And you're 100% certain that you were actually invited to the beta? You see, a while ago Valve added a spectator client for Dota 2, which allowed people not actually in the beta to install the game and watch games from the client. They did this to boost hype for The International 2.
Just make absolutely sure that you actually got invited into the beta and not just got the spectator client, because if you got it "a few weeks ago" then it matches the release of the spectator client perfectly.
Anyway, the game is still in beta, so if you actually got an invite you should be able to get in, contact valve support would be my advice. They're usually pretty good with this stuff.
Review of Dota2 from PC Gamer:
http://www.pcgamer.com/review/dota-2-review/3/
It isn't a real quality review though because the author just tells his personal experiences from a few games.
Last edited by mmoc4d2020beea; 2012-09-23 at 12:14 PM.
It's a pretty fair review. I'd drop the score considerably due to the ridiculously toxic community and, in my opinion, weak method of dealing with them (LP games are often more fun and better-matched than regular games!), but Dota 2 isn't "done," yet. There's a lot to learn, but it's Valve - there will be tutorials, and those tutorials will be awesome. And failing that, lots of free info on the internet.
I'm amused as hell that the reviewer, being a complete noob to Dota, is apparently only playing carries.
Silly statement, but I'm glad he made. It's nice to see someone play both LoL and DotA and recognize just how vastly more detailed DotA is.After 100 hours of Dota 2, I can’t even see the bottom. I’m not even sure there is one.
Unfortunately, it does have a ceiling, one that is relatively low (in my opinion). It can leave veterans such as myself extremely frustrated in almost 100% of their games due to allies who just can't compare. That's team games I guess, but DotA is really one of the easier games I have played that can still consider itself competitive. Being good doesn't require insane APM, it doesn't require awesome micro, it doesn't require huge psychological strategy. All it really requires is knowledge, as the author of the article pointed out, a gigantic colossal mountain of knowledge.
Last edited by Lysah; 2012-09-23 at 01:30 PM.
So you think the community should affect the review of the game? Have you actually ever played a game with a better community? It's exactly the same anywhere on the internet, but because in dota you depend on your teammates and communication you'll just notice it easier and the rotten people always stand out.
And you're really mistaken if you think Valve or anyone else will start handing out permanent bans to people who behave ill, partially because almost anyone does it from time to time. And you think bragging about reporting 200 people for "bad manners" is ever going to do anything except get all your future reports flagged as spam, which I can guarantee has already happened. The day they start banning the shit of the community, you should be first.
Last edited by Hermanni; 2012-09-23 at 01:42 PM.
Manni | paragon.fi!
Actually, I would argue that DotA is one of the nicer communities. In my experience, LoL is getting worse than DotA, and the more casual games always seem to attract, well, casuals...who often times end up being the 12 year old CoD players that make the internet such a dirty place. I think DotA is sort of self resistant to this behavior because it promotes an elite community due to having such a cliff of a learning curve.
Of course, it IS still the internet.
It's apparently really hard to grasp so here's how you report players with the incredibly complex system:
Text abuse
Reportable: "OMG YOU PIECE OF SHIT OF SHIT I HOPE YOU GET CANCER AND DIE AND I WILL SHIT ON YOUR GRAVE" 10x in chat all game long. Time stamp and description added to the report.
Not reportable: "omg noob mid gg" "this pudge is so bad"
Voice abuse
Same as above but in VOIP.
Intentional Ability Abuse
Reportable: Chen continuosly teleporting you to base, Tiny Tossing you to enemies. Add timestamp to report.
Not reportable: Tiny tossing you once by accident, Dazzle not graving you.
Intentional Feeding
Reportable: Player declaring "mid or feed" and suicing repeatedly to enemy towers when his demands are not met. Timestamp the exact moment they declared in chat that they will feed on purpose and when the feeding began.
Not reportable: noob pudge went 1-16 pls report
Other things that aren't reportable: Leaving games, going afk for a few minutes in the well. That's what the abandonment tracking is for.
Other things that are reportable: Staying in well for 10+ minutes while occassionally leaving to dodge AFK detection, counts as IAA. Leaving games and destroying your items or dropping items to enemies.
Anything that isn't here that isn't obvious griefing is probably not reportable, and feeding bullshit reports will probably end up with your future reports going straight to trashcan. If you did a 100 reports without seeing the pop-up, this is more than likely.
Last edited by Hermanni; 2012-09-23 at 03:08 PM.
Manni | paragon.fi!
I can't say how much I agree with you. Actually, since I started playing DotA 2 , nobody called me a newbie and such, even if I was a complete idiot. Some of them even taught me how to & shit.
About the lol community, I don't know what to say. I'd post some screenshots and show you how shitty it is.
The biggest problem i have when playing Dota2 is probably the damn shop and courier. Sure, im a noob, but its like they made some things much harder than it could be, just to make the already steep learning curve even steeper. The shops default interface setting is weird and i cant figure out how to save it. Some item combinations from base shop, side shop and secret shop, that can turn into unexpected results is annoying. But i feel i got the shop pretty much mastered.
The little courier bugger, well... motherfuck.
Even picking heroes is a mess and saving settings doesn't work.
I really hope they fix some things and add other tools to help us uninitiated someday and im pretty sure they will.
Interesting that the PC Gamer review mentions how much deeper Dota2 is, or seems to be, than LoL. Thats exactly how i feel as well but i cant really point out why. BTW, I dont want to start a LoL vs Dota2 thing.
For now i like to play the "easy" support and gank heroes hoping i get carried but if the carry fails he usually gets the blame and not me. x2
Not for every game, but for a game like Dota, where you're stuck in a game with four other people for 30-45 minutes and are punished for leaving early? Yeah, I think it matters, enough so that I think the game's score should take the community into account.
After all, when someone fires up the game and queues for a match, they will be dealing with that community literally every single time they play.
ANY game with private servers, where the players can keep the garbage out rather than having to rely on slow, inconsistent automated systems and anonymous reporting to do it.Have you actually ever played a game with a better community?
Agreed. You're going to notice the douchebags a lot more when you're being teamed up with them (this is also what made pubbing battlegrounds in WoW so frustrating 80% of the time, for example.) It becomes frustration cubed when you're teamed up with them and you don't have a way of getting away from it - you can't switch teams, you can't change servers, and if you decide you've had it with them and leave early, you're (correctly) punished for it.It's exactly the same anywhere on the internet, but because in dota you depend on your teammates and communication you'll just notice it easier and the rotten people always stand out.
Why? Because I expect people on the internet to treat each other with some fucking decency and civility?And you're really mistaken if you think Valve or anyone else will start handing out permanent bans to people who behave ill, partially because almost anyone does it from time to time. And you think bragging about reporting 200 people for "bad manners" is ever going to do anything except get all your future reports flagged as spam, which I can guarantee has already happened. The day they start banning the shit of the community, you should be first.
---------- Post added 2012-09-23 at 12:08 PM ----------
Counts as harassment. Are you saying that harassment should be tolerated?
Additionally: shouldn't there be an actual punishment? I've played low priority games as a result of bailing out of awful games on occasion and, on the whole, they're no worse than regular MM games and frequently better. Sure, you run into the usual trashmouth Russians who do nothing but flame and rage (interchangeable with Brazilians, but in my experience BRs tend to just stay quiet most of the time), but I run into those on a fairly consistent basis in regular matchmaking, too.
Really, it seems like the only difference between LP and regular queue is that LP queues are a little bit longer. I've heard people say that if your regular queue goes long enough (I've had some pretty long ones, 5+ minutes with the search bar being almost completely full), it'll start pulling people from LP; that seems far-fetched (isn't LP supposed to be a punishment?), but it's believable when you spent six minutes in a regular MM queue and wound up with a team of Brazilians.
And? Do you see game reviewers say they launched up latest cod and somebody called them a faggot, game score 4/10? Do you think there's a magic button the game developers can press to make the community better? Let's forget about working on the tutorials and new hero ports, let's just ban everyone this shitkid pizzashark reports and him too when he finally snaps and rages at someone, that way we'll have a dead game in no time.Not for every game, but for a game like Dota, where you're stuck in a game with four other people for 30-45 minutes and are punished for leaving early? Yeah, I think it matters, enough so that I think the game's score should take the community into account.
No, it's because you're just as bad as everyone you ever reported but pretend like you're better than them. Like you're entitled to cleaner community when all you do is bitch and moan about it and abuse the report system.
Yes, you should tolerate harassment to some degree or stay away from communicating with anonymous strangers. Or if you actually get pissed off at a mild comment that moderately offends your supposed gaming skill and want to waste someones time reviewing another piece of shit report you should just play with bots. Probably better than your normal hell tier MM too if LPQ is better. In your case you should probably stay away from communicating with anyone, for their sake.Counts as harassment. Are you saying that harassment should be tolerated?
Last edited by Hermanni; 2012-09-23 at 06:28 PM.
Manni | paragon.fi!
Do you think gaming communities will be better if the developers simply don't give a shit, if they don't make any effort to try and weed out the douchebags and griefers? Do you really think that there'd be as much tolerance or apathy towards it if people really knew, knew, the dev cared enough to take action against people that can't be civil?
You talk a lot of shit for someone who's never even known me. I don't fucking rage at people, I don't fucking attack them like you do. If I have a problem with them, I mute them and report them and continue on my way. It's not worth getting angry or even mildly irritated over. That doesn't mean I think it's something that's not worth working towards doing something about.No, it's because you're just as bad as everyone you ever reported but pretend like you're better than them. Like you're entitled to cleaner community when all you do is bitch and moan about it and abuse the report system.
I like how you actually think there's an MMR system in place, or that it means jack shit. I guess if you crave the need to feel superior to people, it's there. Otherwise, I've noticed no difference between first page games and my games other than my games don't have the occasional odd pro player drop in to poop on everyone.Yes, you should tolerate harassment to some degree or stay away from communicating with anonymous strangers. Or if you actually get pissed off at a mild comment that moderately offends your supposed gaming skill and want to waste someones time reviewing another piece of shit report you should just play with bots. Probably better than your normal hell tier MM too if LPQ is better. In your case you should probably stay away from communicating with anyone, for their sake.
At any rate, I'm really wondering why you're so apathetic about people not having any fucking civility or decency in games. Do you think that because you're sitting in front of a computer screen, you aren't interacting with other people? Or do you lie to yourself and everyone else and act like a massive twat online because you know you're shielded by anonymity?
---------- Post added 2012-09-23 at 06:17 PM ----------
It can be fun, but there's a line between taking the piss out and actively attacking someone.
It's pretty simple to understand where that line is: would you say what you want to say to someone's face?
Pff, everyone knows to stay at least 1500 range away from Pudge when they feel the need to say something in allchate.g. my friend is playing mid pudge so i start talking to his opponent
while hes responding pudge can easily hook him ;p
I like your subtle implication that there isn't one and that it doesn't work when anyone who's played the game knows better.
I don't think much of myself as a player, but my method of improving the community consists of trying to set a good example in the games I play in, reporting people who actually should be reported, and I get the pop-up fairly often when I've done so. Which I'm sure is 1000 times more productive than moaning on forums because the community its sooo toxic all fucking scumbag douchebags and trolls and russians fuck this gameid see this guy feeds and blames teams fuck that guy why is he allowed to play the game why can scumbags breathe same air as me fuck report so toxic why doesn't valve ban everyone to stop this toxic thing i mean my face is so poisonously toxic fuuuuuck.
Last edited by Hermanni; 2012-09-24 at 02:26 AM.
Manni | paragon.fi!
Well you get an MMR penalty for queueing with friends, it gets worse as team size gets bigger. The front page of games is nearly guaranteed to be teams of 4 or 5. It's always nice, for me, to solo queue and see 450 spectators notification pop up and know that I just rolled my way into some annoying miniskrim.
If you have a team of 5 you don't have to be the best players to get the top page, but your MMR would still have to be reasonably high. Theoretically that means you are at least decent, if you see bad play in a top game it's more likely the person is just screwing around, in my opinion. I've definitely been in 800 spectator games where my entire team randomed and got four carries so SF decided to go aura/stats and buy support items/etc.
Most of my games someone on either team is just absolutely horrid and does not deserve to be in the game with the rest of us, that tends to be how matchmaking balances games. In my experience with page 1 games, though, there is rarely someone who just flat out doesn't fit skill wise. At least, more rare than page 2-10 games.
Last edited by Lysah; 2012-09-24 at 09:54 AM.
I've seen evenly matched games but I've also seen a lot of games where there was a Leoric who skilled aura and crit before stun and built Sange and Yasha, or a Clockwerk that did nothing but feed and talked shit all game. I guess it's possible these types are just having a bad game, but it most of the time it seems like the mistakes and errors they're making aren't due to just a momentary lapse in judgement.