<a href="http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/images/blogfiles/keyart_beastmaster.jpg"><img class="aligncenter" alt="" src="http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/images/blogfiles/inline_beastmaster.jpg" width="100%" /></a>

We are now approaching the two year anniversary of Dota 2’s limited release, and we feel like we’re ready to expand to include anyone who wants to give it a try. In the case of Dota 2, or other games with large backend systems that support them, this isn’t quite as simple as pressing the big red launch button, then sitting back and watching, because of the large infrastructure they rely upon.

As a result, we’re going to take a different approach to the launch of Dota 2 than we have with our previous titles. Our goals are to create little disruption for the existing Dota 2 audience, to bring new players into a system that will work reliably, and to not immediately melt down all of our datacenters. We aren’t sure how long this is going to take, but in our experience everything with Dota ends up involving a lot more people than we predict, so we’re going to ease our way into it.

<a href="http://blog.dota2.com/2013/06/transitioning-into-launch-mode/">Read the full blog post</a>

We are now approaching the two year anniversary of Dota 2’s limited release, and we feel like we’re ready to expand to include anyone who wants to give it a try. In the case of Dota 2, or other games with large backend systems that support them, this isn’t quite as simple as pressing the big red launch button, then sitting back and watching, because of the large infrastructure they rely upon.

As a result, we’re going to take a different approach to the launch of Dota 2 than we have with our previous titles. Our goals are to create little disruption for the existing Dota 2 audience, to bring new players into a system that will work reliably, and to not immediately melt down all of our datacenters. We aren’t sure how long this is going to take, but in our experience everything with Dota ends up involving a lot more people than we predict, so we’re going to ease our way into it.

Read the full blog post

<img src="http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/images/blogfiles/inline_communication_reports.jpg" width="100%">

One goal we have for Dota 2 is to have as many people playing and enjoying the game as possible. To do so, we suspected we'd need to encourage behaviors that have positive effects on the game and community and discourage behaviors that have the opposite effect- like causing other players to play less or not at all or to discourage them from trying out the game in the first place. One of the things we also suspected was that we wouldn't be able to tackle that kind of problem without releasing the game - it's the sort of thing where you need a lot of data to know whether or not your changes are having any effect.

Now that Dota 2 has been out for a while, and gathering a nice mix of new and original Dota 1 players, we're able to gather data to find answers. One of the first things we dug into were the factors that contributed to a player quitting. While it might seem obvious that someone is more likely to quit if they have a negative experience in a game, we've learned in the past that we really need to test our assumptions to make sure we're not fixing the wrong thing. Interestingly, some of the factors we assumed would affect leaving didn't - for instance, the outcome of matches doesn't correlate at all to the likelihood of quitting. Losing a bunch of Dota 2 games doesn't seem to cause people to quit. But one thing that did stand out in the data was the amount of negative communication between players. Put simply, you are more likely to quit if there is abusive chat going on in your games.

So, further investment in discouraging negative communications seemed like it would be valuable. But where to draw the line? Should we allow all (potentially) abusive behavior in-game, or should we work to diminish it and push players more towards the positive and collaborative side of things? We don't want to restrict anyone's speech nor prevent anyone from speaking their mind, but for everyone who feels slighted by their inability to say exactly what they want to their teammates or opponents in-game, there is someone on the receiving end of that criticism who is having just as bad an experience (or worse).

After some discussion internally, we reached the decision that it seemed in the best interest of the Dota community to not push away players who actually enjoyed the game. As a consequence, this meant restricting the ability for some members of the community to say whatever they want. To put it another way, we only want people to quit playing if they actually just don't like the game. That thinking led us to the current communication ban system. Its goal is to reduce the toxicity that occurs verbally or via text chat, and as a result, to avoid causing players to quit the game solely due to negative communication experiences.

Now that it's been live for over a month, we're able to see some of the effects it's having, and the conversation the community is having around it, and we felt we should answer some of the questions we're seeing out there and pass on some of the data we have.

First, a couple of notes on the implementation:
<ul>
<li>Multiple people ganging up on you to report you in the same game has no effect on whether or not you are banned. We are looking at patterns of behavior over time only.</li>
<li>If you are currently communication banned, any communication reports you receive in that time period do not contribute towards, nor result in additional bans.</li>
</ul>The system is not yet ideal, but we felt it was better to gather data on this first step before trying to complicate it with extra nuance. We've changed the algorithm several times already, and we'll continue to update it in response to the community's feedback, and the data we're gathering.

Read the rest of the post on the <a href="http://blog.dota2.com/2013/05/communication-reports/">Dota 2 blog</a>.

One goal we have for Dota 2 is to have as many people playing and enjoying the game as possible. To do so, we suspected we'd need to encourage behaviors that have positive effects on the game and community and discourage behaviors that have the opposite effect- like causing other players to play less or not at all or to discourage them from trying out the game in the first place. One of the things we also suspected was that we wouldn't be able to tackle that kind of problem without releasing the game - it's the sort of thing where you need a lot of data to know whether or not your changes are having any effect.

Now that Dota 2 has been out for a while, and gathering a nice mix of new and original Dota 1 players, we're able to gather data to find answers. One of the first things we dug into were the factors that contributed to a player quitting. While it might seem obvious that someone is more likely to quit if they have a negative experience in a game, we've learned in the past that we really need to test our assumptions to make sure we're not fixing the wrong thing. Interestingly, some of the factors we assumed would affect leaving didn't - for instance, the outcome of matches doesn't correlate at all to the likelihood of quitting. Losing a bunch of Dota 2 games doesn't seem to cause people to quit. But one thing that did stand out in the data was the amount of negative communication between players. Put simply, you are more likely to quit if there is abusive chat going on in your games.

So, further investment in discouraging negative communications seemed like it would be valuable. But where to draw the line? Should we allow all (potentially) abusive behavior in-game, or should we work to diminish it and push players more towards the positive and collaborative side of things? We don't want to restrict anyone's speech nor prevent anyone from speaking their mind, but for everyone who feels slighted by their inability to say exactly what they want to their teammates or opponents in-game, there is someone on the receiving end of that criticism who is having just as bad an experience (or worse).

After some discussion internally, we reached the decision that it seemed in the best interest of the Dota community to not push away players who actually enjoyed the game. As a consequence, this meant restricting the ability for some members of the community to say whatever they want. To put it another way, we only want people to quit playing if they actually just don't like the game. That thinking led us to the current communication ban system. Its goal is to reduce the toxicity that occurs verbally or via text chat, and as a result, to avoid causing players to quit the game solely due to negative communication experiences.

Now that it's been live for over a month, we're able to see some of the effects it's having, and the conversation the community is having around it, and we felt we should answer some of the questions we're seeing out there and pass on some of the data we have.

First, a couple of notes on the implementation:

• Multiple people ganging up on you to report you in the same game has no effect on whether or not you are banned. We are looking at patterns of behavior over time only.
• If you are currently communication banned, any communication reports you receive in that time period do not contribute towards, nor result in additional bans.

The system is not yet ideal, but we felt it was better to gather data on this first step before trying to complicate it with extra nuance. We've changed the algorithm several times already, and we'll continue to update it in response to the community's feedback, and the data we're gathering.

Read the rest of the post on the Dota 2 blog.

After some thoughtful games of Dota, we came up with four new stretch goals that we'll be updating the Compendium with tomorrow. The initial stretch goals for the Compendium were at $1,700,000, $1,850,000 and $2,600,000 granting a new Battle Booster, improved Courier upgrades, and an Immortal item.

<a href="http://www.dota2.com/international/compendium"><img src="http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/images/blogfiles/inline_stretchgoals.jpg"></a>

The new goals are:

<strong>$2,000,000</strong> - A custom HUD skin for all Compendium owners

<strong>$2,200,000</strong> - A Taunt item with a brand new animation for all Compendium owners

<strong>$2,400,000</strong> - Vote on participants in an 8 player Solo Championship (1 vs 1) at <i>The International</i>

<strong>$3,200,000</strong> - Choose the next hero we release

Don't miss Day 3 of Western Qualifiers starting tomorrow at 14:30 CEST. Tomorrow's games will feature Evil Geniuses, mousesports, ICCup and Qpad Red Pandas. You can watch the game in the client or at <a href="http://qualifiers.thegdstudio.com/" target="_blank">The GDStudio</a>.

After some thoughtful games of Dota, we came up with four new stretch goals that we'll be updating the Compendium with tomorrow. The initial stretch goals for the Compendium were at $1,700,000, $1,850,000 and $2,600,000 granting a new Battle Booster, improved Courier upgrades, and an Immortal item.



The new goals are:

$2,000,000 - A custom HUD skin for all Compendium owners

$2,200,000 - A Taunt item with a brand new animation for all Compendium owners

$2,400,000 - Vote on participants in an 8 player Solo Championship (1 vs 1) at The International

$3,200,000 - Choose the next hero we release

Don't miss Day 3 of Western Qualifiers starting tomorrow at 14:30 CEST. Tomorrow's games will feature Evil Geniuses, mousesports, ICCup and Qpad Red Pandas. You can watch the game in the client or at The GDStudio.

The community has once again surprised and caught us off guard by reaching the second Stretch Goal in <a href="http://www.dota2.com/store/itemdetails/15162">The International Interactive Compendium</a> already, adding over $250,000USD to the International Prize Pool. Our original plan was for the International 2013 Courier to be able to ride a small set of mounts, and now the art team knows the community demands more. Here some concepts for some of the new mounts they now have on the to-do list:

<a href="http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/images/blogfiles/international_smeevil_couriers.jpg"><img src="http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/images/blogfiles/inline_smeevil_couriers.jpg"></a>

Given how much faster the community is reaching the stretch goals we set up, we've decided to add some more, based on the many conversations we've seen the community having around the compendium. In particular, the big gap between the 2nd and 3rd is something we're addressing. More on that tomorrow.

Don't forget that the Western Qualifiers for the International 2013 started this morning over at <a href="http://qualifiers.thegdstudio.com/" title="TheGDStudio" target="_blank">TheGDStudio</a>. Good luck to all the teams involved!

The community has once again surprised and caught us off guard by reaching the second Stretch Goal in The International Interactive Compendium already, adding over $250,000USD to the International Prize Pool. Our original plan was for the International 2013 Courier to be able to ride a small set of mounts, and now the art team knows the community demands more. Here some concepts for some of the new mounts they now have on the to-do list:



Given how much faster the community is reaching the stretch goals we set up, we've decided to add some more, based on the many conversations we've seen the community having around the compendium. In particular, the big gap between the 2nd and 3rd is something we're addressing. More on that tomorrow.

Don't forget that the Western Qualifiers for the International 2013 started this morning over at TheGDStudio. Good luck to all the teams involved!

The first Stretch Goal in <i>The International</i> <a href="http://www.dota2.com/international/compendium/">Interactive Compendium</a> has been reached, with a cool $100,000 being added to the International Prize Pool. Everyone who picks up a Compendium before <i>The International</i> ends will now receive the most powerful Battle Bonus we've ever created.

<a href="http://www.dota2.com/store/itemdetails/20169?appid=570"><img class="aligncenter" alt="" src="http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/images/blogfiles/inline_compendium_battle_bonus.jpg" width="100%" /></a>

Don't forget that Battle Bonuses improve the Battle Point earning rate of every player in the game with you, so if you've got one, make sure you drag some friends in to share in that sweet, sweet bonus.

The next Compendium Stretch Goal is additional mounts for the International 2013 Smeevil courier. Good luck!

The first Stretch Goal in The International Interactive Compendium has been reached, with a cool $100,000 being added to the International Prize Pool. Everyone who picks up a Compendium before The International ends will now receive the most powerful Battle Bonus we've ever created.



Don't forget that Battle Bonuses improve the Battle Point earning rate of every player in the game with you, so if you've got one, make sure you drag some friends in to share in that sweet, sweet bonus.

The next Compendium Stretch Goal is additional mounts for the International 2013 Smeevil courier. Good luck!