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Dota 2 is getting LAN play

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LAN’s are dead,right? With everything pretty much needing to be connected to some server on the internet, there’s really very little impetus for a bunch of dudes to actually get together with their computers and play together. Well, that’s changing, as one of the most popular multiplayer games is adding LAN support. Yup, local lag-free Dota 2 is coming.

The First Blood update, coming next week Monday, adds local, LAN play for up to ten people – making Dota 2 a viable game for LAN parties and Internet cafe’s.

It’ll also add a new play mode called Captain’s Draft, where two teams nominate a captain and then choose their characters from a randomised pool of 24. Each side then takes turns removing two heroes from each match, counter-picking – like a reverse of picking teams when you were in school. Nobody wanted the fat kid.

The Backpack is getting an overhaul, and is now The Armoury, making it quicker and easier to filter through all that gear you own.

The update also adds some new premium DLC in the way of Portal’s GLaDOS as an announcer,  in the Portal Pack, which also includes Aperture Science Wardcores and a Portal HUD skin.

Here\s a full changelist:

GAMEPLAY

  • Neutral creeps now properly use cast times and animations
  • Upgraded Items can always be disassembled within 10 seconds of the combine (same rules as sell back)
  • Item purchases can be made at the secret shop if the courier is at that location without selecting the courier
  • Enabled Medusa in Captain’s Mode
  • Outworld Devourer: Fixed Astral Imprisonment not restoring the right amount of mana after the debuff is removed
  • Timbersaw: Fixed Timberchain not being interrupted by stuns
  • Pudge: Meat Hook now pulls the target to the initial hook position regardless of where Pudge is
  • Fixed being able to instantly toggle Armlet on and off
  • Spirit Breaker: Fixed Greater Bash not applying further knockback on units that were already getting knocked back
  • Spirit Breaker: Fixed knockback distance being too low
  • Clockwerk: Fixed Power Cogs night vision being too large
  • Lone Druid: Fixed Level 1/2 Spirit Bear having 1800 day vision instead of 1400
  • Fixed Shadow Blade revealing only when the attack hit the target rather than when it was launched

UI

  • Control groups are now saved to the cloud, per hero, and will persist across games and disconnects. They are saved per hero
  • Added profile privacy option to prevent viewing of Steam/DOTA profiles
  • Added a button to choose to be captain in a Captains Mode or Captains Draft game
  • Alt-left clicking on an enemy icon in the top bar will send a chat message that the hero is missing
  • Limit the frequency we show map pings from muted players
  • Added Double Tap Self Cast Timeout, controllable with the dota_ability_self_cast_timeout convar
  • Darkened disabled heroes in Captain’s Mode and Captain’s Draft
  • Added three new matchmaking language preference options: Korean, Spanish, and Portuguese
  • Spectator health bars in the top bar are now red for the Dire
  • Added a button to add friends inside the game
  • Fixed spectator health bars in the top bar drawing over buyback and ultimate status
  • Enemy health bars are now red in the HUD when querying them
  • Fixed checkerboard flash on html panels
  • Renamed backpack to armory
  • Previewing couriers from the store or the armory opens a single preview window to display both versions of the courier
  • Taunts are previewable in the armory
  • Fixed many items not being previewable
  • Buff icons draw above the portrait frame to avoid being covered by custom HUD materials
  • Equipping a player slot item ( HUD, Ward, Courier ) from the armory now makes the player slots appear in the loadout panel
  • Fixed various buff tooltips ( Mekansm, Armlet, Urn, Ghost Scepter, Ethereal Blade, Veil, Buckler, Assault Cuirass )
  • Cleaned up some extra UI elements present in Dragon Scale HUD 4×3 aspect ratio
  • Fixed the taunt key not working if an action item ( like Coal ) was equipped
  • Fixed alt-pinging dropped recipes not printing the correct item name in chat
  • When a courier you ordered to the secret shop enters the shop radius, the shop sound is played even if the courier is not selected
  • Fixed a case where buying an item at the secret shop with a full inventory and while surrounded by trees could leave one component on the ground

COMMUNITY

  • Beginning soon, users will be suspended from Dota 2 for 30 days when external tools attached to Dota 2 are detected by the Valve Anti-Cheat system
  • Increased length of forgiveness threshold to reset the severity of communication bans to 3 weeks

ECONOMY

  • The quality of the item drops you are eligible for is now tied to your Dota profile level. You can see your current drop level in your profile page
  • A quick-search bar has been added to the armory
  • Filters can now be created for the armory. These filters are stored in the Steam Cloud so that every machine you use will know your armory filter settings
  • An armory page now contains 60 items instead of 64. Armory sizes have been increased upwards slightly to account for this adjustment
  • Many items have been removed from the store. These can now be sold and bought on the Steam Community Market! Workshop contributors will receive a share of each resale of their items. The items that have been removed are not immortal: they may return to the store in future sales or events, or they may appear in the drop list from time to time
  • The item drop list has been greatly pared down and will now change over time. As new items are introduced old items will be removed (and will be accessible on the Steam Community Market). This should help keep the item drop list interesting over time
  • Entropic Shield and Entropic Axe are now a part of the Entropic set

TECHNICAL

  • Fixed an issue where players could end up in a continuous loop of "received uncompressed update from server"
  • Added UI texture streaming to reduce memory usage
  • Fixed a startup crash with corrupt customization files
  • Fixed a case where the game would return with a black screen after alt-tab

VISUAL

  • Updated Phantom Assassin’s head
  • New Centaur Conquerer War Stomp
  • New Satyr Tormentor blast
  • Minor tweaks to Wildwing Ripper Tornado
  • New Satyr Banisher projectile
  • Fixed visuals on Satyr Banisher purge
  • Improved Vhoul’s spear throw effect
  • Fixed LOD1 on Ol’ Chopper Pudge hook
  • updated cloth settings and skinning Crystal Maiden, Invoker, Lina, and Rubick
  • Fixed several bugs with portrait particles relating to death and dormancy for visibility in the portrait and kill cam
  • Fixed Io death effects
  • Moved all of Chaos Knight’s particles onto individual items, such as the mount, helmet, and others, as well as support for local attachments, so that new items can support different positions based on new mounts of helms
  • Revamped Doom’s weapon effect to better support community items
  • Fixed a bug where models that failed to combine would get double effects in the preview panel
  • Fixed Spirit Breakers missing effects
  • Moved Spirit Breaker’s effects into individual items to better support community items

AUDIO

  • Add sound to Radiance debuff (only audible to target player)
  • Fix last hit sound for Alchemist and Lone Druid ults

HERO BUILDS

  • Added a language filter to the in-game UI when selecting a hero build. Build authors will need to republish hero builds and choose a language when publishing in order for builds to be filterable by language
  • Fixed slow hero build loading times for users with a large number of subscribed or previously used hero builds

LOCAL PLAY

  • Local servers allows players on the same physical network to connect to a locally hosted game
  • By selecting "Create Local Lobby", the leader of the lobby will become the host for a match by running a local server
  • Players can see Local lobbies available on their physical network by going to "FIND A LOBBY" and selecting the "LOCAL LOBBIES" tab
  • Local Lobbies follow the same rules as Private Lobbies.
  • Upon completion of the Local game, the replay will be stored on the lobby leader’s computer in replays/<match-id>.dem

CAPTAINS DRAFT

  • This game mode randomly selects 8 str, 8 agi, and 8 int heroes that both teams can choose from
  • Each team’s captain bans 2 heroes (1/1/1/1) out of that list
  • Each team’s captain selects 5 heroes (1/2/2/2/2/1) out of the remaining list
  • There is a 150 second total time pool for each team to complete all of their bans and selections

WORKSHOP

  • Added Abaddon to the Workshop submission tools and website requirements

MAC/LINUX

  • [Mac] Fixed problems with sounds cutting out or not playing for the first few minutes of a game
  • [Mac] Made the Dock icon bounce when a game is ready
  • [Mac] Play a ready sound when game is not focused and matchmaking has found a game
  • Make "Sound while alt-tab" setting work
  • Added a fix for missing lip sync in hero portraits
  • Fix corrupted GUI after changing video settings
  • Hero Library videos now play on Linux

Last Updated: September 20, 2013

19 Comments

  1. Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

    September 20, 2013 at 10:05

    Lan Play? What sorcery is this?

    Reply

    • TiMsTeR I miss Gta V

      September 20, 2013 at 10:09

      Good sorcery!

      Reply

    • SaintsRowMurray

      September 20, 2013 at 10:13

      Many moons ago, we had these games THAT DID NOT REQUIRE THE INTERNET for multiplayer goodness…

      Reply

      • Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

        September 20, 2013 at 11:15

        The good old days. *sigh*

        Reply

    • That Tall Twit

      September 20, 2013 at 10:14

      I know right, the last time I had a LAN, it was to play counterstrike 1.6.

      Reply

      • Robert Infy Hart

        September 20, 2013 at 10:27

        You need to get out more!

        Reply

        • That Tall Twit

          September 20, 2013 at 10:29

          I loved playing LANS, then I took a marriage to the knee.

          Reply

          • Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

            September 20, 2013 at 11:15

            I still go to lans. And I am married. My wife takes her laptop with, leaches series and watches that while we play lol

      • TiMsTeR I miss Gta V

        September 20, 2013 at 10:28

        I loved counterstrike, before it became camper strike…

        Reply

    • GalacticLordCaptainAwesomeness

      September 20, 2013 at 10:36

      Now you can have your friends tell you how they had relations with your mother, and where you can go expire, as you are a non-worthwhile human being akin to a certain brown substance..

      Reply

      • Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

        September 20, 2013 at 11:15

        Hahahahahaha

        Reply

    • Paul Fouche

      September 20, 2013 at 12:45

      platform nine and three quarters

      Reply

      • Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew

        September 20, 2013 at 14:52

        hahahahha

        Reply

  2. Seraphim

    September 20, 2013 at 10:19

    I now have an actual reason to update Dota 2.

    Hopefully other games will follow suit and implement LAN play as well.

    Reply

  3. Lardus-Respect the beard

    September 20, 2013 at 10:38

    Well well well…might have a look at this now.

    Reply

  4. UltimateNinjaPandaDudeGuy

    September 20, 2013 at 10:49

    NEEDS MOAR TECHIES!!!!!!!!

    Reply

  5. hairyknees

    September 20, 2013 at 11:02

    GOOD GUY VALVE STRIKES AGAIN!! Amen to the GLaDOS pack 😀

    Reply

  6. Ultimo_Cleric N7

    September 20, 2013 at 11:09

    And just like that……DOTA 2 added a few more million players. Just becuase people dont really use LAN anymore, it doesnt mean they DONT WANT THE OPTION……cough.. cough….Starcraft 2 blizzard…cough

    Reply

  7. Iggy667

    October 20, 2013 at 09:54

    You have do be connected to internet to LAN dota 2. 🙁

    Reply

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