Dota 2 tournament The International has released its prize pool breakdown for this year's event, with more than $2.7 million now on hand for the competition that begins August 7 in Seattle. While the competition is already well-funded, the prize pool continues to grow as more copies of developer Valve's Interactive Compendium are sold.

Each sale of a single $10 Compendium adds $2.50 to the current prize pool, which currently has the following breakdown for competitors in The International:

1st - $1,363,988
2nd - $600,155
3rd - $272,798
4th - $190,958
5th - $109,119
6th - $109,119
7th - $40,920
8th - $40,920

The Compendium is an interactive e-sports item that is itself a kind of mini-game running parallel to the tournament, in that owners of this special text can attempt to predict winners, collect player cards, and vote on participants in the tournament's all-star match. If the total prize pool reaches the final stretch goal of $3.2 million, Valve has promised Compendium owners the chance to vote on the next Hero to be introduced in Dota 2.

The International main event runs August 7-11 at Seattle's Benaroya Hall and is being streamed in-game as well as at Dota 2's official website. Prelims begin August 3. New to Dota 2? Check out our recent overview of the free-to-play game to get an introduction on what to watch for when the action begins.

Collectors of Dota 2's virtual e-sports bible, The Compendium, have boosted the prize pool for the upcoming International tournament by an extra $1 million. That's not quite as much as Valve themselves have contributed - with them supplying the base $1.6 million that fans have built upon with their Compendium purchases. But then, most International fans don't have Steam's money hose continuously flooding their building.

As a result of Compendium sales - $2.50 of each going directly to the International prize pool - owners have unlocked the penultimate $2.6 million stretch goal, guaranteeing them a new, as yet unrevealed, immortal item. Previous stretch goals have secured new UI skins, taunts, and a chance to vote on an 8 player solo championship, to be held during the tournament. The final stretch goal will be unlocked when the combined total prize pool hits $3.2 million, at which point fans will be able to vote on the next hero. This is also known as: the Techies poll.

There are still a couple of weeks left for that total to be raised. The International starts on August 7th.

The International keeps getting bigger, better, and even more interactive. After releasing the Compendium in May, Valve has pumped out content with Kickstarter-like stretch goals that is guaranteed to be full of awesome. If you’ve ignored all the other awesome features like the free Smeevil courier and the Battle Bonus stretch reward, get ready. Now you can make fantasy teams, collect and stamp player trading cards, and even try to predict the outcome of the tournament.



The coolest feature for me is “The International Fantasy Challenge.” You can make fantasy teams with any of the players attending The International. If your team does well by the end of the tournament, you’ll earn actual items and the right to gloat about your future as a team manager—paging Na’Vi. With a full leaderboard tracking the performance of the player-created fantasy teams, you can root for your favorite real, and fantasy team.



I’ve been ignoring Steam Trading Cards as long as I can, but Valve is making it really hard. If you’ve played Dota 2 recently, you’ve probably noticed player cards dropping along with the usual items and chests. Stamp those cards into your Compendium and you’ll get to customize your International Courier. If you manage to get the whole set Valve will throw you a mythical crab mount.

But wait, there's more! If you’re the type of person who meticulously tracks stats and calculates win percentages based on hero picks, bans, and team compositions you’ll love the fact that you’ve got seven pages of predictions to make about the results of the tournament.

If you plan on watching The International, you might want to grab a copy of the Compendium right now. Check out Valve's post about the changes for more details.

Dota 2 beta invites disappeared from Steam Inventories everywhere this morning, and now we know why. After a lengthy beta during which it became the most-played game on Steam, Dota 2 has launched and is available on Steam for free</a

Although beta invites have, especially recently, been abundant (and buyable) in the year and a half that Dota 2 has been playable, today marks the game's official release by Valve.

If you’re planning on getting into Dota 2 for the first time, check out some of our recent coverage of the game. Get an inside look at the development of Dota 2 or read our comparison of Dota 2 and League of Legends.

MOBA games have been around for a long time, but Dota 2 and League of Legends are the first to regularly pull numbers like the 329,977 concurrent users on Dota 2 and the "over 500,000 peak concurrent players every day on just the EU West" League of Legends server.

You'd think that with the sheer popularity of MOBA games, they'd be easy to break into, but that's usually not the case. Fortunately, this guide is here to help! This article should help you understand the basic concepts that are common to both games as well as the overarching differences.

Already a veteran, but looking to make the switch to LoL or Dota? Find out just what makes the two games so incredibly different.
Start Here
Both Riot’s LoL and Valve’s Dota 2 are free-to-play games. League of Legends is available here and Dota 2 is available here.
Be warned, both of these games have pretty steep learning curves, but it shouldn't take long to grasp the basics.
Glossary


MOBA: Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, a mix between RTS and action with players controlling a single, main character.
Creep or Minion: AI-controlled monsters that are regularly spawned to push down the various lanes.
Farm: The act of killing minions to collect gold; also refers to the number of minions you've killed.
Lane: The paths that run along the top, middle and bottom of the map; also refers to the minion waves in the lane.
Laning Phase: The part of the game where players stay in their respective lanes to farm.
Pushing: Autoattacking and using abilities to kill enemy minions more quickly which causes the lane to literally push towards the enemy turrets.
Split Push: When one or two players split off from the team to push a lane somewhere else on the map.
b: Back—used to tell someone to be careful, literally move back, or return to base.
Skillshot: An ability that needs to be aimed.
Carry: A hero or champion that is farmed or fed and can carry a team to victory.

Basic Gameplay
If you've ever played any sort of RTS, then the basic layout of LoL and Dota should be at least somewhat familiar. These are top-down games where you control your champion or hero alongside four other players in five-on-five fantasy action.

Left-clicking selects units while right-clicking moves your character or attacks. League of Legends uses Q, W, E and R for your main abilities with D and F reserved for summoner spells. Items are assigned to 1-6 by default. Dota 2 does things a little differently with the number keys reserved for control groups—similarly to StarCraft—and Z, X, C, V, B and N bound to your item slots. Some champions with more than four abilities also require the use of other keys like D and F.

Last hitting—delivering the killing blow to a minion—is likely the most fundamental skill you'll have to learn to play either game. Last-hitting minions is your primary means of accruing gold. Wait until the minion gets low enough for you to kill it with a single attack before you hit it. You'll still earn a slow trickle of gold over time, but killing a few extra minions can be the difference between buying the item that you need or missing out on XP for nothing.

It's raining bloody gold!

LoL and Dota 2 do differ in how they reward players for killing players. In both games, killing an enemy player grants gold to everyone who participated in the kill. In League of Legends, the amount of gold a player is worth depends on how many times they've died without getting a kill and whether or not they're on a killing spree. Dota 2 adds to this by punishing the dead player by throwing away some of the unreliable gold that they've earned. Reliable gold is awarded for kills while unreliable gold is gained over time and for killing minions.

The distinction between the two types of gold is reason enough to declare that Dota 2 is a far more punishing game. At the same time, getting kills is quite a bit more rewarding than it is in League of Legends because you gain reliable gold while causing an enemy to lose gold. Not only is it easier to make mistakes in Dota 2, but it's also harder to come back from them.

Burn, baby, burn!

Every single match of Dota 2 or League begins with the laning phase. This generally lasts from the time that minions spawn to anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes into the game. During this time, carry characters spend their time trying to last hit as well as possible. The goal of laning phase is to earn as much gold as possible while harassing your opponent.



Battles are more frequent and abrupt in Dota 2. Once a team commits to a fight, enemies will be stunned and spells will be unleashed. It usually only takes a second or two for the first casualty in a fight. During a game, it's not uncommon to see first blood claimed only a few minutes in. Fights in Dota 2 are quite a bit like food fights—you look around to make sure no one's watching, then let loose a few cups of pudding or an Arcane Bolt or two.

League of Legends is a little less chaotic. The first kill might take place 10 minutes into a match, but that isn't to say that the game is any slower paced. You'll be casting your spells far more often than you do in Dota 2 because of LoL's emphasis on skillshots and low mana costs. Laning is usually a matter of last hitting while throwing out a spell or two to try and push your opponent out of lane.

The later section of both games is reserved for team fighting and coordinated pushes to try and reach the enemy base. As the end of the game approaches, teams usually start to stick together to knock down towers and eventually the base structures—the melee and ranged barracks in Dota 2 and the inhibitors in LoL which strengthens creep waves. Destroying the nexus or ancient is the only way to end the game without forcing a surrender vote.

The ancient—eye of Sauron?—doesn't react well to being attacked.
Champions/Heroes
Although you're given control over a single character in both Dota 2 and LoL, the two games have different ideas of what constitutes a hero or champion.

Playing dodge ball with the ground is a lot more fun than it sounds.

Champions in League of Legends are more likely to have skillshots and spells that can be spammed. As a result, LoL focuses not only on traditional, attack damage (AD) carries, but also on ability power (AP) carries. Unlike in Dota 2, you can buy items that increase the damage output of your abilities in LoL. The laning phase in League games usually involve quite a bit more ability-based harass. Poking your opponent with a skillshot or target spell is reasonable because of the low mana costs that accompany most spells. Every single champion in this game has four main, character-specific spells along with room for two summoner spells; Flash is one spell that you'll see all the time because it lets you jump a short distance in the direction of your cursor.

He's clearly asking for me to push his buttons.

The comparatively lesser emphasis on skillshots doesn't mean that Dota 2 isn't a skill-driven game. It makes up for it by having a diverse pool of heroes that are able to build items to satisfy different roles. Dota heroes have much more explosive power with the ability to execute combos that usually leads to battles that last only a few seconds. These powerful spells come at a cost—the mana required to cast these spells is usually high—which prevents them from being used constantly. Another distinguishing factor of Dota 2's hero pool is the Invoker—playable proof of the wide variety of heroes available in the game. With a total of 14 abilities at his disposal, the Invoker is considered by many to be the most complex character in any MOBA game. Mixing and matching reagents to invoke new spells demonstrates just how versatile and varied Dota 2 heroes can be.

Next page: A quick peek at the map, metagame and itemization options in both games.


Map Layout
Dota 2 and League of Legends have maps with the same basic layouts. Each has a top, middle and bottom lane with 3 layers of turrets in each lane. In between the lanes is the Jungle, which is filled with creep camps that can be killed as an alternate source of gold and experience.

Summoner's Rift is considerably smaller than Dota 2's unnamed map. Two of the main attractions are Baron Nashor and Dragon, massive neutral monsters that provide global gold for the team that kills them. The big monsters are also joined by the Lizard Elder and Ancient Golem who provide buffs when defeated. A dedicated jungler is essential to maintaining control of these buffs as well as the objectives on the map because of Smite—a Summoner Spell that deals massive true damage to monsters.

Runes, Roshan and the abundance of shops are unique to Dota 2. Roshan is Dota 2's version of Baron Nashor and drops the Aegis of the Immortal which will revive the hero holding it with full health and mana upon death. Runes periodically spawn on two designated locations outlined below and can be immediately used or stored in a Bottle. These runes range from a speed boost to double damage for a short time. Another distinction between the two maps is the fact that each side of the Dota 2 map has three shops: a main shop, side shop and a secret shop.

So much for being a secret.
Metagame 
This is where things radically change between the two games. Broadly, Dota 2 and League of Legends are similar. You spend time in a lane farming to prepare for late game team fights. Win a few fights, get a big enough lead and you can end the game by destroying the other team's main base building—the Nexus in LoL and the Ancient in Dota 2.

Then what's the biggest difference between Dota 2 and League? No, it's not the skill required to play, it's actually the feel of the two games. Moving between the two can be awkward even for seasoned players because of the mechanical differences—turning speed, attack and casting animations.

One of the most jarring differences is the basic movement and attacks in Dota 2. To put it bluntly: commands—attacking, moving, casting a spell, and so on—happen more quickly in LoL. Dota 2's longer attacking and casting animations means that to the uninitiated, Dota 2 can feel sluggish.

That's quite a pitching arm—said no one ever.

The usual setup for a game of League is to have a tanky champion in top lane, an AP carry in mid lane, a support and AD carry in bot lane and a jungler to pick up the neutral monsters in the Jungle. Although pro teams mix it up by swapping the physical lane positions, the metagame of League of Legends is fairly rigid.

Dota 2's metagame has a similar, but distinct history that is filled with major changes to the way that lanes work. The current metagame differs between the pros and casual players. Most games have two players in bottom lane, two players in top lane and a player in the middle lane. This can also be swapped to have 1 top, 2 bot, a jungler and a mid or even three bottom, one top and one mid.

The lack of a recall spell and the importance of the Town Portal Scroll in Dota 2 is another huge reason for the differences in strategy. Battles can happen in the blink of an eye in Dota simply because players can move around the map more quickly with Town Portal Scrolls. But in League of Legends, crossing the map in either direction can be a 1- or 2-minute commute. Because the 300-second cooldown Teleport Summoner Spell is the only tool available to you in LoL for warping, team compositions and strategies can be focused almost entirely on split pushing. Both games have slightly varied focuses on what strategies do and don't work.

Death Prophet has the right idea—run!

 

It's obvious why Dota has garnered a reputation as a hardcore game. High ground, creep denial (you can attack your own minions when they're below 50% HP), and the possibility of getting instagibbed when you walk just a touch too far from your tower are nuances that aren't present in League. On the other hand, LoL does have a brush system which renders players invisible to anyone outside of the brush. Plus, being able to Recall to base at any time with a channeling spell changes things too. It may take a while to get back to the lane, but your trip to base should only take a few seconds.
Items
There is a ridiculous assortment of items available to players of both games. Building your hero or champion correctly is a huge part of the MOBA experience.

The types of items available differs slightly between both games. One of the many small differences between the two systems is the presence of item recipes in Dota 2. Buying a recipe while having the necessary items in your inventory will upgrade your pile of junk into a brand new sword—or whatever item the recipe creates. In League of Legends, you purchase the actual upgraded item after collecting all of the prerequisites.

We've already mentioned that Dota 2 lacks any items that increase the pain-inflicting potential of hero abilities, but we haven't talked about items like the Blink Dagger, Aghanim's Scepter and the Scythe of Vyse. Dota 2 is filled with items that have abilities that require activation. Clicking on your Blink Dagger and then clicking on the screen will teleport you a short distance on a fairly short cooldown. Using the Scythe of Vyse on any of your enemies turns them into a helpless little pig. Items like these are essential to the dynamic of Dota 2 because they expand what characters are able to do. It's not uncommon for players to have three or four items that can be activated in their inventory by the end of the game. In fact, many of these active abilities have surfaced in LoL as summoner spells and champion abilities—Flash and Lulu's Whimsy are just two examples.

It's a bird... it's a plane... It's Flash?

League of Legends doesn't have as many crucial active items, but many champions do end up buying items like the Locket of the Iron Solari which shields allies within a small radius upon activation.

Both games have a wide variety of items that have passive abilities as well as abilities that trigger when your character is hit. Buying a Ruby Crystal in League of Legends will give you +180 health whereas a Sapphire Crystal will give you +200 mana. A Last Whisper will make all of your attacks ignore 35% of your target's armor.

Getting the right items can be as simple as selecting from the pool of recommended items or looking up what the pros are building in their games.

Next page: We take a look at how Riot and Valve have been supporting Dota 2 and LoL through monetization, patches and eSports.

Developer Support
Riot and Valve both pump out content updates and patches for their respective games at a breakneck pace although their end goals are quite a bit different.

Above all else, Riot's top priority is to make League of Legends fun—oftentimes at the cost of balance. Sometimes this means removing or adding items, but it can also mean nerfing and buffing champions. One of the clear differences between the balance of LoL and Dota 2 is the season system Riot has created. Every couple of years a new season of League of Legends begins with Season 3 slated to end sometime in 2014. These seasons introduce sweeping changes that drastically alter huge swathes of the champion pool and introduce new items while removing or renovating old ones. At this point in its development, Riot isn't worried about stabilizing the game—instead opting to focus on adding things that makes it more fun.

A massive chalice for the LCS Season 3 champs.

Valve's balancing philosophy revolves around the idea that every aspect of the game should be equally powerful. Each and every hero in Dota 2 has hard counters which makes having the full roster of heroes available to all players an absolute necessity. The idea is that hero selection should be based not only on team synergy, but also on what heroes the enemy team is picking.
Monetization
Both of these games may be free-to-play, but they aren't devoid of alluring ways to spend your money. Neither Dota 2 nor LoL can be classified as "pay-to-win," thank goodness, since none of the things that you can spend real dollars on directly affect gameplay. The main difference between the two is the availability of champions. Dota 2 gives you it's entire roster of over 100 heroes as soon as you load into the game. League of Legends forces you to purchase any champions that aren't in the rotating 10-man roster of free champs.

Keys are the hotcakes of the Dota 2 universe.

Valve has created a Dota 2 store that's a lot like the Mann Co. Store in Team Fortress 2. In it you'll find a multitude of cosmetic items that you can equip on your hero of choice. One of the distinguishing features of the Dota 2 store is its integration with the Steam Workshop, which means that community created items can be swallowed up by Valve and put on sale. HUD skins, announcers and couriers are also all for sale. Although items do randomly drop for players at the end-of-match score screens, the majority of drops are treasure chests which require a paid (or traded-for) key to open.

Buy some new skin for your favorite champions.

League of Legends takes a slightly different approach by having two different in-game currencies: Influence Points (IP) and Riot Points (RP). IP is earned by completing matches whereas RP is the in-game cash equivalent. Unlike Dota 2, LoL features a rotating roster of free champs. Unlocking a champion permanently requires a small mound of IP or RP. In other words, Riot makes money not only from champion skins, but also from champion purchases. Earning enough IP for some of the newer champions is no small feat and most players end up using their IP to buy runes and resorting to RP to buy champions. The store in League of Legends also has XP and IP boosts available on both per-win and per-day increments.

Ultimately, the choice to spend money is yours. Neither game absolutely requires a monetary commitment to enjoy and the paid aspects of each game don't affect gameplay.

Dota 2 and League of Legends may be fierce competitors, but you can find significant differences between them in their mechanics, metagame, combat techniques, and approach to free-to-play. There's a reason why discussions involving both games get so heated—these are distinct games with divergent cultures. If you're looking to pick sides, come read the arguments in our Dota 2 vs LoL face off.

Bad news, fans of getting rich incredibly slowly. Valve have disabled the selling of Dota 2 beta invites through the Steam Market. Previously, for a scant few pence, you were able to buy your way into the beta, bypassing the then £22.99 price tag of the Steam Store. But while there are still places to get invites for free, that they're starting to be phased out suggests we're another step closer to the game's official launch.

The removal was noticed by the folks behind the Steam Database site:

Wanted to get Dota 2 through the Steam Market? Well, you're out of luck. It's disabled and all listings are now slowly being removed.— Steam Database (@SteamDB) July 9, 2013

Last month, Valve wrote: "The first step we’ll be taking is to release a larger set of training features, and retire the existing Dota 2 Invites. The combination of these two things makes now the best time to use any remaining Dota 2 Invites you have to bring your friends in that are unfamiliar with the game. After that, we’ll start allowing all users to join in."

Last week, Valve vastly increased the game's tutorial, and added a new Limited Hero mode to help ease new players into the game.

Back in PC Gamer issue 254, we revealed that Dota 2 was set to be released before this August's International tournament. You can now read the entirety of our huge Dota 2 feature online.

This article was originally published in issue 254 of PC Gamer UK.

As the Radiant ancient explodes, so does the room. A 55-minute game of Dota 2 has just ended in a razor’s-edge victory for the Dire. The kill count is close to even, and both teams’ bases have been levelled by multiple near miss shots at the throne. Four Radiant players are in the Dire base when the match ends, but they can’t outrun the damage being done to their ancient by a single player, the undead horseman Abaddon, whose attacks are augmented by the three Divine Rapiers in his inventory.
"The reward for learning to play is learning to see."
If you’re not a Dota player, that probably doesn’t mean very much to you. If you are, you’ll understand that a man with three rapiers is an improbable, precarious and powerful product of the forces of order and chaos at work in every Dota match.

The outcome’s sheer unlikelihood is why the room – a regular office, lights dimmed, non-players working in silence – has suddenly burst into a spontaneous round of cheers. Chairs are kicked back, headphones are torn off. For anyone with the requisite understanding, it’s a spectacular upset. The human mind’s ability to glean a narrative of chance and triumph from the movements of a little internet wizard is the key to understanding Dota 2’s popularity. Moments like this are why hundreds of thousands of people, myself included, invest so much time in the game: the reward for learning to play is learning to see.

Afterwards I’m told by one of the players that the match ranks in the top five percent of games they’ve ever played. He should know: he’s one of Dota 2’s animators. The room we’re in is the office at Valve’s Bellevue headquarters where Dota 2 is made. When you think of Valve, you probably don’t think of whooping developers trading high-fives over desks, but it’s an image that helps to explain why the biggest company in PC gaming chose to remake a Warcraft III mod.

I spent a single day in Bellevue, and we talked Dota over lunch, talked Dota in the corridors, talked Dota around PCs where programmers worked while streaming a professional match on a second monitor. We talked Dota while playing Dota and eventually even managed to talk Dota in something resembling a formal interview. I’ve met plenty of developers who were enthusiastic about their work, but I’ve met very few whose enthusiasm has the egoless quality of fandom, who talk as if they’re not responsible for the game they’re praising.
"We interviewed and were a little confused about why we hadn’t hired him before."
In part, of course, that’s the case. The original fan-made Defence of the Ancients was simply a post-work diversion for a number of Valve employees. That set the company on the road to Dota 2, but it was meeting the mod’s steward, IceFrog, that prompted their first steps.

“The only way we make any decisions is based on the people who work here,” explains Erik Johnson, whose company bio lists him as one of Valve’s ‘business development authorities’. “We interviewed and were a little confused about why we hadn’t hired him before.”

“In many ways it follows in the footsteps of Team Fortress, Portal, Counter-Strike,” says Doug Lombardi, vice president of marketing (a role that grants him that rarest of things at Valve: a job title.) “Somebody had this great nut of an idea and Valve took an interest and offered them the resources to take it to the next level. The only difference is the genre.”

Johnson interjects: “Also the appeal of making a game that wasn’t first person! Making a game in a fantasy world as opposed to science fiction – that was kind of exciting, too.”



Valve’s take on the DotA formula is faithful to the mod, but it is not a tribute act. “We could change as much as we wanted but a lot of good choices had already been made,” Johnson tells me. “We couldn’t convince ourselves that much needed to change.” Instead, Dota 2 is characterised by tweaks and recalibrations: from balance changes to a smarter, more intuitive interface.

In redesigning 108 well-loved heroes for a new game – heroes who were in the first instance based on Blizzard-owned characters – Valve have mixed their own eye for personality with an smart reading of the tastes of DotA players.
"Valve’s take on the DotA formula is faithful to the mod, but it is not a tribute act."
“The community had built up so much emotional attachment over the years,” Johnson says. “If you play Dota, your mind’s-eye representation of the hero you’re playing is pretty fantastic, right? People would talk about that online and it was useful for us to draw on – how heroes should look and sound, what their personality should be.”

As with Valve’s science fiction, there’s an off-kilter style to Dota 2 that prevents it from feeling too familiar. The team made a conscious effort to draw from sources beyond European mythology, and the roster coheres more by virtue of its careful art direction than the fiction written to support it. It’s classy, and with a few exceptions dodges the porny fan-art feel that hinders its rivals, League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth (and the original DotA, to an extent.)

Dota 2 is also very funny. Valve learned from Team Fortress 2 that humour helps to balance the tone of a competitive game, and the way the community talked about each hero in DotA 1 influenced how those characters were written in the sequel. Troll Warlord’s backstory is a thinly veiled metaphor for the behaviour of certain types of people in internet comment threads. Earthshaker will occasionally quote directly from legendary punk RPG Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden. When he uses his ultimate ability, Tusk has a chance to say any one of 83 recorded variants on the phrase “walrus punch!” Puns abound.

Acknowledging community in-jokes is a deliberate attempt to build trust, Johnson says. “It’s a way for us to tell the community that we get it, that we are paying attention, that we are at least as big fans of this thing as you are.”



“Designers here really like Dota as a product,” he continues. “There are subtleties to the design. For example, you have a huge number of heroes but only ten are played at once – that leaves a lot of latitude in the design choices you can make.” It also necessitates a vast amount of playtesting, and that bolsters the need for a close relationship with the community. Dota 2 has been played in a beta form since early 2011, the community beginning as a small group of DotA veterans. It’s now the most-played game on Steam.

“We all want to work on games that as many people have fun playing as possible,” Johnson says. “It’s just riskier to make a product that you’re going to spend a lot of time on in secret without showing anyone, versus working right there with the community and seeing their reactions to everything you do. Above all else, we want to feel like our time – which is our most valuable resource – is being spent efficiently.”
"After more than two years of testing, Dota 2 will be formally released later this summer."
It seemed a bit crass to bring up Half-Life 3 this long after the fact – so I didn’t – but Johnson’s remarks reflect the way that Valve has changed as a company. The things that make Dota 2 a Valve game – a mix of grassroots enthusiasm and exemplary individual talent, reinforced by a love of statistics and crowdsourcing – are all less applicable to the series that made the company’s name. These qualities don’t contradict one another: Valve’s designers seem to enjoy the challenge of working on a competitive game, and gain satisfaction from the surety of movement that their vast amount of crowd-sourced data offers them.

After more than two years of testing, Dota 2 will be formally released later this summer, prior to the International tournament in August. It’s likely that the last two heroes to be added to the game before release will be Abaddon – a melee hero with a great deal of utility and survivability – and Legion Commander. Legion’s Dota 2 incarnation is possibly the most significant reinvention to date, evolving from a male knight on horseback to a halberd-wielding female foot-soldier with long banners trailing from her armour. Johnson anticipates that the remaining DotA heroes will be added in the months following the International, at which point Valve’s long conversion work will be at an end.

The game is ready to drop the ‘beta’ tag, but there are still questions to be answered. Dota 2 can be punishing, confusing for new players, and flat-out unpleasant from time to time. Valve’s solutions to these problems have been practical but tentative – such as community generated in-game guides, a reporting system for player behaviour, and sophisticated matchmaking that takes into account skill level, the amount of people you’re playing with, and prior conduct. Yet there are still unflinching orthodoxies in Dota’s design – the across-the-board lack of a surrender option, for example – that seem to contradict Valve’s assertion that it’s possible to please everybody with a sufficiently responsive approach.



“It’s tricky,” Johnson tells me. “There is a balance... Dota’s a competitive game, and people are deeply invested in it, so losing is not fun, but the people who are winning are probably having a lot of fun. We don’t want to dampen both sides of that equation. One of the things we never want to lose is the amazing comeback, like the game we just played – both sides probably would have surrendered in that game at certain points. That would have been a robbery of fun.”

If there’s a weakness to Valve’s methodology, it’s not that they have faith in the wisdom of crowds, but that any crowd is comprised of individuals – and individuals are perfectly capable of behaving and reacting unreasonably. The argument against data-led design says that the customer is always right, and that if an individual customer has a bad time then it doesn’t matter what the graph says. It’s telling, then, that Valve don’t see Dota 2’s players as customers – at least, not in the sense that they are Valve’s customers.
"We look at every single person in the game as creating user generated content."
“We look at every single person in the game as creating user generated content,” Johnson says. “A person who just plays the game is generating some value for the other nine people playing. It’s not something they can sell, but it’s content they’re creating.”

Dota 2 is built around these transactions, beginning at the individual player level, passing through the Workshop – where usercreated cosmetic items begin their journey to the in-game store, earning six-figure sums for some – all the way to the competitive scene, dispersed among dozens of tournament showrunners who sell tickets and merchandise through the game client. These surrounding systems are a vital part of Dota 2’s identity – they’re game mechanics too, in a sense. Johnson describes Valve’s responsibility to a player who is having a bad time in the same way he talks about Valve’s responsibility to its business partners. Valve are just as likely to invest in finding a new way to reward good behaviour as they are to add a new hero.

“Professional players are the next step,” Johnson says, addressing a flaw in Dota 2’s current structure. “The amount of value they’re creating is extraordinary. I don’t think we’re close to accurately compensating those players for the value they’re creating. That’s something we want to turn our focus to.”



Johnson uses business terms to describe Dota 2 – it’s a product, a network of creators and consumers exchanging value. There’s a calculating intelligence to its design – but that is appropriate, in a sense, because Dota is very much a numbers game. Watch a professional match and observe how economic momentum is as much a measure of a player’s performance as kills and deaths. Commentators are just as likely to get excited about a character pulling ahead on a graph as they are a particularly skilful play. Valve’s attitude to Dota 2 has a similar ring to it. I get the impression that the development of the game is part business, part fantasy football.

“I’m not trying to be self-deprecating, but there was no grand strategy,” Johnson says. “There’s a bunch of people here who were huge fans of DotA 1. We wanted to make that game, and thought we could do a good job of it.”

If any company is in a position to justify a passion project, it’s the one sitting on top of Steam. As it happens, Dota 2’s snowballing popularity makes it less likely to drain Valve’s swimming pool full of money and more likely to bankroll the construction of a water slide.

The word that I keep coming back to is ‘trust’. The community, by and large, trusts Valve; and Valve trust the input they receive from their community. They also trust in the quality of the game itself, in IceFrog, and in the notion that there’s a huge potential audience for a game this absurdly complicated. They have a ‘build it and they will come’ attitude to the International that, again, seems predicated on trust. This apparent innocence might well be deceptive, but there’s no better expression of it than a room full of smart people cheering because a zombie on a horse carrying three magic swords has just blown up a giant glowing bonsai tree.

“We look at Dota as a product whose lifespan is further out than we can think about usefully,” Johnson tells me when I pry for details of longterm plans. “We just assume that it’s going to be around forever.”

The picture - the header of our Thief review from 1999 - may be a bit of a giveaway, but why not? It's Friday, after all. We can indulge in a little bit of misty-eyed nostalgia without fear of our bosses asking us why we're staring wistfully into space and making bow and arrow and mimicking guard-clubbing animations over and over again. That's the sort of freedom only the weekend can bring. Here's what we're planning to play between now and Monday, but what will you indulge in?

We like to live on the cutting edge here at PC Gamer, so this weekend Phil will be playing a bright new thing from Looking Glass called Thief: The Dark Project. Apparently it has these things called polygons and features lots of emergent crime and - wait - it's not 1998? Oh well, that's okay, Phil's planning to modernise it with the NewDark patch, which should help it run on his fancy pants modern computer box (it's not even beige!). He likes stealth. He likes crime, but he's never played the original Thief, so it should be an interesting education. Will cudgelling those broad, sharp-shouldered guards prove as interesting in a post-Dishonored/Deus Ex: Human Revolution world? We'll see.



Rich, meanwhile, is still playing Rogue Legacy from last week, but is also planning to dip back into Dota 2 to relax. Okay, maybe not relax. to hone his sense of focus in a highly competitive arena, which is Rich's equivalent of a summer break, really. Dota 2 fans can look forward to a proper release for Dota 2 in the coming month or so. The release itself is largely symbolic given the number of invites swimming around players' Steam inboxes, but it might come with a significant update and new heroes. Beyond that, there's The International 3. I'm determined to learn enough about Dota 2 before then to understand what is going on. I'd like to get in on the cheers and excitement triggered by plays like these:



I was lucky enough to review Saints Row: The Third, and liked it very much indeed, which is why I'm excited that Chris is going to give it a go this weekend. He's played the (very funny) opening hours, but there's so much yet to discover, the laser-shooting VTOL jets, that whole section set inside a computer, the bit with the tiger. After just a few hours, you have more toys than Batman, and the city is yours to boss. It's a riotous little power fantasy, elevated by a lust for silliness and a sense of abandon that, for some reason, reminds me of Dead Rising. I'm pretty sure there wasn't a penis bat in Dead Rising, though. FOR SHAME.



Graham will spend the weekend peering over a fine glass of port, listening to Tchaikovsky and calmly taking over the world with art in Civilization V: Brave New World. The second expansion, due out next week, adds new cultural victory conditions, and lets you use great artists in more interesting ways. If he doesn't come back to work in a top hat and start lecturing us on renaissance values then I will be surprised, and just a little bit disappointed.



Apparently it's going to be gloriously sunny here over the weekend, to which I say NO. I demand RAIN and TRENCH COATS. Evocative sci-fi adventure game Gemini Rue will answer the call, giving my mouse pointer control over the fate and actions of a hardboiled space-detective and an imprisoned amnesiac. Will our jump-suited captive regain his memories? Will our coated friend escape the clutches of the sinister Boryokudan? Will I ever master the fiddly cover-based gun combat system? Don't look at me, I'm only a few hours in. I might just stand in one of those beautifully drawn streets and listen to the rain for a while instead.



That's us, but how do you plan to escape the sunshine this weekend?

Dota 2 continues to send out wave after wave of update, as part of Valve's plan to knock over the big fiery tower between them and an official release. I'm assured that's how game development works. The latest patch bolsters the beta's previously lackluster tutorial - giving newbies a chance to play Sniper in a round-up of more advanced lessons. But this week isn't just focused on players in their first hour: a new deal with Twitch.tv will let you watch tournaments through the streaming service while still accruing those precious Dota 2 rewards.

Six new tutorial missions have been added - a welcome addition to Dragon Knight's basic, and arguably counter-productive opener. These will take new players through the basics of towers, the courier, and seemingly all the other peculiarities of the genre. After this, a new Limited Heroes mode will let players loose on the world with a reduced selection of 20 characters - giving a smaller, more understandable base pool to learn before stepping up to the full roster.

Valve also struck a deal with streaming giant Twitch.tv this week. Twitch users can now link their account to their Steam profile, allowing them to earn tournament drops while viewing streams through the site, instead of just inside the in-game client. As Twitch point out: "No longer will you have to to choose between watching events on either DotaTV or Twitch, and risk missing out on your in-game rewards."

"We realize that people have different reasons why they prefer to watch in game or via streams and wanted to bridge the gap of features they were missing out on by choosing the service that works for them the most," write Valve.

If new tutorials were the push you needed to jump into a lane, you can ask this lovely robot for a key.

Of all the things Valve have done, the 'have-the-community-make-their-own-cosmetics' movement that started with Team Fortress 2, might be the smartest. By creating an ecosystem in which item-makers can profit, Valve have effectively allowed their community to hire itself to expand their game. Though still in beta, Dota 2 enjoys a constant influx of stuff. Every update bristles with new couriers, announcer packs, weaponry and other decorative paraphernalia. With that inevitable release date drawing inexorably closer each day, the momentum of production only seems to be increasing. But, who are the people behind the work?

"It’s one of the best, most straightforward ways for 3D artists to profit from what they’ve made."

To date, item creators have collectively made millions from getting their wares into Valve games. We speak to top item makers who have made significant profits on the Dota 2 workshop, from beginners who have just started modelling with no training, to seasoned professional artists who work for big-budget studios and create Dota 2 items on the side. They say that selling Dota 2 items "it’s one of the best, most straightforward ways for 3D artists to profit from what they’ve made." How did they get started? How do new items come together? How does Valve decide which Steam Workshop items make it into the game? Let's find out.

Getting started as an item-maker isn't a complicated as you might think. Mrpresident's first encounter with a 3D program was a mere 10 months ago when he made his first virtual box. "I was a huge fan of Dota and I'd always wanted to learn how to 3D model," he says "so, I spent a lot of time watching Anuxi and other stream their workflow process on twitch, and tried to practice their techniques and methods."

A firm believer in the educational properties of the twitch streams, mrpresident is one of the many who have taught themselves the art of 3D modeling. Similarly, Vladimir > the implyer, as he is known on Steam, never received a formal education in the field.



"I started modeling early - way before Max 6." Vladimir explains. "I got some books, learned the basics, modeled some teapots and islands made of primitives. At some point, I also began researching some original Half-Life assets, making Morrowind models and it was a lot of fun." Team Fortress 2's hat sales inspired him to start modelling for Valve games. "I always wanted a hat," he says, "but I was kinda late to that party. After the DOTA 2 workshop launched, I decided I should try my hat-making skills there."

Vladimir is arguably one the prolific figures in the Dota 2 workshop community. Clocking in a substantial 259 submissions ("I deleted some stuff, otherwise the count would be closer to 300."), Vladimir has made a name for himself competing with trained, professional 3D artists.

Australia-based Stephanie Everett, otherwise known as Anuxiamoon is one such individual. Her resume encompasses six years of experience in the game industry and big names like Trion Worlds. Of all the contributors, only she alone received the distinct honour of being assigned a 'chest' of her own. Originally too busy to join the ranks of the Dota 2 workshop contributors, Anuxiamoon first began participating in the creation of Dota 2-related items when Polycount announced a competition. She ended up submitting five sets to the event, the last of which made its way into the top ten.



"I had a block of free time open between freelance projects so I took advantage of that and entered the competition. At first, I had no idea what I was doing, but when you do something new, you always have no idea what you're doing, anyway."

"He earns enough to make full-time development of Dota 2 items a viable profession"

Chemical Alia and DrySocket, firm friends and co-conspirators, are veterans of the gaming industry as well. DrySocket claims over nine years of experience in making games. Chemical Alia currently works for a big-budget studio. For DrySocket, the Workshop is a place of experimentation, an avenue to explore quick ideas in his free time. Chemical Alia, on the other hand, began manufacturing items after being requested to produce work for the Dota 2 workshop.

"I originally got into making custom content for Valve games through Team Fortress 2. The TF2 Polycount contest led to a set for a Spy getting into the game, and that was pretty cool." Chemical Alia recalls. "I ended up getting involved in Dota 2 item creation pretty early, with some Valve folks requesting me to make a set of items, which were released alongside the Dota 2 workshop."

Though it might appear otherwise, Dota 2 item creation is serious business. 25% of total sales might not sound like much, at first, but the numbers do add up. Benjamin Retter, also known as BrontoThunder on Steam, says he earns enough from his creations to make full-time development of Dota 2 items a viable profession – a dream come true, for him. With such high stakes in play, it's unsurprising to learn that tensions do exist. Months where only a sparing number of items are accepted can, according to mrpresident, inspire high emotions.





“Mostly, people get frustrated about their own stuff not being accepted. It's gotten better recently but there have been times where two months pass by without a single accepted item and then, when they do accept items, it may be three or so sets out of the 10+ that deserve to be accepted that were submitted in the past two months. If someone has been submitting high-quality work for months and nothing get nothing get accepted,they get understandably frustrated and discouraged at the system, especially since Valve has been very quiet about how the selection process works.” Mrpresident sighs.

When asked about what he knows in regards to Valve's acceptance policies, Mrpresident offered a blunt, “Zero information.”

"There is a very strong distinction between an amazing piece of art and an amazing Dota 2 item."

“The official art guide is a good place to start but they will still pick items that break the art guide to a certain degree if they and the community like the item/set enough, but sticking to the guide will give you a higher chance of getting accepted. Some people have tried to figure out patterns but it appears to be almost random. My best guess has been that they look at the first few pages of highest community upvoted items and then select the items they like from there.”

Retter argues that a lack of style understanding can be a barrier to new artists. “There is a very strong distinction between an amazing piece of art and an amazing Dota 2 item. The most successful contributors to Dota 2 aren't those who are the absolute best artists, they are the ones who understand what works well within the restrictions Dota 2 has; How does it look from the in-game perspective? Does it fit the lore of the character? Are the colors balanced with the rest of the character? Does it animate well? Is it too distracting? Generally, if an item is popular and fits all of the criteria Valve has provided it won't be long until it's in the game but there are always exceptions to that rule.”

Given the community that its serving, it's unsurprising to learn that competitiveness is omnipresent.We are talking about Dota 2, after all. Chemical Alia notes: “The general culture among contributors is sort of a weird mix. One side of it is pretty constructive/supportive of other artists, but it can get angry and borderline hostile at times.”

One of Vladimir's works.

But while rivalries still exist, things appear better than before. Vladimir describes the past of the community as one steeped in grudges, split loyalties and 'a lot of passive aggressive shenanigans.' “Thankfully now most of the contributors are pretty friendly and everyone tries to learn from every other contributor. “

Whatever the eccentricities of the Workshop acceptance rate, for many, creating and submitting their work is a good way to learn, expose new work to community feedback and, of course, make money.

"Normally, when you make assets for a game, there’s no personal investment in how it does."

“I believe it's one of the best, most straightforward ways for 3D artists to profit from what they've made. Normally, when you make assets for a game, there's no personal investment in how it does. The Dota workshop creates a way for artists to learn, to showcase their abilities, AND to make money. “ DrySocket enthuses, a sentiment echoed by Retter who professes that the community is the number one reason he is making items for Dota 2.

As for what actually goes into the creation of a Dota 2 item, the design process seems to differ from person to person. For modellers like Retter, spontaneity is the primary ingredient. “Sometimes I'll know I want to make items for a specific hero and so I'll open up Photoshop and just start painting over the hero without any specific design in mind, creating interesting shapes and silhouettes until something clicks, and then move into 3D once I feel I've developed it enough.

"Other times I've either been playing or watching a Dota 2 game and I'll be hit with a burst of inspiration for a certain item or design which I feel would look really cool on a hero, these ones are usually my more successful designs, or at least, the ones I'm most proud of. I've just recently got into the habit of writing these ideas down when they come to me so I have a backlog of ideas to work through instead of stopping and starting every time I finish an item or set.”



“Usually I just get a random spark of an idea which sweeps me up and I ride it as long as I can.” Anuxiamoon quips. “For Dota 2, I sometimes do a semi meditative think process, where in the chaos of my brain I find shapes and lines and ideas that I think would work well. Whether they do or not is something I then figure out during my brainstorm sketch process. If you could see my sketchbooks, they are filled with scribbles and ideas for lots of Dota 2 Heroes.”

"The process can take anywhere from three days to a week."

With others, it's a more streamlined procedure. Chemical Alia and DrySocket frequently collaborate together on projects. “The first thing we normally do is brainstorm. Here are a few of the things we'll consider: what characters are newly available to the store, what characters already have awesome recently sets, which characters contrast with the sets we've already made so they can keep things fun, what characters are popular with the player base and so on. From there, we brainstorm set ideas, become acquainted with the character through the models, lore and voice acting. Then, we start drawing a whole bunch of ideas until we settle on a final design.”

The process, according to the pair, can take anywhere from three days to a week. “After that point we split up the work, where each of us takes about half the set and does the high poly, low poly, texturing, everything. We'll bring it all back together again once that's done, take a consistency pass over the textures to make sure it all feels right, and start on our marketing shots. You'd be surprised how much work there is actually besides making the models that you see in Dota! Testing takes forever, and making the actual promotion shots always takes longer than expected.”

Some of Chemical Alia's courier concepts.

Dry quips, half mournfully. “My girlfriend does NOT like it when I say 'I'm almost done' because she never believes it anymore.”

"I see the Workshop community as more a group of gamers, rather than artists."

On top of harsh critique from their peers and personal obligations, Dota 2 item-makers must contend with the general public, a group composed of the frequently vilified players of Dota 2. While some rail against the acid so commonly associated with that demographic, others take it in stride.

“They're a pretty opinionated bunch, but I think that's to be expected because they care about the game and what content goes into it. I see the Workshop community as more a group of gamers, rather than artists. So, while the feedback we get from them might not be the most technically insightful or artistically constructive, it still gives us an idea of how your average Dota 2 player responds to your work and that is a super important metric.” DrySocket remarks.

“There's definitely this strange relationship between contributors and their fans.” Mrpresident says. “You wouldn't believe how many times I and others have been told to "read the art guide" as if people that have sunk hundreds of hours into item creation somehow haven't taken 15 minutes to read the art guide, and then intentionally try to push it and see if Valve likes it.”