Dota 2 Removes Required Sign-Ups

[roseofbattle]

Dota 2 Removes Required Sign-Ups

Valve recently released enhancements for new users' experience to Dota 2 and will remove all restrictions to playing the game.

Dota 2 came out of beta in July and in the half year it's been available, Valve used a gated sign-up system to ease in numbers of players. In a blog post yesterday, the company announced, "The age of sign-ups has ended." The game will now be open to everyone.

The gated community was used to set up a stable infrastructure, gradually increase the playerbase, and improve the experience for new players. With new server management upgrades and enhancements to the new user experience, there are no more restrictions to playing Dota 2.

"We encourage everyone to join the 6.5 million active monthly users currently playing Dota 2," the blog post reads. The free-to-play game is one of the most played games on Steam, Valve's digital distribution platform. For those already playing the game, recruiting a friend to play Dota 2 as a new user rewards both players additional bonuses.

Dota 2 is a real-time strategy multiplayer online battle arena game. Players control a hero, choosing one from about 100 choices, in a team of five to fight the enemy's team. Traveling through three lanes, the teams must battle through creeps and defensive towers and defend their respective Ancients. The game is extremely competitive and has its own tournaments. Dota 2 can be difficult for newcomers to get used to, but it has a very active community.

Dota 2 is available on PC, Mac, and Linux.

Source: Dota 2 blog [http://blog.dota2.com/2013/12/the-age-of-signups-has-ended/]


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[Tyranicus]

Honestly I wouldn't play this game even if Valve paid me to play. The online community for this game is nothing short of toxic. People forget how to be human when playing this game.

 

[Azwrath]

Honestly I wouldn't play this game even if Valve paid me to play. The online community for this game is nothing short of toxic. People forget how to be human when playing this game.

Having said all that, did you play the game? Or is it just things you "heard"? And if you played it, when was the last time?

I ask because Valve have been doing a lot to "improve" the community lately. And many of those measures have worked (like muting people who do nothing but curse and pick on others, low priority poll and even bans). Just don't go on the dota2 dev forums because that is where everyone who gets muted or banned go to complain and you will probably feel the need for a shower after reading just 1 topic.

 

[Tyranicus]

Honestly I wouldn't play this game even if Valve paid me to play. The online community for this game is nothing short of toxic. People forget how to be human when playing this game.

Having said all that, did you play the game? Or is it just things you "heard"? And if you played it, when was the last time?

I haven't played but from what I hear its a community I don't any part of. Im sorry if that sounds selfish but if thats the image that DOTA 2 has I dont want to even try.

 

[Odbarc]

DOTA 2 is a standalone DOTA1 that rips everything from Warcraft 3. From the Ctrl-1 grouping, to the needless turn rates, items, mechanics, the maps trees, ramps, water, the character models, the spells.
The Venomancer is still quite obviously a Hydralisk any way you look at it.
A lot of the cosmetic options have exaggerated prices for recolored can't-even-notice-it pieces of the model changes for like $5 each.
The toxic players of DOTA are just carried over from the severely toxic WC3 players who would spend an hour banning people from their games because a new patch that day would have people downloading the map which would take 15 seconds because they refused to wait on THAT only to have one thing go wrong after the long load time and everyone would quit.

And the 'creators' who are working for Valve not aren't even the true originators of the genre. They inherited it from the guy who quit adding to the map and it was renamed "all stars" which is where DOTA really got ruined and unplayable.

And after all this time there isn't a single option I've ever found and could be easily added to mute that announcer voice. I quit playing DOTA1 solely based on that.



I've played DOTA2 and there's a few things it does slightly better in which it fails HARD with everything I won't be mentioning here;
1) It seems like the set-up screen doubles as a load screen so you can get into games quickly.
I can't even think of a second thing.
It really shouldn't be called DOTA2 because it adds really nothing other than a graphical update and standalone program that doesn't require Warcraft 3 to play it.
Severely, severely disappointing.

Hell, even back when DOTA1 was fresh, there existed many alternatives of much better maps. Order of the Phoenix is just the most obvious one that comes to mind and there's at least 3 that their names elude me because they're so old.

 

[Combustion Kevin]

I haven't played but from what I hear its a community I don't any part of. Im sorry if that sounds selfish but if thats the image that DOTA 2 has I dont want to even try.

Well, to be fair, any competitive online community is pretty awful.
I do recommend playing it with a team of friends, or find a friendly group that plays together.
Say what you want about the game, but really does help build teamwork and communication skills, the trick is to find solutions to your opponents tactics and keep your team motivated.

If you are easily angered, Pub games are not for you, I guess.

 

[mindfaQ]

@Tyranicus: I think it has a pretty good community for a online team game

@Odbarc:
Items copied -> did you even play both WC3 campaign/multiplayer and DotA? The item systems are quite different. Yes there are overlaps, like healing potions, which btw are available in most games where you control a character with an inventory. Pretty baseless point you try to make there.
Turnrates -> gameplay element.
RTS control schemes are not Blizzard exclusive.

And honestly complaining about prices? It is free to play, free to win and you can even gain many things through playing (and all through trading), not to mention cheap community market prices for the ordinary stuff. You are nitpicking at one of the best F2P models to date (right beside Path of Exile and a few other examples).
Only first inventors of a genre are allowed to develop a game for the genre by your logic? If everyone was thinking like that, we'd still be having Pong as top player vs player video game. Not to mention that both the person that published the first DotA map (Euls) and the one that popularized the genre (Icefrog) work for Valve. It is a community effort anyway with almost a decade of player feedback behind it.
The big majority of the community did not want a change in gameplay, only service functions. And Valve provides them. I see that you don't want to see them, that's why your list of pros only contains one point that doesn't even make sense, but they are there nonetheless.
You like other projects better? That's perfectly fine.

edit: formatted the post a bit more for ease of reading

 

[bafrali]

snip

You should consider dividing your post into more managable chunks of pharapgraphs. Other than that I applaud you for telling everything I had in mind (and more). I will also take the liberty to welcome you to the escapist forums. It is safer here.

OT: While it is not particularly big news, players who play worse than me are always welcomed.

 

[synobal]

@Tyranicus: I think it has a pretty good community for a online team game

@Odbarc: Items copied -> did you even play both WC3 campaign/multiplayer and DotA? The item systems are quite different. Yes there are overlaps, like healing potions, which btw are available in most games where you control a character with an inventory. Pretty baseless point you try to make there. Turnrates -> gameplay element. RTS control schemes are not Blizzard exclusive.
And honestly complaining about prices? It is free to play, free to win and you can even gain many things through playing (and all through trading), not to mention cheap community market prices for the ordinary stuff. You are nitpicking at one of the best F2P models to date (right beside Path of Exile and a few other examples).

Only first inventors of a genre are allowed to develop a game for the genre by your logic? If everyone was thinking like that, we'd still be having Pong as top player vs player video game. Not to mention that both the person that published the first DotA map (Euls) and the one that popularized the genre (Icefrog) work for Valve. It is a community effort anyway with almost a decade of player feedback behind it. The big majority of the community did not want a change in gameplay, only service functions. And Valve provides them. I see that you don't want to see them, that's why your list of pros only contains one point that doesn't even make sense, but they are there nonetheless.
You like other projects better? That's perfectly fine.

I'm honestly not sure where he is getting the prices from, I buy cosmetics from the market places (other players) and usually don't play more than 50 cents to a dollar and that money I get from selling my own unwanted cosmetics.

Some people are just going to hate for no reason. I've enjoyed the Dota 2 community and have found that the toxic, aspect is exaggerated occasionally I run into assholes but the mute button is really simple and takes all of 2 seconds.

I got an early beta invite but never played until the game was released and the first thing I noticed was that all the heroes were free the biggest thing that kept me from enjoying League of Legends, that and the art style of league. I'm not going to say the art style is bad but it definitely isn't my cup of tea. Then valve started giving me items and cosmetics for leveling up and winning and I was confused I was like "wait aren't they selling these for money?" then I found out I could sell the items I got for money and I was baffled. Valve are truly genius.

 

[Azwrath]

I haven't played but from what I hear its a community I don't any part of. Im sorry if that sounds selfish but if thats the image that DOTA 2 has I dont want to even try.

Well, it's not really the image it has since if it had that image, there would be no player base besides trolls. It's just the image some people have of it and for some reason enjoy spreading it. Just my two cents but i've noticed that most people commenting on the toxic part of the community are either from that part of the community (and despise the game because it punished them for it) or have never even tried the game.

Don't get me wrong, it is a competitive online game that requires cooperation. You will sometimes get angry but that rarely has anything to do with the "toxic" community and if you find at least one more friend to play with it can get rather fun even when bad stuff happens.

In the end it's more about whether or not you like that style of gameplay and less about the community and image.

-snip-

Thank you for that, i really needed a laugh. There's something about sarcasm that i find funny.

 

[RaikuFA]

Honestly I wouldn't play this game even if Valve paid me to play. The online community for this game is nothing short of toxic. People forget how to be human when playing this game.

Having said all that, did you play the game? Or is it just things you "heard"? And if you played it, when was the last time?

I ask because Valve have been doing a lot to "improve" the community lately. And many of those measures have worked (like muting people who do nothing but curse and pick on others, low priority poll and even bans). Just don't go on the dota2 dev forums because that is where everyone who gets muted or banned go to complain and you will probably feel the need for a shower after reading just 1 topic.

I ask you this... When has a competitive community ever been civil? Even offline?

 

[Azwrath]

I ask you this... When has a competitive community ever been civil? Even offline?

Did you just edit the post? Because i swear i wanted to be a smart-ass and correct you on the fact that it is not limited to online communities before i accidentally refreshed and had to start all over. Ah, nevermind.

To answer your question, there have been a few cases but most of the time competitive communities are not the most pleasant place on earth because in order to be competitive you need to mentally become more aggressive.

But when i was talking about the dota2 dev forums i was not talking about an unpleasant or uncivil place. I was talking about the place where hopes and dreams go after they die and stay there in a state of decay as a constant reminder of the dark places the human mind, if left unchecked, can reach.

Luckily most players can avoid them. I just pity the mods that have to read even half of those.

 

[RaikuFA]

I ask you this... When has a competitive community ever been civil? Even offline?

Did you just edit the post? Because i swear i wanted to be a smart-ass and correct you on the fact that it is not limited to online communities before i accidentally refreshed and had to start all over. Ah, nevermind.

To answer your question, there have been a few cases but most of the time competitive communities are not the most pleasant place on earth because in order to be competitive you need to mentally become more aggressive.

But when i was talking about the dota2 dev forums i was not talking about an unpleasant or uncivil place. I was talking about the place where hopes and dreams go after they die and stay there in a state of decay as a constant reminder of the dark places the human mind, if left unchecked, can reach.

Luckily most players can avoid them. I just pity the mods that have to read even half of those.

I think I did.

But even with that mentality it still dosen't excuse throwing an attitude whenever someone says or does something you don't like in a game.

 

[ccggenius12]

Wonder how much the community number is going to drop now that the exclusivity has been removed. I know, it's probably going to go up, but a guy can dream right? I like to think that the online dregs will get upset and bail because they can't be one of the elite 6.5 million dregs.

 

[Legion]

I decided to give the game a go after seeing this article.

I find it strangely compelling. I haven't really discovered that many issues with the community so far. A couple of "noobs" comments, but I think that is par for the course when it comes to competitive online games.

I have been trying a different character every game so far, and on my ninth game (Not including the co-op special event going on) I think I have probably discovered my Main. The Templar Assassin is kickass. She fits my play style perfectly and in my first ever game with her I had 21 kills to 4 deaths, as well as becoming 'Beyond Godlike' and getting multiple double kills as well as a triple kill. I also managed to single handedly hold off the middle lane against two enemies.

The game can be quite frustrating though, especially when you get people who don't seem to understand basic tactics such as not all defending the same area when you have multiple places to guard.

The largest downside seems to be the servers have been frequently down.

 

[Smertnik]

I haven't really discovered that many issues with the community so far.

The horrible community is just as much of a myth as the game's supposed difficulty and inaccessibility. People just like to parrot things they know nothing about; after all, Dota-likes wouldn't be so amazingly popular if it was actually true.