There’s a raaaaather large Dota 2 update due Monday, I just discovered, and it’s called the First Blood update. I’m not actually sure why. Because it’s the first major update since Dota 2 launched? Hmm.
Anyway! Let’s talk about the far more interesting stuff: what’s new, and what’s changed.
First up, local play will now be supported. If you want to play Dota 2 on a LAN or in an internet cafe or whatever, you can now feel free to do so.
Second: Captain’s Draft mode will be added, which works like a combination of Random Draft and Captain’s Mode (as you may have guessed). It plays out like Captain’s Mode insofar as each team takes turns to ban and pick heroes for their side, but only 24 randomly chosen heroes are available for the picking and the banning – eight Strength heroes, eight Intelligence heroes, and eight Agility heroes.
Third: your backpack is now in the Armory, and the addition of a quick-search bar and the ability to set up customised filters to sort out your items should mean you won’t have to sort through 100 chests and 435 Common items just to find that new rare helmet you got in your last match.
Fourth: there’s new stuff in the Dota 2 Store, naturally. Of most importance will be the Portal Pack, which adds GLaDOS as an announcer, gives you Aperture Science Wardcores (visual replacements for Observer and Sentry Wards based on the Portal Cores) and a Portal-themed HUD. I will be buying this immediately.
Then there’s the usual string of improvements and bugfixes. Have a few of the more interesting ones, direct from the source:
- Pudge: Meat Hook now pulls the target to the initial hook position regardless of where Pudge is (So no more fountain hooks? Hmm.)
- Item purchases can be made at the secret shop if the courier is at that location without selecting the courier
- Added profile privacy option to prevent viewing of Steam/DOTA profiles
- Added a button to choose to be captain in a Captain’s Mode or Captain’s Draft game
- Alt-left clicking on an enemy icon in the top bar will send a chat message that the hero is missing
- A quick-search bar has been added to the armory
- 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
- Updated Phantom Assassin’s head
That’s most of the interesting stuff, but you can read the full patch notes over on this update’s official page. While we’re at it, if the above made no sense then you might want to have a read of our Beginner’s Guides to Dota 2. If it made at least some sense, you might want to join the official IncGamers Dota 2 guild. Just saying.