All right folks, you know the drill. The forums of Dota 2 s official website have been hacked, compromising details from almost 2 million user accounts, including usernames, emails and passwords. A database of 1,923,972 records has been exposed, according to Leaked Source, a search engine that lets internet users see if their details have been leaked. So get those keyboards ready, it’s time for a password change!

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Dota 2 s International 2016 is almost halfway done, and good grief, what a digital sportstorm it s been so far. Champions have been slain, underdogs have dominated, and panels have turned into hand puppets for completely unstated reasons. Here s everything you need to know (besides a puppet explanation) ahead of today’s upper bracket semi-finals.

Obviously HERE BE SPOILERS:

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For The International 2016 I watched a game of Dota 2 [official site] entirely from the Roshan pit in virtual reality.

Dota 2’s VR hub is all about offering viewers new ways in which to spectate matches, new ways to present information, and new vantage points from which to observe professional players’ comings and goings. You can sit in a darkened area watching a massive VR screen if you want, but you can also teleport yourself into the actual map and shrink yourself to life-size proportions as you follow pro-players about.

Well, I wanted to see what it was like to be Roshan, or at least Roshan’s lodger never moving outside the pit that the huge monster inhabits on the map and entirely dependent on distant sounds to make sense of what’s actually going on. Oh, and also seeing what a team attempting to fight Roshan looks like close-up, when suddenly a violent house-party of spells and punching breaks out and Roshan has to uh go away for a while to recover.

Here’s what happened:

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I write a lot about esports/professional gaming and, as such, I’ve witnessed a lot of discussion of the years of various tournament formats – their strengths, weaknesses and, obv, what the company should be doing instead according to that particular commenter at that particular moment in time.

So I thought I’d ask you, as people who might watch professional gaming or play in your own tournaments: Which tournament formats do you prefer and why?

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The International 2016 is here! Valve s own Dota 2 [official site] uber-tournament is underway in Seattle, with sixteen teams wizard-fighting for a share of the frankly ludicrous $19,860,000 (and rising) prize pool.

Even ignoring the cash this is very much “the big one” where competitive Dota 2 is concerned victory at TI6 will earn the kind of prestige that even the previous Frankfurt, Shanghai and Manila Majors can t confer.

The group stages have already concluded, and on Monday 8th August the proceedings move to the main stage at long-time TI hosting grounds Key Arena, concluding with the grand finals on Saturday 13th August. Since the group stages only determine which teams are assigned to the double-elimination format s upper and lower brackets, all sixteen teams are still in with a shot here s who they are, and who to keep an eye on!

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Fancy a peek at a video and some screenshots and gifs from Dota 2‘s [official site] newly arrived VR spectator mode? The video has snippets of what you can expect if you boot up VR Spectator Mode at the moment and you’ll find that just after the jump!

For the screenshots use the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard or the arrows above (and then below because our gallery likes to be contrary) the image*.

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The biggest event on the Dota 2 [official site] calendar is almost upon us, The International. Valve’s huge tournament starts on August 3rd, hosted in Seattle as ever, but folks at home can now join in the fun too. The International Compendium update is now live, with packs of virtua Dota Top Trumps cards to collect, swap, and put into fantasy challenge sorts of… look, it’s all complicated. I’ll explain. But most exciting is the launch of the Dota 2 VR Hub, a way to watch matches in cyberspace which I assume lets you nestle between Tidehunter’s legs like he’s a big salty armchair.

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The klaxon which has been going off since I got up this morning tells me that the Dota 2 [official site] prize pool for The International 2016 has now surpassed its own previous world record for an esports tournament prize pool and is now sitting at over $18.5 million.

$18.5 million. To be shared amongst people who are very very good at digital wizard sports.

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Ooh – the direct invitees for The International 2016 (that’s the massive annual Dota 2 [official site] tournament with the eye-watering prize pool) have been announced. There’s also a bunch of information on how the qualifiers work so YOU, dear reader, could theoretically be in the running to scoop part of that $12.4m. Well. $12.4m so far….

Two-time Major winners OG are obviously going straight to Seattle, while star squad Secret and last year’s winners Evil Geniuses will need to work their way through the open qualifiers. That’s thanks to some roster swap action which means both violated Valve’s roster lock conditions.

Read on for the full list of direct invitees as well as who’s going to be duking it out in the regionals so far:

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The winner of Dota 2 s Manila Major [official site] has been crowned and multinational squad, OG, are now the first team to win two of the Valve-sponsored mega-tournaments. The team’s latest win comes seven months after OG claimed the inaugural Frankfurt Major and prompted a stage invasion by fans.

OG – consisting of Fly, Cr1t-, N0tail, Miracle- and MoonMeander – bested Team Liquid in the grand finals with an unusual Elder Titan/Wraith King draft to win $1,100,000 and score a historic Major double.

Read on to see what you might have missed – who excelled, who crashed and burned, and which games offered up the best competitive Dota 2!

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