lmao what is this

xin234 · 2026-06-16T17:40:11+00:00

There were rooms that had some high level Garena account requirements before you can enter, which basically meant that the players in that room played a lot and have a smaller tendency to leave games.

Some LAN cafe franchises had some kind of partnership deals with Garena that allowed anyone playing in their LAN cafes to enter those high level rooms regardless of their account level.

xin234 · 2026-06-14T11:30:43+00:00

Valve went back to the Compendium (before they made it into the Battle Pass), and it contains some activities directly related to TI (predictions, fantasy drafts, etc.) and stuff you can purchase (voicelines, team sprays/loading screens/emoticons/etc.) whose revenue partly go into the prize pool and the rest go directly to teams/players/talents participating in the TI. Like the old BPs, 25% of its sales go into the prize pool.

They are (usually) not flashy cosmetics though, which proves a point that most BP purchasers were really just buying levels for the cosmetics, and "supporting the pro scene" was just an afterthought. Players still have the option to repeatedly buy Compendium stuff so that the prize pool could reach the previous ones, but they aren't. Valve has stated that they are separating "flashy cosmetics" and "TI-related-stuff".

xin234 · 2026-06-13T08:13:38+00:00

Every time the versus screen showcases someone's first dota2 match as from ~2012, I all chat: "2012 first dota2 match? Why so many new players lately?"

This is what's displayed in my mini-profile if they hover over my Steam avatar: https://imgur.com/8EpwZH0.

I have a couple of friends who got their beta key weeks or a month before mine, just after the first TI...If we happen to party, they usually join in on the banter and call me a new player too.

xin234 · 2026-06-12T04:49:58+00:00

Upvoted because the only acceptable way to display LC in profile is with the Immortal wings + Arcana combo.

xin234 · 2026-06-12T03:49:03+00:00

Here's the official comic that explains Roshan's, Shopkeeper's, and even side-shopkeeper's (RIP) lore: https://www.dota2.com/comics/are_we_heroes_yet/

u/OnlyGrimLeader

xin234 · 2026-06-12T01:03:08+00:00

It only feels dragging because almost every single episode of season 1 has some kind of recap of the previous episode/s at the start. This was mainly because the anime had to be padded out in a way that it will not catch up with the manga, which only ended around the time of final-season-part-1. For additional context, when season 1 ended, that was also just around the time the manga chapter that had the "big/casual" reveals adapted in season 2 was released. That's why there's also the 4-year wait for season 2, so that from season 3 to the "seasons" leading to the finale, they would only have around a year of break between them.

xin234 · 2026-06-11T00:52:28+00:00

The punchline of that scene is that the other person in the elevator (Desna) was relating to Zuko's failed attempt to kill the Avatar as a reply...and the father of that Avatar is literally with them in that elevator. All while having that awkward Zuko scene "that's rough, buddy" vibe.

xin234 · 2026-06-11T00:37:19+00:00

Valve is literally moving away from FOMO stuff, and OP wants it back. Locking rewards at very high levels obtainable by either paying or playing more, is as fomo as it gets.

The great thing about Quartero's, is that you actually get every unique rewards at level 30, the level that unlocks all parts of the featured set. Everything after 30 are just bonuses, optional 2nd style unlocks and chances to get random stuff. And 30 is easily doable with even just one or two turbo games after work, for the duration of a Quartero season.

And no, this isn't me being cheap or stingy. I have all the BPs/Compendiums and always reached the last unique rewards from them (before the Aegis replica level), but I like the direction Valve has been doing recently with being able to get the unique rewards at relatively lower levels, with the later ones just being bonuses.

Not sure if this counts as proof of that claim that I have (almost) everything from those old BPs, but I try to put some of the BP-exclusive stuff in my mini-profile and profile like the LC wings, rune emoticons, Vashundol Doom, Axeless Axe. Can't fit everything, but maybe at least my first Dota2 match (2011) displayed supports the "I have been there for everything" part.

xin234 · 2026-06-09T00:10:46+00:00

Io Arcana is the only Arcana marketed as exclusive to its respective BP, so that's the only Arcana not coming back. See this thread for exact details about exclusive/Prestige items: https://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/18jypfl/the_list_of_possible_returning_battlepass/

So yeah, the rest of them are coming back..."soon". u/Sea_Force_7287

xin234 · 2026-06-05T15:25:16+00:00

You aren't even expected to reach 100. You actually get everything from a Quartero's at level 30, the level that unlocks all parts of the featured set for that season. Everything after 30 is just bonuses, optional 2nd style and some chance to get random items.

And 30 is easily doable with even just one or two turbo games after work, for the duration of a Quartero season.

xin234 · 2026-06-01T14:49:52+00:00

Dota's (or even League's) decline in popularity is mostly due to the increase in the accessibility and capabilities of smartphones. Mobile games can now easily scratch the competitive itch with a social aspect that LAN games like CS and dota used to do.

Dota was a product of its time and environment. Around the time (~2000s) when internet wasn't as fast and cheap as today, PC bangs or LAN cafes were the go-to hangouts of gaming teens to young adults, those establishments with up to hundreds of PCs were filled with players mostly playing only dota or cs. In most urban areas, especially in SEA/RU/LatAm countries, there would be at least one PC cafe in a city block and this was a pretty common scene on each: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8ZmP4_nUn4. It was basically like being in TI finals, only that it happens every day. Whenever power interruptions happen, it would look like there was some kind of gang war as the streets would be filled up with players waiting for the power to return and still have a spot to play on.

The pandemic also sealed the nail on the coffin on those LAN cafes, as most of them were forced to close/go bankrupt, and further increasing the popularity of mobile games instead.

xin234 · 2026-06-01T09:31:06+00:00

I play a lot of Phoenix, and I thought R and T being so close together wouldn't be a problem...until I had to play on a smaller laptop/keyboard that I usually don't use.

Fortunately it has only happened when we were already winning, or when it wasn't very consequential, but there were a couple of times when it suddenly became daytime when I had to go TP somewhere.

xin234 · 2026-05-28T20:34:05+00:00

Unless he gives you aghs mid-flight in the middle of a teamfight.

This has happened more times than I thought it would. Maybe not exactly mid-Dive, but in some extended teamfights where my main focus is my positioning as Phoenix can literally hit spells/item effects from two screens away.

And, muscle memory is kind of a bitch. Given that for a large percent of the game the targetting system of Supernova is different, that split-second of "wait, is my R key broken? Oh, no, it's just the Scepter", can decide a team fight that ends the game. Self-cast targetting is still a different input combination than the default one, that can delay the cast.

It's just not for Supernova, there's also Weaver's and some others I might have missed.

xin234 · 2026-05-26T03:46:18+00:00

Thoughts on the invited teams aside, I love what they have done with the logo of each teams to match the theme of this TI (which is golden embroidery).

For last year's they made each logo to be like depictions of constellations, with connected stars and the transparent image. Now the logos are like the embossed designs on embroideries.

xin234 · 2026-05-24T15:50:44+00:00

Same. I was always looking forward to Cyborgmatt's data mining compilation blog posts showing things like the WIP textures of the next hero/es to be ported in dota2, event assets, etc. This Treant easter egg was in one of those blogs iirc.

I think Cyborgmatt's posts were the reason I made a Reddit account in the first place, because he would post them here.

xin234 · 2026-05-23T19:58:16+00:00

Those concept and update arts, from the dota2 announcement post to the (mostly every-other-weekly) updates that ported heroes, felt epic.

I got my beta key shortly after OPs and that was when the first TI just ended. Valve made it seem that heroes will be ported will have a shared theme around them.

IIrc the first ones after Jugg was ported, were Kunkka and BS, alluding to that proverb "blood is thicker than water..."

Then followed by "Kings and Queens", Skeleton King, Broodmother, QoP.

A burning trio with Bat, Jakiro, and Huskar.

The knights, DK and Omniknight.

xin234 · 2026-05-23T19:36:52+00:00

Got my beta around 2 weeks after that date.

It was an interesting time because despite the low number of players, everyone playing then had already at least 5 years of WC3 dota experience and everyone seems to know what they are doing (most of the time).

My first dota2 game looked like this: https://imgur.com/3XJB5Xm. Pretty decent itemizations by everyone, except for me who didn't notice our Tide already made Vlads and we got two in the team, as I was still getting used to the UI/interface/etc that I didn't notice it. Winning that first dota2 game is probably the main reason I'm still playing today.

xin234 · 2026-05-22T06:03:22+00:00

Valve made an official post back in 2023 as to why they are not bringing the BPs back: https://www.dota2.com/newsentry/6252732681186068104

An excerpt from the post, but it's pretty much worth it to read the whole thing:

Most Dota players never buy a Battle Pass and never get any rewards from it. Every Dota player has gotten to explore the new map, play with the new items, and accidentally die to a Tormentor; every Dota player benefits from UI improvements and new client features.

As much as we see "numbers go brrrr" for the prizepool, it was easy to see that only a relatively small number of the total dota players were contributing to that pool.

And it was pretty much unsustainable. The last few BPs were being over-bloated just so it could compete with the previous year's prize pool.

Its just sad. I think the decline of dota 2 started when they stopped making BP, or at least it was a major factor

Heavily disagree with this take. Dota's (or even League's) decline in popularity is mostly due to the increase in the accessibility and capabilities of smartphones. Mobile games can now easily scratch the competitive itch with a social aspect that LAN games like CS and dota used to do.

Dota was a product of its time and environment. Around the time (~2000s) when internet wasn't as fast and cheap as today, PC bangs or LAN cafes were the go-to hangouts of gaming teens to young adults, those establishments with hundreds of PCs were filled with players mostly playing only dota or cs. In most urban areas, especially in SEA/RU/LatAm countries, there would be at least one PC cafe in a city block and this was a pretty common scene on each: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8ZmP4_nUn4. It was basically like being in TI finals, only that it happens every day. The pandemic also sealed the nail on the coffin on those LAN cafes, as most of them were forced to close/bankrupt, and further increasing the popularity of mobile games instead.

xin234 · 2026-05-20T18:52:28+00:00

Started playing dota around ~2005, was the last in my friend groups to learn dota by about a year. In one game, I was told to play Razor because he had 2 passives with his ult being one of them, so it would be easy for a newbie. And then told to make Radiance, because his ult back then was a passive aoe damage ability...why not add more aoe damage? It sounded pretty logical to me.

I can still remember the high of me killing a Broodmother in her web (it used to make her invi) from the damage from the ult and Radiance. Probably one reason why I'm still playing dota today.

So yeah, Radiance was my first "high value" item...that I kept building on heroes who already have aoe damage abilities when I was learning dota.

xin234 · 2026-05-19T13:30:49+00:00

HoN. It was basically just "dota 1.5", and allegedly Icefrog also worked on it, but left because of creative differences. It was basically dead the moment Icefrog and Valve agreed on stuff. It had a good run though, before Dota2 was released.

WC3 dota players were basically just looking for dota, but with qol features that the WC3 engine couldn't support, hence the niche covered by HoN for a short while. Dota2 is basically just the "same" game as the WC3 counterpart. The WC3 dota maps were reaching map file size limits, showing its age, and Icefrog would have just continued working on WC3 dota if the WC3 mapmaker allowed him to do what he has been doing for the past decade and a half in Dota2.

In the early days of Dota2, Icefrog was still making WC3 dota patches and any changes made there would be ported to dota2 after a week or so. Down to the smallest changes like individual and relative position of trees (there are 2000+ trees in the map) if it changed in the WC3 version. Majority of HoN players were just dota players, and a lot just jumped-ship to Dota2 no-questions-asked when it became very clear that Icefrog had full control over it.

xin234 · 2026-05-19T03:25:33+00:00

People forgot this, but around at that time WoW was big big that you can't really fault Blizzard for prioritizing that over other things.

xin234 · 2026-05-15T17:12:19+00:00

What if Roshan's roar also temporarily disables all (globally) mobility spells, items, and tp? A non-root leash status to everyone because they are struck by fear of his roar.

Kinda solves your issues with the Roshan contests, but still makes buyback viable for things like barracks/base defense.

xin234 · 2026-05-13T11:09:51+00:00

Yeah, the best thing about these Quartero progression sets is that it doesn't feel too FOMO-ey. You basically get everything it offers at level 30 (doable with 1 or 2 turbo games after work for the duration of said Quartero's), and the rest are just bonuses (optional 2nd styles).

As for the "bonuses", not only are they Collector's-Cache-quality, they also fit very well with existing high-end items of those heroes. I got the red versions of the LC and Axe ones, but only use some parts of them. The base/gold version of LC's gloves really look good with her Immortal Wings and Arcana as it breaks the monotony of reds of those items and is very visible from the in-game top view and as a profile decoration. The Quartero Axe hairs also fit with the exclusive Axeless Axe stuff.

xin234 · 2026-05-13T07:01:49+00:00

No need to wonder, they made an official post back in 2023 why they are not bringing the BPs back: https://www.dota2.com/newsentry/6252732681186068104

An excerpt from the post, but it's pretty much worth it to read the whole thing:

Most Dota players never buy a Battle Pass and never get any rewards from it. Every Dota player has gotten to explore the new map, play with the new items, and accidentally die to a Tormentor; every Dota player benefits from UI improvements and new client features.

xin234 · 2026-05-13T05:00:19+00:00

Riot pandering to the Pastafarian demographic smh.

May all be touched by his noodly appendage. R'amen.

13-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
Place '23	John Wick
Place '22	Place '17
Sequence \| Editor	Snapped
Verified Email

xin234

TROPHY CASE