@theht said:

Yeah, this response from Valve seems to be missing the point. The window for Diretide has passed. The least they could do is change the theme to Ganksgiving or something. Also, I swear that by the time Valve made their statement, the "outrage" was already dying down, and they could've just let the whole issue pass.

Sounds like one of the new skylanders actually. You put a dire top on a tide bottom

As an outside observer, never having touched Dota, I'm kind of torn on this. I don't touch TF2 as much as I once did but it's good to know that every Halloween and Christmas there'll be a big event happening with a different, uniquely themed drops and lots of people playing.

I think it's weirder that Valve plain old 'forgot' about it, that doesn't seem like them, especially when TF2 had its Halloween event this year without a hitch. Do those guys not talk to each other? They say they wanted to work on getting the update out but was the upcoming update known about? If it was only internally known then they could've easily just put that on hold for a bit and rolled Diretide out. Then have this big update up for Christmas or something.

But I do agree, giving into the mob is just a bad idea. A precedent has been set. Any time now that the community doesn't like something it knows it can just scream and shout and have a temper tantrum and they'll get their way. It's rewarding bad, spoilt behaviour. Didn't Brad say as well someone got hold of one of the dev (or high profile community player)'s phone number and was threatening him? That's just too far. I would've scorched the earth and said bad form community, bad form, for that we're postponing the update. But then they can't do that because they're a business and need to make money.

They really shouldn't have given in to those babies. Anyone who cares that much about DOTA is gonna keep playing anyway.

Reminds me of the time Timberlake apologized for the Janet Jackson thing. Sometimes you win more respect by sticking to your guns.

I think you can apply to just about every thing and not just in DOTA. People will complain, only those who are really upset complain louder.

@chaser324: @starvinggamer: It's an "S", we are in Britain after all.

@falx: Oh, I didn't realize that was another bit of transatlantic flavour. You learn something new every day.

@falx: I don't know about @starvinggamer, but I pointed it out as a joke. I guess I won't do it again because the only two responses it's prompted in this thread were people addressing it seriously.

...I did think that was a pretty common gag though. Americans poking fun at extra u's and stuff like that.

I completely agree with the OP, stuff like this just lets all of those harassers and trolls think that they what they do is acceptable, which is not okay at all.

At least Dota 2 is a good mental prison that keeps the true crazies out of other multiplayer games I might actually engage in. Giving what they want keeps them sectioned off into a small part of the internet that I have no intention of interacting with. Jeff's burn on the Dota 2 community was the first I heard of this whole Diretide thing.

Just to be clear: Players were not screaming about some new mode. All of the stuff except for the game mode/rules and a few special models are in the game now for Diretide (it is possible today to change the map to dire. It wouldn't have been effortless but it also won't have been a lot of effort to activate "classic Diretide" either. The real issue with Diretide is a game play mode was that it was fun...on the first day. After a few runs, players figured out how to maximize and win pretty quickly.

This feels like again an issue of managing expectations. I don't think Valve should have caved but they could have just activated the "Diretide environment" with weaving in the big hints they've been dropping in about Ember Spirit and Earth Spirit. Otherwise we get what happened which is nothing and we watch as data for Ember and Earth Spirit get updated and wonder what is going on.

Holy mackerel, so much fuzz over this Diretide. Judging from the actions caused by this "turmoil", you would think the world was coming to an end.

As much as I love the idea that, on the Internet at least, if you bitch and whine enough, change can happen, this does make me sad. Mainly because of the disgustingly immature reaction to the Diretide event this year. It wasn't a reasonable outrage, it was childish entitledness, which is now being reward by Valve as acceptable. It sets a dangerous precedent.

@starvinggamer: they don't owe you a damn thing, the game is free.

If your taking about the same thing im thinking of no he didn't. He said they where working on the new Source Engine and people assumed it was for Half-Life 3, and those "reporters" where fans from 4chan.

I've not been able to care a single bit about any of this but I'll try.

Valve probably wants to cater to their DOTA users since that thing makes money with seemingly very little effort compared to, say, making an episodic game. So if they bend over and wiggle their steamy tush at the DOTA fans I'm sure they'll continue inserting money into Gabe's gold-encrusted glittery anus.

@lego_my_eggo: Among others, a couple of the crew from gamestar.de; which is among the largest surviving video-game magazines in the world. Had the opportunity to speak to one of 'em about it.

I don't even play/like the game. Maybe read what I wrote next time.

I think the "counter reaction" is equally as overblown. I saw it more as a funny meme than a serious complaint since Diretide was all but forgotten especially with the updates for Legion Commander, Ember Spirit and Earth Spirit (and the long awaited remodel of Storm Spirit) and the action in Dream League and upcoming MLG.

Okay... find something else to do then. Valve's job is not to occupy every hour in your life. If the novelty of diretide lasted a whole day, great, Halloween is only a day too. Not sure why you think you deserve more hen the product is already paid for. All you're entitled to is them keeping up the servers, anything else is a bonus.

I don't deserve anything. Search my posts and find the thing that says "Damn it I want Diretide!!!!!!!!!!!!111111one"

On the other hand, I do think Valve handled the entire thing poorly and have some ideas on how it could have been avoided or mitigated. Why can't I observe and comment on that?

It's an unfortunate situation, but I think Valve is right to apologize. Not to the people whining on facebook or metacritic, but to their legitimate fans who felt cheated out of a holiday event.

Valve didn't say a word. They pushed out the Halloween updates for their other games, which was business as usual, and left Dota 2 players in the dark. It wasn't a case of them saying "We won't be doing Diretide this year," it was a case of silence and assumed disinterest in their latest, biggest game. I can understand why people would be upset about that. Especially when Valve is so good about supporting their games.

It's not just a case of giving in to the angry hordes, it's also a case of trying to get consumer trust back. Yes, these people were vocal, but I'm sure there were many others who were looking forward to a Halloween event that didn't even bother to speak up. Valve themselves set a precedent by doing an event for their other games (+dota 2 last year) and while they're not obligated to do that every year, I feel like they're at least obligated to say WHY.

If one follows Dota 2 on the game/dev side they will notice a reoccurring complaint: Valve doesn't interface with the public enough. The reason why CyborgMatt is such a big name is because he is digging into the changes due to lack of any explanation or comment from Valve.

I don't think Valve is being evil or even jerks but it is something they just have classically never done well and it isn't a priority for them "to fix". What happened with Diretide is an effect from this stance. The Dota 2 Team has valid reasons for not doing Diretide which is okay and in many ways an excellent idea to not do if they felt it didn't work correctly. The bad part is failing to comment at all on it.

It's kinda dumb that they felt a need to apologize for it, but considering the FTP model it's hard to fault them for caving...

Ultimately, not that big of a deal.