Dec 20, 2013

Dota 2′s next update will be the Year of the Horse, Valve request Workshop submissions

Dota 2

While Dota 2 players are currently in the grip of Frostivus Wraith-Night, such necromantic festivities can't last forever. Valve are already planning the next update, and have announced its theme, if very little else about what it will involve. Referred to as "The Year of the Horse", it's due to arrive toward the end of January, to coincide with the Chinese New Year.

Given Dota 2's strong international following, it's a sensible move. Seasonal events in games - at least, in the games popular in the west - have a tendency to overwhelmingly map to western holidays, despite the real worldwide recognition of things like the Chinese New Year. Also, horses are cool, and should be celebrated.

Valve don't reveal what the event will involve, instead using the teaser post to kick the community into a Workshop submission frenzy. "We are looking for submissions that draw on visual themes from the Chinese New Year, Chinese history, and springtime. Be sure to mark your submissions using the Spring2014 tag when placing your items on the Workshop. For everyone else, the best way to help is to visit the Workshop often and vote for which items you d like to see in Dota."

You can view the seasonal Workshop submissions here. At least, you will be able to when there are some.

Dec 20, 2013

Don We Now Our Gun Apparel: CS:GO s Winter Update

Counter-Strike 2 - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Graham Smith)

You can't tell, but they've got Santa hats under those helmets.

It seems like only yesterday that I was writing about development of new maps for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. Which is fair but slightly inaccurate, as it was actually Tuesday that I wrote about that. Now the maps are available to play as part of CS:GO’s Winter Offensive update, alongside the first batch of community-made weapon skins to be added into the game. (more…)

Dec 19, 2013

Dota 2 Update - December 19th, 2013

Dota 2 - Valve

WRAITH-NIGHT
- Added Queen of Pain, Storm Spirit, Templar Assassin, Witch Doctor, and Elder Titan to Wraith-Night.
- Added new rewards to Wraith-Night.
- Juggernaut now gains evasion during Blade Fury.
- Fixed a bug where pausing the game would break certain Wraith King abilities.

ECONOMY
- Added sets for Luna, Drow Ranger, Skywrath Mage, and Naga Siren
- Added a player set for Invoker by iceiceice
- Added weaponry for Sven, Doom, Spectre, Windranger, Alchemist, Warlock, and Slark.
- Added hairstyles for Drow Ranger, Mirana, Lina, Windranger, and Templar Assassin.
- Added three HUDs
- Added a 400% Battle Booster (80% stacking for other players). Available until January 3rd.

COMMUNITY
- Only decrement low-priority game count in a coop-bot match if you win and you are not playing on passive difficulty.

Dec 18, 2013

CS:GO - The Winter Offensive Update

Counter-Strike 2 - Piggles ULTRAPRO

http://www.counter-strike.net/winteroffensive/

Release Notes for 12/18/2013

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- Added three purchasable gift options:
-- Gift Package - gives a random item to a random player in your match.
-- Pallet of Presents - gives random items to up to nine people in your match.
-- Audience Participation Parcel - gives random items to up to 25 viewers watching your match.
- Added the Winter Offensive Case, the first-ever community-made case.
- Replaced the eSports case with the new eSports Winter Case.

[]
- Added Cobblestone and Overpass maps, which are available to community servers and offline play. Official matchmaking is limited to Operation Bravo in order to collect additional map balancing data prior to a wider release.
- Fixed an exploit in Assault
- Minor bugfixes in Bank, St.Marc and Sugarcane

[]
- Walking into shallow water no longer makes an audible splash.

[]
- Added a link to share downloaded matches. To access this link, download one of your recent matches, view the scoreboard from that match, and click on 'Copy Link.'
- Added say_team support for coaches.
- Added holiday cheer.

[]
- Fixed a Steam authentication problem when running individual CS:GO SDK tools not from Steam Library, but directly from command line.
- Fixed a bug causing workshop uploader tools to retrieve only the first 50 of a user's items.

Dec 18, 2013

CS:GO - The Winter Offensive Update

Counter-Strike 2 - Piggles ULTRAPRO

Dec 18, 2013

Dota 2 Update - December 18th, 2013

Dota 2 - Valve

- Added Legion Commander to the workshop.
- Updated workshop files for Dazzle, Dragon Knight, Bloodseeker, Broodmother and Batrider that include separated fbx and smd files.
- 5 solo players will never match against a 5 man party in Ranked Matchmaking (and will be extremely unlikely in Unranked).
- Fixed bug where you could have multiple recruiters, or active recruitment requests once accepting a recruiter.
- Some players with multiple accepted recruiters will have their recruitment status reset.
- The armory filter dropdown will no longer be hidden by any active Battle Point Boosters.
- Fixed various crash bugs around Guides in Frostivus.
- Improved audio mix of player and caster voice on surround sound systems.
- Fixed a crash on systems with multiple gamepads connected.
- Fixed a case where backdoor protection would not function properly.
- Fixed Ember Spirit base HP regen being 0.25 instead of 0.75
- Fixed Naga Siren base HP regen being 0.25 instead of 0.75
- Match history now shows MMR and change for your ranked matches.

Dec 18, 2013

Be a part of the next Dota 2 Event

Dota 2 - SZ

<a href="http://www.dota2.com/yearofthehorse/"><img src="http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/images/blogfiles/inline_yearofthehorse.jpg" width="100%"></a>

With Wraith-Night now well underway, we want to put out a call to any artists who would like to participate, through the <a href="http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=570">Dota 2 Workshop</a>, in our next big event. A <a href="http://www.dota2.com/yearofthehorse/">new event</a> is coming to Dota 2 at the end of January, and we are looking for submissions that draw on visual themes from the Chinese New Year, Chinese history, and springtime. Be sure to mark your submissions using the "Spring2014" tag when placing your items on the Workshop. For everyone else, the best way to help is to visit the Workshop often and vote for which items you'd like to see in Dota. All submissions must be on the Workshop by January 15th. Good luck, and have fun!

Dec 18, 2013

Be a part of the next Dota 2 Event

Dota 2 - SZ

With Wraith-Night now well underway, we want to put out a call to any artists who would like to participate, through the Dota 2 Workshop, in our next big event. A new event is coming to Dota 2 at the end of January, and we are looking for submissions that draw on visual themes from the Chinese New Year, Chinese history, and springtime. Be sure to mark your submissions using the "Spring2014" tag when placing your items on the Workshop. For everyone else, the best way to help is to visit the Workshop often and vote for which items you'd like to see in Dota. All submissions must be on the Workshop by January 15th. Good luck, and have fun!