Valve the Dota 2 company, added a new twist to last year’s Frostivus event. Some people who play Dota 2 are shocked when they are permanently banned from the game. One thing is taking pretty plastic items out of their boxes. Let’s look into this strange event more closely.
Valve The Dota 2 Company: What’s Inside a Gift for Christmas?
When a Dota 2 player checks in during the Frostivus holiday event, they will receive the Frostivus Gift, a lovely present. You could get a cool item that makes you stand out in-game, or you could get a giant piece of coal that bans you for life. What made them choose that piece of coal? People who smurf and share accounts are not on the list of bad people.
Valve The Dota 2 Company: Strange Things Happening on Twitch
Mason “mason” Venne was one of them. He used to play professional football and had been to The International twice. Because he showed the beginning of Frostivus Gift on Twitch, he was banned from Dota 2. In his coal lump, it said, “Smurfing or other violations of the Steam Terms of Service.” Steam Matching and Valve Anti-Cheat were very against Mason’s plan to test the ban, which caught him off guard. He finally told Valve the truth and asked for help after some time.
Valve The Dota 2 Company: Why does that happen? What are the rules?
Smurfing is a problem that worries Valve a lot. Smurfing is when players make multiple accounts to play against lower-ranked opponents or to lose on purpose to lower-ranked opponents. It rates how well people talk and connect with each other in games. The behaviour score system came out earlier this year. If your behaviour score is higher, you get nicer cosmetics. If your behaviour score is lower, you get coal in your stockings.
Valve’s Fix and Warn
Valves said on the Frostivus 2023 event page that they were afraid King Kringle was blocking bad players’ main accounts as a punishment. That the company had banned smurf accounts in the past and said again that it wanted to keep the game community positive.
Sports stars and Smurf video games
Valve knew something was wrong when they found out that some expert players had used smurf accounts. There were a lot of people who played Dota who thought that pro smurf accounts should not have been banned. Valve has said that they want to do that to make the game better and stop people from smurfing and doing other bad things.
Valve The Dota 2 Company: A Merry Christmas Message (Except for Smurf Account holder)
All accounts except smurf accounts got “Happy Frostivus Update” messages from Valve. This was a bit of a joke because it meant those accounts wouldn’t be enjoying the update because they were being punished with coal-flavored sweets.
In short
In the spirit of Frostivus, some Dota 2 players are being banned without warning. Valve wants to make the game world a better place by fighting nasty things like smurfing. Be careful when you play Dota 2 this holiday season if you don’t want some coal in your fake stocking. Enjoy your games!