You Now Need to Give Valve Your Telphone Number to Play DoTA 2

Steven Bogos

The Taco Man
Jan 17, 2013
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You Now Need to Give Valve Your Telphone Number to Play DoTA 2

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An update to DoTA 2's ranked mode requires all players provide a unique telephone number to play.

A change has just rolled out for Valve's DoTA 2 that requires all players who wish to partake in the game's ranked mode to provide the developer with a unique telephone number. The goal is to reduce the amount of people using "Smurf" accounts - new accounts created in order to play games at a lower rank than the player's skill level, as well as provide "additional security" to the game.

"Players using multiple accounts create a negative matchmaking experience at all skill brackets, so our goal is to add just enough friction to this process that the number of players doing this will be noticeably reduced," said Valve. "Having more players using their primary accounts will have a positive effect on both Ranked and Unranked Matchmaking."

Players will be given a two-week grace period starting from today to register a number, allowing them to continue to play ranked games. Additionally, If a phone number is removed from an account after registration and replaced with a new number, there will be a three month waiting period before the old number is able to be registered to another account. Online services that provide phone numbers are not allowed.

The update also brings back Solo Queue to the game, allowing players to queue for ranked matchmaking all by their lonesome. Players queuing in solo queue can also choose to be matched only with other solo queue players.

Finally, Ranked Matchmaking will no longer be available in South Africa, India, and Dubai. "While there are some players that used these servers for Ranked, the low populations made them prime targets for various Ranked Matchmaking abuses. For the time being, players in these regions will need to join Ranked Matchmaking queues in one of the other nearby supported servers," said Valve.

Source: Valve [http://blog.dota2.com/2017/04/matchmaking-update/]

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Saelune

Trump put kids in cages!
Legacy
Mar 8, 2011
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Fuck off with the "security" BS. Bad enough the market is locked out for people who dont two-step verify. I just want to trade my cards in peace dammit.

As for this...good thing I dont play Dota 2...or MOBAs in general.
 

Cether

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Mar 29, 2011
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I mean it's DotA 2 so it wont die from this. But god damn if I played the game I wouldnt now.
 

Paragon Fury

The Loud Shadow
Jan 23, 2009
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You know what would've been easier than this though Valve?

Ban Russia, Korea and China from playing outside their region.

Yeah, it sounds bigoted as fuck. But you know what? The data bears it out - these three regions are the root cause of massive problems for the other regions (some estimates put it at 90% of all cheating, real money scams and botting come from these three regions - with the cheating being the big thing of Russia, the botting from China and CN/KR sharing the same for real money scams). They're so problematic for League, DotA 2 and other games that players from NA/LAN/EU/OC/JP actively ban or block players from these regions if possible and dodge/leave matchmade games when they get people from these regions.
 

Zontar

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Feb 18, 2013
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Paragon Fury said:
You know what would've been easier than this though Valve?

Ban Russia, Korea and China from playing outside their region.

Yeah, it sounds bigoted as fuck. But you know what? The data bears it out - these three regions are the root cause of massive problems for the other regions (some estimates put it at 90% of all cheating, real money scams and botting come from these three regions - with the cheating being the big thing of Russia, the botting from China and CN/KR sharing the same for real money scams). They're so problematic for League, DotA 2 and other games that players from NA/LAN/EU/OC/JP actively ban or block players from these regions if possible and dodge/leave matchmade games when they get people from these regions.
I can understand Russia and China, but Korea? I thought they just took MMOs way too seriously and had a hard on for hating Japan.
 

MHR

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Apr 3, 2010
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Paragon Fury said:
You know what would've been easier than this though Valve?

Ban Russia, Korea and China from playing outside their region.

Yeah, it sounds bigoted as fuck. But you know what? The data bears it out - these three regions are the root cause of massive problems for the other regions (some estimates put it at 90% of all cheating, real money scams and botting come from these three regions - with the cheating being the big thing of Russia, the botting from China and CN/KR sharing the same for real money scams). They're so problematic for League, DotA 2 and other games that players from NA/LAN/EU/OC/JP actively ban or block players from these regions if possible and dodge/leave matchmade games when they get people from these regions.
Leave it to Valve to ignore the simple and effective solutions. Matchmaking for Team Fortress 2 is terrible. You'll get thrown into games nowhere near where you live. On the other side of the nation, on the other side of your continent, or on the other side of the planet -- I've been thrown into all of it. Why they can't just assign you only to Virginia servers if you live on the east coast I'll never know.

And I still can't trade with anyone reasonably because I don't have a smartphone.
 

The Enquirer

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Apr 10, 2013
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Zontar said:
Paragon Fury said:
You know what would've been easier than this though Valve?

Ban Russia, Korea and China from playing outside their region.

Yeah, it sounds bigoted as fuck. But you know what? The data bears it out - these three regions are the root cause of massive problems for the other regions (some estimates put it at 90% of all cheating, real money scams and botting come from these three regions - with the cheating being the big thing of Russia, the botting from China and CN/KR sharing the same for real money scams). They're so problematic for League, DotA 2 and other games that players from NA/LAN/EU/OC/JP actively ban or block players from these regions if possible and dodge/leave matchmade games when they get people from these regions.
I can understand Russia and China, but Korea? I thought they just took MMOs way too seriously and had a hard on for hating Japan.
Korea is actually really bad. Cheating in video games there is bad enough where there's actually laws against it. The main reason it's so prevalent is their cyber Cafe's where people go to game. They don't need to worry about being banned because it isn't their own, home computer.
 

Aeshi

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Dec 22, 2009
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I seriously hope this doesn't end up setting a precedent for this sort of thing.
 

Bindal

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MHR said:
And I still can't trade with anyone reasonably because I don't have a smartphone.
To add insult to injury: Valve claimed they would work on a way for people without smartphone to trade properly.
About three to four years ago by now.

Guess they don't care about people without smartphones.
Aeshi said:
I seriously hope this doesn't end up setting a precedent for this sort of thing.
Well, if the playerbase suddenly drops by about 90% (total or just ranked matchmaking), it'll send a message to everyone else. Maybe not to Valve because it's Valve, but others.
 

Parasondox

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Jun 15, 2013
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Where did this crap begin where apps demand access to your phone contacts if you download a game and often just to view something, you must enter your email and number? Fuck right off with that.
 

TrulyBritish

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Jan 23, 2013
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Um, am I the only one not bothered by this? I mean, maybe it's because I don't play Dota or Lol or any of the other ones, but I'm not really seeing the big problem here? Especially when the only other situation I'm seeing being offered by the comments is too ban certain countries from playing outside their region.
 

Petter Jonsson

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Mar 18, 2014
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As I know from experience how smurfs can completely screw over the competetive games such as this, I'd say this is fairly reasonable. And considering that you already give Valve your phone number whenever making a purchase on Steam, people are without a doubt overreacting.
 

Leg End

Romans 12:18
Oct 24, 2010
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TrulyBritish said:
Um, am I the only one not bothered by this? I mean, maybe it's because I don't play Dota or Lol or any of the other ones, but I'm not really seeing the big problem here? Especially when the only other situation I'm seeing being offered by the comments is too ban certain countries from playing outside their region.
Pretty sure almost everyone would prefer it even without it blocking new alt accounts.

Petter Jonsson said:
As I know from experience how smurfs can completely screw over the competetive games such as this, I'd say this is fairly reasonable. And considering that you already give Valve your phone number whenever making a purchase on Steam, people are without a doubt overreacting.
It's one thing to give it in order to perform a digital purchase of content, it's a totally different thing to do it just to play a game. Hell, people are still spooked about the former due to the screw-up during Christmas a while back.
 

Kahani

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May 25, 2011
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I can't help noticing there is no mention of actually verifying the phone number. Is there anything to stop people just picking a random number?
 

Bindal

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Petter Jonsson said:
As I know from experience how smurfs can completely screw over the competetive games such as this, I'd say this is fairly reasonable. And considering that you already give Valve your phone number whenever making a purchase on Steam, people are without a doubt overreacting.
I never had to enter any phone number anywhere when buying games on Steam.
 

Petter Jonsson

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Mar 18, 2014
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Bindal said:
Petter Jonsson said:
As I know from experience how smurfs can completely screw over the competetive games such as this, I'd say this is fairly reasonable. And considering that you already give Valve your phone number whenever making a purchase on Steam, people are without a doubt overreacting.
I never had to enter any phone number anywhere when buying games on Steam.
You have to enter it along with the other credentials and personal info.
 

Leg End

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Oct 24, 2010
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Kibeth41 said:
None of you really give a shit. You're just crying outrage because it's some kind of hobby for you people. You'll all forget about it pretty quickly.
I'll forget about it as an active subject, but I'm probably not playing Dota 2 ever again.
It's not even a bad change. It isn't a discrimination charged change like Paragonfury's dumb suggestion. And it'll help reduce toxicity, with anoniminity being reduced with accounts tied to phone numbers.
I'm pretty sure that a good chunk of the "toxicity" comes from the usage of Cyka Blyat.
Putting a phone number down isn't intrusive to anyone who isn't a culprit of cheating or smurfing in Dota.
Others feel differently.
Which is essentially the point. They're not suddenly going to spam your inbox or spy on you because they know your number.
Probably not, but it is more information to be lost in the even of a breach. Not even counting the time they screwed up themselves.
Nor would Valve want to alienate and lose the extremely large playerbase in those regions by pooling them with all of the cheaters.
Instead they'll just alienate everybody that doesn't want to fork over their phone number and drive them to League.
Your suggestion doesn't solve the problem. It just stops it from affecting you specifically.
...You saying that is kind of admitting the problem comes specifically from certain regions.