The real-life effects of Dota 2 go well past money won, rage quits and time spent. Just Boys IRL: 5 Gamers Go Interrailing is a BBC 3 documentary following five friends that, before filming, exclusively knew each other online. The filmmakers brought them together for the first in real life to take a trip across Europe. No real spoilers, but emotions are rampant as they move through the world — and the world moves around them. Less frequently, but with similar caliber, are incidents of Dota 2 bri

For the first time since its Gamescom origins, this summer, Dota 2 will be taking an international trip. The International 8, Valve’s massive record-breaking esports tournament, will take place August 20-25 in Vancouver, Canada, at the Rogers Arena, Valve announced Thursday evening. As with the last previous years, tickets will be sold through Ticketmaster in two blocks with two types. While subscription service Dota Plus was announced earlier this week, there is no word on whether the annual In

The real-life effects of Dota 2 go well past money won, rage quits and time spent. Just Boys IRL: 5 Gamers Go Interrailing is a BBC 3 documentary following five friends that, before filming, exclusively knew each other online. The filmmakers brought them together for the first in real life to take a trip across Europe. No real spoilers, but emotions are rampant as they move through the world — and the world moves around them. Less frequently, but with similar caliber, are incidents of Dota 2 bri

Now, however, the balance team (read: probably Icefrog) is serving up a new specialty: gold mechanic changes. Specifically, we’re seeing massive changes to how buyback and “kill gold” work. For this patch, we’ve included the notes, word-for-word (with some formatting changes) followed by a breakdown of what the changes mean. To be fair, the buyback formula has made for some disgustingly high buyback costs at times. Gold for killsAoE gold for the losing team no longer scales with the overall team

After a few bumps in the road, GESC’s first Dota Pro Circuit event has finally arrived, taking place in Jakarta, Indonesia. GESC Indonesia is entered as a Dota Pro Circuit Minor, meaning $300,000 is on the line, along with 300 Qualifying Points. With squads old and new coming in for the competition, this will certainly spice up the Dota Pro Circuit’s fare. The losers of the initial match meet for Lower Bracket Match 1. The losers of the Upper Bracket Finals meets the winners of the Lower Bracket

With another Major victory under their belt, Virtus.Pro can’t be knocked off the road for the Aegis of Champions. VP was declared to be the first team to reach a minimum Qualifying Points threshold to qualify for The International after they won the Bucharest Major, with a VP’s win over VGJ.Thunder. Even if there weren’t a point system in place, VP has established itself as as a terrifying contender this season. Numbers aside, there’s no doubt at all that Virtus.Pro have dominated the Dota Pro C

Valve has announced “Dota Plus,” a subscription-based service, that provides enhanced stats, a “Hero Leveling” system, the return of their Battle Cup, and much more. According to the release blog, Plus works as an “ongoing, uninterrupted service” explicitly created to replace the seasonal Battle Passes. Included already are many of Battle Pass’s features, including the Seasonal Terrain and an altered, hero-specific version of Missions. Plus brings plenty of incentive to keep playing Dota 2 and i

Valve has announced “Dota Plus,” a subscription-based service, that provides enhanced stats, a “Hero Leveling” system, the return of their Battle Cup, and much more. According to the release blog, Plus works as an “ongoing, uninterrupted service” explicitly created to replace the seasonal Battle Passes. Included already are many of Battle Pass’s features, including the Seasonal Terrain and an altered, hero-specific version of Missions. Plus brings plenty of incentive to keep playing Dota 2 and i

Artifact, the Dota 2-themed trading card game, is technically Valve’s first game release since Dota 2 left closed beta. Immersive and complex gameplayEven before getting a peak at the finer details, card game veterans have had their eyes on the release of this game, as the project is spearheaded by Richard Garfield, the renown creator of real-world trading card games Magic: The Gathering and Netrunner. There are over 280 cards to boot, with 44 heroes — including some that have yet to be introduc

Another two weeks has passed, and now, Icefrog and Valve bring us another patch to spice up Dota 2. So far, the patches have actually kept to being pretty minor, tweaking the gameplay enough to keep the playing field interesting. For 7.10, though, more than half of the hero roster is getting played around with — for better or worse. Most of these are changes to talents, but quite a few have some ability and mechanic tweaks. For instance, Gyrocopter’s Homing Missile needs to be played a bit more

Part two of Icefrog’s now-regular Dota 2 updates has arrived, meaning it’s also time to quickly catch up with all the changes. Two weeks after the first one, we’re receiving a much smaller patch, officially 7.09, to keep a few things relatively fresh — including for the upcoming Dota Pro Circuit Major, ESL One Katowice. Minor Windranger updates to model, textures and attachment point for bow strings. Custom Guides:Added last updated time to the guide details view in the In-Game guide picker. Add

Part two of Icefrog’s now-regular Dota 2 updates has arrived, meaning it’s also time to quickly catch up with all the changes. Two weeks after the first one, we’re receiving a much smaller patch, officially 7.09, to keep a few things relatively fresh — including for the upcoming Dota Pro Circuit Major, ESL One Katowice. Minor Windranger updates to model, textures and attachment point for bow strings. Custom Guides:Added last updated time to the guide details view in the In-Game guide picker. Add

The winter Open Registration period for the Dota Pro Circuit has come and gone, just about halfway through the competitive season. Dota 2’s developers especially made it very clear that this registration will represent the final, locked in teams that will be qualified for invites to The International 8 this summer. Secret sought to fix their troubles by picking up Adrian “Fata” Trinks and Marcus “Ace” Hoelgaard in the initial Open Registration period. Team LiquidQualifying Points: 3510If there t

The winter Open Registration period for the Dota Pro Circuit has come and gone, just about halfway through the competitive season. Dota 2’s developers especially made it very clear that this registration will represent the final, locked in teams that will be qualified for invites to The International 8 this summer. Secret sought to fix their troubles by picking up Adrian “Fata” Trinks and Marcus “Ace” Hoelgaard in the initial Open Registration period. Team LiquidQualifying Points: 3510If there t

Dota 2 got a lot more than vacuuming and bug extermination with its Spring Cleaning 2018 patch, which Valve dropped on Thursday. This update, officially the 7.08 patch, saw plenty of bug fixes and gameplay changes, of course. Patch alertsWe’ll be meta first, as this patch finally brings… well, alerts about patches. But this profile re-addition comes with a few other neat updates that makes understanding a Dota player’s history better. Some of these are in the client, while many are within the

On one hand, Dota 2’s 7.08 gameplay patch is only a “minor” patch, the first of many in this grand experiment. But changes are changes, and it’ll be good to keep track in case you’re wondering why your Shackle feels a little squishy. Lina’s also seeing changes, as her intelligence is increased, and she has a more narrow spread of damage, from 18 to 12. On top of the hero and item changes, the Spring Cleaning update brought a few tweaks you need to know. We’ve included some of the highlights of t

Valve has dropped a sizable “Spring Cleaning 2018” update, which includes the gameplay patch 7.08. This update is a combination of two hotly-anticipated patches, the annual “Spring Cleaning” update and the first of Valve’s planned bi-weekly (meaning, every two weeks) gameplay patches. The Spring Cleaning update was a little less expected at this time of the year, but comes with plenty of user interface and quality-of-life updates. This is all, of course, in addition to the slew of annual bug fix

Dota 2 Patch 7.08 — Change blooms in the Spring Cleaning 2018 update, including the first minor bi-weekly gameplay update There’s plenty to look at in this first-of-its-kind Dota 2 update. Everyone’s always excited for a little shake-up in Dota 2, but now things are changing, even beyond the typical changelog. It all began with a late-night tweet by Icefrog themself announcing a new system of patches: a minor gameplay patch every two weeks, instead. From there, the next morning, 7.08 was release

On one hand, Dota 2’s 7.08 gameplay patch is only a “minor” patch, the first of many in this grand experiment. But changes are changes, and it’ll be good to keep track in case you’re wondering why your Shackle feels a little squishy. Lina’s also seeing changes, as her intelligence is increased, and she has a more narrow spread of damage, from 18 to 12. On top of the hero and item changes, the Spring Cleaning update brought a few tweaks you need to know. We’ve included some of the highlights of t

Valve has dropped a sizable “Spring Cleaning 2018” update, which includes the gameplay patch 7.08. This update is a combination of two hotly-anticipated patches, the annual “Spring Cleaning” update and the first of Valve’s planned bi-weekly (meaning, every two weeks) gameplay patches. The Spring Cleaning update was a little less expected at this time of the year, but comes with plenty of user interface and quality-of-life updates. This is all, of course, in addition to the slew of annual bug fix