[noobinater]

http://dota2.com/

Dota 2 Championships: First Public Showing at Gamescom
Valve today announced The International. This tournament will be the first time Dota 2 is shown in public, and will take place August 17th -21st at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany.
The International features the 16 best Dota teams in the world competing in the Dota 2 Championships through a group stage, double elimination playoff format over the course of Cologne’s five-day trade show.
The tournament will be broadcast in four languages (Chinese, German, Russian, and English) free of charge. The winning team will receive $1 million.
“The International is the first public Dota 2 event and will give the tens of millions of gamers playing Dota around the world their first look at the new game,” said Gabe Newell, president and founder of Valve. “I have had the good fortune to watch the competitors as they prepare for the tournament, and the level of play is extraordinary.”
In addition to the cash prizes awarded by Valve, NVidia is providing all the hardware for the event.
Dota 2 will be available for the PC and Mac later this year.

still a shitty "genre" though

I am however, infinitely jealous of how Valve is treating the dota communitycompared to what Blizz is doing with SC2 (in built spectator feature, multiplayer replay watching, in game commentary, movable camera, LAN SUPPORT, etc)

E: Updating OP with trailer

You Tube

You Tube

+ [Pictures] +

EE:

(Is there a tag to re-size massive images?)

[nirvAnA]

omg 1 million dollars!!!? for a game not even released to the public?

things just got real holy shit sounds like valve will be investing some serious money into making this work

Quick Comments

Fourby:

lol although im not surprised with 1m for dota, 1m for unrealeased game is just WTF

[TAhackdZ]

*Blinks eye's*

$1mill moneys...?

Holy snapping duck feathers Batman!

Edit: Nice, MYM playing in this. Hope they win!

[lxuzyl]

Omg! One million USD, biggest prize pool in e-sport history so far?

[AxSGRiM]

Not really, Activision announced one before they did. Kind of wish Blizzard did something more for us with the shit ton of money they have though...

[ke_ivan]

lulz let's all switch to dota! our micro is better anyway!

[Daboo]

"This esports thing is pretty cool" - game companies, more games are making their way towards esports lol,hon.

But this insane, blizzard who claims to be leader of esports wants a 50% of the revenue for any tourney that has more than 5k dollars as prize money.

I think blizzard sponsor the money for all the gsls though..(could be wrong).

[Fourby]

Originally Posted by Daboo

"This esports thing is pretty cool" - game companies, more games are making their way towards esports lol,hon.

But this insane, blizzard who claims to be leader of esports wants a 50% of the revenue for any tourney that has more than 5k dollars as prize money.

I think blizzard sponsor the money for all the gsls though..(could be wrong).

I'm pretty sure this is wrong, IIRC GSL is sponsored by G.Skill and Pepsi atm. (prior was LG etc)

And yeh activision announced their 1 mil thing for Black Ops already... such a bad game lol.

As for dota being a bad genre... that's a lie rofl

[noobinater]

Wait, a 1M prize for Black Ops??

That's ******* hilarious xD

Quick Comments

Fourby:

ikr

[DtorR]

Wish I was a pro dota player on one of those 16 teams.

[Primex]

Wow, I want to be in one of them teams.

[Xeen]

Makes sense. You want to build as much hype about your game before release as possible, and a huge prize pool is good for drawing a one-off burst of attention.

[Doctor]

The prize money is really inviting :Q_____

[Next_rim]

$1m for game that requires no skill? Funny.

I know very few Dota players who are actually good at melee, but I don't know a single melee player who is bad at Dota, myself included. Not to mention Dota has always been imbalanced, with core mechanical problems (stun vs blink) affecting competitive play.

[AlphaWhale]

Originally Posted by Next_rim

$1m for game that requires no skill? Funny.

I know very few Dota players who are actually good at melee, but I don't know a single melee player who is bad at Dota, myself included. Not to mention Dota has always been imbalanced, with core mechanical problems (stun vs blink) affecting competitive play.

This could be attributed to the fact that DotA is in fact not melee.

--

2011 is the year of an e-sports explosion. I just hope there are plenty of fires left behind.

[Xeen]

Originally Posted by Next_rim

$1m for game that requires no skill? Funny.

I know very few Dota players who are actually good at melee, but I don't know a single melee player who is bad at Dota, myself included. Not to mention Dota has always been imbalanced, with core mechanical problems (stun vs blink) affecting competitive play.

If the game took no skill, you could walk in and be a top player. This is wrong.

If Dota players inherently had no skill and were bad at melee, there would be no Dota players who are good at SC2. This is also wrong.

These two facts bring me to the conclusion that you, in entirety, are wrong.

Quick Comments

Fourby:

[Dox]

The $1M is an advertising expense. HoN/LoL are very well established and you need a big entrance to draw players away from those titles. This is such an entrance.

Also - for people comparing Blizzard and Valve and saying Blizzard doesn't care... c'mon. They're delivering everything people ask for with the exception of LAN for obvious, logical reasons.

I haven't looked into the DOTA2 LAN protocol, but I'm going to assume it requires (online) steam authentication prior to launch, therefore the benefits of low ping and stability are present, without the ongoing issue of piracy. If this is what they've done, it's a clever move, and requires an established platform like Steam to execute. It's a good idea, and if it proves to be effective (for both parties), then it's one that all major developers would be inheriting in future.

[noobinater]

Originally Posted by Dox

Also - for people comparing Blizzard and Valve and saying Blizzard doesn't care... c'mon. They're delivering everything people ask for with the exception of LAN for obvious, logical reasons.

Read this, then tell me Blizzard is anywhere near that level.

• Drop support
• No region locking
• Spectating live games
• Replays stored in the cloud
• Coaching system

Originally Posted by Dox

I think you should contemplate how much money Blizzard loses on Blizzcon each year.

Not the $143M They generate from WoW alone every year (low estimate)

E: **** i'm dumb, meant every month***

[zendex]

Hoping for a SEA vs SEA finals!

GL to MiTH, Scythe, MUFC, StarsBoba and especially to our very own Mineski!

[Next_rim]

This could be attributed to the fact that DotA is in fact not melee.

Dota is a melee with one unit. Or, in some cases, several units. The range of things player has to do is narrowed down to positioning one unit, watching 5 enemy units, and using *achem* 4 abilities + attacking. Dota is very tactical, true, but so is a melee game. Dota economy is inferior to any melee, as your income is a direct result of your micro. Two complicated elements combined into one = less skill required.

The only difference is the teamplay element, which turned dota into what we know today. But what it really does, imho, is taking away single player skill and diminishing its significance in favor of teamplay. In a fairly equal game, strong team can carry a noob, but strong player can't carry a team of noobs.

Required teamplay is the biggest reason I quit WoW actually, I didn't want to rely on 24(39 pre-expansion) other people to play the game.

[Dox]

Originally Posted by Next_rim

Dota is a melee with one unit. Or, in some cases, several units. The range of things player has to do is narrowed down to positioning one unit, watching 5 enemy units, and using *achem* 4 abilities + attacking. Dota is very tactical, true, but so is a melee game. Dota economy is inferior to any melee, as your income is a direct result of your micro. Two complicated elements combined into one = less skill required.

The only difference is the teamplay element, which turned dota into what we know today. But what it really does, imho, is taking away single player skill and diminishing its significance in favor of teamplay. In a fairly equal game, strong team can carry a noob, but strong player can't carry a team of noobs.

Required teamplay is the biggest reason I quit WoW actually, I didn't want to rely on 24(39 pre-expansion) other people to play the game.

Just keep in mind that just because you don't find a particular game/dynamic enjoyable, that it doesn't require skill or cannot be enjoyed. I personally hated DotA for the same reasons back in War3. But I really do enjoy the SC2 version (SotIS) these days. The game/genre has come a long way.

Originally Posted by sHockeR

Not really, Activision announced one before they did. Kind of wish Blizzard did something more for us with the shit ton of money they have though...

I think you should contemplate how much money Blizzard loses on Blizzcon each year.

[Next_rim]

Dox,

I just think Dota is overrated, but I do understand why people play it. It's simple, it has social element, smooth and easy learning curve, and you can always blame teammates. Same reason I play Footmen and Desert Strike. Except for Footmen community doesn't scream at every corner that the map is complicated, game is hard, and you just don't know what you are talking about.

[Unstable]

The 1Mil while is a great advertising trick. is NOT a once off there is shitloads just WAITING for it to come out

[Dogsi]

I find this funny. DOTA is by no means balanced. It's a fun casual game but I always laughed at the people who took the game seriously. I mean, it's so simplistic...

[rezyn8]

And DOTA2 will be F2P as well

[Nobunaga]

If only dota was as awesome as sc2. Then I'd jump straight into it.

[Next_rim]

If Dota players inherently had no skill and were bad at melee, there would be no Dota players who are good at SC2. This is also wrong.

I don't know a single Dota pro, who had 0 prior melee experience at high (at least ladder-wise) level. All those, who are good both at Dota and melee, are very likely to be exceptionally well-performing in melee wc3 even before AoS came to wc3.

[Russ311j]

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/08/pro...llion-dollars/

[ToRDeathsFang]

That's it i'm going to Dota. It's not about how fun the game is, it's about HOW MUCH MONEY IS INVOLVED

+ [click me] +

On second thought Dota's an absolutely atrocious, unplayable shit game. Starcraft 2 it is

[Xeen]

Originally Posted by DeathsFang

That's it i'm going to Dota. It's not about how fun the game is, it's about HOW MUCH MONEY IS INVOLVED

+ [click me] +

On second thought Dota's an absolutely atrocious, unplayable shit game. Starcraft 2 it is

You have no idea how much money is involved. This tournament is not the esports budget, it's the advertising budget, if you want a simplification. It will not be setting a trend of tournaments of this scale, it purely exists to generate prerelease hype - and you can bet companies like Blizzard threw a lot more money than 1M into advertising.

[mGMUSE]

Originally Posted by Xeen

You have no idea how much money is involved. This tournament is not the esports budget, it's the advertising budget, if you want a simplification. It will not be setting a trend of tournaments of this scale, it purely exists to generate prerelease hype - and you can bet companies like Blizzard threw a lot more money than 1M into advertising.

I think this is the best marketing plan in e-sports ever - for 1M they have by far outdone any kind of advertising Blizzard has done in the past.

I think Dota still has a lot of potential for an esport mainly because of how many players there are. Every time an update of a map is posted, there will be about 10 million downloads(which means 10 million active players), far more than the amount of SC2 players.

still extremely excited for dota2 and the tournament.. GO SCYTHE!

[TCPLemminks]

Well I guess this just proves that Valve has way too much money, as fellow TF2er's may agree with me.

I had a similar arguement with a friend over SC2 VS HON.
Apparently HON was suppose to come with a map editor similar to the World Editor in WC3 so that it wouldn't be just Dota. Haven't seen it yet.

As fun as Dota is, unless there's gonna be other modes or a map maker, It's SC2 all the way for me (though I may still buy Dota 2)

[Xeen]

Originally Posted by Lemminks

Well I guess this just proves that Valve has way too much money, as fellow TF2er's may agree with me.

1M+ out of a major company's advertising budget is pocket change.

Originally Posted by mGMUSE

I think this is the best marketing plan in e-sports ever - for 1M they have by far outdone any kind of advertising Blizzard has done in the past.

Agreed, I think it's fantastic how much hype they've already built as a result of it - and it encourages progamers to compete and prepare for their game by dangling that prize. So long as people realize that this means nothing in the long run in terms of prize scale - not even a bad thing, just a potential disappointment for the short-sighted.

[OxygeN]

How can people claim DOTA is an easy game to play?

You say that melee players do not suck at DOTA, and solely DOTA players sucks at melee. Have you ever wondered why?

Melee players already has a basic foundation of decision making, understand the dynamics of the game, (alt, right click, a-move etc etc.) whereas DOTA players if they do not have a melee background is starting from SCRATCH.

The skill set required to play Melee games well, happens to be part of the skill set to play DOTA well, which is micro, money management and decision making. However the reasons why DOTA players can't play melee well, is because

1) They are too used to controlling 1 unit.
2) They are unable to balance resource management(expansions), and aggression.

More likely the latter.

To everyone who are really good at DOTA, they will also admit, that the difference between a average player and a decent player is very high. Take a SF vs POTM mid 1v1 as example. If the better player is playing SF, he will win the POTM because his last hit is that much better, and his razes are so accurate. If the better player is playing POTM, the POTM will win because he will deny the SF, and possibly get off critical arrows.

So what is my point? The thing is in DOTA individual skill is not everything.

In melee, skill differences can be covered by cheeses, cute timing attacks, and mind games.

In DOTA it is the team aspect.

To one person who posted above, is DOTA balanced? Then, is SC2 balanced?

DOTA balance has already been more or less addressed by the banning system. (Spectre imba? Ban. Morph imba? Ban. Doom imba? Ban.)

In SC2 what do we have? Ban the maps? O_O

Embrace DOTA man, get out there play with some friends, do ridiculous things, own noobs, see them rage. These are all so amazingly fun things to do. I don't see how can people hate DOTA!

Quick Comments

TAhackdZ:

You're so clever Oxy!

[Next_rim]

Embrace DOTA man, get out there play with some friends, do ridiculous things, own noobs, see them rage. These are all so amazingly fun things to do. I don't see how can people hate DOTA!

Been there, done that. I like Sven and Techie.

is DOTA balanced? - absolutely not, it's inherent aoe stun and blink mechanics make room for infinite abuse. When player loses control of the only active unit in the game for like 5 sec in chain stuns, it's shame.

Then, is SC2 balanced? - on high level, very balanced, imo. And will get only better. Noobs (like me) should l2p.

[DeNile]

I never played dota but play lol and to say it requires no skill is a little harsh. When playing as a team Is a skill in itself, communication, planning, coordination between you and other players, are all skills. Off u break down the skills in sc it could be considered simple it's the speed and memory required to run all these simple task to work together that make it difficult.

On topic though was there a beta for these teams to compete in over time or will they only have a longed time to learn any new mechanics and skills? If they only had a limited time would make for a very open tournament with new tactics being done on the fly. That would be cool for any game.

[SLCN.Kez]

I wouldnt say dota is easy tbh, ive played dota at a high level and there is a lot of strategy that can come into it that may not be easily apparent to people who just play casually, exactly like in sc2. also note, a lot of the dota masic mechanics helped me atleast, A LOT with sc2. Things like looking at the minimap, spamming 1 to tap to your main char (cc/hatch/nexus) and microing units around and clicking accurately etc are all very hard to do at the top level of any game.

[i8noodles]

i remember playing dota...they were dark times =(

also next_rim i believe that dota has a rather high learning curve cause of all the different item combining and how if you "feed" the enemies your team hates you, then, you hate them back, then, they hate you more but yeah it is an easy and rather boring game once you pass that curve in my opinion

but a million dollars >=O holy smokes!

[Hamachi]

Dota raped me hard in the WC3 days. =[

[noobinater]

bumping with trailer

You Tube

You Tube

(Valve knows how to make a game look good holey **** nuggets)

[dippa]

anyone can make a cinematic trailer/trailer with pre-rendered graphics look good

[NvPinder]

Originally Posted by dippa

anyone can make a cinematic trailer/trailer with pre-rendered graphics look good

False. I'm a pretty amazing individual but i am unable to do this.

Quick Comments

Fenner:

true as bruv

[noobinater]

Wait, I didn't post the leaked screenshots did I lol

+ [Big Image] +

And for the record, that short would have been made with the same engine Valve uses for the TF2 meet the team videos (basically vanilla source)