American media conglomerate Turner Broadcasting and talent agency WME/IMG plans to show 20 live Counter-Strike: Global Offensive [official site] events on US television next year as part of a league series after brokering a successful deal with Valve.

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For the last five years, Dota 2 [official site] players have travelled far and wide to compete in The International. Now, Valve are launching a series of Majors, the first of which will take place in Frankfurt.

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Good news: Valve are working on a new “major update” for their free-to-play FPS Team Fortress 2 [official site]. Bad news: it’s not a Halloween update. This new update has left the TF2 team too busy to create another all-spooking, all-devilling spectraltacular (boo!) so they’re turning again to the community.

This year’s Halloween update will largely be pieced together from spooky maps, weapons, items, taunts, and so on submitted to TF2’s Steam Workshop.

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There have been some unusual and unexpected ports in recent times. I’d never expected to see Deadly Premonition in my Steam library and Way of the Samurai 4 was something of a surprise. Strangest of all, perhaps, is that I’ve not only become accustomed to the presence of Metal Gear Solid V on PC, but that its stealthy immersive sim-feel has made it an integral part of 2015. Aspects of the design will become part of the fabric of future open world games, whether stealth-focused or not, and there’s nothing about the game that marks it out as a port.

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So, Dota Reborn is out and has replaced Old Dota 2 [official site] as the game client, like how when you have a second child you love it more and it’s better than the first one so you just pretend the other one doesn’t exist and stop supporting it and call the second child by the first one’s name.

Reborn is the version of Dota which uses the Source 2 engine, but rather than just switching to the new engine and keeping the front end the same there’s been a massive overhaul of the UI as well as the addition of custom game modes.

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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*.>

Hello!

It’s time for some Dote Night real talk:

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Dota 2 [official site] now has Dota Levels – “A MEASURE OF YOUR LIFETIME DOTA 2 ACCOMPLISHMENTS”. That means there is a new number on your profile which you can feel pleased or disappointed or ambivalent about. Mine is 37. It made me feel hungry so I had lunch.

The new number is based on the previous experience level system (the previous big number on your profile that increased as you got more battle points) as well as your performance in special events.

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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.>

I spent the last few Dote Nights talking about tutorials in three MOBAs what they did well and what they did poorly. I realise I didn’t make any suggestions of my own for where to start in terms of characters, though. This post is about which heroes I learned to play Dota 2 [official site] on:

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Dota 2 [official site] will be officially switching over to the Source 2 engine in the next few weeks as the game-changing* Reborn update hits the main client.

Valve’s MOBA behemoth has had the Source 2 option for a while, just not in the main client. To use it you download the Reborn update (you’ll find it via the Play tab) and then select Reborn beta when you launch the game. But now Reborn is coming to the game’s main client and bringing all its accompanying bells and whistles as well as a few works-in-progress.

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I haven’t played Team Fortress 2 [official site] in almost a year, Steam tells me, but by gum! I haven’t stopped caring about the goofy world have created for their free-to-play FPS. Valve have some of the funniest fun in games, and I don’t especially mind if the yaks come through webcomics rather than computer games.

While we were on holiday on Monday, Valve released the fifth issue of their free TF comic, a mere eleven months after the last. In case you can’t remember, the TF2 gang’s quest for Australium metal had taken to the undersea dome where Sniper’s parents lived in some odd Superman pastiche, when the squad ran into their counterparts from Team Fortress Classic. And… action!

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