Tomorrow brings the first full and proper new Valve game since 2013: Artifact, a card game based on wizfest Dota 2. Yes, it is a game about pushing lanes and managing lords (made together with Magic: The Gathering mastermind Richard Garfield, no less), but apparently it also has a story told in that modern Valve way, through a companion comic. Artifact’s first digital issue is out now for free, and confirms that Dota really is about wizards and lords.

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Great Britain’s Gambling Commission did not call loot boxes gambling or a gateway to gambling in a new report, the body have stressed after some media coverage of it claimed that they did. Their ‘Young People & Gambling 2018’ report, based on a survey of young’uns aged 11-16 “to explore gambling behaviour among young people in Great Britain”, did repeat the body’s stance that betting using in-game items (‘skin gambling’, the ever-disappointing name is) can be illegal gambling. However, the only mentions of loot boxes was in cautious questions around “gambling-style games”.

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Now that I’m a few years past the point of playing Dota 2 nightly, I do still find big patches exciting but they also fill me with a sense of “Oh god, how does Dota even work anymore” – and yesterday’s update was a big’un. Version 7.20 has reworked the landscape of Valve’s MOBA, fiddled with the workings of core Dota tricks from denying (killing your own wee pals so an enemy can’t reap their bounty) to pulling (making your wee pals to fight ambient monsters so… okay, a lot of Dota revolves around sacrificing chums), removed and replaced skills on many of the wizards, changed items, added new items… oh god, how does Dota even work anymore?

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One detail I’d missed in Friday’s announcement of Warcraft III: Reforged is that Blizzard’s upcoming remaster should be able to play all the original’s player-created maps and modes. Which is great news. WC3 has one of the great forgotten modding scenes, growing so many genres beyond the obvious MOBAs like DotA. Every night for months, my pals and I would play random ‘custom games’ and always discover something new, surprising, delightful, or just plain weird (the ‘sexy’ tower defence games were…). So good, great, lovely, hopefully this rebirth of WC3 will introduce more people to its treasures.

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Valve are starting to clearly disclose the odds of receiving a rare bonus wizard costume in your Dota 2 loot box of wizard hats, adding an in-game pop-up stating your chances. This is for the “escalating odds”, which go up as you open more and more of a certain loot box, and will always track your current chances. The odds were vaguely available before in a roundabout way, as Chinese law requires companies to disclose loot box odds, but seeing it in-game is easier than tromping across the Internet in search of translations of Chinese blog posts.

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Multiplayer games are the best type of games, because they’re built around the most interesting components known to humans: humans. Men, women, and an awful lot of children.

Internet strangers aren’t always the friendliest bunch, but they can surprise you in ways that a static system can’t. People form the living, beating hearts of the gaming moments I value the most. Join me, then, as I point at the games that encase those beating hearts best. (more…)

European Dota 2 team OG triumphed in this year s The International, netting a whopping $11.2 million ( 8.7 million) grand prize. They beat out China-based team PSG.LGD to take the win.

TI8 boasted the largest prize pool of any esports event to date, with teams competing for part of a $25.4 million ( 20m) total. The second place finishers still walked away with $4 million ( 3.1m), which should help to ease the sting a little.

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Valve s MOBA Dota 2 is having a busy couple of weeks. The finals of its esports championship The International are tonight, and as part of the celebration they ve announced two new heroes, one of whom is playable now.

Grimstroke, named for the fact that uses ink from his runebinding brush to channel vile forces, is currently available, while Mars, who appears to be very much based on his Roman god namesake, will be arriving in the coming months. You can see both characters in the announcement video below:

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With over $25 million ( 19m) now in the prize pool for Dota 2‘s The International tournament, Valve need a certain level of hype and energy to match that. Enter Gabe Newell, the softly-spoken CEO, knife-collecting uncle, and megacorp mascot. A new voice pack for Dota 2 has Newell deadpan through announcing large numbers of murders, delivering lines including “Megakill”, “Monsterkill”, “More than two kills but less than four kills”, “Ownage”, and “Please e-mail me at gaben@valvesoftware.com and let me know about your rampage” with characteristic drama. See him bring the energy to the booth in this video skit below.

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While Twitch still seems a popular venue to watch Dota 2 mega-tourney The International, Valve have rolled out a few upgrades to Steam Broadcasting. If it tickles your fancy, you can now watch the massive esport event on SteamTV, complete with Steam friends integration and the option to invite your regular Dota posse to watch the match with you in a private chat (text or voice) instance. While focused on Dota 2 for now – introducing some game-specific features to the streaming interface – Valve plan on extending “Watch Party” features to all games after the tourney. (more…)