Dota 2 Team Discusses Diretide Absence, Announces Return

[Omnomnick]

In a surprising turn of events, Valve's Dota 2 team have released a new blog post entitled "Not My Best Work!", which they use to discuss the recent absence of the 'annual' Halloween themed gamemode, Diretide. After quite the commotion over the past few weeks regarding a lack of communication between Valve and the community, the team has finally come forwards explaining why Diretide failed to ship on time before revealing that the gamemode is set to return sometime very soon ahead of a much larger, currently unannounced update.

Put simply, the Dota 2 team had planned to finish and release the aforementioned large update in time for Halloween as the Diretide gamemode was non-functional and difficult to re-implement following a number of serious codebase and UI modifications made to the game since last November. After seriously underestimating the demand for the Halloween gamemode, Valve began work on restoring and improving Diretide in order to release it sometime soon.

The blog post mentions that the team are also finalising work on the "significant" update the team has been working on for several months, before discussing how an improved version of Diretide will be ready to ship in the next update, which will presumably hit sometime late next week. It seems likely that the 'significant' update will follow shortly after.

Lastly, Valve have mentioned that they are looking to recognise their mistakes in order to improve their communication channels in the future. Oh, and the team also requests that people stop harassing car manufacturer Volvo. To read about this recent turn of events in more detail, be sure to head on over to the official blog post over on the Dota 2 website.

 

[Omnomnick]

༼ ᕤ◕◡◕ ༽ᕤ Diretide: Given!

 

[FoxLeks]

I think that this site. can be considered an official channel of communication for Valve

 

[MFL]

Lastly, Valve have mentioned that they are looking to recognise their mistakes in order to improve their communication channels in the future.

*blank stare*

They better not get Diretide for another six ****ing years.

 

[Dr.IndianaJones]

༼ ᕤ◕◡◕ ༽ᕤ

 

[FoxLeks]

 

[MFL]

I wish HL had a Valve blog.

 

[-smash-]

*blank stare*

They better not get Diretide for another six ****ing years.

Half-Life is so perfect that they cannot talk about its future... Dota must be shit then. But seriously, the difference is that Dota 2 is currently bringing them money (because it's widely supported) so they have to improve communication on that front.

 

[Gloone]

They should probably have apologised at some point in that post.

 

[MFL]

Why?

 

[Omnomnick]

Why?

Because he told them to. Don't question it.

 

[Gloone]

Get a life, Omnomnick. He's free to question me about anything. I'm open to criticism. If you disagree with me, that's fine, state your disagreement - but I've never told anybody not to question me, so don't do it on my behalf, it's dishonest and it's childish.

Why?

They dedicated a lot of words basically along the lines of "you're angry at us, you're right to be angry because we made a mistake, XYZ occurred and this resulted in us making a decision to be dishonest" - you'd think all this would naturally lead up to them saying "we apologise", but they never actually say it. Just struck me as odd.

 

[-smash-]

But they don't owe an apology. It was just a Halloween event. It's not their fault that the community ripped them apart over something like that, especially when Valve has given and continues to give the Dota 2 community so much.

 

[Gloone]

Uh. If it's not their fault why did they just write a big blog post telling everybody they'd made a bad decision? They've just explicitly stated that they knew they'd made a big mistake, and that they made an active (and terrible) decision to be dishonest and stay silent in the hope that the issue would go away. I don't know how much clearer this needs to be for you.

And I've only heard bad things from the Dota 2 community. Complainers are always the loudest, of course, but all I hear are complaints. The report system, the language problems, and the matchmaking, sound as if they're very broken and despite the clamour from the community Valve have done zero work on fixing it. Made lots of new hats, though.

 

[-smash-]

Your condescending tone makes it really hard to take you seriously. Why don't you try showing a little more respect. Is that clear enough for you?

Owning up to a mistake and making a formal apology aren't always mutual. Capiche?

 

[Gloone]

No. I don't know what you're talking about, really. Owning up to a mistake like this and making an apology for said mistake usually go hand in hand - I can't think of a circumstance where they don't. You don't generally apologise unless you've made a mistake, and if you make a mistake, you should apologise. Sorry that you found my tone condescending, but I simply find it bemusing how you read a blog post by Valve admitting they made a mistake, and what you deduced from it was that Valve weren't at fault for anything. I'm still bemused, as you dodged the question.

 

[MFL]

Apology implies having wronged someone. In my opinion, no one has been wronged in the entirety of the Diretide situation, except maybe Volvo.

 

[-smash-]

They didn't just say "you're angry at us, you're right to be angry because we made a mistake, XYZ occurred and this resulted in us making a decision to be dishonest". They also said they're releasing the Diretide event and another large update. That's the goddamn apology. It bemuses me that you read that and left that part completely out of your post.

But I said it's not Valve's fault for the rabid reaction that the community had over a free, limited-time event. It's not Valve's fault that the community spammed Volvo's social feeds (and ours!). It's not Valve's fault that other online communities were filled with childish rage. There's no reason Valve needs to issue a formal apology to anyone for jack shit.

The ****wads that caused the ruckus should apologize to Valve for being ungrateful, impatient imbeciles, especially after everything Valve has given to that community.

 

[MFL]

I'm still lobbying for the opinion that we can still be ungrateful, impatient imbeciles. We've got more time, yo.

 

[-smash-]

The worst we probably could do is get another 15,000 people to play HL2 for a day. But we wouldn't get a stinking blog post for it. But I guess that proves the point that if you rage hard enough, you might just get what you want - kind of like a spoiled child and its mother that's sick of the belly aching.

 

[Gloone]

And they didn't just say "you're angry at us, you're right to be angry because we made a mistake, XYZ occurred and this resulted in us making a decision to be dishonest". They also said they're releasing the Diretide event and another large update. That's the goddamn apology. It bemuses me that you read that and left that part completely out of your post.

I didn't leave it out? I never claimed to be making a carbon copy of the blog post - the article has already linked to it, for anybody who wants to read what it says. Not giving Diretide wasn't bad in itself - Valve is of course free to work on whatever they see fit. Their fault (by their own admission), and a mistake which Valve has made repeatedly in the past, was, consciously, to just stay silent, pretend nothing had gone wrong, and hope the customer anger faded away. In this case it backfired and things got out of control. They only stated this. They didn't say 'sorry' for behaving in that way. I've said elsewhere that Valve seems to have some kind of endemic cultural problem with this issue.

But I said it's not Valve's fault for the rabid reaction that the community had over a free, limited-time event. It's not Valve's fault that the community spammed Volvo's social feeds (and ours!). It's not Valve's fault that other online communities were filled with childish rage. There's no reason Valve needs to issue a formal apology to anyone for jack shit.

The ****wads that caused the ruckus should apologize to Valve for being ungrateful, impatient imbeciles, especially after everything Valve has given to that community.

I'm sorry you had to deal with crap on your website. I'm not a Dota player and I wasn't involved with any of that, I just found out through news sites. I imagine there were a lot of childish people who personally made bad decisions and went over the top.

That doesn't mean Valve didn't do anything wrong, either. They patently did - they've just made a blog post admitting it. And as I said, I don't know what amazing charity you're referring to, but everything I've heard from people who actually play Dota contradicts your picture of a gleaming company. It sounds to me like Diretide was just the straw which broke the camel's back; there are major, chronic problems raised by the community which Valve has just ignored. And I was surprised to hear it, given the way they've supported TF2 over all these years.

 

[-smash-]

"I've heard from people who actually play Dota contradicts your picture of a gleaming company." Let me offer some outside perspective, then, since apparently the people you're speaking to cannot see the forest for the trees. Valve have given away a free, very stable game that continues to receive free content and massive updates/features; a game that holds a huge annual tournament; a game that has its own documentary film. (Aside: This is coming from a company the size of 350 employees that's currently supporting ~3-4 games simultaneously while also developing next-generation ones. Oh and they have that whole Steam thing.) I really couldn't care less for how hurt and neglected some Dota players feel. If 540,000 daily peak players is a symptom of chronic problems, then damn, maybe Valve shouldn't fix those problems.

 

[Gemini]

Wait wait. So, people actually managed to mistake Valve with Volvo ?

 

[Eejit]

Wait wait. So, people actually managed to mistake Valve with Volvo ?

No, it's an absolutely hilarious joke that didn't get old 5 minutes after first being made.

 

[Omnomnick]

No, it's an absolutely hilarious joke that didn't get old 5 minutes after first being made.

A timeless classic.

 

[Gloone]

Valve have given away a free, very stable game that continues to receive free content and massive updates/features, etc.

Oh come on, somebody who runs ValveTime can't honestly be this naive about the nature of Valve. They aren't running a charity for heaven's sakes. They've just changed their business model: by all accounts they're making more money than ever. Releasing Dota 2, gradually releasing more content for Dota 2, making a documentary advertising Dota 2... these were never gifts; it was always in the interests of Valve's pockets. Not that there's anything shameful in that. But the implication that they're doing this to be altruistic is too naive to be credible. Nor does it negate the fact that there are major issues and Valve have largely ignored the community in that regard.

 

[Omnomnick]

Releasing Dota 2, gradually releasing more content for Dota 2, making a documentary advertising Dota 2... these were never gifts; it was always in the interests of Valve's pockets. Not that there's anything shameful in that.

Now I don't even know what you're complaining about. Spending over a year developing a Dota 2 documentary is a pretty good marketing strategy. It entertains their intended audience while raising awareness of e-sports and also advertises the game.

Both sides benefit in different ways.

 

[Danny_ZQ]

you could cut the tension with a knife A SPOON

 

[Omnomnick]

you could cut the tension with a knife

With a spoon.

 

[Danny_ZQ]

fixed

 

[Gloone]

Now I don't even know what you're complaining about. Spending over a year developing a Dota 2 documentary is a pretty good marketing strategy. It entertains their intended audience while raising awareness of e-sports and also advertises the game.

Both sides benefit in different ways.

Yet again you're picking a fight when there isn't one. I agree with... everything you said. It's what I said, too. I even spelled it out for you; "there's nothing shameful". Somehow you interpreted that sentence to mean "I am complaining about this". I'm not, I like their economic strategy, for online games at least.

 

[Skyace65]

Apology implies having wronged someone. In my opinion, no one has been wronged in the entirety of the Diretide situation, except maybe Volvo.

yeah but they got free advertising from it all and acted cool about it(whoever made those posts deserves a raise/promotion)

 

[killer89]

Get a life, Omnomnick.

Feel free to give yours to him as early christmas present.