Steam is in an odd position in China. It s like a pirate radio station, sitting offshore and letting the gamers access all that unfiltered content. With no official servers and awkward payment methods, the experience that the huge numbers of users have isn t optimal. So Valve and local partners Perfect World are setting up a version of Steam for China, named Steam Platform. The first details of which were dropped at an event hosted by Perfect World in China this week.

There s no launch date, and no look at the client or its features, but things are motoring along.

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According to my therapist, we all need approval. So I m glad that the latest Valve Initiative (TM) is all about that. From now on, content uploaded to the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2 and Team Fortress 2 Steam Workshops will require Valve s approval before being released to the public. This is to combat the free skin ads that plague the workshop.

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Turns out, Dota Underlords is a liar. See, this whole time we were all effectively building two teams. One might be fighting the good fight out front, but it’s only the defensive game playing out on my telly. Sure, I could beast out a player on my end screen, but it’s possible enough unlucky rolls could make the away game play out completely differently.

It’s not a huge deal, really. But there’s a little disconnect when – even if I’m fighting your team – we’re watching two entirely different games. Fortunately, that’s no longer the case.

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What is an auto and how do I battle it? This is going to be a tough one.

Seriously, why are all the cool kids suddenly talking about level three Dragon Knights? That would be because they are playing Dota Underlords, the best of the auto battlers. At least for beginners.

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According to a recent study by civil rights group the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), 74% of people who play online multiplayer games have experienced some form of harassment, with 65% experiencing severe harassment, which may include physical threats or stalking. And that’s only the start of their downpour of awful numbers, which cover bigotry, extremist views, which games have the worst occurrence rates, and more.

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Read this article about the very best free PC games and watch as capitalism collapses around you. There are enough that there’s no reason you should ever spend money again.

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A work of art. A timeless masterpiece. The pinnacle of level design mastery. Many things have been said about Bombsite A – but does it hold up in a new angle?

Everyone knows Dust2. These days, you can play it across three separate official games, or as a thousand custom maps. You can play Dust2 in Minecraft. You can play the deconstructed remains of mankind’s last Dust2 server, Dustnet. In VR.

This latest interpretation comes courtesy of Mark Mocherad’s Polystrike, a Dota 2 mod that takes Counter-Strike‘s hectic gunfights and pulls the camera way, way up. The mod is currently very early in development but already looks rather neat.

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I fell pretty deep down the Dota 2 hole. I d say the game served as another life for a teenager that didn t really have one, but that would undersell what Dota 2 was for me. I played hours of it, every single evening, for several years in a row. That phase had as much to do with the friends I chatted with than the wizards I clicked on, but at the moment that s besides the point.

The point is that I m currently falling for Dota Underlords, but only because I know the game it’s based on like the back of my RSI-riddled hand.

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If there’s one thing that’s guaranteed to sweep through the Steam Charts like a giant fart, it’s a Steam Sale. Blowing out all the fresh, original or interesting new releases, the mid-year discount warehouse (Junction 45 off the M91) ensures it’s a top 10 of games you already bought or decided you don’t want to buy.

So who is buying them? Baddies. You lot are the goodies. It’s the baddies who do this to us.

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Defying all we thought we knew about Valve Time, the studio have just simultaneously titled and launched Dota Underlords. It’s Valve’s take on ultra-popular Dota 2 mod Auto Chess, which they had been teasing for a while now. While the game will eventually be free-to-play, with an open beta due in approximately a week, they’ve just opened the floodgates to anyone with a Dota 2 2019 Battle Pass. It supports eight players online and has AI bots to play against too. Below, a video from YouTuber “Kripparrian” giving it a quick peek.

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