The International 2023 (TI13) is truly on the horizon as teams have officially all arrived in Copenhagen ready for the biggest tournament in the Dota 2 calendar. And to welcome teams, Valve has left encouraging messages as well as advice for conduct and demeanor with all the teams in a greeting letter.
Shared with the world by Nouns Esports via social media, and in Spanish by Heroic, the TI13 welcome letter both greets the teams and outlines some guidelines and warnings about behavior.
Starting the letter with some reflection, Valve opines on how good the TI13 players actually are:
“In the last year, half a billion games of Dota have been played, representing players in almost every country. Dota players have played games on every continent, including Antarctica. Of the many millions of players this last year, you are the elite, the highest-skill Dota players on the best Dota teams in the world. Congratulations.”
While I’m sure my editors would tear apart this paragraph a little (too many repeated words, word salad, cut it down, no exclamation point on “congratulations”), it does get you excited for The International and the blood pumping a little.
Image Credit: Valve
But Valve then launches into a series of warnings about the tournament. After outlining that all TI players should conduct themselves as professionals, and be stewards of Dota, the company gets into the deep stuff. Warning that “Fairness and competitive integrity are paramount,” Valve tells players not to bet on matches, not to use bugs, not to use exploits (*ahem* no Midas bug abusing guys…), and to maintain that behavior during the whole tournament.
The letter then covers some of the more obvious issues, saying no to discrimination, abusive behavior and language, and other bad behavior to staff or other players.
Valve then gently asks players to take any issues to them and event organizers, rather than anyone else. Presumably to prevent players taking issues to social media, or the press, rather than to themselves.
Overall, it’s a slightly unusual tone for a tournament welcome letter, which often veer into the silly and irreverent. However, Valve seems to be covering its bases with the TI13 welcome letter. Of particular note is the specific notice to avoid exploits. Could this mean that Valve isn’t going to fix the Midas bug before the start of the tournament? We’d have to guess yes.
Leave a Reply