Game developer Valve has recently announced their plans to to release DotA 2, the sequel to DotA, a custom scenario for the real-time strategy video game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and its expansion, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne. Since 2005, Icefrog has lead the development of the original mod, however Valve has announced today that Icefrog will be leading the development team for DotA 2.

October 13, 2010 – Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Portal, and Team Fortress) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced Dota 2, a massive sequel for one of the most played games in the world.

Coming to the PC & Mac in 2011, Dota 2 promises to take the unique blend of online RTS and RPG action that has made Dota popular with tens of millions of gamers and expand upon it in every way.

Although no further information has been released, a 2011 release date is expected. The first details on Dota 2 are available now via an exclusive on Gameinformer.com.

Patch 4.0.1 is bringing major changes to all WoW classes. It will be interesting to see how the new patch comes into play this weekend at MLG and at Blizzcon next weekend.

Below are the major changes to each class.

Death Knights 

Runes

The way in which runes regenerate has been changed. Rather than each rune type (Blood, Frost, Unholy) regenerating simultaneously, they now fill sequentially. For example, if you use two Blood runes, then the first rune will fill up before the second one starts to fill up. You essentially have three sets of runes filling every 10 seconds instead of six individual runes filling every 10 seconds. This allows the death knight rotation to be more forgiving, so that the player can take advantage of things like ability procs or respond to movement. This system makes it a little easier to get back on track without six separate runes now “out of sync” from the standard rotation.

You’re a Bloody Tank 

• The time has come to dedicate a death knight talent tree to tanking, and that is what is in store for the Blood tree. We felt that we could offer a more focused and polished tanking tree rather than having to scatter similar tools throughout the trees. This also allows us to really focus the other trees into more flavorful damage-dealing specializations.

Runic Empowerment 

• This mechanic allows for runes which were on cooldown to instantly activate, which prevents the rotation from becoming too predictable and boring.

Druids 

Eclipse 

• This is a new mechanic being added for Balance druids. The resource is managed through a new bar near the health and mana bars. As the druid casts Arcane spells, the bar moves towards the sun element until the druid achieves a Solar Eclipse, which buffs Nature damage. The goal is then to cast Nature spells, until the bar moves toward the moon element, which triggers a Lunar Eclipse and buffs Arcane damage. The gameplay becomes trying to quickly move the bar from one end to the other in order to maximize each Eclipse buff.

Hunters 

Focus 

• This is a new resource which has replaced mana. Hunters never felt like they should be casting mana-based spells, and having a resource that lasted for a long time and then was painfully gone didn’t lead to compelling gameplay.

Pets 

• Hunters can now use Call Pet to choose from among five different pets. They can swap out any of these five pets with other pets they have tamed by visiting a Stable Master. The Stable Master now allows the hunter to store twenty pets total. 
• Pet families have been updated. Each family can now provide unique buffs to parties or raids, so if a class buff is needed for a raid and that class isn’t represented in the group, chances are a hunter can provide a little assistance by calling out a specific pet.

Ammo 

• Ammo is no more. As a hunter, you’re just that good now. 
• Any quivers or pouches used to store ammo will automatically be converted into a bag of roughly equal value.

Paladins 

Holy Power 

• This is a new resource which works similarly to combo points. Paladins will generally want to build up Holy Power until it shines through with a bright yellow glowing effect. Once Holy Power has been built up, it can be consumed to augment existing abilities. For example, Word of Glory can be used to cast an instant-cast free heal. This gives paladins several options for how to spend their Holy Power, depending on the scenario.

Warlocks 

Soul Shards 

• As items, Soul Shards are going away entirely. 
• Any shard bags used to store Soul Shards will automatically be converted into a bag of roughly equal value. 
• Soul Shards are now a new resource for warlocks. Each warlock will have a total of three. These Soul Shards can be expended using a new spell, Soul Burn, which allows the warlock to augment the next spell cast. The augmentation effect will vary depending on which spell is used, and all warlock spells which can be empowered by Soul Burn will have a tooltip listing of the effect it grants. Soul Shards will no longer be necessary for summoning demons or casting any other spell typically used when out of combat.

Warriors 

Rage 

• Rage is being normalized so that its generation is no longer based on damage done by auto-attacks. Each auto-attack will provide a set amount of Rage, with off-hand weapons granting 50% of the rage main-hand weapons do. Haste will allow Rage to generate more rapidly by increasing attack speed. In addition, while taking damage, the amount of Rage generated will now be based on the warrior’s health rather than the opponent’s level. The essence of this change is to improve the scaling that occurs with warrior gear. With warriors balanced around the top tiers of items, we’ve found that the class tends to underperform more drastically than others in lower-quality items. These changes should correct that.

Yesterday we announced that the World Esports Masters tournament would be hosting their 2010 tournament at the Hangzhou Electronic Science and Technology University in Hangzhou, China, from November 3rd to the 7th.

Today, the organizers have announced the official prize distribution. Surprisingly, even with a $25,000 increase in the prize purse, it has been determined that the winning team will actually be receiving less money than last year. However, with this change, all teams will receieve $4,000 upon their arrival in China.

Prize Distribution

1st – $22,000
2nd – $11,000
3rd –  $8,500
4th –  $7,500
5th – $6,000
6th – $6,000
7th – $4,000
8th – $4,000

The ESL has announced the release of their ESL Wire Anti-Cheat as it moves from the beta stage to a public release. The Anti-Cheat is now required to be run in all ESL matches and events.

We sat down with David Hiltscher from the ESL Community Management team for an interview regarding the ESL Wire Anti-Cheat.

How did the ESL Wire Anti-Cheat come about?

David: Cheats have evolved over the last few years, so it was time for the next generation in anti-cheating software. Our old software – ESL Aequitas – came out in 2005, a lot has happened since then. We needed a complete overhaul of the software, so we hired experts from the Anti-Virus industry that have a lot of experience in securing people’s PCs. All in all, we have invested a mid 6 figure sum of money in making this big step against cheats. That is a huge investment for any eSports company.

What makes the ESL Wire Anti-Cheat different from ESL Aqueitas.

David: ESL Wire Anti-Cheat runs on the so called Ring 0 level of windows systems. That’s the deepest level of the operating system. A lot of cheats in recent years started to act as system drivers on the Ring 0 level. So it was the logical step to also take Anti-Cheat software to that level. It’s the only way to really detect all modern, private hacks. Also, since we finally have real experienced programmers, our Anti-Cheat software is a lot more flexible than before. If there are any new cheats on the market, we will be able to detect them quickly. Also, ESL Wire Anti-Cheat is the only tool on the market that works out-of-the-box for any game. So we’re not only about making CS/CS:S secure, but can also cover games like Enemy Territory, Call of Duty 4, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Medal of Honor, all the Battlefield titles and many more. Also, Wire Anti-Cheat not only protects gamers from cheating, but has a lot more gaming security features like thoroughly detecting fake accounts of banned cheaters.

Will the ESL Wire Anti-Cheat be available to the public for scrims and pugs or will it be for official matches only, similar to CMN or the ESEA client?

David: the moment, it’s only available for matches played on the ESL website. But keep in mind, we have a very good system for running scrims called ESL Gathers. It’s a very simple system where teams (either fixed or comprised of individuals) can meet and face each other. There is no rule system for that. The creator of the gather can enter certain prerequisites. One of them is that all participants need to have Wire Anti-Cheat running. It requires a bit of extra effort compared to IRC scrims, but having a cheat-protected scrim should be worth the effort. In the future, we plan to even expand this strategy, and make Wire support for any servers or private tournaments publicly available against a small fee. We’re looking forward to community feedback on this topic to adapt our development plan to the specific needs of the eSports community.

How resource intensive has the client proven to be?

David: We have had a 6 week beta phase with several thousand users. The effort we put into the software seems to have paid off. According to surveys, more than 90% of the beta testers are very satisfied with the program. The remaining few are running PCs that are really old or heavily infected by viruses. Of course this does influence your performance. We can only advise everybody to keep their PCs clean and buy new hardware every 5 years or so. But naturally, this goes for any kind of software. So I’m pretty confident that we struck the ideal balance between optimal PC performance and maximum cheat security.

More information about the ESL Wire Anti-Cheat can be found by clicking here.
The ESL Wire official portal can be found here.

World e-Sports Masters has announced their next event, to take place in Hangzhou, China on November 3rd-7th. The tournament will feature a prize purse in excess of $69,000 for Counter-Strike 1.6 alone.

Like last year, the WEM tournament will take place in the Hangzhou Electronic Science and Technology University. Last year’s winner, Fnatic, took home $25,000 for first place as part of the $46,000 prize pot.

This year’s tournament will feature only 8 teams, in a two group scenario. The top two teams from each group will advance to a double elimination bracket. The list of teams has not yet been released, however as soon as it is, we will be sure provide you with an update.

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StarCraft 2 has been a huge success for MLG and today they have decided to increase the slots from 64 to 128 for the National Championship event in Dallas next month. The prize money has also been increased to $17,500!

• 128 total players
• 80 open registration spots are available: passes will go on sale tonight at 7pm ET
• The 32 players invited to D.C. will also be invited to Dallas
• The final 16 passes will be set aside and given out to players at MLG’s discretion
• The Top 8 players heading into Dallas will be given $200 stipends for attending
• The title of 2010 National Champion is on the line
• $17,500 in prize money is now up for grabs: 

• Prize Break down:

• 1st Place: $6,250
• 2nd Place: $3,750
• 3rd Place: $2,500
• 4th Place: $1,750
• 5th Place: $1,250
• 6th Place: $875
• 7th Place: $625
• 8th Place: $500

Blizzcon 2010 is taking place at the Anaheim Convention Center from October 22-23rd. coL.Red and members of compLexity managment will be on scene throughout the weekend.

After the opening Ceremony Friday the first thing up will be Diablo III Gameplay.

MLG D.C is just under 2 weeks away and some of the best SC2 players in the world will be in attendance. The event is taking place from October 15-17th at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center.

Below is the full list of players attending.

Registered Players

Stay tuned to complexitygaming.com as we will be on scene bringing you coverage all weekend from MLG DC!

About The Author

JP “moogle” McDaniel

A veteran of the eSports world, JP brings with him vast knowledge of eSports outside the world of Starcraft. Having worked for every major media, team, and league, he is as experienced as they come. He is also directly involved with Major League Gaming, an e-sports league in North America featuring the biggest open-ended LAN events. He currently hosts and manages the biggest and best podcast in the Starcraft scene, State of the Game.

Damage Inc has announced via their twitter that they have picked up the ex-Loaded Counter-Strike squad. The squad has recieved a few offers and have decided DINC was their best option. September 24th is when Loaded was acquired from EG and the squad has been without an organization since.

The team will be in action this weekend at Intel Extreme Masters 5 American Championship Finals, where they are grouped with EG, Excello, and SK Gaming Female.

DINC 1.6

Nazar “steno” Vynnytsky
Scott “evolution” Cavallero
Sean “sgares” Gares
Paul “pauLy” Guerboyan
Liridon “quas” Ademaj