ValveTime

It's a little delayed, but it wouldn't be Valve ...Damn it, I said that last week! Erm, anyway - now is your chance to catch up on all the news from the past week with the ValveTime Weekly News Round-Up for 9th December 2013! Headlines from the past week included the release of the Unhappy Returns comic for Team Fortress 2, the announcement of a "Ranked Matchmaking" system for Dota 2, and the reveal of some really quite lovely Pyro-themed Christmas sweaters!


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In a move which may surprise and please a whole lot of people, Valve have recently announced that "Ranked Matchmaking" will be added to Dota 2 in the "next major update", which is widely believed to also feature the return of the Frostivus/Greeviling update from last year.

To explain what Ranked Matchmaking entails, the Dota 2 team have released a rather sizable blog post discussing how this new mode is likely to improve the matchmaking system for experienced players looking for a more competitive environment. Ranked Matchmaking will only be made available to players with a certain level of experience, as the mode features a large number of restrictions designed to keep the mode balanced and enjoyable for all. You can check out these restrictions and criteria in the spoiler tag below.


As explained, a system known as MMR (Matchmaking Ranking) is used to calculate the skill level of Dota 2 players during the matchmaking process. While MMR has previously only been used behind the scenes to group players and teams together, the ranking will be publicly visible for you and your friends to see for the first time in Ranked Matchmaking. MMR is updated at the conclusion of every match, using complex algorithms to calculate the performance of a player relative to the team mates and opponents they have been paired with. For example, players who beat opponents with an equal or higher MMR rank are likely to be rewarded with an increased ranking, while players who lose against opponents with an equal or lower rank are to be given a reduced score.

In theory, this system helps to balance out the matchmaking system, as players should always be pitted against evenly matched players with a ranking close to their own. The rate at which a player's MMR ranking shifts depends on multiple different factors, such as whether or not a player is partied up, and how experienced they are with the game, as shown below.


However, the MMR system is far more complex than this rather basic, so we recommend checking out the extremely lengthy blog post over on the Dota 2 website if you're interested in the game enough to want to learn more.

It's a little delayed, but it wouldn't be ValveTime if it was on time, right? Anyway, this past week saw Valve reveal the winners of the 2013 Saxxy Awards and release a new CS:GO update which replaced all of the previously available weapon skins with six all-new collections! The first third-party Steam Machine was also revealed earlier this week, courtesy of iBuyPower.


As usual, don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and to rate our Dota 2 Announcer Pack positively over on the Steam Workshop! Thanks for watching.

In case you haven't heard, Valve is beta testing a new Steam feature called Family Sharing. Recently, SteamDB spotted some new features that will soon be making their way in to Family Sharing. These new features deal mostly with what can be thought of as parental controls. The subset of features are called "Family Options". Click here to take a close look at the Family Options in three new screenshots! [...]

The annual Steam Autumn Sale has officially begun! It is set to run from November 27th until December 3rd, and features daily deals and time-sensitive flash sales.

Daily deals function as large price reductions on 9 select game titles for 24 hours at a time, changing every day at 6:00pm GMT. Flash sales also feature heavy price reductions (sometimes more so than daily deals), but with a much smaller time window of 8 hours each.


Some of the notable sales that are kicking off the Autumn Sale are for Outlast, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Sleeping Dogs, Telltale’s The Walking Dead, Divekick, and the great Euro Truck Simulator 2.

Head on over to the Steam Storefront to see all the deals. Happy spending! Just remember the golden rule of Steam Sales: If you’re looking to buy a game that’s on sale for the duration of the sale, hold off until the last day to do so. While initial price reductions may be tempting, many titles are likely to see an ever larger price drop during either a daily deal or flash sale sometime between now and the end of the sale on December 3rd. If you see a desired game pop up as a daily deal or flash sale, go for it, since that reduction is almost definitely the lowest you’ll see!