Omega League has been great for keeping Dota competitive during COVID. Unfortunately with tournaments being online, some bad actors have come out of the woodwork to take advantage of the situation.
In NA, the team Xixihaha played on thirteen different accounts across their closed qualifier matches and Ancient League division. All of these accounts are borrowed/smurfs from their owners and are played on by high ranking Chinese players with an average of 8500mmr. One notable player is Baidu_king. They used the multiple accounts to try and dodge bans for match fixing and boosting their placement in qualifiers.
For context, please note that I played for Pace University.

Part 1: The Accounts of Xixihaha
One match including these first 5
76561198368133864 Xixix
76561198285211220Hohoh
76561198053809058Lalal
76561198346167133Papap
76561198090666873Hohoh
Another match included these 5.
76561198075433622 AnaZ
76561198078892578 Zexin/OTWyz
76561198339765413 Savage97
76561198821116963 Vo1d
76561198082601279 HermesOTK
We also see this account (Baidukings main account?) play 1 match

Part 2: The Accounts and the Three Teams
All of these accounts were borrowed from their actual owners. If you look into some of their match histories you'll see some 'interesting games'.
These accounts also happened to play on multiple teams, in both the closed qualifiers and open qualifiers. This match has the Zexin character and four new players. These matches and others take place under the team name Sbww and also happen to be in the Omega League open qualifiers. That same team played vs our first five guys under the name 'Team Huniepop' in this game which was the final game of the qualifiers.
(Fake team pretending to be Blue Pikachu) played in NA Qual #4 (and 4 of the other NA qualifiers) and has these players on their roster. Of note is Puer Tea aka 2, HermesOtk and AnnaZ are also present on the listed roster of (fake)Blue Pikachu. NA Qual #4 also has this team aka Xixihaha which links to the second set of 5 players. This team plays with the 'Vo1d' person. This team plays in all four NA qualifiers.
Qualifier #4 is the one that Xixihaha qualify through. And they play vs the same Sbww suspicious team. Guess who Sangee is? It's our favorite Zexin again! The same player on Xixihaha
The team Sbww qualified and dropped out before playing a single game. WanDenRen 'WDR' plays vs Blue Pikachu and then Starboys. Blue Pikachu has a player listed on their team named Starboyz?

Part 3: Match fixing
With the tangled mess of accounts used. The players of Xixihaha are pretty safe to not having their real identities being discovered.
Two series involving Xixihaha are incredibly suspicious.
The first is this BO3 Boonz&Goonz vs Xixihaha
The series doesn't look that bad at first glance. Game 1 and 3 are stomps for Xixihaha and game 2 is a stomp for Boonz&Goonz. Game 2 is what's suspicious. If you look at game 2 you can take a look at item builds and the replay. First of all the game is just incredibly different from the other 2. Sand King builds brown boots soul ring aghs, and Kunkka goes super urn and then feeds for 30 minutes.
VPGame is the premier Chinese betting site

Betting Odds for this match.
What's interesting to note is how the odds change between game 1 and game 2. They basically don't change AT ALL. Rest of it looks normal and people assume and bet accordingly that Boonz is the better team because looking at the accounts that Xixihaha played on they were average 5-6k vs 8k avg team.
The HIGHLY suspicious match in question
BO3 Pace University vs Xixihaha
Game 1 is a close(ish) game but is relatively a stomp for Xixihaha
Game 2 is a complete stomp and is where our 322 takes place. Xixihaha starts off by banning nonsense heroes. Heroes that pace does not play and heroes that aren't good/counters vs their draft. In game they feed non stop in the lanes literally walking up and feeding multiple times
Feed 1
Feed 2
Feed 3
You get the idea. If you want you can watch the game for yourself and make a decision. Here's what the casters had to say after the game.
Pace vs Xixihaha on VPGame
Normally when a team gets stomped, the odds tend to get better for the loser(number go up). Instead Xixihaha is the favorite for the series, and the favorite for game 1. But for some reason Pace is the favorite for game 2. After that you'd assume Pace would be the favorite again but instead it switches back to Xixihaha.

TLDR: Xixihaha shared accounts amongst multiple teams and match fixed some games in Omega League. Omega League has not yet DQ'd Xixihaha despite multiple reports from different parties.

edit: Scrim Leakers stole Blue Pikachu's name + logo and pretended to be in them in qualifiers.

Ashes of Creation - How to ensure long-term WPvP

If you take a look at online games, they all have something in common: players competing with other players. League of Legends, Fortnite, Dota 2, etc. are all games that feature player vs player.
Competition is what drives online videogames.
Singleplayer games serve the role of immersion & they help you delve into a fantasy world where you can escape your real life for a moment.
MMOs are a more complete version because they combine both aspects: immersion & player competition. That's why World PvP is essential in Ashes of Creation. PvP should not be a choice, should be a necessity. You should be forced to PvP as much as you're forced to PvE. An MMO without PvE is empty, makes no sense. An MMO without PvP becomes dull & boring. Doing end time PvE content is fun, but playing vs AI isn't the goal here. Competing with others IS.
There is one element that makes PvP detrimental in every MMO: Queue System. I really hope Ashes of Creation will feature a PvP system where PvP is a necessity, not a 'queue system' or a choice. WoW has turned PvP into a 'queue system'. I queue for Arenas, or BGs, or Alterac Valley. PvP should be Stranglethorn Vale. Castle Sieges fall in the 'queue system' category for me. They are fun, and very much needed as a treat, but they should not be the foundation for PvP. PvP should be unexpected, wild, 'real' within a fantasy simulation world where you are free & entitled to do whatever you want, whenever you want.
PvP has become 'something apart'. It is not part of the game anymore, it's just 'for a certain audience'. How sad :(
PvP shouldn't even exist as a term, it should be implicit in the MMO term already: you know that as soon as you're thrown into the world, you have to fight for your survival.
Envision Ashes of Creation as Rust, open world PvP. Here's the good part though: AoC is more than Rust, it's an MMO, therefore you have: a lore, a beautiful setting, variety of NPCs & the king of all kings, PvE content. PvE & PvP should form the 'perfect couple'. If we separate them, we create an imbalance that will take things to extremes.
The moment we turn PvP into "a choice", rather than a necessity & indispensable requirement to survive in a beautiful, yet dangerous world, the game will eventually become dull.
I remember a while ago I was watching Summit1g play Guild Wars 2. The guy spent hours trying to level up, NO WORLD PVP WATSOEVER, just to end up playing arenas all day because he loves PvP and there was no other way to do it. Eventually he got bored. He was a slave of the queue system. How sad, right? So sad.
There are multiple ways to incentivise World PvP, to be continuous, to never end. If WPvP is present, queueing up for arenas or castle sieges all day won't be a thing!
Here's an analogy for Queue System PvP & World PvP: When you listen to your favorite song, if you listen to it for hours on end, on the forth day you can't take it anymore. However if you have a list of top 100 favorite songs, that can last you for weeks! So is World PvP. It lasts for a long time...
Caravans are a good way to incentivize it, but here's my fear: if caravans follow the same path, the same roads, PvP will only be available in specific caravan routes. How will that impact the chance of doing PvP in what's left of the open world once max level has been reached? (Tbh the fact that Nodes level up HELPS a lot, which is great!)
Possible ways to implement more WPvP incentivizers in the game:
E.g. 1. An item drop / set that unlocks its special set traits not only upon set completion but by getting kills. For example, a set called 'Assassin's daggers' that consists of two daggers. Special traits: Your agility is increased by 10% (trait works once you have both daggers) / You have 5% chance to throw a Shadowbolt when you hit an enemy (trait unlocks once you've completed "0/50 kills" in the open world). It turns out the Assassin's daggers are cursed daggers that thirst for blood, and each one of the daggers contain the souls of the two most famous assassins in Verra. Once you obtain the daggers, they can be bound to a quest chain that indicate locations on the map. You could be sent on a mission to assassinate people in different zones & locations to appease the spirits that possess the daggers & they grant you more power (aka they unlock the final trait). In this way you build a lore around a single piece of set & at the same time incentivize World PvP.
So the big question is: Why world PvP? Why not just Queue PvP? It's simple, WPvP can happen under a beautiful tree, in your favorite zone, in the desert while you're riding a camel, next to your favorite dungeon, next to a Node! Maybe by the sea, or maybe while you're gathering herbs in the heart of the forest. WPvP aids immersion & makes you FEEL things. Queue PvP is more... mechanical. It becomes mechanical, dull, boring.
That's why it is important for Castle Sieges to be SPECIAL events only, then they become something beautiful. Like Node wars, they won't be very frequent, but whenever they happen they are exciting. If they happened everyday, you'd get bored of it, and they might become the PvP standard, which isn't good. Arenas too, they should be reserved for the best, the fittest, the strongest, or for a bit of fun. Make Arenas so that it has spectators (real players) that bet on other players. They can make money if they bet on the winner! Also, Arenas could become a tournament zone where winners have a chance of having their names written on boards & everybody can see it within the game, or winners are given houses! They become rich! Idk,Arenas could be really nice, but they should never become the center of PvP, they should simply be part of it. (A requirement to enter arena could be: 0/100 kills in the open world, which is more than enough from lvl 1 to max lvl to achieve it. This is an incentive for WPvP).
Thanks a lot for reading, I know it's long but I think it was important to mention & give you guys some ideas.

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To all the DotA is dying post/videos i've seen recently.

Firstly i would like to start with introducing myself, just to make you sure i am nowhere nearly new to DotA, even tho i only recently chose to take it seriously. After a couple of months of actually trying to improve my gameplay, and aim for not just the Immortal rank, but the competitive scene as well, even if im a bit "older" for a professional gamer let alone one who wishes to start his career next year, as i started aiming for that goal, i atually started reviewing reddit posts and youtube videos, stuff like gameplay, meta videos, even some tutorials. I started coming across videos and posts on reddit and some popular streamers and generally people known in DotA community posting hatefull stuff about DotA, mainly focusing on these things:

Community is toxic Im sure that is the one thing you will find in each kind of these videos and posts, even in those that praise the game, people usually say these kind of stuff. IT'S NOT TRUE!!! Sure, every 3-4 games people can start fighting in the draft because someone picked something that isnt in the meta or doesnt seem to be popular in that mmr bracket, i've came across these people and situations, and my first respons is why are we fighting? The game hasnt even started yet? Usually after that kind of question both sides would well make claims and theories about why are they right, and the other player isnt and we lost gg. After which i calm down the situation by saying yea sure that hero is bad because of those reasons but its good because of those right? They would agree and be like sure lets go on see how the game goes. I learned to ease the tention at the very start of the argument, especially in those that happen before the first wave of creeps even spawns, i guess people do treat each other better later in the game if they allready had one argument and seemed to overcome it. Then find more empathy for the future mistake that the other side might be making. I cant explain this but i feel like if the first fight happens that fast into the game and we manage to overcome it we somehow build a better bond and actually play as teammates throught the first 10 minutes of the game, which leads to even better mid game and that usually does the job in winning the game in the first place. If the fight happens because someone is feeding or some kind of ackward gameplay that results in a teammate dying, and then the flame starts, i would recommend just asking the player attacked to switch lanes, or help you out with something and be sure to congratulate that person so everyone can see that hes not that bad after all. It helps the flamed player to release preassure of not making further mistakes, and it helps showing the flamer that everyone can make good and bad moves and they shouldnt just focus on the bad ones. You would be surprised at how many times this works. 9/10 would recommend. People being toxic because some speaks their native language??? So as much as it seems distortive to listen to a language you dont understand while focusing on last hits, im sure it cant be that bad, and im sure that those people (russians mostly) are talking to their party friends with whom they lane together, which means they are cooperating and that just leads to you having not to worry about that lane cause its gonna be won. Not everyone is good at english, some dont even know how to speak it at all and yet they want to play and communicate like the rest, let them be focus on your own thing or lover the voice audio option for that game its not that hard. Also most of these people are not even using the voice chat, and if you dont have a problem having LAKAD MATATAG on your screen every second im sure you wont have a problem with a sentence that you cant understand. The main reason why i feel this toxicity problem is not true is also because of the player base that DotA as a game has, and i feel its unique, nowhere in other games will you find that many older guys and girls playing than in DotA. This is actually very contradictory to the post itself as it suggests that there are no new young people playing the game but im sure they are here they are just not used to using the voice chat that much. Im saying this out of personal experience. Now that im older i usually use only voice chat, while when i was younger i was well shy i guess to talk. I dont know if im right about this, but i feel like i am. My point is that those older players have been in gaming communities for years, they developed friendships and relationships with other players though out the years and i think all of them-us realised that being nice to other people online is making you feel better about yourself aswell and it might result in making some online friends even. I even developed a desire to learn russian language just by playing the game and will be focusing on that in the future, those russian servers are gonna be helpfull once i start learning, something i never thought is gonna happen, intentional queing russian server :D Finally what i want to say about the toxicity in the game, and you can notice i didnt mentioned it as an option in how to deal with the toxicity that i find very rare in the game is the mute button. Yes i feel like that should be an option but lean onto figuring stuff out before muting someone, because that toxic person will still continue to flame your teammates and they are gonna tilt, which will result in loss even tho you werent hearing any of that.Instead talk to them for 20 seconds and im sure most people will chill out and be nice. But if someones a jerk and nothing you do helps them stop, f%%k him ignore him forever.
Player base keeps dropping month after month So yes, the statistics do show this, and yes its pandemic out there which should most definitely result into people getting into their favourite game even more however.... I want to think differently. For me DotA before pandemic didnt exist for lets say 4 years, ive been a very active player since the start of 2013 untill 2015, by very active i mean 5500 games played with over 7000 hours on steam, yes for the 2 years period of time. In that time DotA at the start felt like fun. I was a DotA 1 player for years, but i didnt really get things i used to play clockwerk with 2 perservances maxing out the rocket and spamming it, played qop with the blink for the fun of it and never understood how someone can play meepo or invoker because the amount of skill i felt needed for that hero to be usefull i thought i never possesed or never will posess. DotA helped me than, im talking about DotA 2 make lifelong friendships from lan partys i had with people, i even have a friend from Russia since that time whom i still play with today, all those people from lan partys also played DotA 1 and still play DotA 2 today. In that time i remember the hype around 1 million dollar reward for winning the TI, i remeber possesing the green compendium not battle pass and how cool were the predictions back than. It was massive i even heared some news irl talk about how massive reward is going to be for an online game. If someone was to tell me that 5 years later the prize pool would be over 20-30 millions, i would drop everything and started working on becoming the best player in the world. So my point is, the prizes are growing every year, and the best part is that the community itself is making them huge, i overheared today how that is bad, i dont see how that is bad. How many games are out there that do not give a 25% of the cost of all the cosmetics back to the players that deserve it the most? I havent heared of any and if im wrong please tell me otherwise. It is an awesome thing from valve to do, and i would like to defend them in that case. Its also genius. This makes me sound like everything is about money, but if you rate DotA as a success or a game that is doomed to die out, at least rate it by the statistics that show constant growth in the competitive scene, which keeps a game alive. Games like fortnite for example dont have this and those are the games that i believe everyone will eventually play however no one is gonna stick to it because there doesnt seem to be that goal of actually becoming a paid professinal in something you put so much time in. Thats why those games are more popular than dota but do not have players commiting to them for the long run. I want to go back to the start of why i started telling you this, the reason why i quit dota in 2015 is because it started to feel like a chore, i hit 5k mmr and back then it was a big deal okay? It wasnt easy, and life around me kept happening, the games were hard and i could chose beetween playing for 4-5 hours in order to maintain the skill lever or play for even longer to achieve higher ranks or go outside and do stuff, party make friends find girls. I chose that and was coming back to dota for a game or two ever 2-3 months. Then 12 months ago i came back. I saw a huge competitive scene, larg sums of money in play, streams with over 10k views, game itself changed and progressed on the levels i couldnt even expect, they added talents, some new heroes, new neutral camps, everything was the same but everything was also different, the meta wasnt trilanes anymore it was 2 supports, the mmr system changed, the medals were a new thing, map was different, but the best part is that all the best things that i remember from 2013-14 still stayed. I could still see Dendi play, i could still hear some of the casters back then in the game still doing that, and the progress i made with my mmr climb still felt so good. The feeling of winning and losing didnt change i still found many old friends online still rocking it as they were. I fell in love again and i thought nothing new could happen. Oh yes i only felt bad because the name compendium doesnt exist anymore and is now battlepass, it just sounds more pay to win even if its not, and compendium sounds like a tournament pass/ticket. Anyway i was wrong, just as i got hooked again and got my rank, it was 2.4k Archon medal, later i even dropped to crusader at one point, the 7.23 came out, with it the new hero, completely new meta, new map, and yes the neutral items. Aghanim upgrades to each hero was huge to me, i remeber i thoguht people are gonna play clockwerk pos1 now because of the 8 seconds attack speed boost, how dumb right? But my point is the game developers found a way to again make something new out of a game that was allready complex enough, and yet it didnt go over the levels where we as players wont be able to fit it in in our allready very heavily occupied skill level requirements. The game is alive thanks to the devs and players, the game keeps evolving, and i dont know why everyone feels like its over, if i learned anything from this game its that it will keep chaning in ways we cant even imagine, but because it did changed so many times throught my lifetime, and even found its way as independent game the one thing im sure of is that it will not die out, it will stay with us throught our lifetimes, and it will keep growing and changing, i cant wait to show my kids my steam account and the screenshots i have.
Bpass content sucks levels cant be gained through playing Okay so your favourite hero didnt get the new arcana this year, or you dont like the pudge persona because it looks silly? Or am persona isnt sexy enough? Well its normal that you like last years invoker more than this years pudge, but hey the content cant be always perfect, out of five arcanas and personas we all have the ones we like the most and the ones we dont like, its cool that WK got his old hero looks back through arcana, i think its genius because of what ive said about player base, i loved it because when i was playing dota as a kid its how he looked and when they changed him and his name i felt terrible, and now thats back, i think thats their way of rewarding the legacy players, and the ones that are in here for that many years, also a thing many of redditors and youtubers complained about. He also says something like im back which is cool if you ask me. Skeleton king is back in the "flesh" ( get it?) Pudge persona looks silly because its supposed to be a toy! Its not supposed to look scary its supposed to look goofy... Anti mage Wei isnt sexy because anti mage presents a balanced personality hero even his voicelines say so, and i guess thats why she also looks very confident and not like qop who is a sidistic bitch and i hate her and all the players that play her (dendi im talking to you as you are my favourite player and the fact that shes your favourite hero isnt looking good on you) im just kidding but i feel like most of you guys didnt see beyond your personal desires when it comes to cosmetics, they are keeping them up to heroes spells, lores, and i guess voiceliness in terms of personalities. The hype around waiting for the bpass contest is also something i would like to say a few words about even tho i found myself wanting more content and logging every day in hopes to see the new thing. We had a big amount of content in this years bpas, and the bpas itself lasted around 3 months. Now thats 90 days, even tho the amount of items and prizes are big, you cant expect to get the stuff on daily bases. It would spoil the feeling of getting the prize in the first place, and it wouldnt have the same value. Yes valve does taunt us indeed with this wait and with the order they get things out for us, but thats normal, look at any company with any product, and in reality thats what DotA is, its a product for you and me to use, and in order to keep that product alive and make both sides happy it is required to use some strategy to create money and in the same time to keep players in need of supply and keep them a little bit in the dark for some time just so they can feel special when they get something they wanted for some time, its much like in life if you think about it. So my guess is lower your expectations a little bit, we cant love every single thing that comes out and we cant have new things every week playing this game, then the game would truly die out. Instead focus on what happened to this game in this year or the last and realise much have changed and many new things were added. Finally the bpas leveling. I got my lvl1 bpas and i got 2 bundles of levels which is in total 241 leves, my bpas is now 459 lvl which im sure is also gonna go up by at least 120 more levels with the rare bundles and 2 weeks of tokens betting. That all costed less than 70$ for the span of 3 months of bpas which makes it 23$ a month. Thats less than the cost of 1 arcana. And you get so much value. And the bonus treasure that were included in the bpas bundle is also a very cool thing. Now i dont have a huge rate of success with betting, its around 60% so it means it couldve been higher, but what i do have is constant grind of guild contracts and clearing the cavern crawl, completing the achievements collecting bountys, and i have to mention i played 1 game of aghanim labyrinth so i imagine it wouldve been at least 30-40 levels higher if i chose to dedicate that much time in grinding, but i didnt. In the end of the day, yes that stuff isnt free but its not suppose to be i allready mentioned its both amazing and genius that valve made a decision to give away 25% of all the sales to the prize pool, and in return you get so much stuff, that is also exclusive and will forever be so. Again for 23$ a month.

Anyway much more i would like to say now that im reading this, but i realised i spent almost two hours writing this and ive never comitted to doing this kind of thing online, i was just bored from the ranked games and didnt have much to do so i thought to share my thoughts, and also see your responses to what i think, i was thinking about making youtube videos and content about dota since i played if for so many years, but im second guessing that now that i realise how much time it actually takes, shoutout to all the people that do make these kind of posts daily i wont take that process lightly in the future. Also in my defence i havent stayed on crusadearchon medal im now at the peak of reaching divine. Yes that happened in 6 months from crusader to almost reaching divine, and i wanted to speak about that as well since many of you are saying how the matchmaking system doesnt work, but im sure if you deserve the medal you think you do, you would have it in a couple of months if not either quit or git gud.

what happened to us?

A story of Time Locks and Backtracks.

A very long time ago, in the DotA Allstars times, I had a friend.
He wasn't good at all.
His ability and item choices were always weird.
His skillset had nothing noteworthy.
But he was a fan of RNG abilities.
Played a lot of PA at the time, a lot of Spirit Breaker, even Troll sometimes.
Though his favourite hero by far was Faceless Void.
He used to go by the nickname "DarkTerror0001" back then.
And he was usually more lucky with the RNG when playing FV.
Many times I saw him dodging the damage that was enough to kill him with old Backtrack.
Many times I saw him bashing many times in a row when they were about to kill him 1 on 1.
But he wasn't good besides that.
His "luck" wasn't enough to compensate his lack of skill.
When DotA 2 came he was lucky enough to get some beta keys.
He gave me one and also some other friends in our clan.
But his "luck" wasn't enough.
He guided us to a treasure he couldn't possess.
For his computer couldn't run the game.
He had an old computer that barely ran Warcraft 3 to play DotA Allstars.
Nowhere near the minimum system requirements for DotA 2.
He said that we should try it ourselves.
He said that he'll keep on playing DotA Allstars for some time.
He wanted to be a bit better in the case he could ever play DotA 2.
So we went into DotA 2, and never forgot who allowed us to do it.
But time went on and on.
He had an Steam account, but never played anything in Steam.
Somedays I saw him online on Steam while we were playing.
And I felt bad about it.
Months went by.
Years went by.
Sometimes we talked about the game, but not much.
Sometimes he asked about how things were in DotA 2.
Sometimes we discussed about how different things were.
But he was never able to play with us.
One day we were having a really bad lose streak.
We were playing horribly, and getting mad at each other and ourselves.
We lost a lot of games that day, and went separate ways at the end of it.
Went to sleep frustrated, and I remember I couldn't sleep well that night.
And the next day, when I turned my computer on and opened Steam, I saw it.
HE was playing DotA 2.
It wasn't his usual nickname tho, no more "DarkTerror0001".
Now he was "BashLord1000"
"How?", I asked him.
"I've won a random give away", He replied.
"I've won a new computer".
Maybe his luck was enough at the end.
I was still thinking of the day before, all the loses.
But then we started playing.
And when he picked his signature Faceless Void I noticed the change.
He wasn't just relying on RNG anymore.
He was skillful now, as far as being a hard carry is concerned.
He knew farm patterns, he knew how to positionate, he knew when and how to fight.
IceFrog had changed Faceless Void a lot since our time in DotA Allstars.
But he was a lot better now than he was before.
For sure now he was good.
But that newfound skill was NOTHING compared to his luck.
Someone was running from him, about to get away? Time Lock.
Someone was in the middle of an escape ability? Time Lock.
Someone was casting something in front of him? Time Lock.
Someone was mid animation of a deadly skill? Time Lock.
First hit Time Lock.
Instant Time Lock.
Deadly Time Lock.
First I thought it was funny.
When it happened multiple times in the same game I started to find it amazing.
When it kept on happening in multiple games it started to become unbelievable.
When he gets his hands on level 25 Backtrack talent, he becomes unkillable.
He builds all kind of RNG items.
I never saw someone proc them so many times in a row.
Every game he plays on FV is worthy of a YouTube compilation.
His luck has seemingly no end.
Me and our mutual friends always joke about it.
When someone else gets lucky we call them "BashLord"
We created mysticism about him being a lucky charm in our games.
We say that when his time comes he'll probably Backtrack death itself.
I've seen moments where Snipers proc his passive 10 times.
I've seen moments where Pangos disable someone forever.
I've seen moments where someone misses 3 hits in a row.
But nobody is as lucky as him.
Nobody is as lucky as THE BashLord1000.
I would bet anyone anytime on that.
With his other RNG heroes he usually win.
With his Faceless Void we've never lost.
He doesn't play as often now.
That's not because he feel the game is dying.
That's not because he's unhappy with his progress.
That's not because he found something else more interesting to do.
It's because he won the lottery, and that changed his lifestyle a lot.

Destinys design faults is death by a thousand cuts.

I want to start off this post (its gonna be long) to first make it clear that I absolutely love Destiny. Everytime I put this game down and eventually find myself coming back to it I'm reminded of just how perfect minor (albeit important) pockets of the game are.
The Art, the music, the controls, the surrounding lore of this vast in game universe.
It has the swagger of a game that knows it nails the fundamentals, it plays well and looks amazing at the same time. Its "game feel" is second to none for first person shooters and to have it wrapped up in a FPSRPG, a genre known to sacrifice its feel for function, is incredible.
To put it simply it FEELS GOOD to play the game and it leaves you wishing there were not 1001 other issues stopping you from enjoying the game at its purest form.
With that said lets get into it.
So I titled this post "Destinys design faults is death by a thousand cuts" and my complaints are quite literal. So many of these issues seem like minor things that just leave you scratching your head wondering why they havent been addressed but the vast quantity of these piling issues lead to massive frustration.
I'm gonna start off with a really overlooked issue just so its clear my complaints are not "give me more free stuff" and is more of a question of just the odd ineptitude of certain decisions.

Eververse

Okay so lets talk about this.
Destiny is a GaaS title, it survives by producing content that brings in regular income on a persistent basis (or should in theory) just like most F2P games like Overwatch/Dota2/Warframe/Path of Exile/ect., you get the idea.
Most of these games collect this consistent revenue through purely microtransactions with no sale of actual content (Fortnite is an obvious example of this) whereas some others collect this revenue through selling said added content (The Sims for example) with some microtransactions on the side if the game makes sense for it.
Destiny is one of the latter games, it sells its content releases and also has a very robust microtransaction shop and a game model that supports it.
So Destiny should be swimming in money then right? A popular game that has you paying for all the content AND sells you the costumes and superficial items to dress up your digital avatars with, its a easy homerun.
But with Activisions release of the franchise we know this isn't the case. Though it may be profitable we know it isn't making the money usually expected of a cash cow model like this.
So why is that? Well simply put their microtransactions make no sense to buy.
Really the ideal only question the consumer should have with regards to purchasing a microtransaction is "does this appeal to me?".
Because in reality art is subjective and when selling cosmetics its hard to have everyone agree on what is good enough to buy.
But Destiny doesnt achieve this, instead there are multitude of questions that arise that are so numerous it is almost impossible to justify spending money.
Wanting to buy the Eververse only armor sets? Good luck gambling for the specific perks you want on the armor you want from them. So not only does Destiny need to sell you on the art design of this armor for a premium cost over just wearing regular Destiny armor for free but now it also has to sell you on having you buy box after box after box looking for the correct perks for your preferred loadout. Then even if you do get the entire set with the perks you want it is still being outperformed by Raid only perks and activity specific perks that leave you constantly taking it off. Even if you dont need those raid enhanced or activity enhanced perks like Gambit armor you still might just end up taking the armor off when you simply switch to another loadout that doesnt utilize the same perks. For example, have perks all for light arms? Now you are using Rifles and those perks no longer work.
Compare this to other games that sell cosmetics like Overwatch, like Dota 2, like Path of Exile.
These games I can purchase a costume and its done, I dont need to fish in boxes for the correct perks and I dont have to worry about not using said purchased skin because its not optimal. The only question I have about whether I want to use a cosmetic armor in these games is "do I like how it looks?".
Now you might be saying well some of those games like Overwatch, like Dota are not games with persistent gear stat systems and you are right but there are plenty of games (Warframe/PoE/WoW) that are stat gear games that accomplish selling you cosmetic only items. Most of these games achieve this via a cosmetic only tab which sets the look of your character that ignores the look of your currently equipped items. And you may be saying that its not realistic to expect Destiny to be able to achieve the same thing.
But they already have.
Ornaments are this system and they need only make eververse type cosmetics global ornaments that can be outfitted on any piece of gear.
Now there might be more to this but the point remains this is a significant hurdle to them selling something as basic as cosmetic armor in a game like this which they pump a significant amount of their art assets and money into yet clearly have shown they have not fleshed out the basic necessities for accommodating said sale.
"Thats it, your done with Eververse problems right?"
No, it just keeps going.
So I'm going to condense these last points because yes I understand it could literally go forever so here are some rapid fire issues with the rest of eververse.

Ornaments for weapons and armor that may or may not be useful

Rather than do what most games do (cosmetics limited to weapon classes for example 2 handed weapons can only use 2 handed cosmetics) they go several layers deeper and limit them to incredibly specific weapons and armor meaning that if that isn't part of your loadout (and the hundreds of items in the games library almost guarantees its not) it has no value whatsoever as a consumer even if you actually like the art and want to purchase the cosmetic. There simply is no sensible reason to purchase it because you either wont use said item or you actively limit yourself doing so.

Ghosts that may or may not have the intrinsic perk you want

Doesnt have guiding light and cant roll it at all? Might as well not even exist.
Why is Bungie giving me reasons not to buy the cosmetics that their amazing art team slaves over?

Sparrows that are 150 speed

Why do these even exist? Again WHY ARE YOU GIVING ME REASONS NOT TO WANT SOMETHING?

Shaders/Transmat effects

Why are these on use? Their cost to get more is so insignificant that it doesnt even matter except to swindle new players and instead leads to people never experimenting with shaders/transmats because their "finite" usage leads people to fear wasting them and thus never using them.
Simple stuff.
In reality the Ships/Projections/Emotes are the only things that actually work within the shop and even those have their own issues.
But you know what the biggest issue of all of this is?
Obsolescence.
You see these other games sell cosmetics for 60$ and people actually buy them because they know that the purchase isn't a rental, its a purchase that they can still be using in a relevant game 10 years from now whether they pay into it or not.
The same Dota 2 skins I bought in 2013 are still usable in the game today, same goes for the WoW mount I bought in 2008, still works today in the current version of the game.
Destiny does not have this, when Destiny 2 launched all the money spent on cosmetics for your character or flair or what have you went completely in the trash and people are already preparing themselves for the same farewell to their current collection for when Destiny 3 launches.
This simply doesnt work in a model like this and you best believe it hurts Bungies ability to sell cosmetics knowing their consumers think its not a purchase but simply a rental til the next game ships.
Okay I think I bitched enough about cosmetics, but for my final word on them I want everyone to know I dont mind them. Microtransactions are just a part of gaming at this point and I've accepted that but my beef isn't that they exist in Destiny its that they are just squandered so much and it just seems like a colossal waste of Bungies time creating all these assets to fund their game only to have no one buy them because of all the things surrounding them.
So what next?
Lets talk about....

Strikes

For the majority of games like Destiny strikes would be the absolute bread and butter of its repeatable content.
Here we have small group instanced pve content in a variety of areas, against a variety of bosses/enemies, in a variety of different engagements.
So whats wrong? Why is nobody doing this content they spent all this time making?
The loot pool is incredibly limited and the content is snore levels of easy. So if its not fun, and its not rewarding, then why play it at all? Why does it even exist? And what is the solution to this if there is one at all?
The answer is Nightfall.
What? You may be saying to yourself, but yes, Nightfall.
You see there are other games that ran into this same exact issue, I'm going to use one of them as an example (since its the one I know best) and how they solved the issue.
Introducing WoW Mythic+ dungeons.
You see in WoW there too was an issue with dungeon difficulty and lack of rewards. In previous years/expansions after the initial post max level phase of dungeon grinding dungeons were all but obsolete to the majority of the playerbase. The content simply sat abandoned and wasted with no incentive at all for players to return to them.
Enter Mythic+ dungeons.
Now some super smart guy at Blizzard decided he had an idea on how to fix this issue of having so much development time and effort be completed so quickly and thrown away. His solution was an ever scaling dungeon difficultly alongside scaling rewards (capped at a certain point) with an emphasis on random selections of dungeons (so as to not have the fastest/easiest dungeons farmed each time) and to have multiple variables introduced per week to spice up the difficulty (think NF mission modifiers except you didnt select them and they changed weekly). These alternating variables made it so one week ranged might be the preferable damage dealers or Priests might be the preferable healers, either way it created new challenges for your group of players per week as you attempt to progress into the higher keys (Mythic+ dungeons were tied to keystones that chose the dungeon and the difficultly for you) for better rewards.
This worked fabulously.
Now instead of Joe Rogue hitting max level and being done with all dungeon content in a week he is instead finding reasons to be running dungeons INDEFINITELY if he so desired for better and better rewards. Even players well into Mythic Raids (the hardest content in the game and the most rewarding) had reasons to run at least a few per week.
Now how does this relate to Destiny and Nightfall?
Well, Nightfall is Mythic dungeons....or at least a form of it.
Variable modifiers, repeatable dungeons, scaling difficulty... its all there waiting to be utilized.
Instead we get nothing, complete 1 NF a week for 2 powerful pieces of gear and thats it, your done.
Its just completely wasted potential sitting in their laps and rather than work the content to fix it into being a viable way to gear your character and spend time in game they instead leave it to rot wasting their time creating another horde mode activity....
No wonder they dont want to give us any more strikes in this season pass, they think its completely wasted content since its not "repeatable" in their current iteration of it.
But lets move on, plenty more to cover and I thank anyone still bothering to stick with my rant at this point.
Lets get into my favorite part of the game and where I have easily spent the most time in game.

Crucible

Lets begin.
So first off let me say that I fucking love the Crucible, I love the dynamics of this games PvP and even with all its massive shortcomings (P2P/Matchmaking/Lack of modes) I still love the hell out of it as it offers a type of gameplay that exists nowhere else as this psuedo Halo/CoD arena shooter with Overwatch lite abilities.
That said...
Its horrible.
Lets start off with a thing most people can agree on, comp is not a fun experience. But why?
Well the issue is multifaceted, lets start with the ranking system itself. The game simply does not separate players into the correct skill tiers so players in the higher end of the skill spectrum are often placed within the low end of the skill bracket and it ends in a horrible experience for players on said lower end.
Now this happens in a lot of games.....initially.... this is due to the fact that the game simply doesnt have enough data on said player to place them accordingly in their skill bracket. In most games ranked mode where there are new seasons (as there are in Destiny) they will have placement matches at the start of every new season to determine how much different your ranking should be from the previous season if any change needs to occur at all. This means GM Overwatch players will remain in GM (or roughly around their original rating) the following season since its clear they shouldnt be playing with Bronze players based on their previous ranking.
This is not how Destinys ranking system works.
Instead a 5500 Unbroken top 500 player is sent back to the bucket bracket with every other player and the ranking bracket calibration is needed yet again to eventually get this player facing the correct skill players and no longer stomping on players that have absolutely no chance.
Its just complete nonsense and its completely counter to the point of the mode which is to have it be COMPETITIVE, I can tell you right now from personal experience that I dont enjoy going through the lower bracket and making lower skilled players get worked over and I bet they dont enjoy being worked over by a person who doesnt belong in their bracket at all either.
And this lack of a sensible system bleeds into a bunch of other issues within the mode.
Long queues/bad matchmaking connections/4man vs randoms, these issues all stem from a lack of a playerbase playing the mode but the mode is so poorly designed that it actively discourages people from playing it which as I just highlighted leads to these other issues.
Then there is the issues within the mode itself, a 4v4 mode in a game exclusively cut to groups divisible by 3, an emphasis on team play with no real communication methods available to non pre made teams, gamemodes like countdown that dont fit very well with the gameplay of Destinys crucible (this isn't CS, not all FPS modes work just by importing them).
And then there is a lack of overall rewards, what value is there in playing comp for a player who already has Not Forgotten? There is no end of season rank reward like an emblem or cosmetic armor. What about people who wont be getting any of the pinnacle weapons or comp exclusives? What are you doing to keep them playing? You need reasons for every type of player to keep playing this mode because when they dont have reasons to play they stop queuing and the whole mode suffers for the lack of a healthy playerbase.
The most frustrating thing about all of this is they've done it better before.... This is Bungie for Travelers sake, they had the first working automated online ranking system I had ever interacted with and refined it through their other releases.
Now here we are 15 years after they released a completely functional ranking system in Halo 2 and they can't even match that let alone follow along with other better versions in online gaming like the often used ELO system used in games like League/Dota/Overwatch/ect.
Okay good lord I spent enough time on that, what about the rest of crucible?
Uhh not much really to complain about here, maybe some basic features like map/mode voting, obviously better matchmaking in general but again they need the playerbase to accomplish that.
I do have a tie in complaint to my earlier bitching about Eververse, here we have a multitude of opportunities for Bungie to make an easy buck selling us stuff like taunts/player intros/victory poses and they miss out on it completely.
And again its something they've already done better elsewhere, I'm not talking about using the Trials of the Nine 20 minute intro with dances and what not but maybe instead of everyone standing around whilst you plant a flag and the game does a slow flyby of the map it instead puts you into a Gambit like room for you to taunt the opposing team in.
And how about they steal their "MVP" idea from Halo (I know thats from Halo 5 but they had a similar system in their own games I just like 5s presentation of it better for my example).
You sell people taunts and flourishes for MVP poses at the end of games and hell it even helps sell the other eververse cosmetics like armor since people will want to show off in the window with their gear as well.
Here is a fantastic example mocked up by blankscientist to give you an idea of it in Destiny. It even incentivizes those "taunts/cosmetics" even more for people to purchase for their character since it is used to taunt nemesis players and you dont need to be MVP to show it off.
You get the idea.
I can speak more of issues like Iron Banana or the stagnation of balance metas but we'll move on.
So ok what else can I bitch about?
How about.....

Raids

Or more specifically, forming raids.
So guiding games eh? Thats your attempt?
Look we know what systems work, we've been using them for years now via the apps and websites, this isn't really a code that needs to be cracked. All that really needs to be done is finding a way to implement those group creation curation tools in game and you are done.
WoW (I know, I'm using it again) accomplishes this via a window in game that lets player pick specific activities to either form groups for or find groups for and has a very clean UI for giving descriptions to group creators or players looking to join a group on what the expectations of said group and who is actually applying to said group.
Data is given like what their light level is, what class they are, what spec they are.
Its simple but incredibly effective and all these websites that have cropped up over the years are some version of said window allowing group leaders the tools to curate a group themselves to complete the content and allowing players the ability to find groups for activities they want to do. Its not "automated" but it gives enough structure to allow these groups to take form and tackle content at a much faster pace than randomly messaging every max level player in the Tower.
The fact that the game doesnt have a functional tool like this in game despite its requirement (as seen by the rampancy of its usage in outside forms) is an enormous failure only compounded by the fact that they wasted so much time with the complete dumpster fire that is Guided Games instead of making a functional in game version of the tool everyone else is already using and knows works.
This post is getting entirely too long and as I continue to type I'm finding it harder and harder to keep my points coherent so for now I'll leave it on the issue that bugged me enough to start this rant in the first place.

Not fast enough updates

So we got some nerfs coming yeah? Heard we are all sorts of upset about this. Personally I dont mind as I've seen this song and dance a hundred times before, balance is a seesaw and sometimes your WAY UP and sometimes you are WAY DOWN.
But you know what makes these nerfs so hard to stomach in a game like this? The fact that we all know how long the next set of imbalances will be around.
You see in games like this quick updates are the lifeblood that keeps the game going. We need constant tweaks and changes and we pay a premium to the developer via microtransactions (or season passes) with the expectation that they happen frequently.
After all it is a "living game" and just like in life, changes come often.
But they dont in Destiny do they? We often spend 6 months staring at obvious issues and imbalances knowing something (ANYTHING!) needs to be done to rectify these issues minor and major just waiting for Bungie to even acknowledge the issue let alone issue their idea of a fix. And I'm completely open to Bungie not taking our word for it and simply trying their own idea of solutions first to these problems. The issue is that when they miss on the fix its like your life has ended, 6 months go by and this is what we get? We may not even see another pass on this issue until a sequel is released and that might involve a whole new slew of issues.
It feels awful and really highlights the compounding issue with all of Destiny, that problems pile up rather than cycle out. Because updates and changes are so infrequent it almost seems like things will never get fixed. Minor issues stick around for so long that they become major problems, systems that get submitted as drafts (Guided Games/Ranked Crucible) never see refinement and thus never work to their full potential. These systems stagnate and because they are always working on the next content release we never see real fixes or improvements despite the fact that a strike rework likely has more potential staying power as far as content goes than anything included in these DLC releases.

Thanks for reading

I might have more to add on to this later but I feel thats enough to make my point and to help foster some kind of discussion, I appreciate anyone who actually read through this colossal bitch fest. I love Destiny and hope it gets to be as good as a whole experience as its foundation has always been.

A Beginner's Journey - A new players guide to Void Spirit - TI10 BP Thoughts - Ranked

First things first, this is going to be a BIG update, Void Spirit was a lot of fun to play, the TI10 BP was baffling as a new player, and I'm about to unlock ranked. Before I get into it if there are any new players here looking for a guild I've started one for my stream, it's small but as a new player myself everyone in the guild will be patient and be willing to help you learn, if you want to join search for the tag [TDevC], it's called TheDevinCult (mostly as a stream meme, it's not a literal cult I promise)
Let's get into it shall we :D
Previous Threads:
Undying: https://www.reddit.com/DotA2/comments/gekna3/a_beginners_journey_undying_aka_the_stank_lord/
Troll Warlord: https://www.reddit.com/DotA2/comments/g30v8w/a_beginners_journey_troll_warlord_are_you_new_and/
Lina: https://www.reddit.com/DotA2/comments/fpz9c3/a_beginners_journey_lina_quarantine_edition/
Viper: https://www.reddit.com/DotA2/comments/ffvfgu/a_beginners_journey_vipe
Tiny: https://www.reddit.com/DotA2/comments/fhzx7w/a_beiginners_journey_tiny/
Basic Errors: https://www.reddit.com/DotA2/comments/fgxwic/a_beginners_journey_basic_errors/
Feedback & Updates: https://www.reddit.com/DotA2/comments/g1s8ul/a_beginners_journey_feedback_updates/

Intro

Recently I was suggested Dota as a game to try after years of thinking MOBA's weren't for me, I tried HoN a long time ago and found the community toxic, the game impenetrable, and ultimately not all that fun. However after a friend suggested Dota I thought I'd give it a shot and hoped on into a single draft game with Spirit Breaker, I didn't care for the hero but overall the game left an impression on me and here I am two weeks later.

What is this?

This is going to be a documentation of my journey going from new player to, hopefully above average, maybe even good payer. In this series of threads I am going to document my experience, where I struggled and where I had little breakthroughs. I am going to start by writing one for each hero i try until I have enough play time to get into ranked, then I'm not sure. I think this will have some value to other new players who are finding it hard to improve and maybe even better players who have small gaps in their knowledge.

Why am I doing this?

The main reason is that I adore competitive games and when I get into a game with a ladder and focus on competition, assuming the game is viscerally fun on a mechanical level, I tend to get quite obsessive over trying to improve and want to understand every facet of it so by posting this I'm hoping I can get into some interesting conversations about improving and get advice I wouldn't have found elsewhere. In the past I have gotten to a competitive level in Starcraft 2, Halo 3, Magic: The Gathering, Battlerite, Poker, and Hearthstone. The fact that I am reasonable at Starcraft gives me hope. The other, more cynical reason is that I am planning on streaming (I'll only shill at the bottom I swear!) my journey of improvement but hopefully these write ups will have value in of themselves and people won't get hung up on this.

Who is Void Spirit?

As far as I'm concerned Void Spirit is the l33t kids hero of choice, he is an ability spammy, very nimble and area controlling hero, as far as i can tell while I wouldn't call him hard to use exactly I would say he is very flashy and capable of some great displays of burst damage if set up correctly. His kit is pretty incredible in my opinion, starting with his Q, Aether Remnant. This ability allows him to send out an image of himself and face it in a certain direction, if an enemy passes the images line of sight they will be taunted towards the image disabling them and allowing you to get in for a ton of damage while dealing with a bit of damage itself aswell. His next ability Dissimilate causes him to vanish at a moments notice and lays down seven portals, one centre and six surrounding, you then select the one you want to appear out of and deal damage to any enemies in that circle. His E, Resonant Pulse is probably my favourite ability because it's very simple to use, VERY obviously impactful and helps in a ton of situations, Void Spirit emits a circle wave around him dealing damage to anything it hits and you gain a shield that absorbs damage, the more enemy heros you hit, the more health the shield has, great for hitting creeps if you are struggling to farm, great in team fights, escapes, chases, just a great ability. And finally, his ultimate, Astral Step. This ability let's you dash in a straight line to a target location, any enemies you pass through are then slowed and after a short amount of time take a hit of damage, you get 2 charges right off the bat with this aswell.
Overall this kit really gave me the feeling of a volatile predator ready to annihilate anyone I came in contact with, nearly every ability let's you zone, chase, control and deal a ton of damage meaning Void Spirit is a truly excellent fighter, even against multiple targets.

Void Spirit

From a new players perspective this is a very powerful set of tools that doesn't need any crazy items to make it work, every ability is obvious as to how strong it is and i think he makes an incredible pos 2 or 3 because of his crazy strong early and mid game (for those who don't know, position 2 is mid lane and position 3 is offlane carry, they are roles designed to stabilise the mid game while your Pos 1 carry gets online and pos 3 also tried to mess with the opponents pos 1), but one thing i noticed when playing my first few games is that this can easily lead to a false sense of security, you aren't indestructible, In fact you are a bit of a glass cannon, you will get a lot of enemies down to minimum HP, be out of abilities and have no recourse, understanding your limits with this character are absolutely vital to being good with him. Sure he has very low cooldown abilities (meaning each ability can be used a lot in a long fight), but if you pop all of them early and are facing down 3 opponents with your team a little further back, you are probably dead.
I learned over time the best way to avoid this is to space out your cooldowns and always have a plan for escape, are you against someone with a slow but powerful stun? Save your W so you can wait for them to cast it and instantly vanish. Are you against someone with solid chase, save at least one charge on your ultimate to use as an escape. You have options for days so don't go in and blow your load getting everyone low but no one dead.
With that all said, holy hell do you have surprise attack potential, if you get even a little ahead in the early game, you can become a monster and dominate the mid game, hiding in the forest ready to snipe someone on a retreat and vanish before they know what hit them, to achieve this, your Q is VITAL, if you can spot someone retreating, get behind them and use your Q to hold them for 2 seconds, they are dead, you pop an ult to slow them, Use your shield for damage, auto attack, use the W if needed (which will also give you a surprising amount of reach at times) and ult away if you need to escape. It's immensely satisfying and if you are someone who struggles with the ranged squishy heros like Windranger, Drow, or sniper, then play this hero, he is basically custom built to ruin their fun.

Issues

Now with that all being said, ofc, he has his draw backs, the biggest one being his lack of late game. The main reason I didn't list his as a pos 1 is because his health pool REALLY starts to feel insufficient around level 24+, you will not be able to kill the tankier heros and anyone with even slightly decent burst will murk you before you realise what happened, i don't have a good remedy to this and would love to know what more experienced players think, in theory this is ok as your carry should be the main threat but even as a supporting Core I feel less useful as Void than a lot of other heros.
Another issue I had is that if i didn't get a decent early game the mid game can feel like a struggle too, he doesn't play well from behind or even on an even playing field, because he is such a bursty hero, being able to get your opponents from 100 to 0 is important and getting them down to 1 sadly just isn't enough and you will die.

Conclusion

Play Void Spirit, he's fun as hell, I love playing heros with low cooldowns because i get to cast more abilities more often and have more options available to me at any one time. I know that's not a flashy conclusion but I think his skills speak for themselves.

TI10 BattlePass

So as i was streaming about 2 weeks back suddenly someone in chat asked if I was excited about the Battlepass and as a new player I was immensely confused, Aren't Battlepasses those things fortnite invented and were universally hated by gamers at large? especially boomers that are still playing Dota after 10 years? Well, the answer is Yes, but everyone loves the Dota Battlepass and holy hell do I see why, firstly I think it's an incredible idea to fund tournaments via this method, the community feels more involved, it helps keep the game alive, and the battlepass has a whole heck of a lot going on for a very small amount of money. Starcraft also do with with War chests or loot boxes (that is fund their tournaments).
It can be a little much for new players though so here is a very simple explanation of what it is and what each section is. The Battlepass itself is a thing you level up and upon achieving new levels you can claim new cosmetic items and consumables for the game. That is the core purpose and everything else levels up your pass and supports you in doing so.
The first tab Cavern Crawl confused the shit out of me initially, is it single player missions? is it a passive game in the background? is it challenges? Nope, you just need to win games with the heros listed in the middle of the crawl and work your way around the map for rewards.
The next tab, the summer event isn't available yet but it looks like a fun co-op thing to do with friends.
The Sideshop is my personal favourite tab because it's a silly little risk reward game that requires no real engagement but gives you something to do with the gold the BP provides, you buy heros, if you buy multiples of the same hero they level up, each hero can be sold for an amount of stuff, stuff can be redeemed for rewards, this is anything from consumables in game (like comestic chilli peppers to throw at people) to skins for characters (which are confusingly named arcana's). Some heros are worth more but cost more and are rarer, the more heros of the same time you combine the higher the reward (For example, 3 drows become a single tier 2 drow who is a lot more valuble than 3 T1 drows).
Achievements are self explanatory but i still have no idea where the points go, i would assume they level up the battle pass but looking at my points log i can't see em sooooo, what??? anyone got any ideas???
The best part of the whole battlepass however is the guilds, join up with ur mates, complete contracts, level up your guild and get rewards to assist your battlepass (Also flex on fools in lane with your dank banner).
As a side, come join my guild, it's called TheDevinCult and the tag is TDevC.
The final part of the battlepass is also great in my opinion, I love Betting and they've added it as a feature in your games, play between 1 and 3 chips on a game before the bounties spawn if you thin you can win, talk some trash, and level up your battlepass the Chad way.
There are a few other small bits like commnuity predictions (I'm 2 for 2 atm baby), voting on arcanas, immortal treasures (they are just loot boxes) but all in all it's a very cool little bundle for a small amount of money and funds the thing you love, I understand why chat was so excited, if anyone is interested here is me reacting and fumbling through the battlepass without having looked anything up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjKtlhA4Y84&

Ranked

So we are finally here chat, it's been one hell of a ride, the reason I started this series was to help me learn more about the game as I marched on, through the salt. And today, the day is upon us, with 97.6 hours in unranked, i will be going live, played the last bit of unranked and through myself into the gladiatorial arena that is ranked. Today, on stream I will be starting my placement games, as stated before I genuinely love competition and I can't wait to go in and join the emotional roller coaster that is ranked, I think by this point I have a solid understanding of the core of the game, I don't think I'm good but hey, all in good time, it's time to learn about picking, counter picking, and all the nuance that goes into crushing your opponent.
Thanks for reading and hopefully I'll see you all in my stream shortly, here is my pitch if you are interested:
My name is Devin and I'm probably the chattiest person in the Dota 2 section of twitch, I'm someone who loves competition but doesn't get salty so if you are looking for a small dota community built around improvement without all the toxicity please do consider swinging by and saying hi:
https://www.twitch.tv/devinreviews
https://discord.gg/DrK9jMf
As a final note i want to say that this community has been wonderful to get to know, the support in the streams has been really cool and the wealth of advice has been BEYOND helpful, shout out to everyone and I can't wait to transition this into "A Journeyman's Journey"

The Long Haul Podcast with Garfield and Skaff: Too Long; Didn't Listen

TL;DL: Both Garfield and Skaff think the core game mechanics and game design are solid. They explain it's more like a Real Time Strategy game then a trading card game because the quantity of decisions made in such a short time. People who play Artifact a lot will feel the oomph that it provides, as opposed to a lot of games that are focused on fitting everything on a small screen. Artifact is difficult to spectate if you haven't played it before, but like basketball or cricket if you know the rules Valve did a really good job making a complicated board state easily view-able. Garfield and Skaff were able to look at ELO ratings of players within the first couple of weeks and saw more then 1000 point spread between players. Artifact has RNG, but the RNG is not what decides the game. Many people have mistakenly assumed they lost because the RNG, but it was mistakes they made. We need replays so salty redditors can post their RNG losses and good players can tell them where they made their mistakes. They were surprised at how much they needed to work on explaining the skill in the game. The economics of the game was agreed on by all parties, they thought it was a great opportunity with the steam market. Valve maintained a really player oriented focus. They don't think F2P is important, because before fortnite there was PUBG. A one time fee is much less of a deal breaker then ongoing payments. There were a lot of people who bought the game only to give it a low review then refund it. They don't want to give away too many cards, because it will make all cards worthless. They think prize play rewards are too low, and even if you only win one or zero games there still should be a small reward. You cannot compare autochess and artifact because autochess isn't a trading card game. Changing balance on cards is something that is extremely friendly to people who play a lot but aren't necessarily at the top level. It is unknown how long the long haul will last.
What follows is my notes from listening. Most of these are word for word quotes, but not everything was directly transcribed. They are in order of the podcast. I tried to keep any of my opinion out of this, it should be just the most relevant points made.
Garfield: I play games as much as I can.
When I play my own games, I find all I can do is redesign them while I play them.
Skaff: The games I play have changed because now I have to play with my kids
Garfield: I’ve been playing autochess on Dota, I think that one has a lot of interesting stuff going on.
Garfield: I define success by finding more then just a dedicated audience. If it finds a reasonably large community of people, I consider it a success.
Skaff: There is success for the game design but not for the game.
G: The birth of the artifact project was from the digital trading card game. I had been a long time fan of mobas.
G: Online gaming has been so focused at fitting everything onto a small screen. If they don’t see it immediately, people who play a lot feel more oomph in Artifact.
S: You’ll be playing on artifact, but you don’t you want the game to end. Concede is a feature that can end games before you get the resolution and you might dislike it because you want the resolution.
G: It’s not my nature to make a game with that many decisions in such a short time. While people complained this isn’t HS, there’s too many things going on. I’ve been thinking about it as a Real Time Strategy game.
S: I watch more games then I play. Artifact is difficult to spectate. You would like to have a view as a spectator where you can move around the board. Football or basketball are considerably more complex then artifact. If you go to watch cricket you won’t be able to understand if you don’t know much about the game. You’ll get a deeper spectating experience if you know the game before.
G: It was great how much valve tried to make a complicated board state easily viewable quickly. I think the game state is very understandable if you know the game.
S: The UI work design is just incredible.
S: We had close to unlimited power at Wizards, I didn’t have anywhere near that at valve.
S: We had designs for a pro circuit, but that was before launch.
S: Richard differentiates between how much RNG is in there and how much RNG it feels like is in there. When you look the ELO rating spread in artifact, its astounding. Even after the first couple weeks it was a 1000 point spread or more. It’s more skill testing then Magic. On a provable level we can see it has less RNG then any other card game. We need replays to show people that there is less RNG.
S: A lot of people for a long time thought of poker as just RNG. Now people understand it has a lot of skill.
G: Part of the problem people confuse RNG with skill. There is a lot of RNG in artifact, but there is even more skill. You can measure the skill by looking at how often the skillful people win, which is very very often.
G: The game is different enough from what is out there that people have trouble internalizing where the luck and skill is. If there was broader play of Artifact these people would quit the game whining and later on there would be a community of people vouching for the fact that they lost because they actually weren’t playing skillfully. Players might come back if they heard this.
S: I watched lower level twitch streamers making a lot of mistakes and then blamed it on RNG. I was surprised how much more we needed to explain how much skill is in the game.
S: It’s not true that increasing the RNG decreases the skill in the game. It gives the more skilled players an edge over the long run.
G: You get a lot more skill testing which is made possible by a good application of RNG.
G: You get a monolithic group think of the metagame in games now.
G: I think Artifact is one of the most solid design in trading card games that I have contributed. It’s hard to beat magic for its place in history, but Artifact just has something really special going on. One of the things we were after was making it feel epic, and we were really happy with that.
S: As a product it wasn’t as successful as we would have liked but it’s one of the most solidly designed.
G: Artifact is sooo different then a game like magic. The feeling you get playing artifact is much closer to a real time strategy game then a card game. I often finish a game of Artifact and end up sweating, I rarely finish a game of magic sweating.
S: It’s probably closer to Gwent then it is Magic.
G: The major hitch in the game was not due to game design. In this case there is a lot of stuff outside game design that made it not hit the audience.
S: The game is the metagame in Magic. It’s the tournament structure, social setting, and trading, etc. that makes magic really enjoyable.
S: The economics: we all did it together. Valve was not demanding. They were open. We all thought it was a great opportunity to have a real card game in the digital model because of the steam market.
G: Valve maintained a really player oriented focus. Working with them I can tell you they are always focused on the player.
G: We thought there was a lot that the marketplace could offer. The thing I don’t like to see is when the only people providing money are vulnerable to certain types of skinnerware abuse. We don’t want the payment to come from 1% of the audience spending $10,000 each. As long as the cosmetic purchases are split over a large amount of people who are putting in reasonable time for what they’re spending, the skin model can work.
S: I don’t think the free thing is very important. Before fortnite PUBG was pretty successful. It would be the fortnite of today if fortnite hadn’t come out as free. I don’t think the one time fee is as much a deal breaker as the ongoing payments.
S: Something needs to change. The number on complaint by far for Artifact is the revenue model by far.
G: If 95% of people are demanding a free game, I’m perfectly happy reaching the other 5%. 5% of people want to pay a reasonable price for a quality game.
S: One thing that shocked me was the reviews, it would get a 1 star review and the complaint was entirely about the price. The best restaurants in the world would get 1 star reviews because of the price. This means at a glance Artifact’s reviews are much worse because so many people said ‘great game, 1 star because price.
G: It’s even worse then what you said. There were a lot of people who bought the game only to give it a low review then refunded it.
S: The ticket system, obviously a lot of people are against that. The ticket system wasn’t as value as say drafting in a local MTG tournament. It should be a discount on buying product. Richard wanted more prizes for lower win %. A pack if you only win one game, for example.
S: If you give away too many cards, cards are worthless because people can grind infinite cards.
S: Dota autochess is great. It’s hard to compare the two because there are a lot of differences. It’s not a trading card game, it’s a little bit apples and oranges to compare them.
G: In general, we like to let the play community figure their way around problems. There’s a reason axe and cheating death were not game breaking cards. If every time people complain you change the game to meet their expectations, it becomes I tried something and it didn’t work waaa, so the game developer goes in and tweaks some numbers and what they were trying works now. Personally, I don’t think the main problem was the game design.
S: Changing balance on cards is something that is extremely friendly to people who play a lot but aren’t necessarily at the top level. No buffs/nerfs protects people who develop strategies. We were thinking of the game lasting 10, 20 years.
S: Some of the things that were done, were grabbed from the next expansion. The purging effect on the item was one that was from the next expansion.
G: It’s known the sets were designed, but we don’t know when they were even planning on releasing it.
S: People are inclined to think a game is less balanced then Artifact was. It’s about managing player expectations.
S: We were brought in to design the game, so it makes sense for us to leave.
G: There is an amount of heartbreak in how the game was received. It also felt like we got so much rating bombed that we couldn’t reach the 5% that might have enjoyed it.
G: There are two common complaints that are demonstratable not true. One is there is too much RNG, the other that it is too expensive. It is much cheaper then MTG or hearthstone, it is very modestly priced. RNG can be shown by the skill difference in players.
S: Trading card games need new cards to keep them interesting. It is a much more challenging beta test then a first-person shooter.
G: I think there are a lot of difficulties in the game because the revenue.
S: In artifact, you don’t need to play with the full card set. Draft has much better beta testing applications because you don’t have to show the full card set necessarily.
G: Valve is basically just excellent. I do not know how long the long haul is.
G: It is almost guaranteed the update won’t come before summer.
S: Without a doubt the launch was a failure.
G: A lot of the problems were the revenue model and ratings bombing. There weren’t things that made people try to play every day. Some people feel like they get value out of climbing a ladder, some people find the value out of achievements.
G: I would bet that if you start messing with the general structure of random spawning of creeps and random arrows you will make the game worse.

EDIT: "Nine has the sexiest voice of any artifact pod-caster"

If anyone ever asks you why Ethereum is worth something: 19 Easy-to-grasp use cases for blockchain

Everyone knows that money has value because people believe it has value. If I can buy a sandwich from you for a few Finneys, then it doesn't matter if it's backed by gold or not. It's backed by trust. While this might be true, some people need more convincing. So here are 19 use-cases for Ethereum in the present and not-too-distant future:

1) Banking the unbanked. With their move towards automated/no checkout stores, Amazon has run into some issues regarding unbanked people. The idea is that automated stores discriminate against people who for whatever reason are unable to open or hold a bank account. With Ethereum, anyone with a smartphone could deposit a small amount of ETH in a grocery budget that Amazon could charge. No more discrimination. In developing nations, limited access to online banking and investing is a problem on a much grander scale, one which Ethereum seeks to tackle.

2) Tokenized assets. Although this relies on either broad social consensus or an element of decentralization, tokenization of real world assets is a big use case for blockchain. You could buy gold, real estate, financial instruments, and much more in a decentralized and transparent marketplace. Dexes make markets 24/7, increase liquidity, and expand access too those previously unable to take part in the financial world.

3) Decentralized stock ownership. Tokenization of commodities is not the end of the line for Dexes. With enough adoption, you could tokenize stock ownership, basically bringing Nasdaq to Ethereum. Not only will trading be easier, but brokerage fees could be significantly lower or non-existent, especially for low-value transactions.

4) International money transfer. Currently, it is slow and expensive to transmit money internationally. Blockchain has no borders, and allows for fast, secure transfer of wealth anywhere in the world.

5) Defi (Maker, compound). Most of you already know how great MakerDao is. Decentralized finance has the ability to be extremely disruptive, especially when paired with Dexes. Not only do stablecoins like Dai solve the issue of crypto volatility, but systems like MakerDao allow the possibility of decentralized leverage. Eventually, even leveraging assets like gold and real estate will be possible. But Defi isn't just for us decentralization junkies. Compound allows the collection of passive income on a stablecoin that tracks the dollar. Whether or not they ever buy Ether, traditional investors would froth at the mouth if there was an accessible way to earn 10% annual interest on a truly secure coin that tracked the USD.

6) Notarization. Consider the possibility of putting a document on the blockchain as an alternative to paying a public notary. Imagine a world where you don't eSign documents with Docusign, but with a Dapp.

7) Single sign-on. If web3 takes off and sites are all wallet compatible, you could perform single-sign on through an extension like Metamask. You get all the benefits of single-sign on that you get with Google and Facebook, without the looming menace of big brother controlling all of your accounts.

8) Social media (Peepeth). New social media sites may arise on the blockchain, creating censorship-free environments which encourage content creation. Records are never destroyed, leading to (hopefully) a higher level of accountability. Some sites may choose to tie accounts to identity, while others may remain anonymous forums.

9) Identity Verification. Instead of a social security number, governments could issue blockchain addresses tied to identity. This has a multitude of uses, including an easy way to get a government-issued ID, which is currently a roadblock for many disenfranchised voters.

10) Voting. Imagine a world where you could vote for your favorite candidates securely from the comfort of your own home, without lines or IDs or solicitors or the electoral college. You could check to verify that your vote actually made it where it was supposed to go. But blockchain doesn't have to just replace voting booths. It has the potential to revolutionize the entire current system of representation in many countries around the world. For example, a government could implement rolling elections. What if you could change your vote at any time, and a new election could be triggered by a spontaneous poll of no confidence.

11) Advertising (Bat/Brave). Using cryptocurrency in a web3 compatible browser, you can earn small amounts of money from publishers for watching their ads. You could also use this money to automatically pay content creators online based on how often you use their services.

12) Gambling (DICE). Online casinos are already around and thriving. Agree or disagree with the morality of it, it's a real use case. Not only that, it's an improvement over a lot of existing gambling, because games are provably fair. When you walk into a casino, all the games are stacked against you so that the house always has a big edge. With gambling on blockchain, you can look at the contract to verify what the house edge is. With many current projects, the edge is very low. Additionally, brick and mortar casinos could implement blockchain games on their floors (FUN).

13) Prediction markets (Augur). By creating decentralized betting environments, you can not only make money on interesting bets, but you can use the wisdom of the crowd to essentially get free polling data. Want to bet on whether Brexit will ever happen? Great! Want to see what the "Vegas odds" are for it? Now it's easy. Just see how people are betting.

14) Gaming. The gaming industry makes a ton of money by selling in-game items. DOTA 2 is one of the most popular games out there, and is completely free to play. Why? Because people pay for funny hats for their heroes. If these collectibles were sold on the blockchain, players would have true ownership of the items. This is a big deal for online card games in particular, where incumbents like Hearthstone could be disrupted by Relentless or GodsUnchained. Tokens could be transferred and traded without limitations, and even if the company goes out of business, players still own the tokens. Other developers could even create their own competing implementation of a game using the same in-game assets. But this isn't the only improvement blockchain brings to gaming. Another big one is interoperability. Essentially, items no longer have to be specific to a single game. Indie developers could incorporate achievements and items from big titles into their own games. This is already happening. You can get a Cryptokitties collectible in GodsUnchained. Another card game, Mythereum, even allowed you to turn your kitties into functional cards!

15) Crowdfunding. This one goes without saying. After all, this was a big part of the ICO craze. But fundraising doesn't have to be scammy like it was for many of these vaporware projects. Non-securities style fundraising could be done in a style similar to kickstarter. Funds could be automatically returned if goals are not met, which could be determined by a smart contract or an oracle.

16) IOT. No one really knows how big the Internet Of Things will become. One thing is clear. If your car is an independent entity, it will need to be able to buy its own gas, electricity, tolls, and car washes. In a future where you only use your self-driving car 5% of the time, you could rent it out to a ridesharing company to act as a cab for the rest of the day, drastically reducing the cost of ownership. Companies are already experimenting with cars sporting their own virtual wallets to handle all the little transactions they'll need to get through the day.

17) Automatic freelancing. With Ethereum, one could write a contract which would essentially be a 'for hire' ad, with a bounty to be collected upon the task's completion. The terms of the contract could be specified such that verification would need to be performed in the case of a dispute. Verifiers could be paid a small fee to vote on whether disputed contracts had been completed satisfactorily. Research organizations could even put a bounty on something like a mathematical proof!

18) Royalties distribution. Imagine a band making music, broadcasted on the radio, TV, Spotify,... The singer, bassist, guitarist, drummer, sound engineer, PR person, designer of the album, label,... all might want a share on every dollar made. Today, this process (collection and redistribution) takes months. A smart contract could make this happen in real time. ^(credit u/Ethical-trade )

19) Ticket sales and secondary markets. Concert tickets currently have a problem. They are either non-transferable, or they can be sold easily, but scalpers drive up the price to insane levels. Make your arguments about free markets, but no one wants tickets to be bought in 60 seconds after they are listed, only to be sold at a 1000% markup. Venues could solve this problem by selling tickets on the blockchain. Tickets could be made transferable, static, or partially static, programmatically limiting markups to say, 150% of original sale price.

Some of these use-cases might fall through completely. Some might require too much social change, or the impossible dream of governmental adoption. But never let anyone tell you that blockchains have no potential. The potential is huge, and, like in the internet of the early days, no one can imagine where it is going.
Here are some just companies and functions that could be replaced with Ethereum: GoFundMe, KickStarter, Docusign, Venmo, TicketFly, eTrade (eventually), online casinos, single-sign on functions of Google and Facebook, games like Hearthstone and MTG.
Perhaps the biggest disruption will come in the form of an industry that doesn't even exist today.
Edit: I completely forgot about supply chain management. :D

[H] ~*Bundle Leftovers*~ [W] Niche - a genetics survival game, offers

Warcraft III | Introduction | Beginner Guides | Community Links

1. Subreddit Info

Welcome to warcraft3, the official Blizzard recognized subreddit for all related topics. Content and discussions can range from the base game, campaign/lore, custom games, competitive ladder, memes, esports, modding, art, and more! Please see the rules on the right hand side.
Official Discord: Warcraft 3 United - Players and representatives from hundreds of WC3 communities gathered in one place!

2. Basic Game Info

Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos (2002) is a real time strategy game set in the fantasy universe of Azeroth. The game combines classic RTS mechanics with RPG elements as you play through the Human, Orc, Night Elf, and Undead campaigns. Warcraft III: Reforged (2020) acts as a graphical remaster accompanied with major infrastructural upgrades and many new features.

Official Blizzard Product Page: PlayWarcraft3.com
The Story so far: Warcraft I & Warcraft II Summary
Tales from the Smithy: Night Elf Undead Human Orc
Reforged Developer Update: May 19, 2020. July 22, 2020. August 19, 2020.
Revisiting the Editor: August 27, 2020.
Already own the classic game(RoC)? Redeem your keys here you get access to Reforged with classic graphics.

2a. Gameplay and Game Modes
Warcraft III presents itself as an accessible yet highly dynamic game. Besides the melee mode, there exists many different ways of playing the game - solo or in multiplayer with up to 23 other players. It is a fusion of lore-heavy campaigns, competitive match-based gameplay, a diverse custom game selection, a thriving esports scene, endless modding and artistic possibilities, and more.
2b. Standard or Melee

RANKED MODES: 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, 4v4, and FFA
OBJECTIVE: Gather resources, build a base, train your army, level your hero, and totally destroy the enemy base and army.
SPECIFICS: Balance micro (swift decision making, individual unit control, movement, ability usage, hero exp/items) and macro (resources, buildings, army upkeep, expansion). The high level of competition has led to WC3 becoming a prominent esport that still has a thriving to this day!
RTS GAMES FOR BEGINNERS: Finding the Fun

2c. Custom Games

CUSTOM GAME TYPES: Genres include hero arenas, campaigns, strategies, RPGs, tower defenses, mini-games, and even the unique shooter or 2D platformer.
SPECIFICS: Popular maps include DotA, Footies, Wintermaul, Legion TD, etc. Thousands more maps can be played competitively, creatively, or casually. The World Editor, WC3's modding tool, has allowed maps to essentially become unique games within the client. It is famous for the creation of DotA which has pioneered MOBA genre.

3. Guides, Tutorials, and FAQ

THE CAMPAIGN TEACHES BEGINNERS THE GAME BETTER THAN ANY GUIDE! THE STORY IS WORTH IT!
In addition, the Classic War3 Battle.net site provides explanations and statistics for all the gameplay features and races in the game.
The guides below are largely based on introductory concepts relating to each scene, so they are beginner friendly under the assumption that you've already familiarized with the base game. You'll also find more niche and advanced guides if you dig through the websites hosting the provided links.
3a. Competitive Melee and Ladder Guides

GENERAL: Beginner Advice, Control and Movement Playlist, Creeping Guide Video, Base Layout Guides
HUMAN: Basic HU Guide, Build Orders - ReZZel Playlist, Wtii Video
ORC: Basic Orc Guide Build Orders - ReZZel Playlist, Wtii Video, Grubby Playlist
UNDEAD: Basic UD Guide Build Orders - ReZZel Playlist, Wtii Video,
NIGHT ELF: Basic NE Guide, Build Orders: ReZZel Playlist, Wtii Video
ESPORTS: History of WC3 Scene, Tournaments Calendar
TOOLS: Custom Hotkeys Setup Guide, ObserveCaster API

3b. Modding and Map Making

GENERAL: Resource Directory (maps, models, skins, MPQ Editor, CascViewer, etc)
BASICS: Starting Advice, FAQ, Beginner Map Making Guide, Tutorials for Beginners
TERRAIN: Complete Terraining Guide (Environment & visuals)
TRIGGERS: Basics of Triggers and Memory Leaks
CODING LANGUAGES: JASS, vJASS, Wurst, Lua, TypeScript
ART: How To Make 3D Models and 2D Art Tutorials (skins / icons)
GRAPHICS MOD: The Quenching Mod is an open source program intend to enhance the graphics of Warcraft III: Reforged.
TOOLS: Map Translation assets; juvian's wc3translating, Stan's MPQ translator

3c. Custom Game Guides

There are an endless amount custom game tips and pointers that would suit your needs for each map, whether it be for DotA or your favorite TD. Your best bet is to visit communities that specialize in the custom game you are interested in!

3d. FAQ

Where can I play online? The built in battle.net is the official server excluding China. There are 3rd party servers that are not supported by Blizzard, in which warcraft3 does not support nor condone.
Where/how to Play Reforged? You need to have purchased the game. In the BlizzApp at the WC3 tab you have the Install/Play button.
How do I host? HOSTING IS INSTANT NOW. No port forwarding, no bots (on Reforged).
Is Reforged worth it? That in the end is up to you, we suggest that you look into the maps/modes you would like to play. This post have some comments about events from a veteran player's point of view. Also as previous mentioned if you have the Reign of Chaos you already have access to the Classic(SD) version and if you do buy the Reforged version and don't like it you can easily Refund it here.
How do I find games? You can checkout game lists like: w3maps/w3stats or use the ingame search/filter function ingame (the box where game names are).
What is PTR? The Public Test Realm is similar to a Beta where players can test incoming patches and provide blizzard with feedback. The old PTR had a separate installer but now it's a "drop-down" option beside the main game and server options.
Where can I download the latest patch? Current patches are downloaded automatically through battle.net if you have an official copy. Also see patch history.
Is Blizzard's new ladder done/working yet? At the moment no it's still in the works. However W3Champions is a community made ladder that a lot of players use.
Which realms are more populated? For ladder, the Europe (former) Northrend realm has the highest activity but Americas (former) Azeroth & Lordaeron can be more during American times. 1v1 and 4v4 are the most active ladders. Custom game activity is huge and is and can be played on all realms.
Anyone know name of [blank] map? When asking this question, please provide as much information as possible. Things like describing the gameplay, the theme, terrain visuals, and possible names should be considered and described to the best of your ability to increase the chances. Don't forget to check map databases on your own first, though!
Is the community alive? Yes, it is absolutely bustling. See below!

3e. State of the Game FAQ
WTii's video Warcraft 3 Reforged ONE YEAR Later... goes over some of these points and makes a number of observations and highlights.

Custom Campaigns? Is not a thing. But you can play them in normal map form, if they were updated.
Player Profiles? Nothing so far. However W3C has them.
Cross-realm hosting? Not at the moment. Was a thing for a patch but was removed with a hotfix again. W3C's ladder is hosted cross-realm but nothing for customs atm, but FLO is in the works that will take on this and a number of other features.
Clans? Nothing yet. However assets for it can be found in the game files. W3C Has both custom made chat-rooms as well as clans.
Ladder? No Blizzard ladder yet. but we have from W3C.
Automated Tournaments? No. Some communities have seasonal things going for both ladder and customs but nothing official yet.
Old BNet Chat System? No and on Europe realm chat do not autoscroll either, is also in the way of the map description but toggle-able. And no kind of chat log with joins or leaves that we had before or timestamp on messages. W3C has made their chats in this "old school" spirit.
Game Reconnection (GProxy)? No. In case of a player leaving disconnecting or crashing or desyncing the game does not inform you either when/if it happened or what the reason was.
Competitive Customs & Ladders? No. However with Community made wc3stats and in the future FLO-host enables this in a number of forms with replay uploading.
Hosting & BNet Commands? Yeah. But they are limited and do not work as they should or you'd wish. For example !ban is just a "long kick" preventing the banned playeuser from rejoining that current lobby not all games you host, thus you can't mange bans and need to black list them yourself.
Campaign Overhaul to fit in with WoW? No. A few missions were reworked and some "new" characters were introduced but not to the scale people wish or expected, for good or ill.
Improved Cutscenes? No. This was aborted and as it looks now wont be a thing at all.
Reforged(HD) Vs Classic (SD)? Well that is up to you. Reforged has a few things in the campaign that Classic don't. Aside from that it would depend on preferences and the maps you want to play as some work better in either version or only in one. Most do use classic and some swap between them so by popular vote Classic(SD) would win as for reasons or factors well most of those are personal.
Follow or Join friends lobbies? Yeah to some degree. if your friend isn't invisible and added correctly via the app or ingame (as you have both gateways in the BlizzApp and the game you can sometimes glitch that) you'll be able to join their game in an empty slot.
When will X be implemented? SoonTN. We do not know at this stage we used to have monthly patches and updates from blizzard but not atm. Some of this can be explained the Bloomberg article.

4. Community Directory

Here you can find communities, websites, social media outlets, and content creators whom have elected to post in our affiliate section on discord. There are few exceptions to communities that are not partnered with us that could be considered essential that have been included. Visit our discord for more information on these communities, or visit them yourself! TIP: USE CTRL+F to search!
Terminology:
LFG = Looking For Game is a term used for any arranged gaming. Clans are by nature LFG groups, but are generally more specialized and tightly nit. Streamer = Used for most types of Content Creators.
4a. Melee, Ladder, and Esports

-------------Website / Community-------------	------------------Media Outlets------------------	----------------Brief Description----------------
Back2Warcraft.com	Discord Twitch YT FB Twitter	Esports, broadcast team / streamer
Warcraft3.info	Discord Twitter	Esports coverage, league, guides, articles
Liquipedia.net (for WC3)		Esports coverage, statistics
WC3 Gym	Discord	LFG
Warcraft 3 Melee	Discord	LFG, 4v4
wc3		Esports, competitive discussion
Play.Eslgaming.com (for WC3)	Discord	Esports coverage, tournaments
tft.w3replayers.com		Replays
FFAmasters.net	Discord YT Twitter	LFG, forums, FFA
Clan P4K	Discord	Clan, 3v3, 4v4, FFA
Clan 1uk1	Discord	Clan, 1v1, 2v2, 4v4
ena1337 HOT Community	Discord Twitch Twitter	Clan, streamer
Grubby	Twitch YT FB Twitter	Streamer
WTiiWarcraft	Twitch YT Twitter	Streamer
KnOfFs Club	Discord Twitch	Streamer
Warcraft 3 Reforged North American Community	Discord FB	Clans, LFG
Ark's shack	Discord Twitch	Streamer, tournaments
Emo AntiFa (WC3 info)	Discord	Clan
ReplayTool	Discord	Replays
W3Booster	Discord	Overlay tool
W3Champions	Discord	Ladder-addon
ArtofWarcraft (Insta)	Discord Twitch YT Twitter	Streamer, highlights
FrenchCraft	Discord Twitch	Esports coverage, broadcast team, streamer

4b. Maps and Modding

-------------Website / Community-------------	------------------Media Outlets------------------	----------------Brief Description----------------
HiveWorkshop.com	Discord YT FB Twitter	News, modding, maps, forums, LFG
EpicWar.com		Maps
ChaosRealm.co	Discord	Modding, maps, forums
WC3modding.info	Discord	Modding, maps, forums
WC3c.net	Discord	Modding, maps, forums
TheHelper.net		Modding, forums
WC3maps.com		Map hosting statistics
ModDB.com (for WC3)		Modding, maps
WC3Stats	Discord	Statistics
maps.w3reforged.com	Discord	Maps

4c. Custom Game Based

-------------Website / Community-------------	------------------Media Outlets------------------	----------------Brief Description----------------
Angel Arena Eclipse Reborn (Hive)	Discord	LFG, Angel Arena
Battleships	Discord	LFG, Battleships Crossfire
BMGANG	Discord Twitch YT	LFG, streamer, WitP
Bosses of Warcraft (Hive)	Discord	LFG, BoW
City TD Solo (Hive)	Discord	LFG, City TD Solo
Clan GHS	Discord	Clan, War of Races
Clan TDG	Discord Steam	Clan, LFG, variety
Clan wTc (w3m info)	Discord	Clan, Hero Push, Footmen vs Grunts
Coming of the Horde (Diplo)	Discord	LFG, CotH
Custom Hero Footies	Discord FB	LFG, CHF
Custom War Games & Chill (Hive)	Discord	LFG, Build and Brawl, Strat & Chill
Daemonic Sword	Discord	LFG, Daemonic Sword ORPG
Escape BuildeForest Defense (Hive)	Discord	LFG, Escape Builder, Forest Defense
Final Fantasy Epic RPG	Discord	LFG, FFE RPG
First Blood Gaming	Discord	LFG, DotA, LTD
Footmen Apocalypse	Discord Twitch YT	LGF, Streamer, Footies
Footmen Frenzy Reforged (mapsW3R)	Discord	LFG, Footies
Fortress Survival	Discord	LFG, Fortress Survival
Fugatsu World RPG	Discord	LFG, Fugatsu World RPG
Gaias Retaliation Official (Hive)	Discord	LFG, Gaias Retaliation ORPG
HellHalt	Discord	LFG, Hellhalt TD
Green Solo TD	Discord	LFG, Green Solo TD
Helm's Deep	Discord	LFG, Helm's Deep
Hero Wars League	Discord YT	LFG, Hero Wars League
HM RPG	Discord	LFG, HM RPG
Impossible Bosses (IBCE)	Discord Wiki	LFG, Impossible Bosses, forums
Island Defense	Discord	LFG, Island Defense
It's Tree Tag Time	Discord	LFG, Tree Tag, statistics
Jungle Dungeon Community	Discord	LFG, Jungle Dungeon
Reforged Creations (Hive)	Discord	LFG, Fantasy Life
Marsh's Sanctum (WH)	Discord	LFG, LTA, LTF, KTA
Masin RPG	Discord Wiki	LFG, Forums, Masin RPG
MineralZ / OriginZ (Hive)	Discord	LFG, MineralZ, OriginZ
MyMGN	Discord	Forums, hosting, DotA
Naruto Ninpou	Discord	LFG, Naruto Ninpou
Naruto Shippuuden: Akatsuki War	Discord FB YT	LFG, NSAW
Pokemon Legends	Discord	LFG, Pokemon Legends
Sedonia (Hive)	Discord	LFG, World of Sedonia RPG
Sheep Tag	Discord Wiki	LFG, Sheep Tag
Sunken City (Hive)	Discord	LFG, Sunken City
Survival Fans	Discord	LFG, Survival, forums
SWAT: Aftermath	Discord	LFG, SWAT: Aftermath
Team OZE	Discord	LFG, Legion TD x20
The Black Road 1.3 (Hive)	Discord	LFG, The Black Road
The Maulbot Spot	Discord WM1	LFG, WM1, WMW, WCM, Green TD
The Sacrifice RPG	Discord	LFG, Sacrifice RPG
The Old Guard (Diplo)	Discord	LFG, strategy maps
Trollforged GCTD (mapsW3R)	Discord	LFG, Trollforged TD
Vampirism Fire	Discord	LFG, Vampirism Fire
Warhaven.org (BotUoS)	Discord	Clans, forums, LTA, strategy maps
Warlock Brawl	Discord	LFG, Warlock
2P Reforged (Hive)	Discord	LFG, 2Player Campaign
Alphas Unite (AU)	Discord	Clan
Alternative Future	Discord	LFG, Alternative Future
American Colonization	Discord	LFG, American Colonization
Angel Arena Allstars	Discord	LFG, Angel Arena
Azeroth Wars Legacy Reborn	Discord	LFG, AW LR
Battle Tanks	Discord	LFG, Battle Tanks
Blood Arena	Discord	LFG, Blood Arena
Broken Alliances	Discord	LFG, Broken Alliances
Capital Z	Discord Twitch YT	Streamer, LFG
Castle Fight Union	Discord FB	LFG, clan, Castle Fight
Choice Battle	Discord	LFG, Choice Battle
Clan AHOI	Discord FB	Clan, Battleships
Clan AUS	Discord	Clan, DoTa
Clan Null	Discord	Clan, Ice Escapes
Clan TNO	Discord	Clan, strategy maps
Clan PASS	Discord	Clan, LFG
Clan WP	Discord	Clan, modding, variety
Commanders TD	Discord	LFG, Commanders TD
Custom Warcraft	Discord	LFG, Troll & Elves
Damned Survival	Discord	LFG, Damned Survival
Darkness Reborn	Discord FB	LFG, Darkness Reborn
DBZ-Fighters	Discord	LFG, DBZ Tribute
DBZ Tribute Hollow	Discord	LFG, DBZ Tribute
Digimon the Revolution	Discord	LFG, DtR
Eclipse ORPG	Discord FB	LFG, Eclipse ORPG
Eden RPG	Discord	LFG, Eden RPG
Egod123	Discord Twitch YT FB	Streamer, Modding
Eras Zombie Invasion	Discord	LFG, Eras Zombie Invasion
Farmer vs Hunter	Discord	LFG, Farmer vs Hunter
Fellowship Quest	Discord	LFG, Fellowship Quest
Fishy Bois	Discord Twitch	Streamer, TDs
Forge of Origination	Discord	LFG, WotA: The Sundering
Gem TD+	Discord	LFG, Gem TD
Guilds of Hyppos RPG	Discord YT	LFG, GoH RPG
Hero Siege RPG	Discord	LFG, Hero Siege RPG
Island Troll Tribes	Discord	LFG, Island Troll Tribes
Kalimdor League	Discord	LFG, League of Kalimdor II
Kirian Tor	Discord YT	Streamer
LF Community	Discord Twitch YT	Streaming, Legion TD, Survival Chaos
Line Tower Wars: Reforged	Discord	LFG, LTW: Reforged
LoaD's Domain	Discord	LFG, Life of a Dragon
Lords of Arkanova	Discord	LFG, Variety, Strategy Maps
Lords of Europe	Discord	LFG, Lords of Europe
Lord Of The Rings Builder	Discord	LFG, LOTR Builder
Medieval Zombie Apocalypse	Discord	LFG, Medieval Zombie Apocalypse
Medieval Zombie Onslaught	Discord	LFG, Medieval Zombie Onslaught
Monster Master RPG	Discord	LFG, Monster Master RPG
MrGannicus YT Server	Discord YT	Streamer, LFG
M.Z.I. Series	Discord	LFG, Medieval Zombie Invasion
Night of the Dead	Discord	LFG, Night of the Dead
NOTD Aftermath	Discord	LFG, NotD Aftermath
Nox RPG	Discord	LFG, Nox RPG
Official Risk	Discord	LFG, Risk
Okami Legion	Discord	LFG, modding, variety
One Piece RD	Discord	LFG, ORD Eng ver
Orc Gladiators Revenge	Discord	LFG, Orc Gladiators
Pyro TD	Discord	LFG, Pyro TD
Shadows of the Future	Discord	LFG, SotFRP
Spirit's Lair	Discord	LFG, AoH, tWoW
Star Wars Empires	Discord	LFG, SW Empires
TBR 2.0	Discord	LFG, The Black Road
The Burning Crusade	Discord Wiki	LFG, TBC
the dimmerdome	Discord Twitch	Streamer, Vampirism
Ultimate Dragonball	Discord	LFG, Ultimate Dragonball
Vamp Zero Reloaded & Other	Discord	LFG, Vamp Zero
Vampire Hunters	Discord	LFG, Vampire Hunters
Vampirism Speed World	Discord	LFG, Vampirism Speed World
Vampirism Zero Gaming (VZG)	Discord	LFG, Vampirism Zero
VimpGamingYT	Discord YT	Streamer
Warcraft	Discord	LFG
Warcraft III: Enjoy	Discord	LFG, archives
Werewolf Transylvania	Discord	LFG, Werewolf Transylvania
Wintermaul Wars	Discord	LFG, WMW
Zoator Community	Discord	LFG, Zoator TD, Switch TD, Sprout TD, Essence TD

4d. Other + Non English

-------------Website / Community-------------	------------------Media Outlets------------------	----------------Brief Description----------------
BNetDocs.org	Discord	Blizzard/Battle.net docs and files
dz.163.com (Netease)		Blizzard's Chinese server / distributor
Alone直播室	Discord Twitch	Cantonese, LFG, modding, streamer
Warcraft 3 - FR	Discord	French, LFG, modding
ReadMore.de	Discord	German, esports coverage
Eurobattle.net	Discord subreddit FB	3rd party server, DotA, multi language
iCCup.com		Russian, 3rd party server, DotA
M16 Server	Discord	Korean, 3rd party server
warcraft3.eu	Discord	3rd party server, Castle Fight
IrInA HostBot	Discord	Russian, hostbots
Rubattle.net		Russian, 3rd party server
RGC		3rd party server, DotA
ENTGaming (Shutting down)	Discord	3rd party server, hostbots
Warcraft Community VN	Discord YT	Streamer, Vietnamese
Royaume de Warcraft 3	Discord	French, LFG
Warcraft & Friends	Discord Twitch YT	Czech, Slovak, Streamer, LFG
Warcraft 3 entre français	Discord	French, LFG
The Unofficial WC3 GR	Discord	3rd party server, LFG
Quenching Mod	YT Twitter	Modding, Chinese
Warcraft 3 GameRanger	Discord	3rd party server, LFG

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