An update which added a capsule containing Talent Stickers that unlocked talent voice lines. Upon doing so, fans and talent alike reached out expressing unhappiness with the product. Our intention was to create a compelling system that allowed fans to connect with their favorite talent in a different way than in previous years, and we fell short of that goal. We are sorry for that and we intend to correct it.
In order to address these issues, and after talking to some of the talent that reached out with concerns and proposals, we are adding the option to directly purchase a talent’s voice line with 50% of the revenue going exclusively to that talent. Players can purchase these voice lines directly from the Talent page in the Battle Pass.
For players that have already purchased and opened talent sticker capsules, those stickers will continue to function as before. As with voice lines unlocked via stickers, directly purchased voice lines are also usable permanently.
Support your favorite Spring 2022 Dota Pro Circuit (DPC) teams! Supporters Clubs are now available. Clubs include sprays, wallpapers, emoticons, voice lines and fantasy card packs. 50% of the revenue goes to the supported team. Another batch of teams will be coming soon! pic.twitter.com/OowDlAYfs0
DPC Supporters Club Sale Ready to make your Dota allegiances known? The homestretch of the season is here and it’s the perfect time to show your support. To make it even easier, from today until the conclusion of the DPC Winter Tour Regional Finals on February 20th, the Winter Tour Supporters Clubs are all on sale for half price. Make sure to support your favorite teams and help represent in force as you cheer for victory during the final fights.
DPC Fantasy Update The DPC Winter Tour Fantasy Dota has been updated to include an extra two-week-long period for the Regional Finals. Check out the new quick-access menu under the Watch Tab to see a summary of how you can interact with the DPC. Plus, for any players who have already participated in Fantasy, stay tuned for treasure rewards arriving before the start of the Regional Finals.
Changes to Co-Op Bots Matchmaking Mode Today’s update also includes some modifications to Co-Op Bots Matchmaking to help improve behavior around disconnecting and queuing in general. You can check out the changes below:
Leaver penalties no longer apply in this mode.
If a player disconnects, a bot will control their hero while they are absent.
Players can now queue for multiple selected difficulties and supported bot scripts simultaneously, instead of only individual selections for each.
If a player has been in the queue for Co-Op bots for more than 2 minutes, a match will immediately be made including any players that are in the queue. Empty player slots will be filled with allied bots.
Aghanim’s Labyrinth Update We’ve also included a small update with a number of bug fixes for the Aghanim’s Labyrinth game mode. Check out the patch notes for all the details.
Linux Runtime Update As part of our continuing efforts to move Dota’s technology forward, we have upgraded the Linux client to use the container version of the Steam runtime. This ensures better compatibility across distributions and prepares for future improvements.
Aghanim’s Labyrinth: The Continuum Conundrum is a gauntlet style event game mode available during the winter of 2021. It is the continuation to Aghanim’s Labyrinth, where teams of four must battle their way through a series of monster-filled rooms of the Continuum Vault to reach the boss, The Primal Beast, at the request of Aghanim himself to save an alternate version of himself.
Aghanim’s Labyrinth: The Continuum Conundrum – Chat Wheel 2021
Gameplay
Teams of four enter a dungeon with several possible rooms. Finish the objectives of the room to move onto the next. Complete 17 rooms to beat the level.
Each player has a set number of lives. Upon dying, players automatically resurrect after 10 seconds. Dead teammates cannot be revived.
All dead players are automatically resurrected when a room is cleared.
The game ends when all players are out of lives and dead.
Heroes
14 heroes with modified abilities are available for this game mode.
Additional 15 heroes from last year’s Aghanim’s Labyrinth are unlockable through Blessings and can be randomly unlocked on certain level rewards in the Battle Pass.
Scepter Shards
Scepter Shards are obtained by clearing rooms. They allows heroes to pick one of three random upgrades for their abilities.
At the start of the exploration of the Continuum Vault, you are given option between three Legendary Shards, which give unique traits to an ability, or in certain heroes, may give an entirely new ability.
Normal Rooms drop Common Shards, which give minor buffs to the hero or an ability’s existing stats.
Elite Rooms and Trap Rooms drop Elite Shards, which give buffs that are twice as potent as Common Shards.
Boss Rooms drop another Legendary Shards.
This table shows all Legendary upgrades. Common upgrades are not shown. Crossed out upgrades were removed.
On August 18, Valve released the 7.30 update for Dota 2, which added new neutral items, rebalanced many abilities and items, and also changed the draft order in Captains Mode.
GENERAL UPDATES
Captain’s Mode second pick phase is changed from Dire/Radiant/Dire/Radiant to Dire/Radiant/Radiant/Dire (assuming Radiant is first pick)
Multiple Critical Strike procs are now rolled from strongest to weakest and will stop rolling once a proc occurs (this results in the same DPS but is less lilkely to have multiple crits in a row or multiple attacks without a crit.)
Cooldown Percentage Reduction no longer stacks (Sources of flat cooldown reduction still stack)
Increased HP Regen of all heroes with 0 HP Regen to 0.25
Water Rune healing reduced from 80HP to 40HP
Second Roshan no longer drops cheese
Neutral Creeps now drop 5 neutral items per tier
ITEM UPDATES
AEON DISK
Bonus HP reduced from 300 to 250
Aeon Disk Cooldown increases by 20s every time it triggers up to 165s. Cooldown: 105/125/145/165s
ABYSSAL BLADE
Bash bonus damage increased from 100 to 120
AETHER LENS
Mana Regeneration bonus reduced from 3.0 to 2.5
ARCANE BLINK
Ability Cooldown Reduction increased from 25% to 30%
ARCANE BOOTS
Replenish Mana mana restored increased from 160 to 175
BOTTLE
Health Restored reduced from 115 to 110
Mana Restored reduced from 65 to 60
Restore time increased from 2.5 to 2.7
DRUM OF ENDURANCE
Strength and Intelligence bonuses increased from 6 to 7
ENCHANTED MANGO
Cost reduced from 70 to 65
EUL’S SCEPTER OF DIVINITY
Mana Regen reduced from 3.5 to 2.5
FALCON BLADE
Bonus Attack Damage increased from 10 to 12
Bonus Health increased from 175 to 200
GLEIPNIR
Bonus Intelligence increased from 20 to 24
Bonus Strength and Agility increased from 12 to 14
Projectile Speed increased from 1750 to 1900
HELM OF THE OVERLORD
Reworked Recipe. Now requires Helm of the Dominator, Vladmir’s Offering and a 1000 gold recipe (Total cost increased from 6000 to 6050)
Bonus Stats reduced from +20 to +8
Now can only dominate 1 creep
Creep Movement Speed increased from 380 to 400
Creep Bonus Attack Damage increased from 25 to 80
Creep Bonus Armor increased from 4 to 8
Now also grants Vladmir’s Aura (+3 armor, +1.75 Mana Regen, +18% damage, +15% Lifesteal in 1200 radius)
HURRICANE PIKE
Hurricane Thrust duration increased from 5s to 6s
Hurricane Thrust max attacks increased from 4 to 5
MAGE SLAYER
Recipe Reworked: Now requires Oblivion Staff + Cloak + 400g Recipe. (total gold cost reduced from 3250 to 2400).
Grants +20% Magic Resist, 20 damage, 10 Intelligence, 15 attack speed and 2 mana regen
ROD OF ATOS
Bonus Intelligence increased from 20 to 24
Bonus Strength and Agility increased from 10 to 12
Projectile Speed increased from 1750 to 1900
SANGE
Status Resistance reduced from 16 to 12
SENTRY WARD
Replenish time decreased from 75 to 70
Duration reduced from 8 minutes to 7
SILVER EDGE
Recipe Reworked. Now requires Shadow Blade + Crystalys + 350g recipe. (Total cost decreased from 5650 to 5300)
Now Grants +60 damage, +40 Attack Speed, and a 30% chance of 160% critical damage.
Attacks breaking out of invisibility now deal a guaranteed 160% crit with 175 bonus damage
SMOKE OF DECEIT
Increased Max Stock from 2 to 3 (Starting stock is still 2)
WIND WAKER
Recipe reduced from 1600 to 1300 (Total cost reduced from 7125 to 6825)
WITCH BLADE
Damage per tick reduced from 1x int to 0.75x int
Duration increased from 3s to 4s
Fixed interaction that caused Witch Blade to give permanent True Strike against magic immune targets
NEUTRAL ITEM UPDATES
FADED BROACH
Removed Item
IRONWOOD TREE
Removed Item
IMP CLAW
Removed Item
ILLUSIONIST’S CAPE
Removed Item
MINOTAUR HORN
Removed Item
ORB OF DESTRUCTION
Removed Item
BALLISTA
Removed Item
PIG POLE
New Tier 1 Item
Grants +6 to all stats
Active: Pig, Out! Turns the owner into a pig for 4 seconds and grants +10% movespeed. Cooldown: 25s. Mana Cost: 50
TUMBLER’S TOY
New Tier 1 Item
Grants 200 Mana
Active: Vault. Propels your unit forward 300 units. CD: 30s
Goes on a 3s cooldown when receiving player based damage
BRIGAND’S BLADE
New Tier 2 Item
Grants +10 Damage and +10 Attack Speed
Passive: Dark Mercy. When attacking an enemy, deals +7 damage for each 10% HP the enemy is missing
FAE GRENADE
New Tier 2 Item
Grants +20 Movement Speed
Active: Shadow Brand. Throws a Bomb to an enemy within 900 range dealing your attack damage and applying a debuff that provides vision of the unit and deals 20dps for 7 seconds. Cooldown: 20s Mana Cost: 25
BLAST RIG
New Tier 3 Item
Grants 8 armor
Passive: Hair Trigger. The next time you get attacked by a hero within 300 range, explode dealing 300 damage to all enemies within a 300 radius and applying a 100% blind for 2.5 seconds. Cooldown: 20s
ASCETIC’S CAP
New Tier 4 Item
Grants 300 Health and 10 Health Regen
Passive: Endurance. Whenever a debuff from a player controlled source would be applied to the owner, grant 50% Status resistance for 3 seconds. CD 30s
WITCHBANE
New Tier 4 Item
Passively causes your hero to deal extra magic damage to its target equal to 4% of its max mana on attack
Active: Dispel. Dispels all enemies and allies within 300 radius. Cast Range: 500. Mana Cost: 75. Cooldown: 20s
ARCANIST’S ARMOR
New Tier 5 Item
+5 Armor, +20% Magic Resistance
Passively grants +5 armor and +20% Magic Resistance to all allies in a 900 radius
Active: Mega Shield. Gains a 35% damage reflection aura in a 900 radius affecting allied units for the next 5 seconds. Cooldown:20s (Does not affect illusions)
CHIPPED VEST
HP Regen reduced from 5 to 4
FAIRY’S TRINKET
Bonus Health reduced from 100 to 75
POSSESSED MASK
Lifesteal rescaled from 7% to a flat 7HP per attack
TRUSTY SHOVEL
Dig Cooldown reduced from 55 to 50
ENCHANTED QUIVER
Bonus Damage decreased from 300 to 200
Cooldown decreased from 5s to 4
CEREMONIAL ROBE
Debuff is no longer visible if enemies don’t have vision of its holder
FLICKER
Cooldown increased from 4 to 5s
Now blinks in place if the owner received damage in the last 3 seconds
SPIDER LEGS
No longer considered a boot
Movement Speed Bonus reduced from 65 to 25
STORMCRAFTER
Stormcrafter no longer triggers if the holder is invisible to the target
It became known how much it will cost to rent the football stadium Arena Nationala, which will host The International 10.
According to USR PLUS, the lease for the stadium is €500,000. Fact, for a Metallica concert at the same Arena Nationala, €28,000 was paid for 7 days. Now the rental amount is x18 more.
Also Romanian budget will receive 10% of the prize money that will be drawn and awarded to the winners of The International 10. The prize pool of the tournament will be over $40 million.
Negotiations on holding the tournament in Romania began back in 2020. Before the start of the EURO 2020 championship, the organizers were invited to a guided tour of the Arena Nationala stadium. But Valve chose Stockholm, Sweden as the venue for the tournament. However, after having problems with visas to Sweden, we decided to return to this option.
Valve announced the location and date of The International 10 on their official blog. The Main Dota 2 tournament will be held in Bucharest, Romania on October 7-17 at the Arena Nationala football stadium, with spectators!
We are thrilled to announce The International 10 – Dota 2 Championships will be held this October in Bucharest, Romania, and the epic battle for the Aegis of Champions will fittingly unfold inside the country’s largest stadium — Arena Nationala.
Group Stage will run October 7 – 10, with Main Stage play kicking off on October 12. Then on October 17, the two finest Dota 2 teams in the world will face off for the Aegis and their shares of the $40,018,195 prize pool that awaits. Additional information on ticket sales will come shortly.
We are grateful for the partnership we have formed with Romania and the city of Bucharest, and very much look forward to gathering with the global Dota 2 community, both in-person and virtually, to celebrate the elite players and amazing fandom at The International. Prepare yourselves. At long last, the battle begins.
Valve announced on their official website that The International 10, which was planned to be held in Sweden, may not take place. The reason is visa problems.
The Swedish government refused to give special status to the tournament, and the Swedish Sports Federation did not recognize esports as an official sport in their country. Employees, talents and players will not be able to obtain visas to enter Sweden.
Valve also announced a new event – Nemestice. The summer event will be released after June 23rd.
Let it be known – the Aegis of Champions is in play once more. After a break necessitated by world events, we’re happy to officially announce that The International 10 will take place this August in Stockholm, Sweden. It all starts with Group Stage, running August 5 – 8 and setting the field for what’s to come. The Main Event kicks off August 10 and continues through August 15, when the final teams battle in the Grand Finals to be crowned TI10 champions – and claim their share of the $40,018,195 prize pool that awaits.
As we continue to plan the event around the shifting landscape presented by the ongoing global pandemic, our focus remains on finding ways to hold a high quality tournament in the safest way possible. This means we’re waiting to release additional details on attendance options as we gather more information on developments heading into summer. We expect to be able to share more with the community during the month of June.
It’s a kind of analogy. Originally, 卡壳 (qiǎ ké) meant “a cartridge got jammed inside the gun.”
When people are talking very fast and fluently, they are like a gun continuing shooting without any interruption. Words are “shot” (spoken) fast and continuously. There is also an expression “说话像机关枪一样,” the literal meaning of which is that someone “speaks like firing a machine gun.”
So when someone gets stuck while speaking, we say that he or she “卡壳”.
It’s an internet phrase to indicate network lag.
You use 你卡了吗 went you need to confirm whether the person is still there or have disconnected.
The community revolving around the e-sports game DOTA 2 is an incredibly international one. The game, which has as of now more than 12 million unique users every month, is immensely popular in not only North America and Europe, but also Brazil, Russia and China.
The Chinese teams play an especially important role in professional DOTA 2 tournaments. A nation that has had arguably the most endearing interest in the game’s predecessor, DOTA 1, its professional DOTA 2 teams are unsurprisingly amongst the world’s best. As a result, it’s becoming increasingly common for western tournaments to contain matches that are essentially “Chinese derbies” – matches where both teams were Chinese. This also, of course, incites in the western audience as well as the media an interest in Chinese DOTA 2 tournaments.
It’s not surprising then, to see Chinese DOTA 2 phrases adopted into the western scene. “Ka le” are the pinyin expressions of the Chinese characters “卡了”. The first character, “卡”(ka) means lag, while the second character “了”(le) is a modifying character that indicates past tense. Therefore a translation of “ka le” would be “there was a lag”.
As the Chinese DOTA 2 scene became ever-so-increasingly popular, this expression became known as well. However, the expression would never have become truly popular in the west, particularly North America, were it not for the coincidence that “ka le” bears such a striking resemblance to an infamous/famous word in our language (especially nowadays), “kale”.
So it happened. Many western players now, professionals and amateurs alike, type in all-chat: “kale” instead of “lag”.
THE INFORMANT
The informant is currently a student in university. We were teammates together on our DOTA 2 team. As of now he has been a player and an active participant in the community for 3 years.
He learnt of this folkspeech through in-game experience; he was watching a live-stream of a tournament match, during which the players on the western team used this phrase during a pause. Later in one our team’s matches he told us about this experience.
ANALYSIS
This is an intriguing example of how one culture’s folklore or joke can come from a translation and its subsequent misinterpretation o2f another culture’s common phrase.
Dota 2 is a MOBA game developed by Valve. The game is a sequel to the custom DotA map from Warcraft III. Initially, Dota 2 was released on the Source game engine, but in 2015, Valve ported it to the improved Source 2 engine. Over the seven years since its release, Dota 2 has received many changes in mechanics, terrain and economy, and has also gone far from the initial ideas strictly adhere to the lore of the game. So, where did Valve get the idea for their game?
Valve has ceased to adhere to its own rules
For a long time, Valve developed Dota 2 based on the original lore of the game, which was borrowed from the first Dota. They also did not depart from the basic mechanics of the game. Starting in 2011, after The International 1 and until 2015, Valve has strictly adhered to the rule of preserving and maintaining the aesthetics of Dota 2. According to this, sets from the Steam Workshop can be added to the game if:
A hero’s silhouette must be clearly identifiable at first glance.
The silhouette should show a character’s orientation.
Custom items are welcome to differ from the default silhouette of the hero as long as the character is still identifiable and the mesh is compatible with Valve’s default hero skeleton and animations.
To support the readability and directionality of the hero, drastically different silhouettes for some items could be balanced by more familiar colors or silhouettes for other items.
But, after porting the game to the new engine, the Dota 2 developers commuted the rules, which made it possible to create custom game modes, map designs, and cosmetic items for heroes using the Steam Workshop. SirBelvedere, one of the very first insiders said:
Valve have figured the restraint was doing more harm than good.
At some point you have to get out of that mindset otherwise it is going to be more and more of the same year after year. We’re nearly 7+ years into Dota cosmetics now and for most part, the majority of the cosmetics still follow the same old guidelines.
Nikita «Nikey» Evsikov and Konstantin «KAaS» Turovets – Lead Artists of the Workshop Tavern – expressed their opinion on Valve’s rules regarding the restrictions for creating styles for heroes:
It is very difficult to develop in Dota. They pay very well here, but if you focus only on Dota, it will be impossible to develop skill. Therefore, you often have to get distracted and do something for yourself and for your portfolio.
Most of the workshops come here to get into their favorite game. The Workshop has experienced artists who work in large studios in different countries and have huge experience. And when you realize that you are competing and are in the chest somewhere on a par with them, it’s just a wonderful feeling.
In addition, Nikita and Konstantin complained that many artists remain unknown to the players:
There are people who have been working on content creation for a very long time. We are already like a team. Of course, they sometimes invite us to events, but I would like them to somehow take and highlight the most active people. Talked about them, posted a portfolio of the most popular and famous. So that players can come in, meet or analyze. But there is no such thing yet. Just show that we are important to you. After all, someone has been working on a game for six or nine years. And that’s important to us too.
Steam Workshop is a new generator of ideas!
As part of The International 2015, a friendly All-Stars match was held, in which Valve presented a surprise to TI viewers. The show match was held in 10×10 mode, where, in addition to professional players, 10 spectators from Key Arena also participated in it.
With this match, Valve has given an unspoken green light to a bunch of modders. From that moment, various custom maps, heroes, mechanics, abilities and artifacts appeared in the game. Popular modes such as Attack on Hero, Dota 2 Horde Mode, Dota Auto Chess, Together We Stand and Roshpit Champions not only diversified the game but also gave Valve developers new ideas both for Dota 2 and for creating new game projects.
Thus, all these unique mechanics, we could see in such events as: «Siltbreaker», «The Underhollow», «Wrath of the Mo’rokai» and «Aghanim’s Labyrinth». In addition, all the same mechanics with outposts and talent trees, as well as neutral items, were borrowed from the community maps.
One system for several projects – is that bad?
On November 25, Valve announced the imminent release of the Overwatch system for Dota 2. This system will help to combat aggressive chatting and deliberate obstruction of normal play. But this patrol has been successfully functioning in CS:GO since 2015.
It would seem, what is the problem with introducing this system into Dota 2? Initially, Overwatch contradicted the principle of anonymity. And with the release of Battle Pass 2020, Valve developers faced a problem when users found the matches they needed, using the list of heroes and sides.
In addition, in 2018, the developers decided to abandon the usual MMR model in Dota 2 and introduce a new rating system in the updated matchmaking, which was previously used in CS:GO. This system received a table of ranks and was designed in such a way that it does not allow more experienced players to team up or confront players with lower skill levels.
Where else to get ideas?
An early goal of the Dota 2 development team was to adapt the Defense of the Ancients art style to the Source game engine. Hero names, abilities, artifacts, and map design from the Warcraft III mod have been largely retained in Dota 2 with some changes due to Blizzard’s trademarks. After a while, the gaming community began to wait for the release of new heroes from Valve.
Like everything in our world, ideas with heroes were not new. So some of the heroes were taken from mythology, and some ideas were spied on from competitors.
As a result, the gaming community can find both obvious similarities with heroes from various MOBA games and not so much.
In addition, in August 2020, dataminers found references to the heroes of DotA 2 that had not yet been released. From this information, you can find some heroes like Fenrir (Primal Beast), Freya (Valkyrie) and Puppet Master, whose analogs already exist in other MOBA projects.
Valve has finally followed through on one of the initial features that was announced at the beginning of the 2021 Dota Pro Circuit with the launch of Supporters Clubs.
Supporters Clubs are a new way for fans of competitive Dota 2to support their favorite teams by purchasing various bundles of badges and seasonal equippables that are themed on the competitors of the DPC.
The featured teams have all provided the content to Valve that is being implemented in these bundles, and 50 percent of all sales will go directly to the team whose bundle you purchase. Each team will also have three different bundles to choose from that scale what content is inside.
The Bronze Club includes a badge for the team, the Silver Club includes sprays and emoticons, and the Gold Club includes a special in-game HP bar badge, loading screens, and voice lines. Badges will be shown in multiple places, while the other items, other than the special loading screens, will be usable in-game.
Valve is introducing 17 team bundles to the shop, with more to come as additional teams competing in the DPC submit their designs for approval and implementation. You can visit the team profile section of the DPC tab to see which teams have launched Supporters Clubs content.
There once was a time when a beast came from the woods to feast upon us and the candy we held dear. We forgot that time. But now… the beast has returned to feast. On us.
