Plenty of us have been in online matches for any number of games where we just don’t see eye-to-eye with a teammate. If they’re particularly thorny, you might report them and hope the system serves them their just desserts. The scales of justice aren’t quite so balanced though when the other person has their finger on the ban button, which is what this Dota 2 player found out the hard way.

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Dota 2

‘s spooky seasonal event Diretide has been absent for quite a few years, a fact that the trailer for this year does not gloss over. You may have thought that the haunted forest would stay dormant forever but oh no, tricks and treats are back for 2020. This year’s event brings back a taffy-collecting game mode and a whole barrel full of rewards. You’ll have plenty of time to jump in because it’s on now and running for nearly two months.

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Death Stranding

, the walking simulator about the sad Deliveroo man, is finally out on PC, allowing thousands of keyboard clackers to decode the complex metaphors embedded within such characters as “Mama”, a woman with a baby, and “Heartman”, a man with a pacemaker, played here by an aging and tired Danny Wallace. Look beyond the sub-textual nuance of such masterful creations, however, and you will find a half-decent delivery ‘em up. But is reliable postboy Sam Porter Bridges (a transporter who builds bridges) one of the 7 best couriers in PC games? You can find out by reading closely between the lines of this list.

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Like it or not, everything is a roguelike now. Dark Souls? Yep. Monster Train? Definitely. The precariously loaded cheese and pickle sandwich I’m about to eat for lunch? May as well be. Dota 2 is joining their ranks with its summer event, which is free and live right now. Aghanim’s Labyrinth is a “four-player, cooperative roguelike” where you team up to defeat various nasties lurking about in an old wizard’s shady astral maze. It immediately makes me think of raids, like wot you get in MMOs.

Could be a lark?

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The Dota 2 International 10 Battle Pass has landed, and the ground hath buckled beneath its weight. There is a silly number of new cosmetics and features for those who buy it, and a few new features for those who don’t. Everyone now gets to play mini-games during those inevitable mid-game pauses when one player vanishes, and everyone can join newfangled player guilds where you jointly earn cosmetic rewards. Only Pass owners can create guilds, but I bet you know at least one sucker.

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On this fine Friday afternoon, join me as I descend into the morality swamp. Around five days ago, the organisers of Dota 2 tournament WePlay Pushka sent a copyright strike against “Coldfox”, a YouTuber who broadcast the tournament on his personal channel. Coldfox recorded the tournament from in-game, separately to the organiser’s stream, and says he obeyed all of Valve’s rules. Valve have previously said only they are legally allowed to send DMCA takedown notices against such content. After at least 48 hours of the videos being taken down, WePlay rescinded the copyright notice.

On the one hand, this is a story about an individual YouTuber being jerked around by people who either don’t understand how the law works, or knew and went ahead anyway. On the other hand, it’s also reopened a whole can of worms about what streamers should be allowed to do with other people’s tournaments.

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You know how it is. You think you’re into videogame soundtracks, then you go and hear someone perform ten of them on a Mongolian string instrument. I recently spent 20 minutes listening to a man do just that, and I think you should too.

Genius Jaavka is the man. The morin khuur is his instrument. Songs from Horizon Zero Dawn (coming to PC this summer), Mortal Kombat, Dota 2 and Fortnite are just some of the ones he treats us to. He’s really very good.

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Every year, the best Dota 2 wizards from all the lands gather to determine which of them can best defend an ancient rock garden – but probably not this year, you’ll be surprised to hear. The tenth iteration of The International has been delayed due to the pandemic: “likely” to 2021, say Valve.

They’re still going to start selling The International Battle Pass soon, with 25% of each purchase going to the prize pool. That gives them many more months of funding, which is canny. Expect big number.

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Valve have been drip-feeding us details about the return of Artifact, but now they’ve opened the flood gates. The latest blog post about their card ’em up digs into all sorts of nuances, from revamped mana curves to fiddly initiative rules. They’re also muttering about a ranked progression system similar to Dota Underlords‘, and a singleplayer campaign that will continue the story from the Call To Arms comic.

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Valve have been drip-feeding us details about the return of Artifact, but now they’ve opened the flood gates. The latest blog post about their card ’em up digs into all sorts of nuances, from revamped mana curves to fiddly initiative rules. They’re also muttering about a ranked progression system similar to Dota Underlords‘, and a singleplayer campaign that will continue the story from the Call To Arms comic.

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