In January and February of 2015, Valve handed down “indefinite” bans to a number of players found taking part in matchfixing in professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive [official site]. Now an update on the game’s blog says that those bans are permanent.
RPS Feature But no sandstorm
I’ve spent my afternoon watching the wildlife of the Dota 2 [official site] desert terrain. There are some newcomers who aren’t native to the vanilla map which is cool – scorpions and vultures and the like. There’s also a proliferation of beetles and I love looking at the new trees and the cacti. This isn’t an exhaustive animal catalogue – there are definitely some butterflies and fish and spiders I wanted to include but the Reborn launch Dota crashes a lot and I was getting fed up! HOWEVER here are some nice shots of little creatures going about their business :)
RPS Feature Getting to know you
Part of a miscellany of serious thoughts, animal gifs, and anecdotage from the realm of MOBAs/hero brawlers/lane-pushers/ARTS/tactical wizard-em-ups. One day Pip might even tell you the story of how she bumped into Na’Vi’s Dendi at a dessert buffet cart.
I spent the last few Dote Nights talking about tutorials in three MOBAs – what they did well and what they did poorly. I realise I didn’t make any suggestions of my own for where to start in terms of characters, though. This post is about which heroes I learned to play Dota 2 [official site] on:
The Majors have been on the horizon for the Dota 2 [official site] pro scene for a while now. They’re a series of big tournaments spaced through the year and around the globe culminating in The International. But Valve were reluctant to go into further detail until this year’s International was done and dusted – i.e. now.
The bit I’m most interested in is the restrictions this places on teams with regard to kicking players or reworking the lineup but first here’s some basic detail:
Tutorials and practice in MOBAs is something I think about a lot. It came up again over the last couple of weeks because Riot ventured the opinion that a sandbox mode in League of Legends would introduce problems and take away from fun of the game.
I already talked about the sandbox situation in greater detail here but I figured I’d put forward a few of my own ideas for useful practice scenarios. Before doing so, though, I wanted to check on the current state of tutorials in MOBAs. A quick peek turned into a longer look because Dota 2’s Reborn beta has introduced a whole bunch of new tutorial stuff in the form of these guided bot games you can play in their entirety as well as a demo hero mode. What I’ll do, then, is go into Reborn’s guided bot matches in more detail to say what’s good and bad about them – how they work and what’s still not covered. Next week’s Dote Night will be for broader thoughts about MOBA tutorials in general. Feel free to pitch in with your own in the comment section!
RPS Feature Tales from TI5
Pip is currently in Seattle to cover The International 2015 – Valve’s six day Dota 2 [official site] tournament. There’s over $18m on the line and a rich tapestry of professional gaming to enjoy (or unpick) – we did a cheat sheet to explain the basics. There was also a virtual reality secret shop to be visited and a game of “cornhole” to be played. Here’s what happened on day 5…
RPS Feature Tales from TI5
Pip is currently in Seattle to cover The International 2015 – Valve’s six day Dota 2 [official site] tournament. There’s over $18m on the line and a rich tapestry of professional gaming to enjoy (or unpick) – we did a cheat sheet to explain the basics. There are also lemon curd cakes to be eaten and fountains be be enjoyed. Here’s what happened on day 4…
