Gaming
How will Dota 2 and CS:GO change after the new engine arrives?
In the run up to E3 the series of tubes that make up the internet are practically clogged with rumours of what will appear to change the face of gaming in the coming year. Spurred on by a few cryptic lines of code in some Steam database updates, the impending arrival of Valve’s Source engine 2 has joined these rumours to create a maelstrom of speculation and wishful thinking.
The coming of Source 2 has been heralded for almost a year now, after Valve released the Dota 2 workshop tools on a new engine in August 2014. A change to some of Steam’s depots (the place game updates are kept before being pushed out to players) suggests that time is nearing, but what exactly would Source 2 mean for Valve’s eSports properties? Will changing the engine it’s built on affect the way Dota 2 or CS:GO are played?
From the “preview” of the engine seen through the workshop, the changes to Dota are less revolutionary than you might expect from the hype surrounding it. All the heroes are still there, they still fight each other until their home explodes and they’re still on the same map (for now). But, just like a souped up Mini Cooper, the changes become more obvious when you pop open the hood and take a look inside.
The in-game effect of Source 2 is primarily focused on reducing CPU load and improving performance using the Vulkan API. You know that lag at the start of a match when everyone’s heroes load in? That’s gone. EXCITING! But that’s just a visible by-product of the vast changes Source 2 has made to allow Dota to run on the most primitive of rigs.
As evidenced by a demo shown at last year’s Game Developer Conference, the new engine can now handle huge numbers of mobs on screen at once even on Intel integrated graphics cards – like those found in budget laptops. As well as freeing up processing power for the possibility of prettier particle effects, this also means the potential audience for the game grows massively as more computers in developing countries can run it at a competitive framerate, meaning more competitors and eventually, even better top level play.
Of all the goals Valve hopes to achieve with its technology advancements, the opening of the community and eSports to wider audiences is very much in line with their business philosophy. An extension of which is the further democratisation of the marketplace, with improved workshop tools.
Valve has constantly reiterated the focus Source 2 will have on enabling the community to create and release content for games, announcing last month that the engine will be free for any bedroom developer to tool around with on its release. “Right now, we’re into rethinking games as a connected economy of virtual goods and services — and virtual reality,” said founder Gabe Newell in a Reddit AMA last year.
How VR will fit into the Dota experience is hard to imagine outside of a spectator mode gimmick, but as an economy of virtual goods and services the cosmetics marketplace is already in full flow. To add to this, the integration of Hammer, Valve’s level-editing software, in the Source 2 workshop tools update suggests another addition to Dota’s user-generated content: custom maps.
Custom maps have been one of the most requested features from the community, particularly those who have been with the game since its inception as a custom map in the WarCraft III game engine. As Valve prepares to support new maps and game modes in Dota 2, it is almost as if the circle is being completed. Who knows what today’s players – bored of playing a custom game mode created by people bored of playing WarCraft III – will put together, and whether any of these branched offshoots will become the success Dota has seen in a decade of play.
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