Valve – little-known Washington-based developers of Richochet and Alien Swarm – have been working on another project for the past couple of years. It’s a remake of an obscure mod called “Defense Of The Ancients”. This unlikely sequel has been a surprise hit, with “computer gamers” from all over the world saying that it’s “quite good” and “maybe I’ll play just a bit more”. This rash streak of acceptance has recently culminated in a championship of some kind, mysteriously dubbed “The International 2012″.

Valve took their camcorders and video-phones along to capture the event – which took place in some kind of space center – as you can see below. (more…)

By my estimate, there are 327 billion videogame Halloween events, but they all tend to share a couple commonalities between them: 1) they do the bulk of their grim work before or on Halloween, and 2) many of them sorta aren’t very interesting. DOTA 2, though, has dumped out its pumpkin pale to reveal an entire new mode, complete with its own mysteeeeeerious> metagame. Meanwhile, it’s keeping the festivities going until… well, nobody’s really sure. That said, the new items expire on November 12th, so draw your own conclusions. For now, though, let us not worry about that. Instead, let’s turn our doting gazes on poor, malnourished ancient terror Roshan. He lurks beneath the break, million-year-old maw glistening with unquenchable candy lust. Awwww. I kind of want to give him a hug.

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Yesterday saw part one of our brief history of the games which followed in the lanes of DOTA. Part two looks at what happened next.> (more…)

After League of Legends and DOTA, Cara brings us her take on S2′s lane-pushing rival Heroes of Newerth.>

“I AM DRUNK,” [I am Jack's complete lack of surprise - Ed]> I announce on our Mumble voicechat server at ten thirty on a Friday night. “Let’s play Heroes of Newerth.”

“Ugh, I haven’t played it in years,” Airhorse grumbles, though he once paid for an account back when it wasn’t free to play. He has been trying to avoid playing it because it will be the world’s longest patch.

“Well I created a new account specially so I could give my character a joke name,” I say. (They make you pay $10 to change your name, erk.) “And FRAPS is running. So let’s go.” (more…)

Quinns has lost himself in Dota 2 as if it were a Minecraft cave system. Surfacing 90 hours later, we asked him what Dota 2 means. This is what he sent us.> (more…)

A Valve film crew spent the lead up to last year’s debut Dota 2 tournament, The International, following some of the participants as they prepared for the biggest e-sports tournament ever. The result: a documentary about how they managed to overcome the odds and make games their livelihood. You know, I think they deliberately chose those with a slightly tough background to make it interesting. It’s like Rocky, but with games. Now we all know the best Rocky is Rocky 3, because it has Mr T and Hulk Hogan. Rocky 3. Thu-ree. And what game are we all really waiting for? That’s right, Half-Life 3. So we can take from this that somewhere in the trailer for the Dota 2 is the reveal of HL3. Get pausing. (more…)

Battle Arenas is a series in which Cara looks at Multiplayer Online Battle Arena games, and tries to answer why they might have become so popular. She used to play DOTA. A lot. Like, from back in 2003 when it was first released (she is old). Now DOTA clones are everywhere! THEY MUST BE EXAMINED. But first: a little musing on the intricacies of DOTA, the first, the best.> (more…)

Well, this is something of a nice surprise. Once upon a time, Heroes of Newerth – a pretty solid MOBA that can’t shout quite as loudly as genre giants like League of Legends – cast off its price tag and went free-to-play. Now, though, it’s taking things one rather large step further. Following in DOTA 2′s footsteps, HoN’s sending all of its Newerthian heroes into battle with no strings attached. In other words, starting today, every last one’s totally, completely free>.

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Remember when Valve said it was looking to hire all sorts of people from every walk of life – from lowly programmers to the giant-bow-tie-wearingest of fungineers? Well, one bit in there stood out: “And if you’re a first-class economist,” Michael Abrash wrote, ”please> check us out. You’ll have a sandbox with 40 million users, and I promise you’ll never be bored.” Well, apologies to RPS’ substantial> audience of budding TF2 hat economists. That position, you see, has officially been filled.

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Valve have posted some details about DOTA 2′s (previously revealed) free-to-play status, over on the the DOTA 2 blog. They’re pretty upfront about two points: “Dota 2 will not be a pay-to-win game. All the items in the store are cosmetic, and don’t affect gameplay.” But also: “All of the heroes will be available free of charge. We believe restricting player access to heroes could be destructive to game design, so it’s something we plan to avoid.”

Perhaps more interesting still – and something I hadn’t realised – DOTA 2 is already part of the Steam Workshop, meaning folks can submit items just as the have for Team Fortress 2: “If you’re a Dota 2 fan with some artistic skills, here’s your chance to get in on the ground floor of what’s sure to be a vibrant community for years to come, and be able to contribute directly to the game you’re already playing non-stop.”