ValveTime

Another week, another fairly robust set of Valve news. This past week saw the reveal of Dota 2's release window, the introduction of the "de_mirage" map for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and the amount of money paid out to Team Fortress 2's content creators surpassed the $10m mark! Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and to follow us on our Facebook, Google+ and Twitter pages to stay up to date with all the latest Valve news.

This week's Dota 2 patch has introduced the usual selection of gameplay bug fixes alongside some new UI additions and a pair of visual improvements for Brewmaster and Puck, who have both received higher quality models, which you can check out below. An update to the settings UI has introduced "Quick Cast", commonly referred to as "Smart Cast" by the community, which, when activated, will cause most magic abilities to immediately fire towards the player's mouse cursor, providing the option to streamline the casting process somewhat.


A series of audio improvements were also made, including the addition of distant tower destruction sounds, the introduction of new "Ownage" lines for the Axe, Juggernaut, Nature's Prophet, Storm Spirit and Pirate announcer packs, and sound effects for a brand new "Caution Ping" system. The new warning ping allows players to alert teammates to their impending doom by using "Ctrl + Alt + Right Click" to highlight an area, creating an "X" shaped icon in the game world and on the mini-map to warn of potential ganks, pushes, potentially dangerous areas and so on. A smaller Dota 2 patch earlier in the week introduced "Compendium Matchmaking", a new game mode accessible only by compendium owners, which allows players "re-write history" using the same professional game hero picks and lane setups found in a featured International 3 qualifier match. Featured matches will be updated on a weekly basis, so be sure to check it at least once a week by clicking the new option on the left hand side of the "Play" tab on the Dota 2 dashboard.


New cosmetic item sets were included for Axe, Lina, Pudge, Skeleton King and Sniper, while the recently released "Treasure of Incandescent Wax" chest was revealed to include a brand new Vengeful Spirit themed ward and a whole host of new cosmetic pieces for a wide number of heroes including Doom, Skywrath Mage, Necrolyte, Bristleback and many more. If you feel like you could use some new desktop wallpapers, you might be interested in checking out the new custom load screens which were added to several of the older HUD designs in this week’s update, including the Driftwood, Gear Tooth, Jungle Ruin and Menace skins, all of which appear as stylishly themed modifications of the original Dota logo. While Legion Commander is still strangely MIA at this point, unreleased hero Abaddon received a number of texture updates which, following the Dota 2 release window announcement earlier today, further hints that this upcoming Dire strength support will feature as the second of the two final heroes set to be released by Valve before the game's official release sometime between now and August 7th 2013. If you're looking for more information regarding this week's Dota 2 patch, you may want to head on over to Valve's official changelog, or maybe checking out CyborgMatt's full patch analysis is more your style. glhf!

As promised last week, Valve have released a reinvented version of the classic Counter-Strike map, "de_mirage", into Global Offensive in an update which shipped late last night. The new map, which previously appeared in both Counter-Strike 1.6 and Counter-Strike: Source, features all new visuals and a series of minor tweaks in order to improve the overall flow and readability of the map while maintaining the map's core layout, thus preserving the original gameplay fans have grown to love. According to an announcement blog post over on the Counter-Strike website, Mirage is available to play in all core gamemodes, which includes Casual, Competitive and Deathmatch.


The update has also introduced a new in-game sale for the Operation Payback pass, which allows access to a number of the community's highest quality custom maps on official low latency Valve servers. The pass, which was previously available for $5.99/£5, is now available for $0.99/£0.79 until Monday June 17th and be purchased by visiting the Operation Payback page on the Counter-Strike website, or via an icon on the CS:GO main menu.

If you'd like to learn more about the level design practices which were used to improve the map's visual theme and readability, head on over to last week's "The Mirage Process" blog post, for an in-depth insight into the development of Mirage. The update changelog is also available, as the patch is already live on the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive client, so what are you waiting for? Get out there and get fragging!

Valve are reporting on the Team Fortress website that the game's community contribution service has recently passed a major milestone. According to a blog post announcement, over ten million dollars have been paid out to over 400 contributors and partners, with $250,000 of that total already paid out to the contributors of the recently released "Robotic Boogaloo" update, which was entirely community created.


To celebrate this milestone, Valve have released a major update to the item submission tool, which now automatically tests submitted creations against a set of pre-defined standards in order to identify how game-ready the item is, and how the creator can improve it. A new "gold star" system has also been implemented to identify when items submitted through the new tool have been vetted. Valve concluded the blog post with a link to the updated Team Fortress 2 Workshop FAQ, which now features information about the submission system and the gold star tagging function. If you've ever wanted to create or submit your very own hat for Team Fortress 2, be sure to head on over to the Steam Workshop to find out more!

This past week was relatively hectic in regards to the amount of news coming from Valve and their partners. Just this past week we've seen the arrival of eight new leaked screenshots from the cancelled Half-Life 2: Episode Four project, a number of major gameplay balance updates for Dota 2 and the announcement that classic Counter-Strike map "de_mirage" is set to return to the series in an update to Global Offensive set to be released sometime in the next week.


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