eSports

The StarCraft 2 mod Blizzard DOTA was unveiled a year ago at Blizzcon 2010 to mixed reviews and has since been revamped in to a fresh and fast-paced product with the same amount of care that is standard of Blizzard titles. If you want to know about the updated Blizzard DOTA then stay a while and listen, as we're about to break down the top ten things you need to know about the new and improved version of the StarCraft 2 mod that was on display at this year's Blizzcon.

1. Stats are broken down in to three types

Blizzard thought that the amount of stats within the original Blizzard DOTA were a bit unintuitive so they've removed unnecessary math stats like armor and attack speed and replaced them with just three stats: health, damage, and mastery. Health is of course how many hit points your hero has, damage is how hard your Hero will hit others, and each rank of mastery gives your Hero 10% cooldown reduction and 10% more mana. 

• VIDEO: Blizzcon 2011 - The MMO Report

2. Simplified items

With simplified stats comes simplified items. Blizzard has completely removed the "recipe" aspect of Dota items and replaced the entire system with just one page of available items. In Blizzard DOTA, your character only has access to four items rather than the standard six, and most of the items can be upgraded twice to increase their power.

Blizzard has also introduced tomes that when used will increase one of your Hero's three main stats. There are also items called Artifacts that can't be upgraded, like the Cloak of Flames, that damages enemies around you based on your max health.

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Valve has finished their first significant expansion of Dota 2's server capacity which means that they're ready to send out Dota 2 beta invites in increasing volumes. As if that wasn't enough reason to celebrate, the Dota team has also released the first part of the official Dota 2 comic, Tales from the Secret Shop.

• DETAILS: Dota 2 Guide: Your Introduction To Valve's Redesigned eSports Masterpiece -- Part 1

If you want to try to get in to the Dota 2 beta, all you have to do is fill out the Dota 2 Survey via Steam after you've read the first part of Tales from the Secret Shop and then cross your fingers. Everyone who receives a key will also get two additional keys, because Dota 2 is much more fun with friends after all. If you get a key you'll find the two extras in the Steam section of your Steam account's item inventory and can use Steam's Trading feature to gift them to others.

I've been on Dota 2 for a while now and find it very enjoyable, but I'm really excited to see more people getting access to the beta. Let the testing begin, and remember kids, play nice.

Street Fighter X Tekken producer Yoshinori Ono made an announcement at New York Comic-Con that has been causing controversy in the fighting gaming community since then. Street Fighter X Tekken will be have a gem system that will give power-ups and boosts to playable characters.

The gem system is based on Assist Gems and Boost Gems. Assist Gems offers upgrades like auto-block, a feature that has been slammed by the fighting game community as, basically, an "easy button" for players.

Gamasutra spoke with Capcom's Seth Killian about the drama and he said, "I don't think there's any combination of gems which will help a weak player beat someone who's much stronger than them." Auto-block in particular has "sent people into a tizzy," Killian says, "because it's like, can't you just block everything? Well, yes, but it requires meter from your bar."

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While originally slated for an October release, Valve's Chet Faliszek has sadly confirmed that the Counter-Strike: GO beta has been delayed to an unknown date. The news comes from an interview between Faliszek and ESEA News.

• NEWS: Counter-Strike Gun Game To Live On In Global Offensive

In the interview, Faliszek announced that the initial CS: GO beta will include 10,000 participants and will grow in steps based on feedback. Right now, the development team is factoring in feedback from Counter-Strike 1.6 players and that's what's causing the delay.

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StarCraft Universe, the fan-made StarCraft MMO mod in StarCraft 2, has been made playable for a limited time until October 30. I need to finish writing this really fast so I can jump in there, as this is one of the coolest-looking mods I've ever seen.

You may remember when the StarCraft MMO was first announced, when Blizzard asked the creators to change the name, and when the team released the StarCraft Universe raid trailer. But we haven't heard much of anything from the team in quite a few months, until now.

Today, the developers have made the StarCraft Universe player versus player (PVP) portion of the game available on Battle.net until the 30th to get you hyped up to play more of the mod at Blizzcon later this week. 

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BlizzCon is the annual convention held by Blizzard Entertainment to celebrate their many epic video game franchises including Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo. This year at BlizzCon 2011 there are a lot of great things going on including developer panels, an art show, a costume contest, two StarCraft 2 tournaments, and new this year concert from the Foo Fighters.

But aside from all of these festivities, the main reason we want to go to BlizzCon 2011 is to learn about what's going to be coming out in the future from Blizzard, and to spend time with our fellow players. All the cosplayers don't hurt, either. But this year, what should we expect from Blizz in terms of straight up game news? Let's break it down by each game.

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All weekend you can catch Major League Gaming's Raleigh Pro Circuit Tournament right here on G4TV.com where some of the best professional gamers will be competing in StarCraft 2, Halo: Reach, and Call of Duty: Black Ops for more than $120,000 in prizes.

The broadcast schedule is as follows:

Note all times are listed in Eastern Standard Time (EST).

Friday: 5 PM EST - 12 AM EST
Saturday: 11 AM EST - 11:30 PM EST
Sunday:  10 AM EST -  9 PM EST

The stream defaults to StarCraft 2, to watch the other games use the dropdown menu within the stream! If you want to check out the stream in crystal clear HD, you can purchase an MLG Silver or Gold League Membership.

• Check out the StarCraft 2 open bracket here.
• Check out the StarCraft 2 pool play bracket here.

• Check out the Halo: Reach open bracket here.
• Check out the Halo: Reach pool play bracket here.

• Check out the Call of Duty: Black Ops open bracket here.
• Check out the Call of Duty: Black Ops pool play bracket here.

For the full schedule breakdown, you can click after the break. Let me know what you think of how the tournaments are going throughout the weekend via my Twitter!

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EXACTLY WHAT IS DOTA 2?

Dota 2 is the upcoming fantasy strategy game being developed by Valve, the makers of Portal, Left 4 Dead, and Half-Life. Dota stands for Defense of the Ancients and the game type originated as a user-created mod in Blizzard's WarCraft 3: Reign of Chaos in 2003. It's the original multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game that started the entire craze over seven years ago.

Right now, Dota 2 is in closed beta mode so that Valve can work out all of the kinks. Nevertheless, the company is so confident in their product that they debuted the game by throwing a $1 million tournament at Gamescom this year featuring 16 of the most accomplished Dota teams. The tournament was a huge success and was a great way to get the hype train rolling for Dota 2. However, with so many MOBA games out now we wanted to give you a bit of a 101 on what’s sure to become one of the most competitive video games out there once it’s released next year.

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TwitchTV, one of the world's largest video game broadcasting websites have announced that eSports legends Marcus “djWHEAT” Graham and James “2GD” Harding will be joining their team to help the company elevate eSports to the next level. The two key hires bring some of the most passionate members in competitive gaming under one roof, and the two will "collectively strengthen TwitchTV’s impact on the live video game streaming industry."

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Major League Gaming is heading to sunny Orlando, Florida this weekend, October 14-16, for its second-to-last Pro Circuit event of the season. Once again we're going to be streaming all of the action live right here on G4TV.com starting on Friday at 5 P.M. EST. MLG Orlando will feature top tier competitive play from StarCraft 2, Halo: Reach, and Call of Duty: Black Ops for more than $120,000 in prizes. If you're not familiar with MLG and their fantastic tournaments, be sure to check out our MLG Raleigh recap.

For Orlando, MLG is doing big things and rolling out two additional StarCraft 2 streams for MLG Gold and Silver Members in order to bring these viewers as much of the tournament as possible. The community casters Adebisi, Nerski, Tumba and Robin will be switching to matches on the fly over the weekend based on what's happening in the bracket.

Aside from the two extra SC2 streams, there will be the standard two StarCraft 2 streams and one stream each for Halo: Reach and Call of Duty: Black Ops.

For the full MLG Orlando Schedule be sure to check after the break.

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Hi-Rez Studios has announced that their free-to-play first person shooter Tribes: Ascend will begin beta on November 4. There are several ways to get in to the beta: you can apply for a beta key via the Tribes: Ascend website, get a code on their Facebook or Twitter pages, or pre-order the game. The beta will include four multiplayer maps, two game modes, three vehicles, and will support up to 32 players with 12 classes.

If you pre-order the game you'll get access to the VIP Starter Kit, which, according to Hi-Rez COO Todd Harris, includes beta access, a 33% cost saving, VIP status in game which will put you in a more elite set of queues, in-game gold, and some form of booster.

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EA and Virgin Gaming have announced the $1.6 million Battlefield 3 "Worldwide Conquest" tournament set for 2012. The gargantuan prize pool marks the largest in eSports history, going "above and beyond" Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3's $1 million tournament at the CoD XP earlier in September.

"We’re always looking to raise the bar for our members, to give them truly epic gaming experiences they won’t find anywhere else and Battlefield 3 hits the mark,” said Zachary Zeldin, Co-Founder of Virgin Gaming. “This partnership with EA and DICE is exactly the kind of relationship it takes to deliver on that goal, and we can’t be more excited to be working with them to host the greatest competitive gaming event I’ve ever seen.”

• VIDEO: Battlefield 3 "99 Problems" Video: The Full Version

There aren't too many details surrounding the tournament yet, but we do know that both PS3 and Xbox 360 gamers will be invited to compete via the tournament's website. There's nowhere for PC gamers to sign up however, which is odd considering the Battlefield series as a whole is somewhat of a PC staple.

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Fighting Words host Ernie Moreno recently took a field trip to L.A. Fight Club, a fighting game community event held by Capcom in conjunction with iam8bit productions. Big name pros like Justin Wong, DiosX, Floe were in attendance, but the main attraction was the fans opportunity to get their hands on upcoming Capcom fighting games like Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and Street Fighter X Tekken. Moreno got the chance to chat with the legendary Seth Killian regarding the new Pandora Mode in Street Fighter X Tekken, as well as Daniel "Clockwork" Maniago, about Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3's new characters. Check it out below.

Did you get the chance to check out L.A. Fight Club? Tell us your impressions on the action packed event in the comments.

This time on Fighting Words, we join Ernie Moreno with Level Up's own Alex Valle and Andy Huynh, a.k.a. AndyOCR, in a game of Super Street Fighter 4. We've been down at Level Up's Wednesday Night Fights before and the place is busting with some of the best street fighters around. If you haven't check it out, WNF is every Wednesday night at Super Arcade and features some great competition. Now let's check in and see who wins between Alex Valle and Andy Huynh in this all out brawl with Super Street Fighter 4. Check out Part 1 of Fighting Word's Wednesday Night Fight special too.

Street Fighter X Tekken producer Yoshinori Ono told Joystiq that Capcom is talking to peripheral developer Mad Catz about creating a tiny fight stick for the PlayStation Vita.

"You can't replicate the experience entirely on a portable," Ono said. "But I think if we made a small joystick that you could just keep in your bag, and maybe even if you're in economy class, whip it out during a flight, put your Vita in there, and replicate to some degree the arcade experience, it would be really awesome."

Keep in mind that this doesn't mean a Vita fight stick has been confirmed, just that they're talking about it. Ono also mentioned that Capcom is planning to make the DLC from SFXT compatible between the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita versions. "Yes, they're different hardware, but they're part of the same Playstation family, so to speak, so we're already talking with Sony about ways to sync things together," Ono said. "As long as you're using the same PSN account, things you've purchased on the Vita version will work on PS3 and vice versa."

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