If you're reading PC Gamer, there's a good chance you're at least acquainted with Half-Life 2. For many, it's the unforgettable tale of that bit with the helicopter, or that bit with the zombies, or even that bit where that damn NPC wouldn't get out of your way.
Once, though, that story was very different. Okay, well slightly different. Different enough to feel weird and alien to our Half-Life 2 knowing future selves. Valve News Network combed through 2003's leaked Half-Life 2 beta in search of clues as to what might have been—pairing it up with information from Valve's own Raising The Bar.
It's not new info—people have been digging through the leak for some time. But as a Half-Life 2 fan, it's nonetheless a fascinating round-up of what could have been. It's not a huge difference, and in many cases the changes seem born out of certain levels being cut. Still, it's weird to peer into the alternate universe where Eli isn't Alyx's dad.
Much of the leaked content can now be used inside of Garry's Mod. Here's the Steam Workshop link, should you want to do that.
My sympathies go out to anyone who has paid megabucks for Blades of Voth Domosh, Fiery Soul of the Slayer, or really any other Arcana. You see, as part of the New Bloom update, Crystal Maiden is getting a wolf puppy. As such, she now has the uncontested best cosmetic in all of Dota 2.
Check out this cute motherflipper:
Look at that dopey face!
Aurora: Wolf Pup of Icewrack joins Crystal Maiden when she equips the Frost Avalanche Arcana. Arcana, if you don't know, is Dota-speak for a special cosmetic that brings new animations and effects to its wearer. It's also not cheap: $35/ 23 for
this latest one, albeit with a slight discount if its pre-ordered.
That is unquestionably a lot of money, but also, the little guy chases his tale when CM teleports. Sure, it's a non-combat pet, but god damn it's adorable.
Oh yeah, the New Bloom update. It's not just wolf pups. New hero Winter Wyvern has been revealed. She's a big frost dragon, and her ult freezes an enemy and forces their allies to attack them.
In addition, the New Bloom map is back, item drops have been made more frequent, new community-made gear has appeared, and an item recycling system lets you dump unwanted stuff for a chance at a hero item set.
You can find a full rundown of New Bloom's changes over at the Dota 2 microsite. New Bloom isn't live just yet, but you can try it out in the Dota 2 test client.
It's New Bloom time in Dota-land. What does that mean, specifically? In lore terms, something about the Year Beast. In Valve terms, it's a time of comics, trailers and cryptic teasers.
Today's New Bloom preamble is a comic starring bubbly ice-nuisance Crystal Maiden. It tells of an encounter with Winter Wyvern—who is sure to be this update's new hero—and of the acquisition of a powerful new cloak.
That cloak was also glimpsed in yesterday's New Bloom trailer. It seems as if Rylai has a new Arcana item on the way.
What of the Year Beast? Last year, players fought it. This year, the trailer suggests, we'll get to tame it. We'll see what that involves when the update is released later this week.
In the wake of the suspension of 26 professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players who were involved in match fixing, Valve has issued another statement that not only warns against such behavior, but explains why any kind of betting on matches is bad for everyone.
The statement opens with the same warning that accompanied the lengthy bans of pro CS:GO players in January and February: That players, teams, and anyone involved with professional events should never bet on matches or associate with those who do. But then it moves beyond that to explain that it's not just impropriety that's the problem, but also the mere appearance of impropriety.
"As a professional player, team manager or event production staff, it is common to have personal relationships and/or privileged information about other teams and players. Because of this, we will always assume that you have access to private CS:GO-related 'inside information' that might give you an unfair advantage when placing a bet on any CS:GO game or match," Valve wrote.
"Betting using inside information, or even the perception or suspicion thereof, carries a significant risk of damaging your personal brand, your team, your community, and may lead to exclusion from future Valve-sponsored events," it continued. "To avoid these risks, we recommend that you never bet on any CS:GO game or match. This recommendation applies both to current professional players and anyone who wishes to participate in a Valve-sponsored CS:GO event in the future."
Valve said it's important for players to consider the impact they can have on the "health and stability" of the CS:GO sport. E-sports are tremendously popular but it's still a relatively nascent business, and if the perception of widespread corruption takes hold, it could seriously impinge upon its future growth. "Performing before an audience of millions of fans, you are ambassadors for your game," it wrote. "The strength of professional Counter-Strike comes from the integrity of its players and teams."
[Update: Valve and ESL have lifted the ban on the former ESC Gaming team, and reinstated its invitation to the Katowice 2015 offline qualifier. "The ex-ESC players were restricted from participating in Valve-sponsored events because their historical account activity matched allegations of misconduct," Valve said in a statement. "However, further investigation has clarified their role in the matter, and the restriction has been lifted."]
Original story:
Valve's ongoing investigation into pro-level Counter-Strike: Global Offensive match fixing has resulted in the suspension of another 19 players from its sponsored events. The ban means that three teams—Epsilon eSports, the former ESC Gaming, and WinneR—will not be eligible to compete in the offline qualifier for the upcoming ESL One Katowice 2015.
ESL One has scheduled a "last-chance tournament" for February 8 to determine the teams that will replace Epsilon eSports and ESC Gaming, while LGB eSports and 3DMAX will take WinneR's position. The league noted that those two teams had been slated to play a third-place match in the second European qualifier, but that will no longer be necessary as both teams will now advance.
14 of the players determined to be involved in match fixing have been given indefinite suspensions that won't be reviewed prior to 2016:
Kevin Uzzziii Vernel
Joey fxy0 Schlosser
Robin GMX Stahmer
Morgan B1GGY Madour
Damian DiAMon Zarski
Michal bCK Lis
Jakub kub Pamula
Mateusz matty Kolodziejczyk
Michal michi Majkowski
Karol rallen Rodowicz
Mikolaj mouz Karolewski
Grzegorz SZPERO Dziamalek
Pawel innocent Mocek
Jacek minise Jeziak
Another five have been declared ineligible for ESL One Katowice while the investigation continues:
Robin r0bs3n Stephan
Tahsin tahsiN Sarikaya
Koray xall Yaman
Ammar am0 Cakmak
Antonin TONI Bernhardt
Valve again said that professional CS:GO players and teams "should under no circumstances gamble on CS:GO matches" or associate with those who do, a position echoed by the ESL. "At ESL, we want to underline the fact that unsportsmanlike behavior, such as match fixing, will not be tolerated, and therefore the banned players will not be allowed to take part in any ESL CS:GO tournaments until these cases are reviewed by Valve," it said in a statement.
The Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament at ESL One Katowice 2015 runs from March 12-15, and features a $250,000 prize pool.
Last night I lost a game of Captain's Mode to a team that randomed two of their heroes. Their captain was AFK. Our captain wasn't AFK—he was, well, me—and I figured that I could easily counterpick a team that was lumbered with a Lina and an Elder Titan that they didn't plan to play. The draft didn't matter much, as it happened. They outplayed us from the moment the laning phase ended, fighting better, rotating better and generally closing us out of the game before we could bring our non-randomly-generated plan to bear.
There are two meagre reasons why this was not entirely an unbearable experience. The first is the single message their team transmitted in English over the course of the game: a lonely 'sick my duck', perhaps an Outkast reference, perhaps simply a wonderful typo. The other is that it was a relatively straightforward loss. These have seemed harder to come by, lately: I don't know about you, but for me and mine 6.83 has been the era of the throw.
It's simply easier to lose control of a lead than it used to be. It only takes a single teamfight to completely reverse the momentum of a game. Sometimes, it's less than that—the pick-off kill that means your next engagement ends disastrously, the sneaky Roshan attempt that you forget to check for. I don't feel like we've been losing more games than we generally do, but I definitely feel like we've thrown away more advantages.
It's no longer safe to snowball, and early leads need to be treated with a mixture of respect and caution—both by the team that's ahead and the team that's behind. The rewards for storming ahead in the early game aren't what they used to be, and transitioning into the kind of lead that actually ends the game takes skill and careful mitigation of risk. It's this latter element that I've been thinking about a lot recently. Dota 2 is a game of numbers, chance, percentages: most throws begin the moment you forget that.
Two weeks ago I talked about how a team that is in an advantageous position needs to identify their 'victory switch'—the set of collective strategic and psychological shifts that allow them to properly end a game. As part of that shift, it's increasingly important to define your team's relationship with the game's unpredictable elements.
A few weeks ago I read this guide to Hearthstone's Arena mode by VivaFringe. I don't play a lot of Hearthstone, but what drew me to it was this line:
When you re ahead, try to minimize variance. When you re behind, try to maximize it.
What VivaFringe refers to as 'variance' could also be described as chaos or unpredictability. In Hearthstone, this is fairly easy to locate: there are a lot of random elements, from the behaviours of individual cards to the card-drawing process itself. 'Randomness' in Dota 2 is a little subtler. It means more than just Phantom Assassin's chance to crit or Chaos Knight's chance to get a four-second stun. It means everything your team can't directly control, from the positioning of enemy wards to the chance that the support you've spotted wandering alone is actually bait for a smoke gank.
Here's a scenario that demonstrates the type of variance that I'm talking about. One of your team's core heroes is mobile, good at taking down single targets, and has had a good start—Storm Spirit, maybe. Your advantage going into the midgame has been built on the back of lots of individual plays. From an even start, your team has more gold and experience because risks were taken—and paid off.
Let's say that Storm Spirit has a 80% chance of succeeding at any given solo kill attempt. That's an arbitrary percentage: it's intended to express the idea that a player with a lead will normally do well, but that something can always go wrong. When all else is equal, it is absolutely worth taking that 80% chance of success. As the game progresses, however, the one-in-five chance of failure means more. In the lategame, the 20% you can't control could mean ceding a huge gold and experience bounty to an enemy carry, a lengthy respawn, an expensive buyback, or any number of other penalties. Eventually, Storm Spirit's solo gambits will present a bigger opportunity to your opponent than they do to your own team, because your opponent has a meagre (but not impossible) chance to win big from them.
When you're ahead, then, you need to stop gambling. The odds haven't changed, but the scale of the reward has. Stop seeing it as an 80% chance to bump your K/D/A, and start seeing it as a 20% chance to lose the entire game. Secure your lead by 'minimising variance'. Prompt teamfights. Take other objectives. Transition in sync with the changing mathematical landscape of the game.
This is often the opposite of what a snowballing player wants to do, and the inverse is true of players who are on the defensive. Simply being behind suggests that conservative play is the only way to win: you lost out in the early game, so there's no way you're going to gamble with what you've got left. Well, that line of thinking goes both ways. As the enemy pulls ahead in gold and experience, you can do more with each kill you manage to get. The one consistent element of unpredictable situations in Dota 2 is that they are dangerous. People make mistakes. People die. This is the last thing you want if you're winning, but exactly what you want if you're behind.
'Maximise variance' in this regard by making plays that feel unsafe. Go for that smoke gank. Contest Roshan. Push a tower and force the other team to come meet you, then run away. Sometimes they will respond perfectly and you'll lose anyway, but that's unlikely. By taking chances you increase the chance that they'll slip up, and when they lose a vital core hero for a full ninety seconds without buyback you'll have just won your way back into the game.
To put it another way: only winners can throw a game. There's a choice you need to make, when you've built up that comfortable lead, to hold on to it. And when you're losing the best thing you can do isn't hole up in your base or repeatedly farm the two jungle camps left to you: it's to strike out and invite the other team to take a risk. Think about every time you've thrown a game because you wanted one more kill, or to show off, or to end the game because you need to make dinner—then encourage that mindset in them. Not the dinner thing, I guess. But if you want, try typing 'brb 1min need to eat delicious pizza' in all-chat. It can't hurt. Beats 'sick my duck', anyway.
If you remain unconvinced, please enjoy this brief four-minute musical essay on the importance of being mindful of the numbers powering every Dota 2 match you play.
10% luck. 20% skill. 15% concentrated power of will. 5% pleasure. 50% slam. 100% reason to remember the jam.
This is as close to a perfect mathematical summation of Dota 2 as you will ever get.
The above trailer is the work of Portal 2 machinima-maker 'Harry101UK'. The mod powering it is Portal Stories: Mel. It's a new story, based in the Portal 2 universe, about new protagonist Mel and the new personality core that she's travelling with.
The mod boasts custom textures and animations, and over 20 new maps. It's also been Greenlit—meaning it will be made available directly through Steam. And, unlike last year's Aperture Tag, it will be entirely free.
For more, head over to the mod's Steam page. Portal Stories: Mel is due out early-2015.
Two weeks after E3 and we're still getting a trickle of videos from the show, but don't worry. The best videos of the week is back to a healthy ratio of incredible Counter-Strike feats and Grand Theft Auto V idiocy.
Counter-Strike pro tip: Take a bathroom break.
We're pretty excited for XCOM 2. This 35 minute video from E3 should explain why.
Another amazing Dishonored video from that amazing Dishonored player.
Someone recreated the intro to Arthur in Grand Theft Auto V. Seems...inappropriate somehow, but impressive!
World of Warcraft at the endgame, this machinima feels your pain.
Ah, yes. Skyrim's striking opening scene, just as I remember it.
Why have Dota 2 and League of Legends become the most popular PC games of the generation? Wes and Chris take a moment during their visit to the Smite World Championship to try and answer what it is about MOBAs that's elevated them above FPSes, RTSes, and RPGs as the most-played games in the world.
The PC Gamer Show appears every Friday. Hit us with PC gaming questions for us to answer at the end of next week's episode in the comments!
Well-known Counter-Strike mapmaker FMPONE, he of de_crown and de_season fame, is working on a new map based on the Santorini island in Greece. FMPONE or Shawn Snelling as he's known IRL announced the map earlier this month but has just released a bunch of screenshots on the Mapcore forums. The map currently lacks texture work, but it still looks beautiful.
"For this level, I'm trying to purely map 'tones', until I'm ready to add in actual textures," FMPONE wrote on Mapcore. "The tones allow me to control for contrast without being overwhelmed by the need to balance specific colors within a scene. This also allows me to understand the types of props I need in an area without being biased by color preferences beforehand.
"This means I'm building a lot of geometry in place of meshes, for the time being, and the meshes will be added later by a talented artist named Dimitri."
The map layout is already playable (check out the link on the Mapcore forums) but remember: it's not complete. Check out the rest of the screenshots below.
