Ready for some intense Dota 2? The Aegis of Champions is in play once more! Valve has confirmed that The International 10 shall return officially begin in August.

In a fresh blog post Valve mentioned The International 10 will take place this August in Stockholm, Sweden. Beginning with the Group Stage which takes place between August 5 - 8 with the big main event kicking off on August 10 and lasts until August 15.

This is quite a historic event too. Not just because it's Valve and Dota 2, and because of all the delays with this marking something of a return to normalcy for esports - but because of the prize pool. The total has been set at $40,018,195 - which makes it the single biggest prize pool in esports history (beating their own previous record). An absolutely staggering amount of money, one I can't even imagine ever seeing 1% of.

Going along with all this, Valve reiterated their plan to have content released on a more regular schedule, rather than drop everything big in one go for the Battle Pass. They will be shipping two separate events with the first in "mid-to-late June" and the next sometime after The International 10 ends. However, since the Battle Pass funding has already been done, they've added in special Supporters Clubs.

Supporters Clubs are the new way to support your favourites by buying up bundles of badges and seasonal equippable items - 50% of the sales goes to the teams and the content is directly provided by the teams.

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Major updates are going live for Valve's free to play MOBA with Dota 2 nowhaving a CS:GO styled Overwatch mode designed to help sort through all the reports of player behaviour.

Sadly, Dota 2 (and many other online games) end up with a lot of poor behaviour from players. From shouting down microphones, to using every possible slur they can think of in the text chat. It can easily ruin games, and it is quite a big problem.

As noted in the blog post this new Overwatch system allows players to review cases giving them a replay that might show off "negative" behaviour from a certain player, and then choose if that player is "guilty, not guilty, or insufficient evidence".

Eligible players will occasionally be notified below their profile pictures that they have the option to review a case. Reviewers will earn an accuracy score for their efforts, and those who falsely convict will receive a lower score, eventually losing the ability to participate in Overwatch at all. To gather a pool of reliable reviewers, we’ll be enabling a growing number of accounts for participation over the next week or so.

Reporting people has changed in Dota 2 now too. You can report other players directly from the scoreboard, or by selecting someone and clicking a flag on their portrait and you can place markers to show where reviewers can look for it. The system allows multiple reports too so it all adds together to add more evidence.

In another blog post earlier this month, Valve also announced the return of the Dota Pro Circuit for the Winter 2021 season and it's going to have six straight weeks of daily action. To help with this they've also revamped the experience of watching games directly inside Dota 2. You can see a schedule in-game, and see what's currently going on plus more like follow teams directly.

Additionally, Valve will be adding in a way to support your favourite teams in Dota 2 competitive by purchasing some branded cosmetics like in-game effects, sprays, emotes, loading screens and (of course) chat-wheel lines.

Oh no, I feel like I'm going to get sucked into Dota 2 again and lose another 500 hours. The Mistwoods Update has gone live and it's a major one with the new hero Hoodwink.

"Always at hand when trouble's afoot, Hoodwink lives to tangle with the threats that fill the haunted forest she has adopted as her home. Toting a massive crossbow while still able to scurry through the woodland with the greatest of ease, Hoodwink is nearly impossible to keep tabs on in battle. Lose track for even a moment and she'll pop out behind you -- your stunned carcass already dangling helplessly in one of her nets."

Being able to have a 1-button press demo mode for a new hero, that's a really nice touch from Valve there. Here's what abilities Hoodwink has:

• Acorn Shot - Hoodwink fires an acorn at her target which can bounce to nearby enemies, slowing them and dealing bonus damage. Can be ground targeted to create a tree, but the added bounce will be lost.
• Bushwhack - Tosses a net trap that stuns enemy heroes if they are near a tree in the area. Enemies are pulled towards the tree and have their vision reduced to 0 for the duration of the stun.
• Scurry - Hoodwink passively has a chance to evade physical attacks while near trees. When activated, Hoodwink gains bonus movement speed, phased collision, and tree-walking for a brief time.
• Sharpshooter - Hoodwink charges up and fires a deadly bolt from her crossbow, dealing heavy damage, slow, and Break to an enemy Hero. The damage and debuff duration scale up in time with her charge.

That is not the only major change as this update also introduces the Aghanim’s Shard item. Available for all heroes, it will permanently add a new ability or improve an existing one. Yet another way Valve are trying to spice up the late-game, although it's already rather chaotic. It costs 1400 Gold and can be purchased 20 minutes into the game, it's also a consumed item so it doesn't stick around in your limited inventory.

See the full update page here with the usual assorted balancing changes.

Live now until December 22, Valve have finally revived and refreshed the big Diretide Halloween event for Dota 2.

I almost can't believe it, as this event hasn't been run for 7 years. After the original event in 2012, there was something of an uproar in the Dota 2 community when it seemed Valve wouldn't do it in 2013 but the eventually did. After that though? Nothing and it became almost a myth. It's back though!

This year it got a slightly spooky trailer too, Valve pulled out all the stops for its return:

Watch video on YouTube.com

Diretide 2020 brings back the much loved Diretide game mode, that sees 5 players face off to collect and steal candy while keeping Roshan busy. While you play both this event mode and standard games, you will be able to earn Diretide Points and every 100 points you will be able to get a reward.

Since it's Valve and they love loot boxes, there's also The Hallowed Chest of the Diretide which has a ton of possible items but it requires a key purchase to open, the chest will drop randomly as a reward while you play with the chest itself and the contents opened able to be placed onto the Steam Market to be sold onto someone else. There's also a special Trade Up system to turn 10 items of a tier into a higher tier.

The event runs until December 22 and you can see the special event page here .

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Valve are trying to communicate a little more now, and they've announced some major changes for Dota 2 along with info on more to come. Here's some highlights of what's live and what's coming.

A new season has arrived that runs until the beginning of December 2020, and with it plenty of changes.

Firstly, there's a new Autumnal Treasure 2020 up that can be purchased with Shards, the in-game Dota 2 currency. Valve is planned to have a new seasonal treasure up every 3 months, with the next coming on December 1.

Features moved from the Battle Pass to Dota Plus:

• The Chat Wheel sound effects (e.g. Moo, Orchestra Hit) are now available by redeeming shards.
• The pull timers when holding ALT are now available to Dota Plus members.
• The post-game healing and gold breakdowns have now merged with the existing Dota Plus damage tab.
• The Battle Pass MVP feature is now available for all players, but Dota Plus customers can earn extra shards with a new Seasonal quest.

A much bigger change perhaps is that now anyone can earn Shards, as it's no longer exclusive to the Dota Plus subscription. Dota Plus remains the best way to get them, as they've added the ability for Dota Plus subs to grab 57,850 shards from a new season of quests. However, this is now open to all:

• All players can now reach up to Hero Level 5 without a Dota Plus subscription. Only subscribers can reach Silver tier and above.
• All players can now use tipping for shards.
• All players can now earn the weekly shard reward for winning 3 matches. Non-subscribers earn 500 shards per week, while Dota Plus members earn 1000.
• The Dota Plus Rewards store has been renamed to the “Shard Shop”, and the premium hero sets, legacy hero sets, and tools are now purchasable by everyone. The Seasonal treasure, Chat Wheel sound effects and Hero Relics remain Dota Plus exclusive.

The Guild System they added back into the game with the most recent Battle Pass has been tweaked, and they plan to keep it in place. However, the reward system has been redesigned to make sense outside of the Battle Pass too so that "you can enjoy playing with your guild all the time". Guild Levels are gone, instead you get a weekly leaderboard of guild points and once a week guild members can then claim a reward of Shards, with Dota Plus subs getting more. Anyone can join a guild, but creating one is still locked to Dota Plus.

Buried towards the bottom of the post, in the section addressing their lack of communication, they mentioned that multiple new heroes are on the way. The first is planned for the end of November, along with more that will be spread throughout next year. Their plan is to now spread more content out during a year, instead of focusing a lot of it on The International tournament like they usually do.

They're also continuing to attempt to address the toxic community behaviour, along with improvements to their "smurf" account detection, ramping up their banning of "booster" accounts along with improved detection there. On the subject of toxicity in Dota 2, they're working on a new Overwatch style system, similar to that in CS:GO.

As for the game itself, they're doing some "engine development" which should give us "moderate performance improvements on multi-core CPU’s" which should be out in a week or so.

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As the Dota 2 Battle Pass for The International 10 tournament continues shattering records, Valve have given an update on when they expect the competitive scene to get going again.

This has obviously been a tough year for everyone, with so much being postponed or cancelled completely. Plenty of things did move entirely online but for the Dota 2 competitive scene it was a bit too silent. Valve didn't communicate much in public about their plans, while continuing to pull in money for the upcoming tournament.

In the new blog post update , to talk a little about what's going to happen it was a pretty honest post, with Valve pretty much holding up their hands to admit fault as they "think that a lot of the points that were raised were reasonable criticisms towards us, especially because we did not communicate what our intentions were, and what they could expect in the future".

As for the DPC, Majors and eventually TI - Valve said to expect the start of DPC to be "in the first month or two of 2021", with their current hope that once the first part of DPC concludes, that things might be a bit more open to allow for cross-region majors. As for when the actual The International 10 to happen? It's looking like Stockholm in August 2021, with other countries ready as backups.

Since we last wrote about Dota 2 only a week ago , the prize pool suddenly jumped from $34,539,661 at the time to $35,620,523. That's absolutely incredible, it really will be a tournament to remember with that amount of money on the line for all the teams. Let's hope when things do start up again, that everyone stays safe.

Surprised? I doubt anyone will be. Valve have managed to gather what's now the single biggest prize pool for an event - ever. It's now absolutely massive.

Back in 2019, Epic Games held the title for the biggest prize pool across a tournament with Fortnite. Valve smashed that record not longer after with TI 2019 having a $34,330,069 prize pool. Records are breaking everywhere it seems, as once again it has been eclipsed. The International 10, now has a prize pool of $34,539,661 from the Battle Pass (plus other purchases like the Collector's Cache ) and it's still going up with plenty of time to spare as Valve announced before that it will continue until September 19.

I couldn't imagine receiving the kinds of money these teams do during these tournaments, just blows the mind. Makes me curious how much Valve end up with too, since only 25% of the purchases go to the prize pool.

While this is going on, there's still no set date for when the tournament will happen. It was due this year, which of course was postponed due to COVID19. The Dota 2 team confirmed on Twitter , that no date is set yet:

In following how the pandemic has been developing globally, the recent increase in the unpredictability of COVID-19 means we can’t yet commit to new dates for TI10 and the DPC. We share your eagerness in returning to these events, and will announce updates as soon as we can.

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The International 10, Dota 2's upcoming major tournament is getting close to breaking another record for the prize pool. Plus there's a new Collector's Cache up.

Mostly funded by the Battle Pass , where 25% of it goes into the prize pool and the rest to Valve, making it a tidy earner for Valve even with their costs. For the 2019 tournament, the total managed to hit $34,330,068 which was a world record for the biggest prize pool in a single e-sport event. It's looking this the next tournament is going to be even bigger with it currently sitting at $32,655,676. There's still quite a long while to go too, as the current Battle Pass isn't ending until September 19 . Looks like we might have another world record on our hands here soon! A lot can happen though, as the actual tournament is no longer happening as planned. Valve delayed The International 10 until 2021 , due to all the issues with COVID19 making travel a bad idea.

Helping with that Valve also released The International 10 Collector’s Cache Volume II on August 14, containing a set of items from the Dota 2 Steam Workshop with a full set for multiple hero favourites. 25% of each sale also goes into the overall prize pool and it's only available for 30 days. I have to admit, the Tidehunter skin turning them into something Cthulhu-like is pretty awesome:

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