Valve | PlayFTW! | Play For The Win!

Tag Archive for Valve

Dota 2: The International 2012 tourney teams confirmed

16/05/2012 / owner / No comments

When the second annual The International tournament for Dota 2 kicks off August 31 at the Benaroya Hall in Seattle, last year’s championship Ukranian team will be on hand to defend its crown. Valve has confirmed six of 16 teams for the event, including the reigning champs Na’Vi.

The International host country will have its own team this year.

The remaining five announced teams include DK (China), Complexity (USA), Orange (Malaysia), and Absolute Legends (Australia). This will be the first time Australian or American teams have competed at The International. Last year, only three Americans competed in total, separated on two different European-favored teams. Complexity owner Jason Lake told GameSpot he was aware that distinction comes with some burden.

“Being the first American team invited to an event on U.S. soil comes with special responsibilities and I’m confident our players will step up to the plate and put forward the effort needed to make the local fans proud,” Lake said. “We’ll be working extremely hard to prepare for the event and will boot camp in the area in the weeks leading up to what will surely be an event for the ages.”

This will be the team’s first ever Dota 2 LAN event, with a lot of pressure on the squad to perform well. Complexity has won its last 10 official online matches in a row, including victories over Evil Geniuses and Fnatic.

“Complexity have been playing in a lot of competitions of late, and perform strongly every game,” joinDOTA.com broadcaster Toby Dawson told GameSpot. “Their biggest problem is when they go up against the top tier-1 teams, they’re hot and cold. Sometimes they can pull it off, sometimes they can’t. It will be interesting to see.”

Meanwhile, Absolute Legends is giving Australia its first shot at The International, and hoping to bring a long-awaited major eSports title to the region.

“Absolute Legends have a huge amount of experience, as well as the strong strats,” said Dawson, an Australian native and longtime friends of the players. “They are not to be underestimated. They have a shot of winning it all. I think it would be awesome for Australia.”

Article source: http://www.gamespot.com/news/dota-2-the-international-2012-tourney-teams-confirmed-6376814

Category: Uncategorized / Tags: Australia, complexity, Crown, DotA, GameSpot, host, Shot, team, The International, The International host, Toby Dawson, tournament, Ukranian, Valve

Valve, Blizzard Settle DOTA Name Dispute

13/05/2012 / owner / No comments

Valve and Blizzard have ordered their legal teams to heel and come to a mutual agreement over the rights to the DOTA name. The studios announced today that Valve has dibs on the use of DOTA commercially, while Blizzard can keep calling its noncommercial Warcraft III mods DOTA. In other words, nothing changed. Well, except for one thing: Blizzard DOTA is dead. Long live Blizzard All-Stars!

In a brief joint statement, Blizzard and Valve said they are both pleased to settle their DOTA dispute.

“Both Blizzard and Valve recognize that, at the end of the day, players just want to be able to play the games they’re looking forward to, so we’re happy to come to an agreement that helps both of us stay focused on that,” Blizzard VP Rob Pardo said in a statement.

“We’re pleased that we could come to an agreement with Blizzard without drawing things out in a way that would benefit no one,” said Gabe Newell, president and co-founder of Valve. “We both want to focus on the things our fans care about, creating and shipping great games for our communities.”

For gamers, that means the game formerly known as Blizzard DOTA and Valve’s DOTA 2 won’t fall into release limbo over a lengthy legal dispute. Hooray! Instead, they’ll fall into the release limbo created by the infamously long and often delayed development cycles at Blizzard and Valve.

Article source: http://feeds.gamespy.com/~r/gsfeeds/all/~3/FjxPaANKIXw/1224611p1.html

Category: Uncategorized / Tags: Agreement, Blizzard, co-founder, DotA, heel, Long, mutual agreement, president, Stars, Valve

Blizzard DOTA changed to Blizzard All-Stars

12/05/2012 / owner / No comments

Blizzard DOTA is now Blizzard All-Stars, the name change stemming from Valve and Blizzard’s recent dispute over rights to the DOTA name. As part of the resolution, Valve will keep using the DOTA 2 name for its in-development game, while Blizzard’s continued use of DOTA will be limited to noncommercial use for the Warcraft III and Starcraft II communities.

This image is now out of date.

Blizzard executive VP of game design Rob Pardo explained the change in a statement, saying, “Both Blizzard and Valve recognize that, at the end of the day, players just want to be able to play the games they’re looking forward to, so we’re happy to come to an agreement that helps both of us stay focused on that. As part of this agreement, we’re going to be changing the name of Blizzard DOTA to Blizzard All-Stars, which ultimately better reflects the design of our game. We look forward to going into more detail on that at a later date.”

For Valve’s side of the story, co-founder Gabe Newell said, “We’re pleased that we could come to an agreement with Blizzard without drawing things out in a way that would benefit no one. We both want to focus on the things our fans care about, creating and shipping great games for our communities.”

The dispute started in November, when Blizzard filed a notice of opposition with the US Patent and Trademark Office to Valve’s promotion of DOTA 2. The DOTA name comes from a Warcraft III mod called Defense of the Ancients. In its opposition, Blizzard states that the DOTA name “for more than seven years has been used exclusively by Blizzard and its fan community, under license from Blizzard” and that Valve filed its trademark on the name “in order to confuse consumers as to Blizzard’s sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of Valve’s products.” In Valve’s response, the company said that Blizzard cannot claim exclusive rights to the name and that its own rights to DOTA are senior to any claims made by Blizzard.

Both Valve and Blizzard have said they aren’t planning to release further details about the agreement.

Article source: http://uk.gamespot.com/news/blizzard-dota-changed-to-blizzard-all-stars-6376444

Category: Uncategorized / Tags: Agreement, Blizzard, Blizzard All-Stars, change, dispute, DotA, Starcraft, Stars, Trademark, Valve

Second annual Dota 2 tournament headed to PAX

11/05/2012 / owner / No comments

Valve’s second annual Dota 2 tournament, The International 2012, will be held this September at PAX Prime in Seattle.

Expect DOTA 2 to leave beta early next year.

The championships will take place between August 31 and September 2, 2012, during PAX Prime, and will carry a grand prize of $1 million. The tournament will again be broadcast in multiple languages free of charge.

Valve launched The International last year, during Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, where Ukrainian Na’Vi took home the grand prize after a five-day tournament comprising of 16 of the best Dota teams competing in a group-stage, double elimination playoff format.

Dota 2 is scheduled for PC and Mac release this year. The game combines action and real-time strategy elements in multiplayer matches that pit teams of player-controlled heroes against one another. The game will include integrated voice chat and computer-controlled characters that will take over for players who disconnect during play sessions, as well as a coaching system, where veteran players will have the chance to tutor newcomers.

GameSpot has archived footage of last year’s The International Dota 2 tournament.

Article source: http://asia.gamespot.com/news/second-annual-dota-2-tournament-headed-to-pax-6376254

Category: Uncategorized / Tags: DotA, format, Game, home, multiplayer, PAX, Strategy, The International, The tournament, tournament, Valve

GameStop to Start Selling Steam Vouchers

11/05/2012 / owner / No comments

Looks like another win for digital distribution. According to sources at Kotaku, GameStop will begin selling vouchers redeemable on Steam. The cash that you spend in the brick-and-mortar stores will be deposited into your Steam Wallet, which can then be spent on the absurd number of games on Valve’s platform. Good thing too, that $1.02 I had left over from buying some TF2 gear sure was getting lonely.

This move is good for just about everyone involved. GameStop can never hope to compete in the digital space with Steam, so why not team up? Kids can get games on Steam without credit card info by dropping by their local store, so that’s pretty cool. Valve may be losing a little money off the top, but I’d be willing to bet that they’ve done the math to figure out making their product more available leads to higher profits. Really, though, it was only a matter of time until something like this happened.

Article source: http://feeds.gamespy.com/~r/gsfeeds/all/~3/jjZEaXZ7z-s/1224571p1.html

Category: Uncategorized / Tags: digital distribution, Games, GameStop, Kids, Kotaku, platform, Start, Steam, Store, Valve

Steam’s Remote Management Feature Isn’t Quite Ready for Prime Time

03/05/2012 / owner / No comments

The Steam mobile app glaringly lacked a key feature: the ability to remotely manage your games library and buy, download and install games to your home computer. Valve aims to fix that with the latest Steam client update, which went into beta last night. But remote management of your Steam library isn’t a reality quite yet.

The beta launch didn’t go as smoothly as Valve would have liked, with a number of testers reporting widespread problems with the Steam beta client, notably Error Code 51 messages that prevented users from booting games. As of this posting, the remote management feature also isn’t working, resulting in a number of beta testers, myself included, searching on the Steam mobile app and online via laptops for remote download and install options for Steam games and finding none.

So yes, you will soon be able to manage your Steam library while away from home, you just can’t do it yet. I’ll update this post when the Steam beta client is running smoothly.

Article source: http://feeds.gamespy.com/~r/gsfeeds/all/~3/hVjS2X7GeRg/1224203p1.html

Category: Uncategorized / Tags: app, beta testers, client, computer, games library, home, Management, remote management, Steam, Steam client, update, Valve

Valve not announcing anything at E3

02/05/2012 / owner / No comments

Valve will not announce Half-Life 3, any sequel to an existing franchise, or hardware at the 2012 Electronic Entertainment Expo, the company told GameSpot today.

Valve has nothing new to share at E3.

“There are no new Valve product announcements planned for this year’s E3,” a Valve company spokesperson said.

This follows a Valvetime report from last week (via CVG) that indicated the firm would not make any announcements at E3 2012.

Valve cofounder Gabe Newell recently addressed the wait for Half-Life 3, saying Valve has gone through numerous “twists and turns” to bring the long-awaited game to market, and that remaining silent on the project is actually in the best interest of fans.

Prior to that, rumor had spread that Newell and Apple CEO Tim Cook met at Valve’s headquarters in Bellevue, Washington. Newell quickly shot down this speculation, saying he would enjoy discussing ideas with Cook, but no such meeting occurred.

Valve is also rumored to be at work on a gaming system of its own, described as the “Steam Box.” Speculation about this endeavor was further sparked last month, when several job listings at Valve were posted, calling for people to “invent whole new gaming experiences” and “research compelling new hardware technologies.”

Article source: http://www.gamespot.com/news/valve-not-announcing-anything-at-e3-6374857

Category: Uncategorized / Tags: E3, Electronic, Electronic Entertainment Expo, firm, franchise, Gabe Newell, gaming, hardware, today, Valve, Valve company, ValveTime

Valve: No New Product Announcements at E3

02/05/2012 / owner / No comments

Valve has confirmed that it will not be announcing any new projects at this year’s E3. While an email obtained by a forum member at ValveTime last week suggested that Valve had nothing planned for E3, Valve has now independently confirmed to IGN that this is the case.

Previously, a great deal of speculation has surrounded the announcement of Half-Life 3, among other projects. The Half-Life franchise was last seen in 2007 with the release of Half-Life 2: Episode Two in The Orange Box.

At the moment, Valve is working on Dota 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, both of which are currently in closed beta. In addition, new Portal 2 DLC is set to arrive in the coming weeks.

For more Valve’s current betas, check out our look at Counter Strike: GO’s fast-paced Arms Race mode and Dota 2′s Earthshaker hero.

Andrew Goldfarb is IGN’s associate news editor. Keep up with pictures of the latest food he’s been eating by following him on Twitter or IGN.

Article source: http://feeds.ign.com/~r/ignfeeds/all/~3/72y4TQrx2d4/1224191p1.html

Category: Uncategorized / Tags: announcement, DotA, forum, franchise, member, Strike, Valve, ValveTime

Update: Portal 2 "Perpetual Testing Initiative" Arrives May 8th, Special Message From Cave Johnson

28/04/2012 / owner / No comments

Updated With 10x More Cave Johnson: We’ve updated our original story to include a special video message from Cave Johnson that details many of the features that will come in the “Perpetual Testing Initiative.”

Original Story: Apparently Valve wasn’t happy with Wheatley’s feeble attempts at creating puzzles in Portal 2, and decided to make it easier for those of us who aren’t robots to design our own test chambers. In the free Perpetual Testing Initiative DLC, coming May 8, we’re going to be doing just that.

Granted, some authoring tools have been out there for a while, and some really great stuff has been made with it (Robert “Radiator” Yang’s Level With Me series, for example), but those tools are a bit tough to use for those not super familiar with modding. The Perpetual Testing Initiative looks to give the common man the ability to make puzzles fairly easily. And if the screenshots are any indication, they’ll be able to do it in a very simple, stylish fashion.

Of course, Portal 2 being a Valve game, the DLC will fully support Steam Workshop, allowing folks to easily browse, vote on, and download maps directly into Portal 2. I expect great things from you, Portal 2 fans. Don’t disappoint me.

Article source: http://feeds.gamespy.com/~r/gsfeeds/all/~3/xbySKxjWmTA/1223843p1.html

Category: Uncategorized / Tags: Cave Johnson, Granted, Initiative, message, Portal, series, test, Testing Initiative, Testing Initiative DLC, update, Valve

Portal 2 Level Editor Out Soon

27/04/2012 / owner / No comments

Valve announced a level editor last year for PC Portal 2 players, and now it finally has a release date. The Portal 2 DLC “Perpetual Testing” will hit Steam for free on May 8. This DLC enables players to “easily create, share, and play Portal 2 puzzles. The Initiative comes with a simplified puzzle maker that allows that creation of mind-bending puzzles without ever leaving the game.”

Portal 2 Video Review

Puzzles can be downloaded and shared through Valve’s Steam Workshop, and then installed from within Portal 2.

Anthony is an Editor on IGN’s PC team. You can follow him on IGN and read his occasional thoughts on Twitter.

Article source: http://feeds.ign.com/~r/ignfeeds/all/~3/1WKiDpWpJN8/1223837p1.html

Category: Uncategorized / Tags: creation, Editor, Initiative, maker, puzzle, puzzles, Steam, Valve

« Older Entries

PlayFTW! | Play For The Win!