Happy Holidays to all my gorgeous readers. And Happy Holidays to you too, Derek.

It’s been quite a year; I think we can all agree on that. November was particularly hectic for me. Partly because of Nano. Partly because of a pandemic. Partly for other reasons. I’m exhausted and needed a little recovery. Now I’m back into editing the third novel in the Red Sabre series. Though, I’ve been speaking to Kait, and we have some lovely ideas for the new year. Hopefully something will shake out for that.

Anyway, I want to get a couple of blog posts out before we wrap up 2020, put a little bow on it then shove the entire year in the attic and forget about the whole darn thing until we die and someone has to clear our junk out. They won’t necessarily be the most exciting blog posts but hey, at least I’m fulfilling my duties in writing them.

This one is actually going to be about Dota 2 content. So if you’re disinterested in all that jazz, feel free to pop back later in the month.

However, I wanted to discuss Valve’s most recent event because it has been rather interesting and I’ve been tossing some words around in my head about it. And where else am I going to share my useless thoughts on a little seasonal game mode in a free-to-play computer game that’s pretty niche in terms of computer games?

So, Dota 2 has been around for quite some time. Not only is it a sequel (of a mod) but it “officially” released in 2013 after a few years in closed beta. And while I wasn’t the first through the door, I have been enjoying the game as it’s passed through its many iterations. Now, it’s a Valve game, which is to say it’s really well made but took its time. For those who don’t know, Valve has an atypical corporate structure that encourages collaborative and self-directed work amongst its employees. While great for moral, it certainly leads to products that don’t follow your typical development arc from other companies.

First, the enthusiasm for a game just about to release is off the charts. When Dota 2 was finalizing its beta cycle and approaching it’s grand opening, there were so many updates, communiques and tools released that it was positively staggering. For instance, to celebrate Halloween in 2012 (yes, before official release), Valve wanted to showcase their own modding tools in the game by releasing a fun event mode called Diretide. Dota 2 is a game of five versus five players running around and trying to be the first team to destroy the other’s base. In Diretide, bases were removed and instead players had little candy stashes. Players ran around the map trying to collect the most candy – either through stealing it off the corpses of neutral creatures or from the corpses of their enemies before they could deliver their candy back to their team’s bucket. And, of course, you could steal it from your enemy’s bucket as well.

All the while, players were hunted by Roshan. Roshan is a giant monster that normally sits in the middle of a Dota 2 map passively awaiting for a team to come and kill him for a unique item and lots of experience. The Diretide mode was billed as a sort of “Roshan Revenge” where now he stomped across the map demanding candy from teams. Those that failed to deliver were pummeled to death at the end of his enormous claws.

After two ten minute rounds, players then came together to fight the much stronger Roshan. I believe he was even stronger depending on how much candy teams accumulated. But it was a peculiar moment of cooperation at the end of a grueling duel between two opposing teams.

It was cute for a festive event especially for a game that hadn’t received official release yet. Bizarrely, however, it was a cult hit. I remember discussing the mode with my old team after it concluded. While we appreciated the break in the regular Dota 2 format, we largely stuck with the mode for one simple reason: free hats.

I still think the enduring popularity of Diretide rode solely on the fact that the game mode was very, very, very, very generous in its rewards. Winning a round provided the victorious team with a free cosmetic. Prior to Diretide, the only way to get these were to either buy them from the marketplace or the store. I’m not even certain raising your profile rank dropped items yet at this time. Thus, people threw themselves with avarice upon the mode, yelling and screaming at teammates that may have cost them the chance of getting the precious new chapeau. Not only that, but at twenty minute long matches with a very difficult fight at the end, the mode wasn’t really relaxing even though it had ostensibly ripped out most of Dota 2’s regular strategic elements. As a test of what the game could do, it was cute. But even at the time, people were quick to point out the structural issues.

However, when 2013 rolled around, the community became rabid when there was no sign of Diretide in sight.

It was perhaps one of the most ridiculous things I had ever witnessed online. The community forums were spammed in all discussion threads with “Gib Diretide” as the players demanded the return of the mode. The fevered pitch at which their anguished cries reached extended well beyond the Steam forums or subreddits. Players began to “review bomb” Dota 2 on review sites. They would submit mass single ranking reports to drive the game’s community ranking into the toilet. Not because they thought the base game was bad. Only because they felt this was the only way for Valve to “hear them.”

Perhaps the most ridiculous display was when a whole brigand of players showed up on Volvo’s Facebook page to spam the endless “Gib Diretide” demands on their social media website. Needless to say, Volvo was confused why they were being inundated with these messages. Especially since the only connection between Valve and Volvo is literally just the misspelling of two vowels.

As I said, it was the lowest I’ve seen an Internet community stoop. Was I disappointed that Diretide didn’t return the next year and there was no word of a replacement? Sure. But I’ll honestly say the only reason I wanted the mode was for the free items. Valve cobbled together a playable version of the event mode, which was probably harder to do than it would typically seem since somewhere along the line between beta and release they had changed the game’s engine. The new version of Diretide had no item drops. While I didn’t engage with it outside of a few novelty matches, I got the distinct impression that people were thoroughly unhappy with it. I felt that was the peak example that no one actually cared for the damn mode, they just wanted easy, free hats.

After 2013, Diretide thankfully never showed its face again. Every Halloween there would be some cheeky “Gib Diretide” call but thankfully these were restricted back to the Dota 2 online communities and usually in sad threads that longed for some idealized version of a game mode that never existed.

Seven years later, and there weren’t even any more mewlings for the damn thing.

And yet, Valve went ahead and released Diretide this year.

I want to add a little context in that the annual Dota 2 grand tournament, The International, was cancelled due to the pandemic. Valve still released the compendium for the tournament, however, generating a lot of money from sales for a tournament that still hasn’t occurred. With that compendium, however, we got an excellent new event mode called Aghanim’s Labyrinth. Kait and I played this quite a lot as it was a cooperative four person romp through a rather complex rogue-like dungeon. It was excellently crafted, with a ton of new voice lines, a unique boss and quite a lot of challenging rooms. Outside of the characters, there is very little that connects it to a normal Dota 2 game. Unfortunately, it released a little late in the compendium’s run and ended when The International would have ended had it gone through.

But it demonstrated just how far Valve had come in creating custom games.

And then, out of nowhere, they drop a little trailer for Diretide 2020. I don’t know who is in charge of doing the animations for these new trailers at Valve but they are fantastic.

While seven years is quite a long time for a return of a mode, I must say the wait was well worth it. Diretide 2020 is a culmination of all that Valve has learned in custom game mode design. It looks fantastic, with a custom ink cell shading that visually sets it apart. And I can’t say how much Valve has fixed this mode. Kait and I get drawn back to Dota 2 for the International hype and then usually finish off the year enjoying the game before forgetting it until the next grand tournament rolls around. However, Diretide has been incredible for us.

For one, it’s a silly little mode. This is still a competitive 5 versus 5 mode. However, rounds are only five minutes long! And it’s a best of five so are often much shorter than the twenty minute slog of the original version. Furthermore, there’s no big fight at the end with Roshan. This is strictly you playing the game mode to win the candy rush. And speaking of the mode…

Valve created a completely new map for the game. And it is fantastic. I can finally see the appeal of Blizzard’s Heroes of the Storm game. HotS wanted to set itself apart from the other Dota 2 like games by having a variety of maps with unique objectives scattered about them. In Diretide 2020, you’re still trying to collect more candy than your enemy. However, there are only two lanes that circle around Roshan’s cell. At the top and bottom of the maps are spots were scarecrows spawn three times a round. These scarecrows drop ten candies and a neutral item for whoever kills them. Three secret shops mean that you can keep on the playing field to fight it out without having to retreat back to your base to heal. And your neutral creeps spawn around two candy wells – one in each lane. These are like towers in the regular game however they don’t attack and when destroyed also drop ten candy from their owner’s bucket to the enemy team. The candy wells are guarded by a strong, tethered monster allied with the team that offers some mild defence for your base.

And quite literally every change Valve made has turned Diretide into a frantic, brawling, violent romp over Halloween candies. Roshan still pursues teams while demanding candy tributes though he can’t be fought off. And his tithe increases the more ahead you get from your opponents. Fail to feed Roshan and he’ll kill his tributary while cursing the rest of the team with a wasting disease that will constantly sap your hero’s health until it expires. Kait and I have been playing this mode exclusively and, honestly, we’d probably be playing it even if it didn’t have item drops.

But it also has hats.

Recognizing that the only reason people played the original Diretide was for hats, Valve has a candy counter for rewards in playing Dota during the Diretide season. These rewards, smartly, apply to both regular Dota 2 matches and Diretide which allows those who are only interested in the hats to keep playing regular Dota while us pub stars stick with our stupid game mode. That was sorely needed and kudos to Valve for recognizing that. Everyone gains candy points for playing a match, regardless of winning or losing (also very smart to reduce toxicity from players). The bulk of your points are rewarded for how long the game goes. So five round, close matches will give more though short three round matches means you have time to queue up for another game so it balances out. There’s a single “First Win of the Day” bonus and then there’s very small bonuses for accomplishing certain things within the mode itself. These are worth two points and given for First Blood, First Scarecrow, First Candy Steal and the like. They’re nice to pursue but since a three round match gives everyone 9 points, we’re not talking about really vital goals to pursue.

Once your reward candy counter reaches 100, you are gifted a random item from a staggeringly large list of items. These include discontinued chests which I never expected to see since I don’t spend any more money on this game outside of International Compendiums. There’s also Diretide exclusive items and two chests that you can get this season too. One is just a normal item chest. These have spooky outfits for about nine of the heroes (and I was lucky enough to get two of these to drop and I didn’t even get the pudge set out of them too!). There’s a second Diretide chest which requires a paid key to open, reminiscent of the old Team Fortress 2 crate system. These chests can be sold on the market and include a lot more items from ambient sets, immortals to immortal sets worth several hundred dollars on the steam marketplace. Anything you want from these can also be sold on the marketplace so needless to say I haven’t opened any of these “money chests.” There are some ghostly item effects that drop as well, seasonally limited to the fall and can be applied to certain heroes and couriers.

I’ve been very happy being able to farm this mode to get new goodies. And I can’t imagine that Valve hasn’t made a bundle off these sale chests considering I’ve made around seven dollars on my own from people’s enthusiasm. There were some bugs and balance issues when this first dropped. Given that Dota 2 has over a hundred heroes with an enormous skill pool, certain heroes were considerably better than others. Valve had the foresight to allow each player a single ban at the start of the match and released a number of patches to the game mode post launch to bring certain heroes in line as well. I’ve enjoyed the evolving “meta-game” around the picks and bans of Diretide as well as finding my own list of heroes who everyone ignores at their peril.

Which is to say, Snapfire is OP. Wraithking as well. I think I lost maybe three times over the entire run with those two.

So, yeah, this has been an incredible surprise from Valve and I just wanted to share some positivity over a well constructed and launched custom game mode in Dota 2.

Gib Diretide indeed.