You are our valentineFebruary 15, 2012 - Dota TeamTo show you how much we love you, and how much you are in our hearts, and how damn sorry we are for ruining Valentine’s Day, we thought we’d share with you the final concept designs for three upcoming heroes: Lone Druid, Lycan, and Shadow Demon.
In an upcoming post, we’re going to dive into the actual process that leads up to these final designs, so you can get a sense for how we approach the problem of hero design.
Erik Johnson Confirms LAN Mode for DOTA2posted by TobiWanKenobi, 17 hours agoEvery week the community turns it's eyes towards the DOTA 2 blog to see what news is released from the Valve office, but some things require us to go to the top to find the answers we seek. Erik Johnson (Valves Market Director of Operations) was kind enough to spare some time to answer the questions which have been on the minds of not only the joinDOTA community, but the world of DOTA. We have split the Interview into the two important topics, the first being the upcomming 'DOTA 2 International', the next being the future of all things DOTA 2 and the key factors in making DOTA 2 the most successful game in the world of eSports.The DOTA2 InternationalAs you are aware recently news sites all over the world started talking about Seattle being confirmed as the location of the next international which you confirmed. The big question is will the International be a stand alone event or are there plans to tie it into an event in Seattle?We're spending a bunch of time right now looking at what would be a good venue for The International. The one thing we know for sure is that it will be in Seattle. Making it so everyone at Valve can be involved in the event is really useful, even for things like helping competitors get visas into the United States vs other countries. Like last year, we’ll be covering all of the costs for the teams and players to make their way to the event.With PAX being the largest convention in Seattle at the rough time of the International (set for the labour day weekend, Aug 31 - Sep 2) alot of us are putting that at the top of our guess list. Is there a short list of places you are looking at?That is a good guess, but nothing is finalized just yet.The last international we saw a prize pool of 1.6 million dollars, are you looking to create the same prize pool?At least.The size of the prize pool was discussed by every eSports community, with many talking about the negitive impacts it could have on the growth of eSports. What was Valve's reasoning behind a 1.6million prize pool for a community that had only had $50,000 as it's highest prize pool?If you look at any major sport around the world that has an audience of similar size to Dota's you'll find that those at the very top in terms of skill tend to make a lot of money. Frankly, we think the teams represented at The International deserve this kind of money for what they do. We all know how hard it is to master Dota.Last years International was streamed using the ingame feature "DOTA TV", this year are their plans to increase the level of production at the event itself?Last year's event was mostly about us learning how to run an event, from a software and a production point of view. We all had huge lists of things coming out of the event that we thought we could improve upon this year, and we're all really excited to see how it plays out.League of Legends have announced a very large sum of money being invested into competitions for the whole year, was there a reason why Valve decided to invest the money into one big event for a year, and not into a series of leagues and competitions?We have a lot of ideas we've kicked around internally, but right now we are just focused on The International. We don't think the two are mutually exclusive, so while we are going to host a large event each year with the best teams from around the world, that doesn't preclude us from participating in smaller events throughout the year.Riot and S2 Games have sponsored alot of their own tournaments, in fact Riot does all of their own stuff where S2 does their own and supports other organisers, in what way would you want Valve to be involved in those 'smaller events' you just mentioned?We split this problem into two parts, there are things we have to do inside of the game for the competitive community, and things we have to do outside of the game. We think we're off to a good start in the game, with support for broadcasting, replays, spectation, etc. Outside of the game, to be honest, we still feel like we have a lot to learn. Last year's event taught a bunch, and we anticipate this year's event will do the same.This year there are alot of teams hoping to be selected for the event, what would be your advice to those hopeful teams? What is the method of selection?The best advice I would have for teams hoping to get an invite for The International is to play in Dota tournaments and perform well. We've all been watching every tournament that we find internally, looking for what teams we think should be invited.The Future of DOTA2As the rumours fly about the opening of the BETA, and the release of DOTA2, speaking as a man that runs on 'Valve Time' would you have a time frame for both these events? And do you plan them to be linked into things such as the International?The gating factor on getting everyone playing Dota 2 right now is mostly about us having enough server capacity to support the Dota audience. Our release date is not tied to The International, but we do have a goal of everyone being able to view the matches live inside the game.With the release of the screen shots of the ingame store of DOTA2 many have discussed if this is just a cosmetic option or a path to the game being 'Free to play', have valved decided on a strategy for DOTA2?We do not have anything to announce on this front. We're still working on it.WC3 DOTA is still the prominent game in China with most players awaiting the time when DOTA2 becomes available to them, what plans do Valve have for distrubution and supporting the community in china and their transition to DOTA2?China is the largest Dota audience in the world, and we want to make sure that they, like everyone else, are there as Dota moves forward. There are some challenges that are unique to China, but we are actively working on them.Groups like Garena currently offer a LAN service in SEA for Heroes of Newerth and League of Legends players. Are you planning on offering a similar feature?Dota 2 will have LAN mode. There are some systems that LAN mode requires that we haven't finished yet, mainly because we've been focused on matchmaking. We know how important this feature is for the community.A topic which is coming up alot when it comes to the tournaments is the issue with latency, where a 250-300ping will give you a 0.5 second delay. Does Valve see or is working on a solution to this problem?The solution is that we need to get more servers out into the world to host players. Our goal is for everyone around the world to have sub 100ms latency to our servers. We will continue to deploy servers around the world until this is true.One of the most enjoyable parts of Warcraft 3 were their custom maps, will there be a way that people can modify DOTA 2 to make all the mini games of old and something new as well?We have a long history supporting the mod community around our own games, so we'd like to continue that with Dota 2.Do you have any last thoughts you would like to share with the joinDOTA community?It has been really fun watching The Defense internally while building the game, along with all of the other recent Dota 2 tournaments. It has also been great hearing you co-commentate with professional players who are also competing in the tournament. Getting to hear what they would be thinking if they were playing is really interesting to us as fans.While there are many things in this interview that people will rejoice about, the biggest group of countries celebrating would have to be South East Asia and China due to the announcement of a LAN mode being included in DOTA 2. This was a vital component to the massive communities in the LAN centres to be able to access the game, and to ensure competition can run without the risk of a low end internet line bringing the event to a hault. On behalf of joinDOTA and it's community I extend a thankyou to Erik Johnson and Valve for listening to the community and taking the time to share what is happening behind the scenes at Valve.
Updates to Dota 2 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. Fixes include:- Enabled Outworld Destroyer!- Added new game mode: Single Draft.- Added querying of dead units. This lets you click allied portraits in the top bar to inspect their items and skills, even when they're dead.- Queued move commands show a waypoint flag briefly.- Added new settings panel.- Matchmaking displays average wait time for each region.- New interface for finding lobbies.- New Matchmaking panel.- Players can chat and use voice communications while the game is paused.- Added game mode (AP, SD, CM) selection for matchmaking.- You can now find replays by MatchID from the Watch panel.- Added Grid Mode to the Shop.- Added Repick functionality to the hero picking panel (costs 100 gold to repick, lets you select a hero again).- Implemented "Suggest invite to party" menu option.- You can now see which heroes your allies are about to pick.- Added Steam avatars in the scoreboard.- Added the ability to jump to any position in a replay.HEROES- Alchemist: Fixed Goblin's Greed's interaction with Aegis.- Ancient Apparition: Fixed Ice Blast's secondary ability not firing off when you die.- Axe: Fixed Battle Hunger self buff sticking on Axe permanently if the spell was dodged by Puck's Phase Shift.- Batrider: Fixed Flamming Lasso being interrupted by an enemy Force Staff.- Batrider: Fixed turn rate.- Batrider: Fixed Firefly having a cast time.- Batrider: Added stack counter effect for your team when using Sticky Napalm.- Clinkz: Fixed not being able to cast Searing Arrows manually on buildings.- Clinkz: Fixed Death Pact not being castable on Magic Immune units.- Clinkz: Fixed Searing Arrows autocast working while silenced/doomed.- Clinkz: Fixed Searing Arrows bonus damage being treated as a seperate damage instance (it could get reduced twice by stout shield).- Clinkz: Fixed Death Pact being purgeable.- Clockwerk: Fixed Hookshot failing if he is infested by Lifestealer.- Dark Seer: Fixed Vacuum continuously pulling new units in the aoe for a period of time after initial cast.- Dark Seer: Fixed Vacuum disable/pull duration lasting too long.- Doom Bringer: Fixed Devour not working when eating a converted neutral creep.- Dragon Knight: Fixed Elder Dragon Form Frost Breath slowing units while Doomed.- Huskar: Fixed Life Break partially ignoring Linken's Sphere.- Huskar: Fixed Life Break continuing to follow a target that teleported away.- Invoker: Fixed Invoke not dispelling Curse of the Silent.- Invoker: Fixed Cold Snap triggering on self damage.- Invoker: Fixed Tornado dispelling various buffs it shouldn't (like Wind Walk)- Kunkka: Fixed X Marks The Spot being purged by Tornado/Diffusal.- Lich: Fixed Chain Frost having a chance to end prematurely near fog of war edges.- Lich: Fixed a recent bug where chainfrost wouldn't choose a magic immune target to bounce to.- Lich: Fixed Chain Frost deciding late as to which unit it will bounce to next (it would decide after its bounce delay, instead of before)- Mirana: Fixed Leap being canceled if Mirana got purged during it.- Nature's Prophet: Double clicking Teleportation will cast it at the fountain.- Omniknight: Fixed Repel causing Spirit Breaker to be unable to cancel his Charge of Darkness.- Puck: Fixed Phase Shift sometimes not dodging incoming attack projectiles.- Puck: Fixed some types of spells (like EMP) from causing damage when already Phase Shifted.- Silencer: Added intelligence steal counter to Last Word aura.- Slardar: Fixed Slithereen Crush's physical damage not hurting Magic Immune units.- Sniper: Fixed Headshot bonus proc damage working against Towers and Buildings.- Sniper: Fixed Headshot working while Doomed.- Spectre: Fixed Haunt not working properly after a disconnect.- Spectre: Fixed Reality clearing Curse of the Silent and triggering Magic Stick.- Ursa: Fixed Fury Swipes working while Doomed.- Ursa: Fixed Fury Swipes working on allied units.- Viper: Fixed Poison Attack damage being lethal.- Witch Doctor: Fixed Paralyzing Casks deciding late as to which unit it will bounce to next (it would decide after its bounce delay, instead of before)- Zeus: Fixed Lightning Bolt's aoe truesight not revealing wards.GAMEPLAY- Added Clinkz to Captain's Mode- Fixed ranged creep moving infront of the rest on the bottom dire lane- Fixed collision sizes on Barracks and Filler buildings- Ring of Aquila, Ring of Basilius, and Radiance no longer flip their toggle if their aura was toggled off when their owner dies.- Fixed Boots of Travel not selecting dominated units.- Fixed sweet exploit where you could buy a nice juicy passive item, give it to another friendly hero, have that hero die and upon respawn the passive effects of the item would be granted -- Desolator would start desolating, butterfly would start buttering, etc.- Items now expire their sellback time when their owner dies.- Fixed Roshan not respawning at the correct time if he was killed before creep spawn.- Fixed Bounty Hunter and Clinkz's invisibility getting dispelled by Tornado.- Fixed Blademail being able to reflect damage from allies/self (causing suicide).- Trees are now temporarily prevented from respawning if there are any player-controlled units whose collision are within 250 units of the center of the tree.- Fixed unit targeting behavior being bugged for the following abilities: Carrion Swarm, Dragon Slave, Breathe Fire.- Fixed courier getting stuck if it received deliver orders from multiple players.- Fixed Blademail being dispellable.- Fixed shop item stock not depleting when purchasing items with a full inventory and stash.- Fixed being able to refresh allied items with Tinker's ultimate.CONTROLS- Fixed an exploit possible that could allow a small portion of abilities to be used while stunned .- Fixed a rare bug where you would sometimes attack an unexpected unit when attempting to last-hit by spamming stop with auto-attack turned on.- Shift+Hero Select now toggles selection of the hero from the current selection if multiple units are selected.- Fixed dead heroes being selected when using control groups.- Fixed bug where the camera would reposition itself when drawing lines on minimap.- Blink Dagger now blinks in the direction your mouse is in when you double click it.- Fixed a rare bug where an item could be deleted upon delivery from the courier.- Fixed a rare bug with legacy keys that could cause your hotkeys to get changed when querying an enemy.- Purchasing a whole item now gathers owned items from the team's couriers when calculating what to buy.- Fixed accidentally selecting units when moving your camera around in camera drag mode.- Fixed not being able to drop an item from the stash if it is owned by another player.- Double clicking the "Select All Other Units" hotkey will now move the camera to the location of the units rather than adding your hero to the selection.UI- Browse practice lobbies your friends have created or joined.- Improved readabilty of hero names in minimap.- Changed Hero Highlighter visuals.- Removed some elements in the minimap texture that would cause confusion with creeps.- Fixed controlled units not showing the color of the player controlling them in the minimap.- Updated Day/Night indicator- Pause is now correctly delayed for spectators.- Fixed inventory not updating the state of items if the slot and item matched between querying different units.- Added a subtitle in the inventory item tooltip indicating if an item's aura is active or not.- Added inactive image for Radiance.- Fixed matchID not showing up on end scores.- The topbar timer is no longer reset when the game ends.- Added game settings option for the hero finder when holding alt down- Added game settings option for the minimap hero icons (shows hero text names when turned off)- Added game settings option for the HP numbers above your hero's in world HP Bar- Fixed long cooldown labels being truncated in item tooltips.- Fixed cooldown and mana cost not showing properly in dashboard item tooltips.- Quick buy item tooltips are no longer estranged from their arrow.- Autocast state is no longer shown for enemy abilities.- Added visual feedback when moving a hero via the minimap.- Added "This game is safe to leave" message on the matchmaking status page practice lobbies or matchmade games with a leaver detected.- Your own row is now highlighted on the game end scoreboard.- When a player is banned, everyone who reported them since their last ban receives a message when they next login informing them that justice has been served.- Your friends list is now sorted alphabetically.- Pinging an enemy now places the ping on them for a short time.- Mana cost and cooldown fields in the ability tooltips now reflect the current state of the ability (they take into account Death Prophet's Witchcraft, Aghanim's changes, etc).- Added cooldown timers to shop items that are out of stock in grid mode.- Items from different owners that would stack (e.g. wards) no longer stack in the courier's inventory.- Fixed client-side modifier durations so that the icon sweep displays correctly when entering and exiting FoW.- Fixed bug where there would be a brief flash of the full-duration border on a modifier as it expired.- Combat log fixes/changes:- It now specifies whether units are illusions or not for all events.- Heals now track and specify the healing unit.- The end-of-game combat summary now counts neither illusions nor self-damage.- Damage done by units under a hero's control are now credited to their hero in the combatlog and end-of-game summary.- Mousing over each server location will show you the name, whether you're searching in that region or not, and an estimated wait time.SETTINGS- Redesigned the setting panel to allow for more keybindings and options. You may need to rebind your keys.- Updated all the keybindings to take advantage of the new settings panel.- Added spectator keybinds.- New key input code for spectator and alt-keys.- Spectator and alt-keys now handle + binds correctly.- Del, backspace, and backquote/tilde are now bindalbe (ie. console is bindable)- Added courier, neutral and hero specific ability binds.- Spectators now correctly get all active buffs and debuffs on heroes when joining a game in progress.REPLAYS- The replay format has changed and old replays are no longer viewable.- Your own private games are now displayed in your match history.VISUALS- Added effect for Phase Boots and Fiery Soul.- Made Dark Seer's illusion effect more differentiated from a normal illusion effect.- Made all known illusions draw with a creep style healthbar. This does not effect enemy illusions, but does apply to Dark Seer's Wall of Illusion illusions.- Crystal Maiden illusions will no longer play her custom death anim.- Heroes now flail while getting force staffed.AUDIO- Fixed the item combine sound playing to you when other players combine their items on your courier.- Added rival death-taunts and other miscellaneous lines to flesh out dialog set for Juggernaut and Sven.DOTA 2 BOTS- Revised how and when bots decide to push lanes, defend lanes, and farm.- Temporarily disabled late game team roaming. It will be back!- Fixed bug where bot code would cause buyback of human players when playing with bot teammates.- Made bots more aware of ganks that were happening near them.- Increased the strength of human pings, and in general made them last longer.- Fixed bug where bots weren't going back to base to fetch their TP scrolls, even when they had nothing better to do.- Made bots less likely to wander across the map just to hit the side shop.- Fixed bug where bots would buy superfluous flying courier items.- Fixed bots ignoring seige engines when farming a lane.- Fixed bots being standoffish to their own creeps.- Fixed bug that was causing bots to not attack the lowest-health creep when farming a lane.- When fleeing an enemy hero, bots will no longer immediately forget about the enemy the instant they lose sight of them.- Made bots more likely to defend structures closer to their base, particularly barracks and their ancient.- Fixed a case where bots were getting preoccupied with creeps when defending their base.
Nice my LAN Parties goh be continuing!! XD .... I still waiting on this big patch to finish download!!
GAMEPLAY- Added Bane!- Added Co-op matchmaking games versus bots.- Fixed bug with kill credit when illusions get the kill.- Charge of Darkness and Wrath of Nature no longer alert the target to attack the caster if the target is far away.- Fixed Mekansm not healing you if it activated right after you come out of Astral Imprisonment.- Fixed bug with Astral Imprisonment disappearing from invisible units.- Fixed Essence Aura triggering on zero cooldown spells (like Ball Lightning).- Fixed being able to trigger Essence Aura with Toss when there are no valid targets to Toss- Enabled Outworld Destroyer in Captain's Mode.- Restored previous Blink double click behavior.- Fixed Courier Speed Burst canceling Transfer Items.UI- Fixed dragging an item from the courier to a hero's inventory not combining an item properly.- Fixed some audio settings are not saving correctly (speech level, background sound, boostgain).- Selling items no longer factors into gold-per-minute.- Added an option to autoselect summoned units and illusions to the game settings.- Fixed bug with camera jumping up and down when moving the mouse in the minimap while in spectator chase cam.- Fixed bug with moving the camera and creating selection windows while in spectator chase cam.- Fixed bug with some heroes having their Ultimate fire when ALT-TAB (or Windows key hit).- Fixed some game interface settings not saving.- Fixed bug where having legacy selected at load wasn't disabling the hero, courier, and neutral binds.- Added specular, texture quality, and render quality to video settings as performance trade-offs- Various improvements to unit selection/targeting feedback- Increased maximum number of people in each chat channel.- Accepting a game invite via Steam will join that person's party.- Ignore/unignore options now shown for friends in the main menu.VISUALS- Added a number of aura effects.- Fixed Tiny's tree not being properly equipped in his stone grip.- Fixed an issue where hero movement would stutter on some network connections.AUDIO- Added rival death-taunts and other miscellaneous lines to flesh out dialog set for Sand King.BOTS- Made bots want to pick up Cheese with the same rules that they use for picking up Aegis and Rapier.- Improved bot last-hit logic.- Bots will now deny using the same logic they use for last-hitting.- Bots now last-hit and deny while farming a lane, just as they do during the laning phase.- Fixed issues with loadouts of Bane, Kunkka, and Sniper.- Fixed bugs with bots geting stuck trying to purchase an item, failing to purchase an item, or dumping items on the ground due to a full stash.- Bots will stop farming just for buyback when they have 1.5x their current buyback cost.- If a bot's stash is completely full, they are now more likely to pick their stuff up regardless of its value.
