Feb 16, 2014

Gfinity announce DOTA 2, StarCraft 2 and CS:GO tournaments, signups close Monday

Dota 2

If you know your eSports, you may have heard of Gfinity, who run tournaments for pro players and amateurs alike. Up until now they've been mainly concerned with Call of Duty, but they've recently announced their roster for 2014, which includes tourneys for DOTA 2, Counter-Strike GO and StarCraft 2 across February and March. There are cash prizes on offer for teams that wish to enter, and you don't have to pay anything for the privilege - but signups do close Monday at 17:00 GMT, so if you're interested in participating you'll need to get a wriggle on. The rest of us will be able to watch the events on their Twitch channel. Details below.

As noted below, you'll need to form at least a five-person team to be able to enter any of these, or at the very least be able to split yourself into a minimum of five clones, a little like the dude out of Misfits. There are a number of competitions, starting the 24th of Feb and running through to the end of March.

DOTA 2
Pro League
$7500 prize pot between x6 teams
Open tournaments (newcomers)
X5 weekly cups have been arranged starting from 24th February
Each tournament consists of a $500 prize pot

CS: GO
Pro League
Features x6 of the top EU teams from the Alienware Pro League who will compete for a $7,500 prize pot
Open Tournaments (newcomers)
Registered teams will be ranked into divisions (ensuring teams of equal ability are competing together) and will play on a fixed night each week for x5 weeks for the chance to win a share in a $2,500 prize pot

StarCraft II
Elite Division
Top x6 players will complete for a share of the $3000 prize pot
Open 1:1 Leagues (newcomers)
Registered players will compete for the chance to win a share of the $2,500 prize pot

Once again, the deadline for entry closes tomorrow at 5PM. If you're interested, the Gfinity site is the place to sign up for the various events.

Feb 7, 2014

Beasts of New Bloom

Dota 2 - SZ

<a href="http://www.dota2.com/store/itemdetails/5957"><img src="http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/images/blogfiles/terrorblade_arcana.jpg" alt="" width="100%"/></a>

At last, true darkness is unleashed! Terrorblade's Fractal Horns of Inner Abysm are now available for purchase. Equip this Arcana and he'll have new animations, new spell effects and icons, new death and respawn music, an altered voice, he’ll be able to change the color of his abilities and weapons with gems, and more! If you buy the Fractal Horns during the New Bloom Festival, it will come with an ‘Exalted’ quality.

Meanwhile, as heroes return to their day-to-day grudges and prepare for the Year Beast's return, a number of changes are being made. First, we've significantly increased the number of Flamesalt Ingots you'll receive after a match, and now you'll find more Crimson Parcels as well. We've also boosted how many Ingots you'll find in those Parcels.

Additionally, we're changing how Year Beast teams are formed in order to make sure you'll be matched up with players investing the same number of Ingots as you. When the Year Beast returns on Friday, you'll choose from one of several Ingot Tiers. When the match begins, a set amount of Ingots from each player will be collected based on which Tier was selected, ensuring that all players have the same amount of gold to spend on the fight. Jade Token rewards will differ based on which Tier you're playing.

Speaking of rewards, there will be times when we feel it's necessary to update the Year Beast battle in the middle of a cycle. When we do so, high scoring players from matches both before and after those changes will be counted and rewarded separately, so you don't need to worry about competing with players who played a significantly different version of the fight than you.

And for those of you not competing for high damage, but still eager to get your hands on Redhoof, you now have a chance to obtain the Redhoof courier by redeeming Jade Tokens to open a Bloom Harvest or Bloom Bounty.

Prepare yourself: the Year Beast returns on Friday!

Feb 7, 2014

Beasts of New Bloom

Dota 2 - SZ

At last, true darkness is unleashed! Terrorblade's Fractal Horns of Inner Abysm are now available for purchase. Equip this Arcana and he'll have new animations, new spell effects and icons, new death and respawn music, an altered voice, he’ll be able to change the color of his abilities and weapons with gems, and more! If you buy the Fractal Horns during the New Bloom Festival, it will come with an ‘Exalted’ quality.

Meanwhile, as heroes return to their day-to-day grudges and prepare for the Year Beast's return, a number of changes are being made. First, we've significantly increased the number of Flamesalt Ingots you'll receive after a match, and now you'll find more Crimson Parcels as well. We've also boosted how many Ingots you'll find in those Parcels.

Additionally, we're changing how Year Beast teams are formed in order to make sure you'll be matched up with players investing the same number of Ingots as you. When the Year Beast returns on Friday, you'll choose from one of several Ingot Tiers. When the match begins, a set amount of Ingots from each player will be collected based on which Tier was selected, ensuring that all players have the same amount of gold to spend on the fight. Jade Token rewards will differ based on which Tier you're playing.

Speaking of rewards, there will be times when we feel it's necessary to update the Year Beast battle in the middle of a cycle. When we do so, high scoring players from matches both before and after those changes will be counted and rewarded separately, so you don't need to worry about competing with players who played a significantly different version of the fight than you.

And for those of you not competing for high damage, but still eager to get your hands on Redhoof, you now have a chance to obtain the Redhoof courier by redeeming Jade Tokens to open a Bloom Harvest or Bloom Bounty.

Prepare yourself: the Year Beast returns on Friday!

Feb 5, 2014

Dota 2 Update - February 5th, 2014

Dota 2 - Valve

User Interface
- Alt+Control clicking enemy heroes in the top bar now sends a hero has returned chat message
- Alt clicking on a store item will announce to your allies that you will purchase that item
- Fixed item alerts not working properly
- The game no longer freezes while a replay is being decompressed after the download is completed.
- Fixed Legacy Keys not being set correctly when reconnecting
- Legacy Keys now work correctly when querying (and allow you to use to proper legacy keys if taking over a bot)

Gameplay
- Fixed Terrorblade illusions taking too much damage
- Fixed Phoenix Sunray healing half of the amount it should
- Fixed AoE gold not being given to hidden heroes (such as Phoenix using Supernova, Brewmaster using Primal Split)
- Fixed Radiant having vision for a small area just outside the Dire fountain

Community
- Abandonment penalties will now be applied much more quickly after the abandonment occurs. (Previously the penalty was applied at the end of the match that was abandoned.)
- Abandonment in a ranked match before first blood will now count as a loss for the abandoner and all party members. (MMR will decrease.) For all other players in the game, the match will not be scored. After first blood, the same rules apply as before: the match will be scored for all players. The abandoner will always receive a loss, but all other players will be scored a win/loss according to the actual match outcome.

Workshop
-Master Assassin’s Tails (Bounty Hunter) – fixed chest strap skinning
-Form of Great Grey (Lycan) – added portrait entry
-Icewrack Pack wolves (Lycan) – added portrait entry
-Mysterious Vagabond Pack (Shadow Shaman) – fixed cloth issue during movement
-Demon Blood Helm (Axe) – fixed cloth issue during movement
-Prisoner’s Anchor (Alchemist) – fixed skinning on saddle
-Swamp Fins (Tidehunter) – fixed skinning
-Soul Reaper (Necrophos) – fixed loadout issue
-Excavator’s Treasure (Tidehunter) - fixed skinning
-Adjusted skinning on Rubick capes: Councilor's Robe, Cloak of Inscrutable Zeal, Tails of Resonance Vibrance
-Stone Dragon Soul (Earth Spirit) - weapon is now two separate pieces. Added default weapon particles to this and Staff of the Demon Stone
-Beast of Vermilion Wilds (Beastmaster) - now equips correctly
-Jade Talon (Pudge) - fixed orientation

Audio
-Minor adjustments to Terrorblade's Voice to give the base and morph forms more presence in the mix

Tooltips
-Fixed Random Hero button tooltip to say that you gain 200 gold for randoming a hero
-Removed duplicate health regeneration description from Alchemist's Chemical Rage tooltip
-Removed mention of Beastmaster's Call of the Wild destroying previous summons
-Fixed Beastmaster's Call of the Wild (Hawk) advanced tooltip to say that the Greater Hawk's invisibility starts at 4 seconds of inactivity.
-Reworded the description of Elder Titan's Earth Splitter to better explain how its damage is done
-Added cast range to Keeper of the Light's Mana Leak
-Removed inaccurate information in Mirana's Sacred Arrow tooltip regarding its affect on invisible units. Sacred arrow will stun and damage invisible units
-Removed inaccurate information in Mirana's Leap tooltip. The Leap buff is applied when and where she begins Leap
-Added Slow duration and percentage to Shadow Fiend's Requiem of Souls tooltip
-Added a description of Silencer's innate Intelligence Steal buff to that buff's tooltip.
-Reworded the description of Spectre's Desolate to better explain that the bonus damage is done when the attacked enemy is alone (has none of its allies nearby)
-Removed inaccurate information in Viper's Corrosive Skin tooltip. Corrosive Skin is applied to an enemy when an attack hits
-Fixed Warlock's Upheaval tooltip to say that it can be channeled for up to 16 seconds
-Fixed typo in Dust of Appearance tooltip
-Removed inaccurate information in Eye of Skadi tooltip regarding lifesteal stacking. Eye of Skadi can stack lifesteal on both melee and ranged heroes
-Removed inaccurate information in Ghost Scepter's tooltip. Boots of Travel does not dispel Ghost Form, however using a Teleport Scroll does
-Fixed inaccurate information in Radiance debuff tooltip to say that its burn does 50 damage per second

Jan 29, 2014

Dota 2′s New Bloom update will let you rewrite history and rise like a phoenix

Dota 2

Phoenixes traditionally symbolise rebirth, but that's not always the case. They also have pretty strong links to death: as seen by the quality of the third X-Men movie, or here, by the deadliness of Dota 2's new Hero. The eternally inflammable bird headlines the Day 3 announcement phase of tonight's New Bloom update. The update won't be completely without the spirit of renewal, however. A newly announced feature will let players Quantum Leap into replays, taking control of the action in an attempt to rewrite history.

"Now you can take control in any replay created after the New Bloom update, then act out the rest of the match from that moment forward," announce Valve on the New Bloom micro-site. "During a replay, hit the Takeover button to create a lobby where everyone can choose which hero to portray. Resume the match, and become the one to turn the tide of a favorite pro play, discover a way to escape an impossible setup, or relive a cherished team fight again and again." My doomed plan: create Takeover games seconds before the end of the match in order to persuade people I'm good at Dota.

Understandably, Phoenix's abilities are heavily based around setting things alight, along with introducing allies to healing rays of searing light. The ultimate is particularly interesting - transforming Phoenix into an enemy-damaging supernova that - as long as it isn't attacked within six seconds - stuns enemies and fully regenerates the bird.

Previous announcements for the New Bloom festivities include a phase-warping Year Beast of deadly splendour, the introduction of Terrorblade, an new Spring map variant, and a giant change list of Hero rebalancing.

New Bloom will be released later today.