Dota 2 fails 69

Dota 2 fails 69

To show you how much we love you, and how much you are in our hearts, and how damn sorry we are for ruining Valentine’s Day, we thought we’d share with you the final concept designs for three upcoming heroes: Lone Druid, Lycan, and Shadow Demon.

In an upcoming post, we’re going to dive into the actual process that leads up to these final designs, so you can get a sense for how we approach the problem of hero design.

It’s not you, it’s us!

Yep, we’ve done it again. There will not be an update today.

Now, before you start a petition to get us all fired, let us tell you what is going on. You are probably aware that the number of people with access to Dota 2 is not equal to the size of the Earth’s population (our internal estimate of the number of people who want Dota 2). The primary reason we haven’t allowed everyone access to the game is because we don’t yet have enough server capacity to run all the games it would require. Our server deployment team has spent the last few months flying around the world setting up new server clusters to increase that capacity.

The extensive network changes we’ve been working on, to support the new replay system among other things, has resulted in significant changes to our servers. This is why we’ve taken longer than anticipated to get this update out. It’s also the reason why we’ll be needing to take down all Dota 2’s servers for 24 hours, starting Tuesday 14th at 11am PST.

On the bright side, our game team has been working as usual, building new heroes and features. So you can expect our next update, which we’re probably going to regret saying will be out next week, to be a packed one. In the meantime, here’s some light reading: https://developer. valvesoftware. com/wiki/Valve_Time

We got nothing (today)

We are working on a new update process that will allow us to build new features while minimizing the risk of destabilizing the game for everyone. To achieve this we are creating a new version of the game specifically for testing purposes. Everyone that has access to Dota 2 will find the new test version in their Steam games library, under the name “Dota 2 Test”. Instead of releasing the new content directly to Dota 2 each week, we will put it on this Test version first, where we’ll be monitoring it for any glaring issues. The week afterwards, we will update Dota 2 with the previous week’s Test version (while also releasing more new content in the Test).

As a result of this, both versions of the game will be getting updated each week. If you want to help test the new content, or just try it out ahead of time, you can play on “Dota 2 Test”. If you are more interested in stability and don’t mind being a week behind on new content and features, then you can keep playing Dota 2 as normal.

Unfortunately, the switch from previous update process to this one has been a little tricky, as we get the back end set up for Test, so there’ll be no update today. We still hope to have an update ready in the next few days.

My bones ache for vengeance

Clinkz the Bone Fletcher has risen from his grave and from the looks of him, he looks a bit upset.

We’ve been glued to our monitors watching the matches coming out of The Defense, make sure you stop by and check them out.

Next week we will change the way we ship new content to you every week. As mentioned in our previous update, old replays will stop working then, so don’t forget to save your favorite moments out to a video format.

Lastly, patch notes can be found here.

So begins a new age of knowledge

This week we welcome the return of one of Dota’s most versatile heroes: Invoker!

In addition to the usual set of fixes and additions, this update also enables your Dota Profile page, which you can reach by clicking on your name in the mini-profile. You can also check out other player’s profiles by clicking on their names throughout the UI. On your profile you’ll find a variety of information about your Dota history, including links to replays of your recent games, your favorite heroes, commendations you’ve received from other players, and so on. Check it out, and let us know what else you’d like to see on there.

Also, a heads up about a change that’ll be coming in an update in the next week or two: we’ll be changing the replay format to a significantly better one, which will allow us to support a richer set of features when you’re watching a replay. The unfortunate side effect of the format change is that all old replays will not be watchable. We don’t anticipate ever needing to do this again, because the new format is much more stable. So, if you’ve got a favorite moment in an existing replay, make sure you record it out into a video within the next week.

You can find the latest changelog here.

A hush falls on the battlefield.

We now return to your regularly scheduled programming, starting with the longest changelist we’ve ever composed. If you were to stack all the text in this changelog it would reach the Mad Moon and back.

First things first: Spirit Breaker and Silencer have arrived.

Today’s update also includes several features we are really excited about. First, we’ve incorporated the latest Dota 6.73 changes, including 5 new items: Rod of Atos, Heaven’s Halberd, Ring of Aquila, Abyssal Blade and Tranquil Boots. We’ve also began deploying our new Spectator proxy system that will allow games to have an unlimited number of spectators. Not all games will support this at the start, while we gather data on the system’s performance, but we expect to finish full deployment soon. Another spectating feature we’ve added is Autospeed to replays: Autospeed will fast-forward games until high intensity moments are detected at which point it will return to regular speeds. So you can now watch Dendi harvest Battle Furies with your hands free!

For those running tournaments, this update also includes a new option in Private Lobbies to select which version to run: Latest or Tournament. The Latest version will always include all the most recent changes, while Tournament will create a game with the current tournament rules. And in other tournament news: