Part of the ongoing International 11, Dota equivalent of LoL’s Worlds, The International Swag Bag offers every player who has played 10 games of Dota from now or since the BP started a free Battle Pass level 1, an arcana of choice from the store and 30 days of Dota Plus
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Valve’s unprecedented generosity surprised its own player base
There may be a lot of free-to-play titles from Valve, Dota included, but GabeN has never been one to be loose-handed about in-game hats. There typically would be several events a year in Dota where players can participate for cosmetics, but those are often grindy and low in quality. The rest would be often put behind paid seasonal battle passes.
This year however, Valve is giving away quite a significant bag of gifts, without any prior notice:
- An arcana is the rarest cosmetics item in Dota, comes with custom animation and skill effects and typically goes for at least $29.99 on the official store.
- A Level 1 Battle Pass goes for $9.99
- 30 days of Dota Plus goes for $4.99
All of these are available to ALL players who have played 10 games or will play 10 games of Dota from now.
The free battle pass and arcana obviously delight everyone, but some are worried such generosity might be the herald of something bad coming to Dota.
If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is too good to be true, they say. While most players simply take the free stuff without much hesitation, some players attribute the too-good-to-be-true gifts to be compensations for possibly the worst-produced International in history, an increasingly money-grabbing Battle Pass.
It could simply just be a quick boost to Dota player numbers, which has broken 800,000 daily concurrent since the news broke. The free battle pass also contains Part 2, coming after the conclusion of TI 11 and comes with a Halloween Diretide game mode/event.
Popular Dota personalities with insider info like SUNSfan have been disclosing that there will be a lot of bad news coming in the future for the Dota player base, after long time Dota production studio BTS lost a bid to host an NA Dota Pro Circuit (DPC). SUNSfan was not authorized to disclose anything further, and only commented that it’s bad, really bad news. So, the free Battle Pass and all could be to bribe and placate the player base before Valve drops the bomb.
I’ve been enough of a party pooper already, so I’ll just stop there. For now let’s just enjoy the rare boon and celebrate!
Riot has also given players compensation for what was perceived to be an underwhelming Worlds Event pass