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.>

Just prior to The International 4 one of the professional teams Fnatic was engaged in a frantic back-and-forth with Valve. The discussion (and thus, this week’s column) centred on team substitutions. Specifically whether Fnatic was allowed to compete at TI4 with Steve ‘Excalibur’ Ye taking the place of their invited carry player Adrian ‘Era’ Kryeziu. The swap was being pursued by Fnatic because Era’s recent health concerns, including panic attacks, had put his ability to travel to Seattle and compete in doubt. Valve’s response was unequivocal. Fnatic had to attend with their invited lineup or they couldn’t compete.

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One mode in the free-to-play Counter-Strike Online 2 sees players turn into a deadly cartoon pig. Another gives terrorists cloaking devices, and of course the game does zombies too. The original CS Online has an event starring giant bug men. In Japanese arcades, Counter-Strike Neo had sexy cyberbabes. The straight-faced man-shooter lives a fabulous double-life thanks to Valve licensing it to Asian developers, who rebuild in weird ways we don’t usually see. But!

Later these year we’ll all get to coo and prod at one of these oddities when Nexon bring Counter-Strike Nexon: Zombies to western players through Steam, free-to-play.

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Source 2 is upon us, it seems.

Quite what this means, it’s impossible to say at the moment, although plenty of people are confidently stating exactly> what it means. What we do know is that the latest update for Dota 2 appears to be packing a little more than mod tools. Digging into the files like feverish moles, the excitable detectives of the internet have discovered references to Source 2 in file names and routines. Dota 2 appears to have been ported to the new engine, which means the changes in a game that looks and sounds the same as it did yesterday are now today’s big news.

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Even without official mod tools, Dota 2 players have been making all sorts of Warcraft 3-y custom modes and games for Valve’s game (which is, of course, the sequel to a WC3 mod). Some recreate old classics like Pudge Wars, Enfo’s Survival, or Element Tower Defense, while others are new short weird things. But they’re a pain in the rump to make and to play, unofficial hacky things. Good-o, then, that Valve have now released mod tools.

They tools are very early right now, but the idea is that people will be able to simply download custom modes from the Steam Workshop.

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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.>

This week I wanted to share something a little different when it comes to Dota 2. It’s not based on scientific research or a pet theory; it’s about bringing a hobby from the physical world into a game world. A game within a game, perhaps.

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At the time of writing, there’s eight days, eighteen hours, two minutes and thirty-five seconds until the ESL One Cologne Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament kicks off. In the tournament, happening adjacent to this year’s Gamescom, the sixteen best CS:GO teams will fight for a $250,000 prize pot.

As a reader of a PC games website, it’s 50/50 about whether you’re more interested in this or the sticker-betting Pick’Em Challenge Valve just launched for CSGO in support of the event. More details and a wub-heavy trailer below.

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I’m three columns into this series of Oculus Rift round-ups, and it’s telling that so far I haven’t covered anything that would fit the formalist description of a game. No, I’m not getting involved in anyone’s tiresome war about Proteus or Gone Home, but sticking to a more universal whipping boy – the first-gen Oculus’ issues with readable text, usable HUDs and motion sickness. Clearly VR still being the wild west plays a major role in keeping devs from making large-scale games for it, as does there being a limited install base for now, but the real problem is getting any of this stuff past experiment status. Let’s look at some of the games which try to regardless. … [visit site to read more]

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 am on a horrific Dota 2 losing streak at the moment.

Unrelatedly, this week’s Dote Night will be about losing streaks and Dota 2. I’ve been reading through the wisdom of SCIENCE to find out more about losing streaks and, hopefully, how to fix them.

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Every year Valve hold the Saxxy Awards to encourage and round-up the very best Source Filmmaker creations, and every year the submissions are almost solely set inside the Team Fortress 2 universe. That’s perhaps because they’re Valve’s most expressive characters and because TF2′s manic world is most easily bent towards drama and comedy, but for the just-announced 4th annual Saxxy Awards, Valve are encouraging submissions from other games. Mainly: Portal 2.

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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.>

Dota, League of Legends, Smite these are complex games to get your head around and thus a good first impression is key.

Until this point the introductions tended to come via excited friends. People who popped up online or at the pub to announce, “Hey, I’ve found this awesome game which I think you’ll love and which we can play together. Won’t that be great?”

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