The 2014 edition of The International Dota 2 Championships, better known to gamers as simply The International, will be broadcast live on ESPN3, while an exclusive preview of the final match that will include an interview with Gabe Newell will be carried on ESPN2.

The collaboration with ESPN was announced this afternoon by Valve, which revealed that the four-day event, including matches, interviews and analysis, will be carried for the first time ever by ESPN. It will also be available online at WatchESPN.com, through the WatchESPN app for smartphones and tablets, and on streaming devices including the Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

"From the success of the Compendium to the collaboration with ESPN, this year's International really demonstrates how much competitive gaming has grown to rival traditional sports," Valve's Erik Johnson said in a statement. "We believe the teams have also pushed to a new level of play this year and will further demonstrate the incredible advances made across this tournament since it first began three short years ago."

The highlight of the coverage will be a preview of the finals on ESPN2, which will include expert analysis, highlights from earlier matches and interviews with players, as well as a talk with Valve boss Gabe Newell.

This year's International is the biggest ever, with a prize pool of more than $10 million, and even though the event is hugely popular among gamers the finals, being held in Seattle's 17,000-seat KeyArena, are sold out the partnership with ESPN will open it up to a much wider audience than ever before. If there was any lingering doubt that eSports have become mainstream, I think this lays them to rest.

For everything you need to know about the International 2014, check out our in-depth look at the main event right here.

After an eventful group stage, the International begins in earnest tomorrow. Of the nineteen teams in contention for the Aegis of Champions on the 8th of July, eight remain. Over four days at Seattle's KeyArena, those eight teams will fight to secure the lion's share of the largest prize pool in competitive gaming history. The winner will take away just shy of $5m. But this extraordinary reward, most players will tell you, isn't the point. The International is Dota 2's alpha and omega: it is where reputations are made, where teams are proven. Many of the matchups you watch this weekend will never come about in the same way again; the stress of falling short at The International is enough to tear lineups apart and force teams to start over. This is the end of the biggest year in the game's life and the beginning of the next.

You should be watching the International because it marks a milestone in the growth of e-sports, and because there's rarely been so much talent and so much emotion bound up in a single gaming event. Furthermore, the International plays an ambassadorial role for competitive Dota 2. It turns passers-by into spectators, spectators into fans, and fans into players. If you don't play Dota, there's a good chance that this year's tournament could change that. Over the next few pages I'll be providing an overview of the tournament so far, a look at the remaining teams, and recommending essential matches to watch. If you missed the playoffs or are new to Dota, hopefully you'll find everything you need to enjoy the International below.

Update your bookmarks

First, some housekeeping and some shameless plugs.

You can watch all of the International games on Twitch either on the main stream or newcomer's stream. The latter has improved tremendously over the course of the playoffs and is recommended if you're unfamiliar with the game. I also wrote a guide to watching Dota 2 as a newcomer as part of my Three Lane Highway column that may be useful. Broadcasts begin every day at 9am PDT/12pm EDT/4pm GMT.

You can also watch matches in-game using the DotaTV spectator tools: click 'Watch' at the top of the main menu followed by 'The International 2014', which is found under the 'Premium' section of the 'Tournaments' tab. For a comprehensive list of timings, video links, results and other information, the Dota 2 subreddit has an excellent survival guide as well as daily discussion threads.

Finally, I'll be at the International on behalf of PC Gamer and you can find all of our ongoing coverage on this tag page. Expect a report at the end of each day as well as interviews with players and personalities.

Update: You can also watch The International on ESPN3, as well as on ESPN streaming services.

What the hell happened in the playoffs?

The International's remaining eight teams aren't quite what anybody expected them to be at the beginning of the event. The Swedish returning champions, Alliance, didn't make it. Nor did fan-favourite Fnatic, Mousesports, or the Russian giants Empire. The hopes of North American Dota are now pinned squarely on Evil Geniuses, with both Na'Vi.US and a resurgent Team Liquid falling short. Arrow and Titan are gone too, with Southeast Asian Dota now represented entirely by players playing for Chinese teams.

There's a lot to be said about these results, and questions to be asked about the approach of particular teams as well as the tournament format itself. The group stages were arranged as a round-robin of best-of-one games, and conventional wisdom holds that Dota is best played in a best-of-two or best-of-three format. This is due to the metagame aspect of competitive play, particularly drafting, where a 'dialogue' between teams can only form if multiple games are played. There's also the fact that the map is asymmetrical, with certain teams favouring Dire or Radiant an imbalance that can skew certain best-of-one matchups.

Nonetheless, the playoffs demonstrated just how close the scene is at the moment. No team went undefeated, and there were upsets at every end of the scale from the sudden ascendancy of Vici Gaming to the rise and fall of Team Liquid. Last year, Alliance stormed the group stages in a 14-0 sweep. This year they went 6-9, unable to find traction in a metagame that seemed to have moved beyond them. This is important because it demonstrates how Dota 2 in 2014 lacks a single clear leader: if it's a race, it's an incredibly close-run one.

The teams that stood out in the group stages are the ones who were able to execute their strategies with skill and efficiency over long days in an extremely high-pressure environment particularly Vici Gaming, Evil Geniuses, and DK. This tournament format is a test of endurance and leadership as well as talent, and the final bracket placements reflect which teams were able to find wins when it really counted. There are still wildcards in play, however, and teams in the lower bracket who will fight tooth and nail to hold on to what hope is left to them.

Another fact to bear in mind is that the metagame for best-of-ones is different to the metagame for best-of-threes. There's a good chance that the strategies that carried teams this far will fail or be discarded at the main event. Even though the International has already run its course for many teams, it is about to enter an entirely new and very different phase.

The main event brackets, and how they work

This image provides an at-a-glance overview of the brackets at the beginning of the main event. On the left hand side is the upper bracket: the four teams that placed highest at the end of the playoffs. These teams are each two best-of-threes away from a place in the grand final. If they lose they drop down to the lower bracket on the right hand side and have a chance to play their way in the long way.

Teams in the lower bracket play best-of-three single-elimination games to progress, facing upper bracket teams as they drop down. For example: if Newbee beat VG and the winner of EG vs. DK, they're in the final. For Na'Vi to reach the final from the lower bracket, however, they need to win four consecutive matches without dropping a single one.

Before I forget: don't miss the All-Star Match

In addition to the regular matches on Saturday there'll also be an All-Star Match. This is a friendly between one-off teams whose composition has been decided by a community vote. Last year it was hilarious a chance for players to relax, for former teammates to duke it out in front of an audience. This year it means a little more because it's the only chance certain players are going to get to appear on the stage at KeyArena. Disappointed Alliance and Fnatic fans shouldn't miss this chance to see BigDaddy, Loda, and s4 play.

On the next two pages: everything you need to know about the eight remaining teams.


Vici Gaming


I'm not sure anybody expected to Vici Gaming to do quite as well as they did in the group stages. The Chinese team was eliminated from ESL One Frankfurt by Fnatic, but only dropped three games at the International to Na'Vi, EG, and Cloud 9, all teams that went on to qualify for the main event. They excel at building a 'death ball', a composition of five heroes that are good at pushing down towers and taking teamfights early in the game.

This is demonstrated by the fact that they had the highest overall gold-per-minute during the group stages but the fewest average last hits: when your team is bowling over tower after tower, you don't have time to click on creeps. You should expect to see a lot of Shadow Shaman from them, as well as Tidehunter, and the now-ubiquitous Razor all heroes that can sustain a push for a long time.

They will face Newbee on day one, and it'll be a tough battle. Newbee know how to build a death ball of their own, and they have broadly demonstrated a greater capacity to outdraft their opponent. If anybody is going to put a dent in Vici's well-engineered machine, it'll be Newbee. The Chinese teams know each other well, they're fairly evenly matched, and there's a lot at stake. Given both teams' affection for early aggression, expect this to be an exciting game.
Newbee


Despite facing elimination when play began on Monday morning, Newbee had an extraordinary day. They not only eliminated Titan but they destroyed Na'Vi, ending their second game at the twenty minute mark. They went on to beat IG, securing a top-four placement for themselves and sending two world-class teams to the lower bracket. It might have taken a few days for Newbee to find their rhythm, but when they did holy hell. Old-fashioned Dota thinking expects the Chinese teams to be conservative and passive compared to their aggressive western counterparts, and Newbee demonstrated just how outdated that is. Nobody could watch Hao's omnipresent Weaver and argue that Newbee didn't know how to get the most out of the early game.

They're a relatively new team comprised of veterans, and their captain, xiao8, is known for pulling together robust, inventive strategies on the fly. This was demonstrated on Monday when they grudgingly ceded a lengthy second game to Titan, only to come back in the third game with a risky level one Roshan strategy that snowballed into a dominant and fast victory. This was in a match that would determine which of the two teams played at KeyArena: Newbee put everything on the line, and it paid off spectacularly.

Their endurance is equally impressive. They can maintain their energy and focus for a long time, and if a plan isn't working, they'll change it. I'd certainly consider them a contender for the grand finals if not the title, but it's all on the assumption that they can maintain that incredible momentum going into the main event.

Also: if any other player can top Mu's incredible snipe from their match against Titan, I'll be very surprised.
Evil Geniuses


EG established themselves as the best team in the western scene at the playoffs. North American with the exception of Swedish support player Zai, this lineup was drawn together by Fear a veteran of the North American Dota scene, and one of the focal points of Valve's Dota 2 documentary, Free To Play. Injured earlier in the year, he's since stepped into a coaching role. His replacement, Mason, has only been part of the pro scene for a few months despite having famously gone on record saying that he wasn't interested in becoming a pro player. His story is representative of the team as a whole: young, talented, confident, but maybe a little fractious.

EG like to build up their advantage and win the game late. They're creative when it comes to making sure their heroes maintain a strong gold advantage in particular, they make excellent use of the midlane and much of their early play is designed to ensure that their carries have the space they need to farm. Strong leadership is needed to make sure that happens, and they find that in ppd. In Universe, they've got one of the best offlaners in the world he can play a carry if it comes to it, but he shines on utility heroes like Dark Seer. Their midlane player, Arteezy, has a significant following having pioneered the farm-heavy style that has come to define EG's strategy as a whole.

On day one they play DK, one of the few teams to have bested them in the group stages. It should be a brutal rematch, and one that will test EG's ability to outmaneuvre their inventive opponents. They've got the talent and hunger to pull it off, but they could be badly demoralised by a loss. The home crowd will desperately want to see them reach the grand final, and they're expected to do so, but I wouldn't surprised if they ended up making the journey via the lower bracket.

Another matchup worth looking out for if it happens is EG vs. iG. iG beat EG in the final of ESL One Frankfurt and again in the group stages for the International. A grudge match on day two/three is possible, and would definitely be one of the stories of the tournament as a whole.
Team DK


Longtime favourites DK didn't have the flawless run through the playoffs that some expected, but they're inarguably one of the strongest teams in the world at the moment. After a disappointing showing at The International 2013, the DK organisation pulled together a new roster around legendary carry player BurNIng a lineup that included, notably, former Orange midlaner Mushi.

One of the best players to ever come out of South East Asia, Mushi was my MVP for The International 2013. He played a wider variety of heroes than anybody else, often impeccably, and Orange's third-place finished belied their formidable fighting spirit. His teammate iceiceice has likewise fallen short of the International title on multiple occasions, and will be hungry to make this DK's year.

DK draft creatively and execute near-perfectly, with some of the best teamfight coordination you're likely to see at the tournament. It's very hard to get the drop on a team that is as in-sync with each other as they are. DK are a good foil for EG because they share some of the same strengths great farming across multiple core heroes, reinforced by top-tier support play but I expect DK to have the edge in the drafting phase. They can collectively play more heroes than almost anybody else, although Newbee might give them a fight for that title.

Another interesting but possibly unlikely matchup is DK vs. Cloud 9. It was DK that sent Cloud 9 to the lower bracket, defeating them in the tournament's shortest game an eleven minute stomp. Cloud 9 will want revenge should circumstances conspire to give them a shot at it.

One the next page: the next four teams.



Cloud 9


Cloud 9 are an international team made up of a mixture of North American and European players. They're also as close as you're going to get to an underdog in the final eight, having overcome a year of management problems to finally earn recognition as a top-tier squad. This is a roster made up of popular veterans of the scene SingSing and EternalEnvy in particular who are now getting the best shot they've ever had at the title that really matters. SingSing has said that he'll only settle for winning, and you should believe it even if they're currently only a single best-of-three from elimination.

They are a creative and versatile team and it's a safe bet that they'll pull out at least one surprise hero pick at the main event. They can come across as flamboyant, sometimes, but there's always purpose behind it Aui_2000 and pieliedie are a formidable support duo, and although their ideas might be unorthodox (pieliedie's courier-assassinating Bounty Hunter being a good example) they also have a tendency to deliver results.

They are, however, a team that struggles to seal the deal: they don't win every game that they should, and their confidence can be used as a weapon against them. Don't count them out, but don't underestimate the endurance or consistency of their opponents either. This is one of the reasons why their first match, against Na'Vi, is an essential watch: not only are these both extremely popular teams, but they're struggling with some of the same issues. Na'Vi vs. C9 will determine which team has been capable of learning the most from the group stages and which is capable of putting that theory into practice without losing the flair that makes them special.
Na'Vi


Na'Vi are without a doubt the most popular Dota 2 team in the world. Their victory at the first International and top billing in the Free To Play documentary turned them into heroes. Their lineup is one of the most stable in competitive Dota, and over time those players Dendi, Puppey, XBOCT, Funn1k, Kuroky have become characters that fans are very, very attached to. They came second at the International in both 2012 and 2013, in both cases taking a convoluted route to the final via the loser's bracket. They've done a lot to earn their romantic reputation: they're mavericks, scrappily confident, and individually highly skilled.

They're also not quite on form, as Monday's severe loss to Newbee demonstrated. Like a few of the other European teams, the current metagame hasn't allowed them to spin losses into victories like they used to. You look to Na'Vi for midgame plays that turn around impossible disadvantages, something that is becoming less viable now that towers and barracks are being destroyed earlier and earlier. You also look to Na'Vi for experimental strategies and wild drafts, something they gestured at on Monday when they ran a Fnatic-style dual mid with Io. But, at the end of the day, it didn't work perhaps because it wasn't their strat to begin with, and Na'Vi have always been iconoclasts.

I think it's fair to say that Na'Vi are either going to pull something extraordinary out of the bag or simply fade away: this is a team that has never really gone for compromise. It may well be that they've had their now-traditional wakeup call, and that beginning the main event in the lower bracket will give them the drive they need to aggressively climb the ranks. That's certainly what their army of fans is hoping for. But their ascendency is less of a done deal than it has been at prior Internationals: the competition is simply too good.

Expect their match against Cloud 9 to be highly emotionally charged for the players and audience alike. These are popular teams that nobody is going to want to say goodbye to, fighting for survival at the bottom rung of an unforgiving ladder. There's no calling it: whoever wins, it'll be an upset.
Invictus Gaming


The champions of the second International have been on a roll since their win at ESL One Frankfurt, despite dropping a set to Newbee on Monday. Their support duo, ChuaN and Faith, are unmatched in the role and iG are currently setting the high bar for what aggressive support play means in the early game. They reach beyond traditional hero picks when figuring out a lineup that works, often drafting carries or semi-carries for ChuaN Kunkka, Alchemist, Mirana that become monsters in the lategame. The great thing about iG is how they transition between phases of the game: there's not really a single time period where they're weak as long as the game is going according to plan.

Don't expect Ferrrari_430's Ember Spirit to make it through the ban phase it's simply that good. But he's still one of the best midlaners in the world, and vital when it comes to building a win out of ChuaN and Faith's early victories. When iG lose, they tend to lose very late the exception being their first game against Newbee on Monday. They've got a good shot at the title despite starting in the lower bracket, but it'll depend on their ability to dictate the pace of games from the beginning.

They face LGD in their first match, and I think they've got the advantage they beat them handily in their last encounter. IG's real test will come when they start to face teams coming down from the upper bracket.
LGD


LGD have been playing steadily better since a rough start to the group stage, eventually beating Liquid to secure a place in the top eight. For the most part, however, those victories were all against teams that didn't make the final cut the exception being Cloud 9, who they beat once before losing a best-of-three at the end of the second phase of the playoffs.

Lin and Rabbit are both impressive players whose flexibility has been used to good effect in LGD's better games. They're capable of impressive experimentation when it comes to it but they're also, on the whole, the least favoured of the five Chinese teams in the final eight. Similar to Na'Vi, they've got one foot in the general metagame particularly when they're running Razor, Viper, or Enigma, who they favour and one squarely within their own territory. Expect to see a Slark, a Centaur Warrunner, a Visage something to take that skill and versatility and run with it.

As I said above, iG are going to be a tough matchup for them. But if LGD were ever going to pull a pocket strategy out of nowhere, this is the match where we'll see it. Everything is on the line, and LGD have worked very, very hard to get this far. The odds are against them, but their star has only been rising since the beginning of the tournament. It may well be that it's got further to go yet.

Phew! That concludes this look at the competitive Dota scene on the eve of The International 2014. For more of our coverage, bookmark the tag page.

PC Gamer's coverage of The International 2014 is brought to you by SteelSeries. From July 18th through July 21st, all Dota 2 and team gear is 25% off. While supplies last.

Dota 2's The International has been immensely popular, with more than $10 million worth of crowdfunded prizes up for grabs. It's no surprise, given Dota 2's Steam domination. So it only makes sense that Valve should consider the same treatment for some of its other properties. Obviously, a Counter-Strike international tournament would not go astray.
Speaking in a video interview with Prodota.ru, Valve's Erik Johnson indicated that the company is giving serious thought to the possibility.
I don t know if it would be called The International, but the guys working on Counter-Strike made a lot of progress on supporting the professional community around that game, Johnson said. We all work at the same company and share a lot of ideas, and given how successful this tournament has become I don t see any reason why a lot of the same things couldn't be applied directly to Counter-Strike.
Johnson didn't confirm outright, of course, but it seems a no-brainer that Valve should instate a similar competition for the enduring tactical shooter: it had 9 million players as of April. An impressive number for sure, but nonetheless dwarved by Dota 2's 26 million.
Thanks Gamespot.
 

Every Friday, the PC Gamer team pile into the war room to fight over the best and worst of the last seven day's in gaming. Up first, the best bits. Read them quick, before the bombs fall...

THE HIGHS

Tom Senior: Cutting the nonsense out of Assassin s Creed
Assassin's Creed is a series based on an ancient war between Templars and Assassins, relived through a magic machine that lets you run around in genetic memory imprints stabbing historical figures and having coda chats with them in a digital void. That's an acceptable level of strange if I still get to run around beautifully rendered bits of history, but after that great big guff-pill I'm invited to swallow a parallel plot involving a precursor race of powerful mega-beings destroyed by an ancient solar flare. It s too much. I am all guffed out.

Thankfully, Assassin s Creed: Unity will take another run at the modern-era metafiction bits that have haphazardly tied the series together since game one. Assassin's Creed 3 brought an ignominious close to Desmond's tale, and Black Flag, which I loved, revisited the modern world with a series of first-person sections that were at least short and intermittent. As much as I d quite like them gone altogether, I m glad Ubi are trying to reset the series and refine their ideas. Hopefully similar pruning will be applied to climbing and the Assassins mostly-redundant combat actions.

Wes Fenlon: Grim Fandango remastered is coming to PC
We knew it was coming there was just no way Double Fine's re-release of PC classic Grim Fandango would stay a Sony exclusive. Still, there was no better news this week than the confirmation that the remastered Grim Fandango is, absolutely, definitely, for sure coming out on PC. Even if Double Fine didn't touch up anything about the game, I'd be happy to see it pop up on Steam. eBay is currently the only way to buy the game, and it's not cheap. But it sounds like Double Fine plans to remaster the game to some extent. I say all it needs is support for higher resolutions and less awkward keyboard controls. Maybe they'll even throw in mouse support, like modders did a few months back. Then Grim Fandango really will be the greatest point-and-click adventure ever made.



Tyler Wilde: Humble 2K Bundle is nutty
For $20, you can get BioShock, BioShock 2, BioShock Infinite, Mafia II, Spec Ops: The Line, The Darkness II, and XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Oh, and The Bureau: XCOM Declassified. You get that, too. Way to one-up the Steam Summer Sale.

Phil Savage: Diving deeper into Dota
I've been watching The International. In itself, that isn't particularly notable, but this year I've been understanding The International too. Valve now run a newcomer's stream, and for those like me with only a passing understanding of the game, it's proven to be an invaluable resource.

Previously, all I knew about Dota 2 s e-sports scene was that when a player activated the ghost boat, it made me happy. Now I know that Kunkka's Ghost Ship is an ultimate skill that not only deals damage, but also provides a rum buff to allies. And I know that its speed makes it difficult to land. And I know that Kunkka pairs well with Shadow Demon, because Disruption complements the Admiral's casting delays. It's given me a deeper appreciation of the game, which further compliments the surface pleasure of seeing a ghost boat sailing across the screen. DIGITAL SPORTS!



Samuel Roberts: Alien resurrection
The news that Alien: Isolation will feature two additional episodes based on the 1979 movie is, I think, the only DLC announcement of the past year that has made (most) people genuinely excited. Reuniting key members of the cast, including Sigourney Weaver (!) who actually seems pretty impressed by the story Creative Assembly has created, it makes me wish the entire film could be adapted into Alien: Isolation s run-and-hide paradigm. Either way, with both episodes confirmed to be on-sale after release, whether you pre-order or not, the idea behind this shows Creative Assembly is on the right track in pleasing the film s massive audience.

Cory Banks: Microsoft Flight Sim and X-Plane coming to Steam
One of my first PC games was surprisingly realistic: playing Microsoft Flight Simulator on my uncle s blazing-fast 386. It was inscrutable: how do you turn the plane on? How do you make it go forward? He had a giant manual sitting on the desk, and I searched for every keyboard shortcut needed to finally get a Cessna up in the air. And then I crashed both the plane and the PC.

So it s a blast from the past to have Dovetail bring MS Flight Sim X to Steam. And even better for true flight sim fans, X-Plane 10, the newer, better flight simulation, will also land on Valve s service. The timing is perfect, since the recent surge in space combat sims has more and more PC gamers thinking about new flight sticks. I don t know if I ll ever master actually landing a plane, but I ll definitely spend a weekend trying.





THE LOWS

Phil Savage: Hobby-grade word jumble
When a new lane-pusher is announced, the PC Gamer team reacts variously with indifference, scepticism and uncontrollable screaming. But for me, the low point of the week wasn't the reveal of Gearbox s Battleborn. Instead, it was what Randy Pitchford said about Battleborn.

Battleborn is: FPS; hobby-grade coop campaign; genre-blended, multi-mode competitive e-sports; meta-growth, choice + epic Battleborn Heroes!

I don't know what half of that means, but I do know that hobby-grade makes me angry. The whole statement says nothing. It's a mash of meaningless buzzwords; a grab-bag of Zeitgeist-chasing non-entities that capture little of what a game is or means or can be.

Also, in Battleborn's press release, Pitchford called Borderlands 2 a shooter-looter . Randy Pitchford has broken words.

Samuel Roberts: Kinect for?
I am baffled by the $199/ 159 price tag for Kinect 2.0 on Windows. To put it context, this is pretty much the same unit that Microsoft has made optional with Xbox One very recently, and is now being sold on eBay pre-owned for under 40. While I m really looking forward to seeing what developers do with it on PC based on hacks of the original Kinect, I can t help feeling like 100 would be a fairer price.



Cory Banks: Trolls kill Divinity: Original Sin s global chat
I ve played almost 60 hours of Larian s fantastic Divinity: Original Sin, and I don t feel like I m anywhere near the end. But I ve been stuck a few times, and it would have been nice to have a helping hand. Larian founder Swen Vincke, who I spoke to earlier this week, says the developer originally included a Global Chat feature in the game for just such a reason. But because people are awful to each other in chat rooms, Larian turned global chat off. After the surge of jerks dies down, the team may turn the feature back on, but right now it s still off. Thanks for ruining it for the rest of us, trolls.

Wes Fenlon: Alien: Isolation's VR support is only a demo
The best thing I played at E3 2014 was probably Lucky's Tale, the charming Oculus Rift 3D platformer. The second best thing I played, though, was Alien: Isolation, which becomes even more frighteningly claustrophobic and tense with an Oculus Rift strapped to your head. Our recent preview of Alien: Isolation on the Rift conveys just how much physicality VR adds to the experience. After 10 minutes, I was convinced that was how I wanted to play the entire game. So I'm bummed to hear Sega say that right now, the VR build is just a prototype, and there are no plans to fully support the Oculus Rift for the final game. Maybe that's just because the consumer Oculus Rift headset will launch sometime after Alien: Isolation. When that headset is out, I hope Sega and Creative Assembly update the game to support it. This is how horror games are meant to be played.



Tom Senior: Clueless about Dwartress
I am my own low this week, for not knowing how to play Dwarf Fortress. It's probably one of the best games on PC, and therefore one of the best games in existence a limitless story generator that simulates extraordinarily detailed fantasy worlds. It just takes a day or two to learn, and this week's update should make it more newb-friendly than ever, once the Starter Pack mods and applications have been updated to work with the 2014 build. I'm going to devote some time this weekend to finally learning how to play properly. Hopefully I'll be enjoying stories like this in no time.

Tyler Wilde: Potato Salad Simulator, anyone?
Crowds do weird things. For instance, a guy asked for $10 on Kickstarter to make a potato salad and raised $45,000 instead. And here s another one: Goat Simulator is the number two bestseller on Steam at 40% off. Goat Simulator is fine, and cheap right now, but for a joke that is kind of funny for a bit, number two on Steam is pretty incredible.

I expect Potato Salad Simulator will be announced any time now. Or has the Simulator joke run its course? What will the next thing be? I know I sound like an old man yelling at a cloud, or like I m mad at other people s success (maybe a little, sometimes), but ironic spending baffles me. If you want a cheap, funny game, grab Zork: Grand Inquisitor from GOG. You ll feel better about it, trust me.

Three Lane Highway is Chris' weekly column about Dota 2.

'Metagame' is a cyberpunkish word for a pretty cloudy and unscientific concept. Which is not to say that it's impossible to get an exact read on a game's competitive landscape, but that sense of certainty is usually unsustainable. The moment a team does something that nobody expects and it works, questions are raised. Figuring out the answers to those questions or watching other people do it is one of the major draws of this part of the hobby. It's natural to chase certainty, to be sure, but it's doubt that creates drama.

Feeling like you'll never understand why decisions are made is pretty natural when you start watching Dota 2, but it doesn't have to be as intimidating as it sometimes seems. The metagame is made of information, and information has a tendency to warp and shift when exposed to people no matter how good at controlling uncertainty they are. Even if you can't think on the level of the best teams, understanding the forces that they're wrestling with is the best way to get a handle how the meta fits together. Memorising patch notes can come later.

Competitive games are fun to watch because players operate in the same uncertain territory as viewers, albeit at a higher level. They have the benefit of experience and talent but they're as vulnerable to trends and assumptions as any other human would be. Dota 2's hero draft phase is exciting because it is essentially a performance of differing interpretations of the metagame at the highest possible level. Where the match itself showcases in-the-moment strategy and execution, the draft is a debate, a cross between theorycraft and poker.

At the beginning of day two of the International playoffs, Dota 2's metagame is as healthy as I've ever seen it. There really isn't a single dominant strategy or style of play, and to the extent that the metagame has stabilised around a few heroes notably Brewmaster, who I'll get to in a bit it's only 'stable' to the extent that attitudes towards a few valued heroes are stable. Yesterday, EG's draft against Fnatic demonstrated that it's still very possible to run unorthodox drafts and dominate games.

The rise of Brewmaster is a good case study in how Dota 2's metagame can twist and genuflect around a single character. As of the end of play yesterday, Brewmaster was sitting on a 98% pick/ban rate. That's extraordinarily high, pushing up against Batrider and Lycan at their peak.

It makes sense. He lanes well and has a high skill ceiling that is attractive to professional players who have the potential to achieve more with the hero than anybody else. He's equally strong as an initiator as he is in defensive engagements, and he's capable of pickoff kills if you're willing to chance that lengthy cooldown on Primal Split. His ultimate, which divides him into three spirits with strong lockdown potential, dominates the psychological landscape of a match whenever it is in play or potentially in play. It's difficult to gang up on somebody who can turn any skirmish into a teamfight. His psychological impact extends beyond the game, too, threatening to shut down pocket strategies before they can begin. And so he's picked or banned 98% of the time.

He's the poster child for a metagame that, at times, feels like an argument between game-turning ultimates Chronosphere, Ravage, Doom and the steady, sustainable power provided by heroes like Lycan. Unstoppable forces and immovable objects, where every team and every region brings its own ideas about what power and durability mean. Brewmaster tends towards the former part of that equation, but the effect of his ultimate is that it creates tremendous sustainable pressure for the length of its long duration. He almost offers the best of both, and that 'almost' is a powerful incentive to draft him. He himself becomes an immovable object in the metagame.

At ESL One, I started to question the Brewmaster pick in some cases, directly to the people who were picking him. His popularity seemed to persist in spite of the number of games where teams simply evaded or pushed through his ultimate, or disabled it entirely with silence. Teams got wise to that long cooldown and realised that if you could survive the duration of Primal Split you'd probably take a tower afterwards. You saw the return of durable counter-initiators like Tidehunter and offlane Doom in defiance of the belief that Brewmaster's dominance was a foregone conclusion.

But I doubt we'll see a decline in the hero's popularity because it has become so entrenched in the current meta. The power of silencing and killing Brewmaster before he can split has created space in the metagame for Doom, Silencer, and particularly Skywrath Mage, whose sudden preeminence feels a bit like every team captain showed up to the pocket strat party wearing the same costume. Even when Brewmaster is being banned from almost every game he isn't picked in, the impact of the thinking that went into countering him is felt. That's the key to beginning to understand the metagame: thinking not just about who counters what, but how success establishes precedents that players have to respond to, one way or another, for weeks or months afterwards.

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