Valve have revealed their plans to support full tournaments within the Dota 2 client. In
a post
on the Dota 2 blog, the team describe how players will be able to pay
for access to live matches and replays that run in-engine. The money
raised will be split between Valve and the tournament organiser in a
similar manner to the Steam Workshop. This functionality is due to
launch later in the week.
The Defence
tournament will be the first to use the system, which Valve say is just
the beginning of the game’s support for competitive play. “This won’t
be the end of our features for tournaments, or players, but we think
it’s the right first step – helping tournaments become more financially
stable helps all the players participating in them.”
Valve aren’t trying to force out traditional stream-based casting,
stating that “[they'll] continue to do the best we can to support them.
Some customers will always prefer to use their web browser to watch
matches.” They’re paying particular attention to the needs of tournament
sponsors, who need a way to declare their support and display
advertising.
The other major new feature will be Teams, which allows a group of
players to declare their affiliation formally within the game. Dota 2
will detect when two teams are playing and make appropriate changes,
such as displaying team logos and banners. Ultimately, this will be
expanded to include Team vs. Team matchmaking.
Earlier in the week
we rounded up a number of the Workshop items that we’d like to see
added to Dota 2. Do you think Valve’s support for in-game tournaments
and player-made add-ons has what it takes to give Dota 2 the advantage?
