SirActionSlacks criticized Trove of Terror for not adhering to Dota 2 lore and for the price of the Arcana sets

Don’t forget that Yandex is now an unstoppable team with ATF as their offlaner. And that’s no joke. They swept everyone at Wallachia and won every match at SLAM except one—against, believe it or not, Team Spirit. The “Dragons,” by the way, are performing surprisingly well with Batyuk, who replaced the legendary Collapse, but their stubborn insistence on playing this truly insane OD-carry strategy has led to some extremely questionable losses on several occasions. MiLAN, what the hell are we doing? <...>

What makes Yandex so strong? According to my calculations, they have the top two picks. You need to ban ATF’s heroes, and you also need to ban Malady’s heroes. The problem is that these guys love to play heroes who do completely different things. Yes, you need to pick a hero who can counter Monkey King—an offlaner at the 25-minute mark—and then a Nature’s Prophet who’s freely farming at the 40-minute mark. Spoiler: no such hero exists. And with Saksa, one of the best supports in the world, and some rising new talents, you’ll be seeing Yandex in a bunch of Grand Finals this year. Congratulations to the winners of SLAM VIII.

In short, this thing is truly amazing. Well, you know me—I’m an outspoken advocate for Valve, and the goal of this show is to spread positivity and news about Dota. We’ve been doing this for 6 months now. But it wasn’t supposed to be this way. Big releases like this used to come out with a lot of fanfare, you know? Story events—it all looked amazing. Here, though, the lore is completely broken. Look at this Treant Protector—what is this?

No, the sets are incredible, but it’s not supposed to be like this. This is the most expensive Arcana ever released. You have to buy 43 chests to be guaranteed to get it, and if you’re as unlucky as I am, that’ll cost you about $215. Sure, skins are optional, but this Arcana doesn’t even have its own landing page, lore, or comic.

Will this chest be effective for Valve? Definitely. I’m willing to bet that the returning players are the ones who’ll buy the chest, open it, play for a bit, and then leave the game for the next five months. Sure, it’s nice, but it’s such a temporary thing. This chest doesn’t add to Dota’s prestige, doesn’t help it grow, and certainly doesn’t attract new players. Essentially, it’s just a very cute way to rake in money.

The developers said they stopped making a Battle Pass for TI so they wouldn’t have to spend all their time overseeing ways to make money. We were promised more focus on other things, and yes, we got that: we had “The Fallen Crown,” and now “The Dark Carnival,” which is essentially a story-driven version of “The Catacombs.” In my opinion, these are excellent events. We’ve also gotten bug fixes, UI improvements, and a “cleanup”—all of which are wonderful.

I’m just worried because this case is incredibly good, and I’m sure Valve will make a lot of money off it. Probably more than from “The Fallen Crown” and “The Fallen Clown” [That’s what SirActionSlacks calls “The Dark Carnival.” — Ed.] combined. So the developers will naturally ask themselves: why should we even bother making anything else?

Team Fortress 2 followed the same path. At first, cosmetics were tied to events, then to comics, then to general updates, and eventually they became just cosmetics. Instead of moving the game forward, attracting new players, and engaging existing ones, the game simply started milking the players who already liked it, and it got crazier and crazier, requiring this incredible proliferation of ugly, insane nonsense—until, years later, you’re left with something that bears no resemblance whatsoever to the original art style, and no one wants to play it simply because it’s weird.

I realize there might be references to things to come here. Roshan and the courier really do look like Cthulhu monsters, hinting at what’s happening in “The Fallen Clown.” Maybe this is just a teaser for some really cool updates down the road.

But I beg the community: if we let Valve know that we like this—that we’re willing to just buy these bundles designed to rake in as much cash as possible, the likes of which have never been seen in Dota—then the developers might stick to this approach in the future. Please voice your opinions constructively; otherwise, the Trove of Terror could spell our doom.