During Christmas, we receive gifts. But they are sometimes poisoned, as is the case with some cheaters in Dota 2.
We are in the middle of the Christmas period, the opportunity to give gifts to loved ones and, also, to receive them. On this subject, players of Dota 2 had a weird surprise when they unwrapped what they thought was a gift from Valve. A misadventure immortalized by Mason ‘mason’ Venne, a former pro player who shared a clip on Thursday, December 14. We see him get permanently banned live after unwrapping the gift. When he wanted to restart a game, he couldn’t.
The gift in question is linked to the Frostivus event, which takes place from December 14 to January 11. It allows you to recover chests which are normally filled with rewards. But, as we can see on the official page, they can also hide a sanction in case of inappropriate behavior in Dota 2. “ No point in lying. The Whip King sees everything. He has checked your conduct rating twice, and he is about to use his terrible hammer to ban the accounts of the naughty smurfs and impose penalties on the main associated accounts », Specifies Valve, who loves playing Father Fouettard.
“This year is going to be a bloodbath,” Valve announces
Uncompromising, Valve is particularly targeting fans of “smurfing”. This method consists in particular of creating a secondary account to play against opponents with a lower level, with the sole aim of crushing them. Normally, the rank system puts you in fair games, with people as good as you. Disgusting for newbies, “smurfing” can for example be used by a content creator, who can then put on a show on Twitch by humiliating others. What Valve wants to avoid at all costs.
The American company therefore wants to toughen its tone, as we can discover in a press release published on December 15. She mentions “ a bloodbath » when talking about hunting down cheaters. “ Do you remember that in September, we used extreme measures and banned 90,000 Smurf accounts? We have since continued to put our efforts into monitoring account behavior, both manually and automatically,” it reads. And Valve no longer gives any gifts to professionals, who « shared their smurfs accounts » during the big The International tournament.
In response to this drastic measure, several victims shared their dismay on Reddit. “ I don’t have any other account and this is happening to my account which is over 10 years old, is this a joke? », VeryDigDong tries to defend itself. Mason ‘mason’ Venne asked Valve for leniency, admitting to having used banned software one day: “ I have been playing Dota for 13 years (…). I ask for a second chance. » As for Dark_Files, he wonders: “ It’s not my fault that I crush everyone because I was at a high rank one day. » All of his accounts have been banned and, a priori, he does not see the problem. It’s not Valve’s anymore either.
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