year old tell me that I'm "too old."

PROVE THAT Kid WRONG!

This film has been in the works for more then 3 years. Been waiting forever. First it was after TI1. Then ut was going to be after TI2. Then around TI3. Haha. Finally

Interesting, I didn't know it was in the works that long.

Oh man, I love dota stats...look at the SB hahaha...BITCH. Also, the popularity change for Brood haha, so funny. Not surprising the win rate hasn't gone up terribly much yet. Still too new on changes and people don't know how to play her yet.

Dat spreadsheet. Oh yeah.

Looks like a good time to re-install DoTA 2 and give it a go again. Hopefully this patch gets the game a bit closer to "dat perfect balance."

I tend to approve of icefrog's tendency to buff heroes that aren't quite viable. Rather than bringing others down. While some definitely needed to come down. I'm glad to see broodmother with big buffs. As well as others. It adds more diversity. And makes for more interesting play.

The best part of the datasheet is under popularity change for bloodseeker and broodmother. Lololol

"It wasn't a huge deal, but my Macbook has an SSD and 16G of RAM, it doesn't need to slow down."

What's the video card in the Macbook? That could explain the slow down.

NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 1024 MB
2.6 GHz Intel Core i7

Dota 2 should be fine :D

Aye, I think it should.

It's probably just the ghost of Steve Jobs, trying to tell you to keep those dirty games off of his dream!

HAHAHA yeah I bet.

I have found that many games on Mac are not as speedy as they seem they should be. I have a Linux box with lesser specs in some respects that totally smokes it for games. Its a strange thing because I have the latest Retina Macbook with the highest specs. Kind of should be enough horsepower for most games I think.

Are you running 10.8? Ever since I made the upgrade to Mountain Lion, I've noticed significant decrease in performance on my iMac. Mine is an older system (3ghz Intel Core 2 Duo), but I can imagine that it might be part of the problem.

Yeah, I am running Mountain Lion. For everything else it seems fine, just games are a bit more laggy than they should.

From what I read, 10.9 should fix some of those speed drop problems, so maybe gaming will get better as well.

That's good news. From my very non scientific research it seems Steam games on Linux are on par with Windows and a bit better than the Mac. But, again, just a "feel" no benchmarks or anything.

Hat tip to Valve, the porting effort is very good.

I think a key reason for the performance difference could be that Valve is tightening up their engine in preparation for the Steambox. Since it's purported to be Linux-based, it would make sense that there are optimizations in Linux that don't exist in Mac OS.

I have noticed that since the beta launch of Steam for Linux, a great number of the Valve titles have been through multiple revisions, with each one performing slightly better than the last. When TF2 was first available for Linux, I experienced serious performance hits on my woefully underpowered Intel HD 3000. Two updates later, however, and the framerate got to an acceptable-but-not-yet-playable-with-humans point.

Good to hear they are improving performance. If vendors are to release different versions of the Steam Box with different hardware then they will need to optimize as well as they can. Then again, modest hardware now days is pretty beefy all told.

True, yet there is still a bottom end to the hardware. My laptop was right at the base spec for the Steam Linux beta. The desktop I'm on now has some pretty low specs: Core 2 Duo 2 GHz, NVIDIA GT220, 4 GB DDR 800 RAM running off of a slow SATA drive. Still, most of the Valve titles run really well and keep getting better. That's why I'm itching for Portal 2 to get to Linux. Or HL3. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Sorry. That happens any time I think about HL3. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

When they get Portal 2 ported to Linux that will be awesome. Have you played it yet?

Oh yeah. Finished the single-player on the PS3 and the laptop was just barely fast enough to play it in Windows, but I rarely booted to Windows so I'm itching to play it again and/or co-op this time around.

This is good to hear. Now for Mac and Linux ports! :D

Did you see the FAQ?

http://www.dota2.com/thebetaisover

It's coming for both. Not sure if your comment was an "I'm looking forward to these" or an "I wish these would happen."

I didn't see the FAQ, thanks for posting that. Really happy Valve is leading the pack of Triple A developers that port everywhere.

http://dev.dota2.com/showthread.php?t=96877

Downloading the Mac test now.

I just played it on my Macbook and its a pretty good port. I ran into a few glitches but nothing drastic. They made a few changes to the game(mostly cosmetic) since I played last. The passive bots are much simpler than they used to be as well.

I just got started with it a few nights ago and the Linux build runs fairly well. My processor isn't the best so I toned down some of the complexity. Looks like a game I could kill more than a few hours playing.

Sad, though, that training cards only drop by purchasing content.

You are entitled to a few free drops like any other game. Then you have to spend if you want more. Or purchase a "booster pack" like every other game on steam after you get your initial drops

Having played DOTA 2, this doesn't interest me at all. It's not all eSports, I've enjoyed watching other tournaments in the past, I even spent far more time than I'd care to admit watching MtG tournaments, but I'll pass on this.

I find it interesting that this game is still in beta and they have championships already.

There were many awesome games. Very worth watching if at all interested in esports.
this is the event that changes the meta of public DOTA games for the rest of the year.

Teams really step up their games. And pull out all their tricks. I guess 2.5 million bucks worth of prizes is a big deal.

DOTA might have been in beta. But it is more stable than most other competitive games. I dont think it had anything to do with the quality of the game. Or bugs. I think it was a marketing decision.

Yeah, I didn't get to watch the DoTA 2 international this year. And yeah, I think one big reason teams step up the game is the prize money, its nice to see that kind of cash come to e-sports.

It's still available to be viewed AFAIK (easily on youtube). And I've been watching dota2 or MTG tournaments/matches at work for the last couple months. Both are fun to watch and both have good broadcasters.

Hmmm, seems like some kind of shake-up for sure. Hard to say why though.

Valve is making a __HUGE__ push to hardware, so I imagine this is in some way in service of that? I don't know how, but its possible there might be more visibility on this later on. IE they might say something about it.

I hope this doesn't hold up the Steambox too much, because it needs to happen.

It seems like the SteamBox is already on it's way, other hardware providers on-board and everything. I doubt at this stage that would just stop.

I do hope there's some transparency on this.

So, as a semi professional video games podcaster, I don't actually keep up with much in the way of news about new games/new shit. What advantages does the Steam Box have over, say, a computer?

Gary, essentially marketing and a prettier box to have in your living room. It's Valve focusing on the living room, sharing the space consoles normally do. You can boot up into Steam's Big Picture mode, control everything with the controller, etc. Valve's will be based on Linux, which they're banking a lot on, and hopefully this will get more Linux games in Steam. But others can/will be made by third-parties and can be based on Windows if they so desire.

Want to add to what @panickedthumb said a bit.

Gabe gave a few talks recently where he talked a bit about value. It kind of goes like, "With each console generation when you upgrade to the next, eventually you have to toss away your old stuff and get new stuff." Which is true, can't get a PS3 to play your PS2 games anymore but PS1 works? Eventually the Wii U+1 won't play Wii games.

So its kind of an interesting idea. Buy a game once on Steam, play it on your PC and console. When you upgrade you don't have to toss out your games, DLC and friends.

"We don't usually talk about personnel matters for a number of reasons. There seems to be an unusual amount of speculation about some recent changes here, so I thought I'd take the unusual step of addressing them. No, we aren't canceling any projects. No, we aren't changing any priorities or projects we've been discussing. No, this isn't about Steam or Linux or hardware or [insert game name here]. We're not going to discuss why anyone in particular is or isn't working here."

http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/13/valve-gabe-newell-layoffs-statement/

My speculation is that this is just spring cleaning. Valve is an interesting organization, given the dynamics of its amoebic infrastructure, but it's still a business. If reports are true, these individuals make up roughly 8% of the Valve team. Which doesn't seem crazy, to me. Some may have left voluntarily. They seem like they are in various talents, too. Feels weird to me that this is actually news.

Thanks for posting that Jon, that eases some of my fears. He's right though, speculation is dangerous, and only leads to fans panicking about their favorite thing going away :)

I am a bigger fan of gaming in my computer space but I supposed it'd be nice to have the option for Isaac: Rebirth.

When I got Portal 2 for PS3 that had the Steam code for the PC version that could also play on the Mac it was magical. I want more of that, buy once, play where you like. I prefer PC but sometimes I wanna sit on the couch and shoot stuff.

I've been couching for Demon's Souls and it's not bad but I like being closer to the screen, like I am with the PC. Also, ease of alt-tabbing and looking up shit.

Oh yeah for sure. Doing a search on a Phone on the couch ain't awesome, like I said I prefer PC for gaming. But playing Portal 2 or Halflife 2 while my wife was in the room is an epic experience. Her comments on GlaDOS or Wheatley made the game that much more memorable and a quotable for both of us in "I saw a Deer today" is a really awesome thing.

I need one if you don't mind steam Id is amorales2005

Sent!

I also have plenty to give away.

If you run out, I got 5!

Nice, we should keep people playing :D

This game is my obsession...I also have a bunch of invites.

Funny...8 months ago this game was my obsession....today, even more so lol. I played 6 games between Tuesday/Wednesday night and I just want to go home now and play allllll day.

You should post some basic strats for this one, personally I like DoTA 2 but I don't know the basics very well.

Yeah, I can do that. I tried getting Tim into it...but unfortunately the game we played he got steam rolled and it understandably burnt him. I've always been into competitive PVP style games though. From FPS, to MMO, to RTS, and MOBA (Multiplayer online battle arena).

This game is definitely not good to new players, but everyone starts somewhere/sometime. I actually started playing dota2 by myself (I had played dota 1 quite a bit) and frankly, it's rare to ever see another player again. That maybe adds to the bashing you may get because players are so anonymous, but it also made me feel comfortable learning and being a noob too. I would give a disclaimer that I'm pretty new. I just took any hateful comments and shrugged them off, I didn't care, I told them I'm learning and often times if you are playing by yourself new, the other players are either new too or on re-rolled smurf accounts. Either way, no one will seriously hold it against you and you won't see those players again. It gave me a blanket of not caring what they thought of me.

Now when you group up, you get equalized a bit in the matchmaking. I've played with a new guy and we got matched against new guys that I then just stomped...and it was nice for him to be able to learn w/o the pressure of needing him to make good plays lol. But other times we've been pushed up closer to my skill range and then he gets creamed and as a team we get creamed because he "fed" the enemy and they got powerful.

Bots and solo que are a pretty decent way to learn. There's a tutorial now too, but I haven't gone through it. There's also tons of websites dedicated to giving useful info. Another super useful thing now is being able to load a hero build. So I use these all the time when I play heroes I don't have my own strategies with, you just open the menu and look at some popular builds (skill and item builds) and then as you level it'll highlight the skill you should learn next (and they often put in some text to give you tips on using those abilities) and same with items. They'll be prioritized as starting equipment, core items, situational items. That's real handy to save time trying to read everything and pick the best option while also trying to play the game.

The most important thing to learn is to not die. Play conservative if you have to, but dying is the worst. It obviously happens, but each death gives the opponent heroes more xp and more gold to increase their advantage over you and your allies.

I think DoTA 2 is easier to get into now. WhiteboySlim and I played it a few times and adding the bots in helped. Because of the community I am not really interested in playing online with anyone other than friends. I now this means I might not be any good, but i'd prefer to have fun than get annihilated by a-holes verbally.

That said, League has done some nice stuff to address this. I kind of hope DoTA 2 heads that direction, it would be pretty nice.

Well...I report players for being A-holes and so do other people. Then a week later I get a notification that they've taken action against one or more players I reported for bad conduct.

Also, to add to the whole "anonymous" thing. I go to dotabuff.com to see better stats and I played a game last night and I was checking stats on the site today. Not everyone's name shows up on this 3rd party website because you have to enable it, but some of my opponents had it enabled. With someone's name/profile I can click on them and and it will show me their stats but also show me how many games I've ever played with this person.

And this is how I can say you rarely see the same person twice. Only twice so far have I seen more than 1 match with someone (I haven't clicked on everyone I've played with obviously). This guy, I played 2 matches with, one last night, other one 8 months ago lol.

I just went back 51 games played, which put me to August 28. I clicked on everyone that wasn't private profile and blocking 3rd party apps. Probably average of 3 people to look at each game. That's 153 profiles I checked. There was 5 people I've played 2 games with. Everyone else, only 1. And FYI, my total matches played is 712. So, it's not like in some games where you may have a reputation and have like a persona or presence in the game....you really are 1 little drop of water in a huge pool.

Huh, thats really good to know. Ill check it out a bit more, interesting someone made an app to do that.

I've only played for a couple of hours, which probably explains it, but I have yet to get any extra invites to hand out.

It gave me 6 extra early access....I don't know why cause I hardly play the game. Weird

Yep, 4 here as well... Is it just me or should they just make it public?

I had six. The DAY i finally gave the last one away I went to send it from my inventory and there were six more. I still have three left...

Thanks for sharing these everyone!

I have 4 as well. How about we put these up on steamgifts and maybe make one or two private cheerful ghost giveaways?

At this point it's almost impossible not to have it if you really want it: http://www.reddit.com/r/sharedota2/

I think a Steamgift giveaway is a fine idea! Make it public, point to the site.

Profit?

Yes! That's a great idea. vdogmr, my comment wasn't directed at you, I think I opened this and left it for a bit, so your comment wasn't here when I posted.

So steamgifts has taken off Dota 2 due to area restrictions. Any other thoughts on using them to spread the word of the Ghost?

Hmmmm, you could advertise about it in the sub-reddit for giveaways?

Yeah, I was never sure exactly who was talking, I assume Jacob was the one giving us all the info, but without him we would have been so lost. I would have anyway.

Who am I kidding, I *still* was ;)

Yeah, it was Jacob I was the one making the bad jokes and swearing.

If you want someone to play with, ask me when I'm online. I'm still fairly new at the game so I'm not amazing.

Yeah, will do!

I play too.. If u wanna trade items, add me k =)

I watched a tournament game. I have no idea what the hell was going on.

I got into the beta a while back but haven't jumped in yet. I mean, I got the beta invite during the Steam sale, come on! What did they expect?

But being one of the last 5 people left who haven't played the original DOTA, I was kinda lost. It looks a bit like what would happen if a Diablo-style game got dropped into the Warcraft world, with a few mechanics of War3 coming in as well.

Yep. It's essentially two teams trying to overwhelm the others base. It's super competitive and gets really quite hard. Hopefully when It drops they will have bits and private games do we don't get lambasted for being newbs. :)

That's always been my problem with super competitive games. People are so serious about it you are practically helpless if you don't dedicate 16 hours a day to it.

Hopefully they ship bots or have a easier mode. If not, yeah it might not be as much fun.

I've gotten into the beta for this game. It's... well. I dunno. I've played a similar game (see my previous post on Demigod) and I was really looking forward to this game and was really excited to get into the beta but it is really not beginner friendly. I don't mind losing in a game (especially a game I'm new at) but getting dominated so badly you feel like you never get a chance to really learn what you're doing sucks. I'm hoping there will be a option to play against bots until I can at least get use to the 30 or so different heroes so I at least know what my own abilities do before jumping into more matches against other people. :)

If they had an option to play private games, I think this could be a lot of fun with the rest of the CheerfuGhosters though.

I much prefer games with friends than games with strangers who will just annihilate you or grief. For example, I played a little CoD4:MW online, and I just don't see the appeal. It's not that the game isn't well-made, or that the content isn't fun, it's the *people* who ruin it. Same with Halo 3. I just play solo unless I can play with friends.

Addendum to the above: The only exception is TF2. Maybe the "It's too cartoon bro, why would you ever play that junk?" mentality drove away all the assholes. I played TONS of TF2 online and loved every minute. A teammate I was on at one point said "Wow, I don't even care that we're getting our asses handed to us, I feel honored to see this. They are AMAZING."

How often would you hear that in CoD?

I think we all agree. Fun is good, lamers are not. Private games help, bots help but a great community and game style helps more.

Hopefully DoTA 2 has bots and I am pretty sure they will have private games at least. But if no bots then how does one fill a game?

This is probably in response to how well League of Legends has done with almost the same exact model. You pay money for champ skins (cosmetic costumes basically) and can pay money (but don't have to) to unlock champs. The only difference being with Dota2 you will have access to all the champs without any payment.

I don't Riot has released their profits but from other numbers in 2010 they (Business Insider) estimated they net'd about 26m. LoL has only gotten much larger since then...

Its a great model that seems to work well. I didn't know League of Legends was free to play. Somehow that totally escaped me. Will install it for sure.

Game Developer has Riot Games (the LoL guys) listed in the Top 30 Developers list for this year. My favorite quote "Most developers don't get included in a Top 30 list for a game they released almost three years ago. Then again, most developers don't grow their competitive community to the point where a tournament has a $50,000 grand prize or 1.69 million unique viewers, either." Also, apparently LoL had 11.5 million unique active monthly players at the end of 2011. So it will be fun to see what happens with a second player in this space.

Agreed. Just downloaded LoL and it was pretty fun.

Ok, total noob question: What's DoTA stand for?

Defenders of the Ancients?

Something like that. I never played it myself, just a bunch of clones. It was kind of fun, but I've always wanted either something faster paced.

That said, I'm a bit of a Valve fanboy right now, so they could release a steaming pile of crap and I'd buy it.

Yeah, Defense of the Ancients.

And I agree, I think I'd buy anything Valve as well. They just seem to release awesome stuff.

Did you see those Gabe Newell Stickers someone put up all over GDC? I want one.

http://www.destructoid.com/elephant/photo-m.phtml?post_key=223364&photo_key=216966

The promise that somewhere in that potent gaze lays half life episode 3... shudder...

I saw those, they are cool. In a way.

On one hand people on the net seem to worship Gabe Newell. That doesn't seem horrible I guess as Valve with gaben at the wheel is doing amazing work. Then again, is it awesome to have yourself appear like that everywhere? Im not sure. Its cool to be adored but then again... ?

Gabe just seems to honestly want to make good games. The way he talks about actually reading all of the e-mails he gets from fans, or dressing up and taking a promo pic with the portal gun. I doubt he's really a wonderful sack of butterflies in real life, but his company has made at least 3 of the best games of all time, with several honorable mentions to go along with them.

He's like the thinking man's Cliff Bleszinski, or the dumb guy's Sid Meyer.

That said, I do think them trying to get the rights to the name "Defense of the Ancients" is a bit hinkey.

http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/18555-blizzard-challenges-valve-s-dota-copyright

Yeah, DoTA was a community thing. They did hire the lead developer so I imagine some ownership transferred. I wonder if the DoTA dev had a trademark?

I agree it's a strange case that isn't terribly clear.

To me anyway.