The Magical Missing Dota 2 Items
I would like to start this article off by saying that I’m a big fan of DOTA and am even thinking of entering some of the dota 2 upcoming tournaments. But, just because I love playing the game doesn’t mean I don’t have my issues with it. Why am I talking about this? Because DOTA 2 has released their own item shop and items. With this, comes a serious problem. The items now have value, but the backpack is not working. All feedback on this has so far been met with ridicule and cries of “you didn’t actually get that.” Today I’m going to tell you my first hand story of DOTA 2 being broken.
My DOTA 2 Story
Our story begins with my playing a game of DOTA 2 and getting an announcement at the end with my name that I got a Faceless Void mask. I was excited and went to my backpack. No mask. I was perturbed but I figured it would show up eventually, it never did.
The story continues with someone telling me that I can get more items by deleting ones I do not need. I did so, and was thrilled to see an announcement that I had a new Nature’s Attendant. The item I had destroyed was a strange set of horns for Nature’s Prophet, which are now gone. I had already bought one Nature’s Attendant, so a second would be great for trading. Sadly, it too never showed up.
Finally I won a game, and got an announcement that I had a Pirate Slayer’s Tidehunter Brace. I was once again enthusiastic, until it never showed up in my backpack at all. Later I was told that on General Tao’s screen, it said he got it, even though my name was clearly under it on mine. What was even worse was that my name was clearly there, but I had gained no new items.
This has really hurt my motivation to play the game, as I know that I will be unfairly cheated out of items. I took this to the various forums, which were all unvarying degrees of no help at all. Then I tried to contact the developers themselves, who never responded. What was worse is that the other people with this problem had been convinced they just saw the wrong items. They had been told others had gotten the items.
This was definitely not the case with my items, I clearly saw my name on all of them or the screen that said they were in my backpack popped up. Taking it to Steam support would also be useless, as this is just an open beta. Even with the claim that it is just a beta, you could still trade these items for other ones (such as in TF2) so they had real value.
The Problem of Allowing Items in DOTA 2 Beta
It is a beta filled with bugs, yet they now have items with real monetary value. This is a real pain because you feel like you are earning something, but the bugs screw you over. I really enjoy DOTA 2, but I feel it is my duty to let people know they can and will be cheated out of their items due to bugs, and no one will care. Least of all Valve. If anyone wants to contact me about this, feel free. But the status quo is unacceptable and should be changed before the final release.
Not Everyone has had this Problem with DOTA 2
This is true, but it does not change the fact that it is happening with some. Many people are buying into the logical fallacy that since they do not have the problem, it must not exist. This seems to be how the developers feel. To be clear, I really enjoy DOTA 2 and do not want to drop it due to this. It may in fact even be my own fault, as I am on a router. However being on a router has not stopped me from playing the game in any other way, or even from buying items in the shop.
It may be that I temporarily lost connection to the server around the time I got it, but that shouldn’t cause me to lose it. Valve needs to fix this before people like me lose even more valuable items. If these are simply graphical bugs, they need to be fixed because I don’t like being told I have a new mythic and then not getting it.
Update: It seems some people got the wrong idea from this article and DDOS’d us. Not very surprising, with some of the people who play this game. I will mention that Steam support has responded to me, and we’ll see what they say. All I could really use back is the mythic I broke the items for. If everything goes fine I will mention that as well.
Update 2: It may have actually been a display bug. For now I would be content with getting my Mythic back. Currently still talking with Steam Support.
Update 3: Support has told me they have no records. I can only assume it was a graphical glitch. As a result I’ve lost my items with no way to get them back. Rather a shame that Valve simply doesn’t care about their fan base anymore.
I am also getting some serious problems with my display, this is an unedited image except for player names cut out for their privacy. Display problems may be what is causing this.
