Oh dear, E3 is next week. Guess we'd better talk about what games we're looking forward to most, and our Impossible Dream Vision for a PC-centric E3. Beyond that, there's news to talk: Cyberpunk, Dota 2, Diablo, Max Payne, and more. Logan shares his indulgent gaming plans for the weekend; Evan shares another thrilling tale from Day Z.

PC Gamer US Podcast 318: Triple A

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You can buy early access to Dota 2 right now for £25 in the Dota 2 store, contrary to Valve's earlier declaration that Dota 2 is free to play. On the Dota 2 item shop FAQ Valve say that at this stage "we don't really think of Dota 2 as a beta" any more, but haven't completely released it because they're "working on expanding our server infrastructure" first. However, you can circumvent all that with the Dota 2 Early Access Bundle, which costs £25 / $39.99

So, Dota 2 is essentially out now, with a cost attached. The bundle also comes with nine cosmetic items, but it's the early access pass that Defence of the Ancients fans will be paying for. The free to play version of Dota 2 will give everyone access to every hero and players will only put down money for cosmetic items to personalise the game. That sounds promising, and fair, but as things stand, that's not the deal. Previously players have only been able to access the beta through invites from Valve and other players.

When they do press the big red "release" button, Dota 2 may well go nova. The beta alone has already proven extremely popular on Steam and the next International event is already scheduled for August.

It's barely news, I know: Valve just sent out a sneaky 7 o'clock press release formally declaring Dota 2 free to play. Like League of Legends and nearly every other MOBA known to man, it'll supported by microtransactions.

More noteworthy is the confirmation that Dota 2 will utilize Steam Workshop, and that, like TF2, the Dota Store will be putting player-made items on sale. A few are on sale now, actually—the "Early Access Bundle." "The opening of the Dota Store is a big part of our final push to launch," said IceFrog, design lead on Dota 2.

Dota 2 will release on PC later this year, Valve says. Expect a big coming-out party for the game during The International at PAX Prime.

Unusually close to our bedtime, Valve has launched Dota 2's microtransaction shop as it formally declares the game free to play. Click here to read the fancy Dota 2 Store announcement page.

We expected Dota 2 to be a free-to-play game—that's barely news. But more noteworthy is the confirmation that all of the game's playable heroes will be free with no limitations, that Dota 2 will utilize Steam Workshop, and that, like TF2, the Dota Store will be putting player-made items on sale. 67 items are in Dota 2's section of the Steam Workshop now, and almost 200 are in the Dota Store.

Dota 2 will release on PC later this year, Valve says. Expect a big coming-out party for the game during The International at PAX Prime.

Blizzard Entertainment and Valve announced in a press release today that an agreement has been reached, after a long dispute, over the use of the name DOTA, originally an abbreviation for the fan-made Warcraft III map Defense of the Ancients. Valve will retain the commercial trademark to DOTA, and will not be required to change the name of their upcoming title DOTA 2, a stand-alone sequel to the Warcraft III map.

Blizzard, however, will retain the right to use the DOTA name non-commercially. This includes promoting DOTA-style maps made for Blizzard games by the community. Their in-house DOTA successor, formerly known as Blizzard DOTA, will be renamed to Blizzard All-Stars while keeping the core gameplay mostly unchanged.

"We're pleased that we could come to an agreement with Blizzard without drawing things out in a way that would benefit no one," said Gabe Newell, president and co-founder of Valve. "We both want to focus on the things our fans care about, creating and shipping great games for our communities."

This sets an interesting precedent, particularly for the group of players and developers that feel the name DOTA should be owned by the community that made it an international sensation. Do you think this agreement is a fair compromise for everyone involved?

Today, Valve announced that the second annual tournament for a game that isn't out yet will take place at PAX Prime in Seattle. 2012's Dota 2 tourney will run the weekend of August 31st at the Benaroya Hall, alongside a stop on the $3 million League of Legends tournament organized by rival MOBA-developer Riot. The International uses an invitational format, and so far only two teams have confirmed their invites: China's DK, and last year's champions, Natus Vincere (Na'Vi) from the Ukraine.



Last year's inaugural tournament, which took place in Cologne during Gamescom, boasted a $1 million grand prize. Valve notes last year's prize in its press release, but hasn't directly stated the value of this year's pot. In an interview with joinDOTA which took place a few months ago, Valve's Erik Johnson stated that the total prize pot will be "at least" as large as 2011's $1.6 million. Dota 2 fans, what would you do with a million?

Dota 2 is doing rather too well for a game that hasn't been released. According to Steam stats, it's the second most played game on Steam right now, ahead of Counter-Strike: Source, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Skyrim and lots of other games that have actually been released. Dota 2 is currently in an ever-expanding beta that's been running since late last year.

Back in September, Dota 2 dev IceFrog posted on the Dota 2 site to say that Valve had decided to speed up work on Dota 2 after the success of The International tournament. The original beta plan had been to keep the game in beta for a year to get the roster up to size. Given how well the beta seems to be doing that might not be such a bad plan after all.

Here's a graph built using Steam Graphs showing Steam player stats over the last few days. At peak times in the US Counter-Strike: Source and the king of Steam, Counter-Strike 1.6, retain the upper hand. Dota 2 overtakes both during those downtime hours, which suggests a strong, growing international community.



Fans on Dota 2 Reddit have spotted a blog post by Chinese esports team DK E-Sports which suggests they're among the first to be invited to the Dota 2 International 2 Seattle Invitational tourney, which is exciting. Valve have said that the sequel to last year's very successful Gamescom competition will have a prize pool of at least $1.6 million. We'll hopefully get to watch it using Dota 2's lovely spectator tools.

Are you playing Dota 2? What do you think of the beta so far?

It's a bit of a quiet weekend for eSports, but DOTA 2 fans will at least be able to watch several games in the ProDOTA 2 Worldwide League. It's a new league, but a number of major eSports teams from the Americas, Europe, and Asia are already participating. It's divided into pro and amateur leagues, with the pros battling for a $20,000 season prize purse.

The action starts at 12 p.m. Eastern tomorrow, and you find the whole schedule here, and more information about this weekend's play over here. Casters TobiWan and Luminous will be calling the games for English-speaking audiences.

However, not to be outdone, the MLG had some big StarCraft and League of Legends-related announcements today.

Start with the big news first: the MLG Pro Circuit will now feature League of Legends, starting with the MLG Spring Championship in Anaheim (June 8 - 10). Eight teams will be invited to the Spring Championship, and another 12 will be able to sign up. At the moment, LoL will just be happening at MLG Championships, not the Arenas.

On top of that, the MLG also announced that Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm will be playable at the Spring Championship. A "large number" of demo stations will be available for people to try Heart of the Swarm's latest multiplayer build. This would probably be a good time to point you to where you can get a spectator pass.

Anything else going on this weekend that eSports fans should check out? Be sure to bring it up in the comments.

" is going to be free-to-play. It'll have some twists, but that's the easiest way for people to think about it."

As reported by Polygon, that's what Gabe Newell had to say on a recent Seven Day Cool Down podcast. Valve's big wheel has already admitted to playing the MOBA for a staggering 800 hours, and now he's talking cash. Valve have already developed some interesting ideas on how to reward valued members of the community: the Team Fortress 2 workshop allows people to create in-game items, and make a significant profit if they sell. Now Valve are hoping to reward player's good behaviour too.

"The issue that we're struggling with quite a bit is something I've kind of talked about before, which is how do you properly value people's contributions to a community?" says Gabe. "We're trying to figure out ways so that people who are more valuable to everybody else recognized and accommodated. We all know people where if they're playing we want to play, and there are other people where if they're playing we would be on the other side of the planet."

According to the master of Valve, individual games don't need to have completely separate communities. Valve have already experimented with this way of thinking in Steam's item trading system, where you can feasibly swap a Team Fortress 2 hat for a copy of Portal, if you find someone who's willing.

"When you start thinking about the different games that people play and you try to think about how people can create value or a service in one game and benefit somebody in a different game, you can start to see how the different games sort knit together," said Valve's big wheel.

We'll have more on DOTA 2 soon. If Steam stats are anything to go by (which they are), a lot of you are playing it right now.

Enthusiasm for Dota 2 is steadily growing as more and more participants are invited into the beta. Dota 2 regularly features on Steam's most played list, but those numbers are nothing compared to the number of Dota fans worldwide. One of the biggest international markets is China. Tim spoke to Doug Lombardi recently about Valve's plans to bring Dota 2 to Chinese audiences.

"You’ve got to address that market, it’s the biggest DOTA population in the world, right?" he said. The problem is that Valve can't release Steam in China. Publishers need make distribution deals with Chinese companies to gain access to that vast player base. Valve have previously teamed up with Nexon to release Counter-Strike Online in Asia. Now they're looking to forge a similar deal for Dota 2.

"We’re actively looking for a partner to work with over there," Lombardi said. "It’s pretty cut and dry - you need a Chinese partner to be in China, period."

Lombardi describes the prospect of a Chinese release of Steam as "a whole different ball of wax." A more likely scenario would have Steam tech powering a Chinese service to keep the Asian version of Dota 2 updated.

"It’s thorny and it’s something that is new for us," Lombardi admitted. "But it’s mandatory if we want DOTA to succeed so we’re on it and various senior people have been to China many times in the past few months."

Valve haven't announced whether or not Dota 2 will be free to play or not, but a fan has delved into Dota 2 beta files and turned up a number of references to items, announcer packs, loot buffs and other items that would be perfect for a Dota 2 item store.