Dota 2

It's all kicking off this weekend, with a Dota Major underway and a CS:GO Major undergoing its final qualifiers. There s also Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone and Smite to watch and another week of international League of Legends to take in. If the year s been a little quiet so far, that s certainly coming to an abrupt end. If your Dota 2 casters seem a little quiet, however, that s an entirely separate technical problem.


Dota 2: The Shanghai Major group stage

The Major has been off to a strange start, with solid games—and one amazing underdog story—fighting against production problems and the abrupt loss of a panel host. Even so, this is the event in the Dota circuit right now, and the weekend will see the remaining games in the group stage. Tune in on Saturday to see if Frankfurt champs OG can repeat their success in Shanghai. Sunday will see one of the most hotly-contested groups as coL, EG, VP and Liquid duke it out. The stream begins at 09:00 BJT (01:00 GMT/17:00 PST the previous day) and runs for ages. The schedule has been flexible, to say the least, but you can find hypothetical start times here.

Heroes of the Storm: NA Spring Regional

The region's best teams fight for a share of $100,000 and a spot at the Spring Championship in Korea. This is one of the highest-profile events of the HotS calendar so far this year, so makes for a good opportunity to take the scene's temperature—much as Hearthstone's own Americas championship was last week. Games start at 10:00 PST/18:00 GMT each day and you can find the stream here.

Hearthstone: PGL Spring Tavern Tales 2016

$25,000 on the line for some of Europe's best Hearthstone players as 32 of them descend on Bucharest. It'll start with a Swiss group stage followed by single-elimination playoffs for the top 16. The games started today, and will continue throughout the weekend. Play begins at 09:30 GMT/01:30 PST and continues through the evening. Find the stream here.

League of Legends: NA LCS and LPL

Another weekend, another chance to keep tabs on the dominant teams in the US and China ahead of the upcoming Mid-Season Invitational. You can read James Chen's assessment of how each scene is doing here, and find details on schedules—as well as the livestream—on the official LoLesports site.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive: MLG Columbus 2016 Main Qualifier

While the top eight for MLG Columbus 2016 is drawn from the world's best-regarded teams, a further eight have a chance to shore up their qualification hopes this weekend. This is the first CS:GO Major to offer the new prize pool of $1,000,000—a massive increase for a scene that was previously capping out at around $250,000. Play starts at around 12:00 EST (17:00 GMT/09:00 PST) each day, and you can find the stream here.

Smite: Spring Split Relegations

Smite is currently going through a multi-phase relegation process to determine which teams advanced to play in the Pro League proper later in the year. This weekend will see phase two play out in Europe and North America, as the winners of the open bracket—players like you or I, but better—face existing Challenger Cup teams for a coveted spot in the big leagues. Games start at 13:00 EST (18:00 GMT/10:00 PST) each day on the official Smite Twitch stream.


Pcgp Logo Red Small PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

Dota 2

Update #3: Harding has delivered his version of events in the form of a Google doc which you can read here. It touches on his relationship with Valve, the event production company, and what he says went down in the run up to and during the ill-fated Shanghai Major broadcast. It also runs to just shy of 7,000 words, so you might want to put the kettle on before wading in. In short: there ain't no drama like Dota 2 drama.


Update #2: Fairly inevitably, sacked Dota 2 panel host James "2GD" Harding has responded to being called an "ass" by none other than Gabe Newell earlier today on Reddit. Harding said he's working on a more detailed response, but for now he had this to say in the accompanying Reddit thread:

"This is why my statement is taking sometime. It seems more personal than professional. So I will respond. Just for the record gabe, I don't think you are an ass. But I don't think you are right about me (well maybe you are a bit of an ass for calling me an ass, but let's find out what others think shall we?). Brb"

For those of you curious as to what led to Harding's dismissal, this footage from day one of the event (beginning at 00:55:10 on the VoD) may prove illuminating. Without wishing to make assumptions about Valve's reasoning, the fact Harding talks about being police monitored, drops a C-bomb (which may be accidental but certainly doesn't sound it), and then riffs about masturbating to hotel pornography—specifically: "Mr Wang's amazing wheelchair antics"—probably contributed to Newell and co going nuclear.

We'll update as and when Harding makes his statement. 


Update #1: Valve boss Gabe Newell has addressed Harding's dismissal in a brief but very pointed message on Reddit

"Two things:

1) James. We've had issues with James at previous events. Some Valve people lobbied to bring him back for Shanghai, feeling that he deserved another chance. That was a mistake. James is an ass, and we won't be working with him again.

2) As long as we're firing people, we are also firing the production company that we've been working with on the Shanghai Major. They will be replaced, and we hope to get this turned around before the main event.

As always, I can be reached at gaben@valvesoftware.com.

Gabe"

Valve has confirmed that the comment was in fact posted by Gabe Newell. We'll update again if we hear more.

Original Story: The Dota 2 Shanghai Major is the subject of a community outcry after panel host James '2GD' Harding was let go after the first day and a half of the tournament.

Harding announced the news in a tweet, prompting a slew of anger and speculation on Twitter and Reddit. Much of this was directed at Perfect World, who operate Dota 2 in China. Harding then clarified in a follow-up tweet that the decision had, in fact, been Valve's.

Until 2015, Harding was a regular presence at official Dota 2 events. He didn't appear at The International 2015 or the Frankfurt Major, however, meaning that the Shanghai Major represented a return of a sorts—a return that has been prematurely cut short. He is known for his willingness to push people's buttons in order to get a laugh, and this is the basis of his popularity among parts of the Dota 2 community.

The exact reason for his firing hasn't been officially explained, but it doesn't appear that there was a single inciting incident. Harding's first day as host was irreverent, sometimes openly mocking of certain pro players, and included off-colour humour and language. Any of these things—or all of them in aggregate—could be the reason, but nothing in particular stands out as the likely explanation. We've contacted Valve for comment. Harding himself plans to write more substantially about the issue tomorrow, describing this is as a "very very odd situation."

It's certainly unusual for a personality to be let go from an esports event without explanation and without an obvious inciting incident.

Prior to this controversy, the community was already unhappy with the production quality of the Shanghai Major. There have been long waits between games as well as audio and video issues on the stream. This isn't unheard of in the group stages of a large event, and there's plenty of time to resolve them before the playoffs begin in earnest, but it compounds a sense of disappointment that is readily apparent from Reddit and Twitch chat.

This is a shame, because the Shanghai Major had a very exciting first day. The surprising rise of MVP Phoenix sets this up to be the best Dota 2 event since, well, the last Major. Given the quality of the games so far, it'd be sad if Dota 2's second Major is remembered instead for the drama it inspired.

Dota 2

For the first time ever, a Korean Dota 2 team have won the group stage of a Valve event

At the Shanghai Major, the second of Valve s seasonal Dota 2 tournaments, the Korean team MVP Phoenix finished their group in first place. That s an understatement, however. They didn t just beat their group, they stomped all over them. They performed so well that no team should have gotten second place because it puts them too close to MVP Phoenix. They didn t drop a single game, achieving a flawless victory.

But given that Korea has never been exceptionally strong in Dota 2, did these wins mean anything? They must have had some weak opposition, especially if they won so hard that their games averaged less than 25 minutes! Not in the least. They first went up against EHOME, a team that took first in the last international Dota 2 tournament, the MarsTV Dota 2 League Winter 2015. Hardly a cakewalk for any team, the analysts even considered EHOME to be the strongest team in the group. Their second opponents were Team Secret, a gathering of some of the highest skilled players in the world, and a team that was able to take second at the last Dota Major in Frankfurt.

Those past results turned out to be meaningless, however, as the MVP Phoenix s playstyle style completely defied expectations. Their last match, game two against Team Secret, really demonstrates what they brought to the table (you can find both games in the series embedded in this article.) MVP Phoenix s lineup consisted of roaming Bounty Hunter, offlane and jungling Nature s Prophet, midlane Phantom Lancer, safelane Leshrac, and support Vengeful Spirit. Team Secret s lineup consisted of midlane Tiny, midlane Io, support Dazzle, offlane Spirit Breaker, and safelane Invoker.

Both teams started the game looking for a fight, and a brawl at the bottom bounty rune led to a two for one kill-exchange in favor of Team Secret. Even so, this established the pace that MVP Phoenix sustained for the rest of the match. Their aggression started over a bounty rune, but it didn t stop until Team Secret s ancient was crumbling. The neutral creeps had barely spawned when offensive map rotations came into play.

At the 45 second mark Febby s Bounty Hunter rotated behind Team Secret s tier two tower and secured a kill on Team Secret s walking courier. As that happened, FoREv s Nature s Prophet began using treants to attack w33 s Invoker underneath his tower - an uncommon strategy since it provides extra experience and gold for the enemy laner. It was all a setup, though, as Invoker took a ton of damage farming treants, and this allowed for a sub-two minute tower dive onto the Secret safe laner. Bounty Hunter and Nature s Prophet eagerly ran past Team Secret s tower and into the treeline to secure a kill.

The timing and the composition of this gank is insanely rare. most teams are comfortably farming on Nature s Prophet in the early game, at most looking for an opportunistic gank. Even though Team Secret was able to pick off Bounty Hunter in response, this defensive rotation hindered their map control as their other lanes began to suffer.

Specifically: bottom lane, where Team Secret was struggling to maintain their composure. At the four minute mark, a single gank let MVP Phoenix use Leshrac s Diabolic Edict and Nature s Prophet s treants to destroy a tier one tower. Without hesitation, the four-man push went on to destroy Team Secret s tier two tower. They used this early surge in gold to continue blasting towers as Team Secret watched in horror. Thirteen minutes into the game MVP Phoenix had destroyed all but one tier two tower, and was already engaging on Team Secret s high ground. There was no hesitation to engage - there wasn t even an Aegis of the Immortal - MVP Phoenix just kept going for it until they won. Even when Team Secret tried to claw back into the game using stacked neutral camps, MVP Phoenix were ready with a gank and steal. It was closer to a mouse trying to escape a playful cat than a normal game of back-and-forth Dota.

This success wasn t a stroke of luck, though. MVP Phoenix s draft brought an intense focus on the early game that was reminiscent of CDEC at The International 2015. The various MVP Phoenix lineups had two strengths: the ability to easily set up kills as a team starting at low levels, and quick objective-taking. This very apparent when MP s Leshrac didn t level Lightning Storm until level ten, and instead focused on Split Earth and Diabolic Edict, a much older and less common build. This old school build worked, however, and with minimal setup Split Earth secured kills, which let Diabolic Edict shred through towers.

Since their pressure never let up, MVP Phoenix was constantly forcing Secret s draft to fight before they were powerful. An early game Io and Dazzle could do nothing to stop the constant push, and Spirit Breaker was more of a gold source than viable offlaner. Secret did eventually find their feet, but they were so pushed-in, so far behind, that single mistakes were costing them Roshan, their barracks, and the game itself. This hyper aggression has shown up in the past, but recent games have usually been decided much later than the ten minute mark

Among some fans there s been a long running fear of Korea dominating the Dota scene. This is due in part to other esports where Korean players and organizations have firmly taken root as first place finishers (and sometimes second and third as well.) The global StarCraft scene has been dominated by Korean players for many years. Meanwhile, the League of Legends world champions have been Korean teams for the past three years - more than half of LoL s tournament lifespan.

This doesn t mean that MVP Phoenix is signaling the Korean Dota revolution, however. The players train in China s Dota 2 region, where three of the of the ten highest MMRs belong to MVP Phoenix players. And while solid infrastructure exists in Korean esports organizations, Dota is a much newer phenomenon there when compared to every other competitive region.

While leaving groups in first place is a big deal, it ultimately may not have long-lasting effects. Both Secret and EHOME may have slept on research, and MVP s first opponent in the playoffs will have until March 2nd to plan around the Korean aggression. Their four stomps are going to be researched and dissected like other top games, and entering the winner s bracket only secures ninth place for MVP Phoenix. As MVP Phoenix have already demonstrated, however, anything is possible.


Pcgp Logo Red Small PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

Dota 2

Things heat up in the dead of winter as the professional CS:GO circuit heads to beautiful Barcelona and the entire American continent competes for a scant few slots at the Winter Championship in March. There's also Dota 2 league play and the ongoing drama of the League of Legends season if you prefer your esports isometric and wizard-centric.


Hearthstone: Americas Winter Preliminary

Hundreds of the best Hearthstone players in the Americas duke it out across more than dozen locations. The top eight players will advance to the Americas Winter Championship next month, where there's $100,000 and a place at the Hearthstone World Championship on the line. You can find more info here and find the stream on Twitch.

Dota 2: WePlay League Season 3

This is a bit of a quiet weekend for Dota 2, but there are games to be played in the WePlay Dota 2 league nonetheless. On Saturday you can catch games in EU East between Power Rangers and Hellraisers followed by Empire vs. Na'Vi. Those begin at 16:00 GMT/08:00 PST. On Sunday the action shifts to Southeast Asia as First Departure take on first MVP.Phoenix and then Mineski starting at 13:00 GMT/05:00 PST. Find the stream over at JoinDotaRED.

League of Legends: NA LCS Spring/LoL Pro League Spring

Another busy weekend for League, as both the NA LCS and China's LPL see top-level play all weekend. You can find schedules for both, along with the streams, on the official LoLesports site.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive: ESL Barcelona Invitational presented by MWC

Some of the best CS:GO teams of the world play for 75,000. Tune in to see Fnatic, EnvyUS, and Astralis take on qualifying teams from Europe and—specifically—Spain. Games are running throughout the weekend from 07:30 GMT/23:30 PST. Catch it all on ESL's CSGO Twitch stream.


Pcgp Logo Red Small PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

Dota 2
Dota 2

It is the season of greetings cards, gifts, and making something out of Valentine s Day because even if you don t feel like you have to you probably should, you know? This is a quiet weekend in the kingdom of electric sports, however, as the majority of the world's pro scenes busy themselves with a variety of first-round qualifiers for tournaments that will inevitably all be held on the same weekend in March. You re not totally without pro gaming entertainment options, however, as the highly-recommended DotaCinema Captain s Draft tournament plunges into its playoffs, the League of Legends NA LCS returns, and the Acer Predator Masters Series concludes in Germany. Go on, treat yourself: lie down in a bed of rose petals and watch some teenagers earn thousands of dollars playing a game that you re terrible at. Happy Valentines!


Dota 2: DotaCinema Captain's Draft 3.0

Captain's Draft 3.0 is a not-so-serious tournament with a serious prize pool: in excess of $120,000 at the time of writing. It stars internationally-renowned Dota 2 squads, but they don't compete in the traditional Captain's Mode format. Instead, the games use Captain's Draft—a variant on CM with a random selection of 27 heroes available to both teams. This means that players are forced out of the current metagame and into parts of the Dota roster that they'd never otherwise venture. This weekend will see a bunch of early playoff matches. On Saturday, the semifinals match between Alliance and Vega Squadron will begin at 15:00 CET (14:00 GMT/06:00 PST), followed by lower bracket matches between Liquid and DC as well as Virtus.pro and Mamas Boys. Those matches will determine who plays in the second round of lower bracket games on Sunday, starting at 17:00 CET (16:00 GMT/08:00 PST.) Find more information and the stream at Moonduck.tv.

League of Legends: 2016 NA LCS

The League of Legends Championship Series rumbles on in North America this weekend. It's been a dramatic start to the year, as our LoL correspondent James Chen has been documenting in his column. As pressure mounts, will the Immortals continue to perform? Will the rest of the scene catch up? How long can Chris keep cribbing his LoL notes from James before somebody realises that this bit is being written by a Dota guy? We ll find out this weekend. Expect full days of play on both Saturday and Sunday, with matches beginning at 20:00 GMT/12:00 PST on both days. Find more information and the live broadcast on LoLesports.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive: Acer Predator Masters Season 2

The line-up falls slightly short of top-tier, but there's $40,000 on the line anyway. This weekend will see the remaining playoffs for the Acer Predator Masters Season 2 played in Germany. Tune in for the remainder of the upper bracket and most of the lower one on Saturday from 13:00 CET (12:00 GMT/04:00 PST), with the lower bracket final and grand final to be played on Sunday starting at 14:30 CET (13:30 GMT/05:30 PST.) The English language stream is right here

Hearthstone 2016 European Winter Preliminaries

Over the course of Saturday and Sunday up to 184 EU-based 'stoners will be battling it out for spots at the European Winter Championships next month. This reddit survival guide thread breaks down everything you need to know, but the key points are that Frodan will be casting alongside Kibler, Savjz and PC Gamer contributor Sottle. It's being streamed in English on the main twitch.tv/playhearthstone channel, but the thread also lists other language options. The action starts at 14:00 CET (13:00 GMT/5:00 PST) on both days. May the SMOrc be with you, always.


Pcgp Logo Red Small PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

Dota 2

What would a PC gaming event be without some virtual blood sport? The PC Gamer Weekender, in association with EGL, will feature a heaving tournament gaming area when it opens in London's Old Truman Brewery, March 5-6. Dota 2, League of Legends, Hearthstone, Street Fighter 5 and Rocket League will all be available for you to test your mettle against fellow Weekenders.

In Street Fighter 5, it's winner stays on. In Rocket League, you'll be duelling it out. Dota 2 will be played in 1v1 solo mid mode, with the first person to score two kills or destroy a tower declared the victor, and a custom version of League of Legends will deliver one-on-one competition in Howling Abyss.

In every game, you stand to win top loot from the folks at Lenovo and GT Omega. Tournaments will operate on a first-come, first-served basis, so be sure to book tickets and head over to the Weekender's registration area early to guarantee a spot. The next 500 Weekender tickets are a trifling 9.99.

I'll even be playing a few Rocket League friendlies if you think you're hard enough. But no flying. Or ramming. In fact, I'd appreciate it if you didn't touch the ball at all.

Dota 2
Dota 2

The grip of winter can t save you from hot hot electric sport. There s major Dota 2 in China and minor CS:GO in Romania. In League of Legends the North American Championship Series thunders on leaving drama in its wake, and we round off with a bit of punching for good measure. Have a great weekend!


Dota 2: MarsTV League Winter 2015

That's right! 'Winter 2015'. Like the saying goes, it doesn't matter if you're not sure what year it is when you've got a great set of international Dota 2 teams competing for hundreds of thousands of dollars. It's taking place in China, so eight hours ahead of GMT/seven ahead of CET/sixteen ahead of PST. If you tune in over the weekend you can catch the winner's bracket final and a bunch of lower bracket games on Saturday followed by the lower bracket final and grand final on Sunday. The grand final begins at 10:00 GMT/11:00 CET/02:00 PST, and you can find up to date schedule information on Gosugamers. You can also find the English language Azubu stream here.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive: PGL European Minor Championship 2016

Eight European CS:GO squads fight for $50,000 in Bucharest. There's a mixture of established and aspiring talent in contention, so this comes recommended to talent scouts as well as fans of the European scene. The group A matches are taking place today, with group B to follow on Saturday followed by playoffs for the top four teams on Sunday. Play begins at 11:00 GMT/12:00 CET/03:00 PST and runs throughout the day. You can find the stream on Twitch.

League of Legends: North American Championship Series

The new season rolls on with a full weekend of play in North America. Expect a lot of action packed into a relatively short span of time, and after a dramatic first week there's a lot to live up to. In particular, look to TSM to want to improve their performance— they face Cloud9 on Saturday and NRG on Sunday. Check out this page on LoLesports for a full schedule and stream info and the main page for the other regional leagues—there are also games in the LCK and LMS over the weekend.

Killer Instinct: World Cup

Yes, yes, it isn't a PC game. If you don't like it, stop asking for fighting game coverage. Even then it won't matter, because fighting games are awesome. In any case: there's $30,000 on the line in San Antonio as the KI community dukes it out for the world title. Find tournament info here and the stream here. At the moment there isn't a schedule available, but expect games throughout the weekend on Pacific time.


Pcgp Logo Red Small PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

Dota 2

Three Lane Highway

Every week, Chris documents his complex ongoing relationship with Dota 2. To read more Three Lane Highway, click here

They've finally done it. The maniacs, they've finally done it. Valve have launched a community Dota 2 event that really works. The Winter 2016 Battle Pass came out yesterday with no warning whatsoever and has, so far, avoided making almost all of the mistakes that Dota 2 events traditionally make. If you've not been playing for long, let's recap the traditional problems:

It's a separate game mode that doesn't really work half the time

eg. New Bloom 2014, New Bloom 2015, Diretide 2012, Diretide 2013

It changes the way people play regular Dota 2

eg. Nemesis Assassin

It's about abusing a system until you get free stuff

eg. New Bloom 2014, New Bloom 2015, Diretide 2012, Diretide 2013

It's fun but a grind

eg. Wraith Night

It's basically gambling with real money

eg. New Bloom 2015

It didn't happen

eg. Diretide 2014

Only one other event that I can think of dodges most of these pitfalls—the wonderful Greeviling, vanished never to return along with Valve's deep but fleeting obsession with dinosaur gremlin muppet creatures, alas.

The Winter 2016 Battle Pass is a lot of things in one. It's this year's replacement for New Bloom, which traditionally ran—as this will—through spring. To that end it introduces a new time-limited quest system, community-spanning meta-objectives, and a bunch of achievements and trophies and so on.

It also includes the compendium for the Shanghai Major, which encompasses the traditional esports tie-in booklet that somebody presumably reads along with a leveling system, temporary in-game rewards, and a lot of new chests and sets. With the exception of a new custom game mode—they've become the exclusive preserve of the 'Arcade' tab—the Battle Pass incorporates almost every idea that Valve have had over the last three and a bit years of running these things.

Except they all work in harmony with each other. And with the exception of a day one duping bug, nothing is terribly broken. And it's not terribly expensive. And it doesn't invite you to sink lots of money after your initial purchase. And it's more about engaging with the game than grinding for specific rewards. And the interface doesn't take thirty seconds to load for no discernable reason.

This provides a kind of compound relief. One, it's a substantial update in its own right, something that Dota badly needs given the long wait between patches and heroes. Two, it's a great use of the Reborn client that makes me glad that we got through that long, messy relaunch. Three, it's a live event that doesn't feel like a funfair being operated as a social experiment by a haywire AI. At least, not as much as usual.

I can list off my 'serious' problems with the update on the fingers of one hand:

  • This Skywrath set shouldn t be red I guess.
  • They shouldn't have nerfed Skywrath's incredibly lengthy 'in the bag' line by making it less likely to play. From my high horse I can see to the ends of the world, and from this vantage point I declare with utter certainty that this is a terrible decision and the game is dead.
  • If they're going to make Skywrath red, at least make him shout his 'in the bag' line over and over so that I know that Legion Commander and Beastmaster's hawk haven't had a baby or something.
  • Pouring money into a compendium that doesn't increase the associated prize pool is still weird.

That's basically one problem and three lots of nonsense! Good job, Valve!

Through all of this, however—the well-implemented quest system and the daily challenges and the gambling and the new sets and the great terrain and the cool seasonal effects and so on and so on—there's one thing that really makes me happy: Valve are talking about player behaviour again.

Tucked away among the new additions is the 'conduct summary', a one-sheet review of your behaviour over the last 25 games that you've played. In the associated FAQ, Valve explain that they want to make the way the game keeps track of player conduct much more transparent. Your report is designed to let you know that, actually, 77% of players don't incur reports. That assholes are outliers. That a single match isn't enough to get you committed to the low priority queue, and that—through all the strife of matchmaking—a handful of people liked you enough to commend you.

This is a positive change in and of itself, but it's the increased communication that clinches it for me. When I spoke to Valve's Erik Johnson last year, he didn't regard player behaviour as a major issue for the game. This is likely because, if you have all of the data in front of you, the amount of players that cause enough trouble to be worth punishing is actually relatively small (the new conduct summary attests to that.) In the intervening time, however, it seems that Valve have realised that they need to open that data up to the community: it's not enough to say 'this isn't a priority' in private and leave people to get frustrated with what they perceive as a toxic player base.

The conduct summary FAQ puts to rest a bunch of urban myths regarding the report system: that you can be bullied into low prio by an ill-meaning party of players, or that the system is rendered ineffective by 'noise'—players filing reports for the wrong reasons. I don't know that the players who most need to read this FAQ will do so, and I suspect that the most serious offenders won't care when their conduct summary flashes up a run of red icons—but it's progress, and it speaks to increased openness on Valve's part.

I'm really pleased with the Battle Pass system, and it has me excited to try and complete all of the objectives before the event ends, but it's this single simple thing that has me hopeful for the future of the game. Valve's long run of experimental community events has finally borne fruit. If they go on to figure out how to encourage better behaviour from the average Dota player, and do so while writing more openly about their working, then I can t think of a better start to 2016.


Pcgp Logo Red Small PC Gamer Pro is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!

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