October

â„–2 | October 2015

History of DotA Some facts about the development

Star or Jerma?

Or who they are?

Interviews with Workshopers Speaking with the people, who create DotA 2 workshop content

Contents

03_Poster review

Review from Sofka Ketamine 07_ News Taking a look on group news

09_ Interview Ru workshopers daily job

18_Meet the TF2 Who is Jerma?

25_ First Dota appearance Diving into the history of Dota

35_ Invasion Summary, courtesy of the Kritzkastt

43_ Hardware Looking into the technical world

53_ Feedback 1 | October

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35

Poster review Author Sofka Ketamine

Vladislav Tretiyak

Well, let’s start with Vlad Tretiyak’s brilliant work.

The attractive picture of a video store robbery by the heroes of the well known Hotline Miami game, Ash and Alex, are shown in front of us.

Perfect visual effects combined with the plot, makes viewers pay attention to the key aspects of the photo; starting with the store’s sign, then 3 | October

the van and finally ending with the heroes. This effect is reached due to right lighting, which creates the depth and softness that catches your eye. Very little details within the picture, keep it complete. It’s a random store. It’s the car, which is the red line of all author’s creativity.

There is a pair of criminals, who do their routine.

There isn’t any useless elements. In addition to that, by looking through the ‘Made by Author’ document, we can imagine all of the work done.

Due to some steps during the process, we can see how the grey picture transforms into this masterpiece.

The second poster, by Sergey Miasnikov, reminds us of past events relating to the (-SFM-) admin, Revzin. He was insulted about his tactless behaviour, concerning his Elizabeth model from Bioshock Infinite. Lots of jokes and even comics have appeared due to this, among visitors and

Sergey Miasnikov

users of SFM_RU group. The scout beating scene looks quite cruel and realistic. This makes us believe in the picture’s reality. The main focus of the picture, located in the centre of the poster, combined with the absence of anything else behind, keeps our attention on the main characters. At the same time, the dark colors of the poster create that heavy, bloody mood of the work. But there are some disadvantages. One of them is that we can’t see the heroes’ legs clearly. It seems like they combines and coalesces each other.

Also, Nicolay Apanasenko’s elaborated work stands out from the others. It has a deep meaning, which can’t be invisible. Not to forget what to live for is the main idea of the picture. Due to these simple words, the poster becomes this special thing, in which everyone can find something close to them only. And it’s great, when work is marked for both idea and technique, in which author created it. It’s what we feel looking at the poster. The hero is chosen in the right way. Looking at him, any stereotypical feeling isn’t present, as it could be if we look at some of the Team Fortress

Nicolay Apanasenko

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character models. The hero in the picture is ready to suffer in any way to protect the creature, which is really important to him. And we excuse that pony’s too bright eye as the idea revealed is brilliant. And that time, Anatoly Scrimov pleases us with his well designed poster. It’s fan art for the Witcher game. The main game’s hero has reached the old, famous character of Russian folklore, Baba Yaga, living in her hut that stands chicken legs. Ready for fighting she is watching Gerald. Dark and blue-red background appears mysterious, which is pleasant for our view. The heavy fog spreading on the ground is addition 5 | October

for the picture. There are lots of Baba Yaga’s dead enemies around the picture’s edges, who are her allies now. The hero’s pose is slightly unattractive, as he’s running and we can’t see his weapon clearly, a crossbow. And lastly, we review the “Invasion” by Daniel Chubanov. The idea is quite evident. It’s a Team Fortress 2 update, which has recently been produced. Some mercenaries are looking at the alien invaders. These people even can’t imagine that they’ll win due to beer. And this doesn’t prevent the author to mark his work.

Interesting thing is how it’s done. It looks like a

Anatoly Skrymoff

typical poster for the film about aliens who want to capture our planet. And we mark the work as something special because of that vintage style of the picture’s performance.

There are some disadvantages.

Valve has created lots of cosmetic things. But looking on the poster we see that hero’s items don’t follow the theme chosen. That’s why scout’s and soldier’s swords seem like they unable to fight the aliens. Also such weapon looks ridiculous. There are also some defects in the mercenaries’ poses. The picture could be more realistic if we see either fear or readiness for fight in them.

However, the work is still interesting. And it’s also upto-date as lots of people are discussing the update, which we’ll talk of later.

Daniel Chubanov

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VK Group News The best from issue to issue

The most beloved

The most discussed

Gradient pack from Alexander Krutikov

7 | October

Animation pack

Graffiti pack from Oleg Smolyaninov

IK-Rig Merger v1.0

Big update for CS:GO

The most productive author Bogdan Skitenko 12 posters

“By the time I finished working at the articles, I was feeling like I’m a walking encyclopedia” Alex Portman 8 | October

Production’s chaos Today we’re distracting Russian workshopers from their work to ask them some questions.

Well, the first thing we should do is introduce ourselves. Could you tell our readers your names and a bit about yourselves.

Ti-Rex: Hi everyone! My name’s Vladimir.

I’m concept artist beginner. My well-known nicknames are Ti-Rex and Aista.

Sebastian: I’m calling myself Sebastian, and my name’s Anton. I create models and sometimes I even draw mods. leshiy: Actually we call ourselves UGC Logovo (to no one could guess)…As for me, I’m just leshiy. That’s it. You can find my private lodge there artleshiy.com.

TG: Hi! My name’s Maxim. And the most people know me as TG. How did your artistic career start? When did you start to draw and model? What was your motivation?

Ti-Rex: It’s a delicate question. I’ve been drawing since my childhood. And as for modeling, I got involved in it about eight years ago. I just like to create something. That’s the motivation. The artistic career has started when I was studying at university in radio technical specialty, where I decided to take it all seriously.

leshiy: On the contrary, because of playing games I have been interested in 3D modeling since I was eight grade pupil. And then, when I was studying at the university to be the system manager, I started to draw. And now I basically use pens (for visual designs, concept art, illustration and so on). And sometimes I pamper myself with the modeling, creating textures and coding.

TG: My creative way has started since I was born.

Since I can remember, I have constantly drawn something. And I decided to do that seriously about two years ago.

How did you get into the field of models and concept creating?

Ti-Rex: I always wanted to do something like this.

And when I saw a platform like The Workshop, I decided it would be the best starting point for me.

Sebastian: A long time ago I got the key for the Dota 2 Beta closed test. I remember the time somebody managed to sell them. When I was playing, I noticed the Workshop link. I was intrigued as to what it was, as a result I’ve been here since 2012.

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leshiy: Well, my first work was in the gamedev area. They were some little projects for the «Akella» company (if somebody remembers these nice guys). And I entered there through… beer. I met some of that studio’s workers at the bar and I was involved in this deeply.

TG: Hm, I think it happened through the games, To be precise it was «World of Warcraft». It is scary to imagine how long I was playing it, and inspired by them in the same time (I was playing for eight years). My first dream was to work at «Blizzard», however ordinary it was. From there my desire was to create something as cool as my favourite games had started.

Why did you decide to make the modelling and concepts for Dota and Team Fortress exactly?

What games affect also your work?

Ti-Rex: The Workshop is good enough as the starting point in my work. The opportunity to create the game content and get the experience needed using my free time became my main reasons to stay there. Furthermore, my work is gradually affecting some little mobile and browser projects. leshiy: Dota is the only game I play almost every day, and I’ve played it for ten years now. It’s all

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very simple, I just love the game and want to do something to make it better.

TG: There is a nice guy whose nick is Down Limit.

He once decided to make a video tutorial series on how to create custom items in games such as DOTA 2. So I watched them over 20 times atleast. This inspired me so much that I decided to do something like that myself, that’s why I got into the game dev area. As well as DOTA 2 I try projects like Killing Floor 2, Bierzerkers, CS:GO and various other marketplaces How have you gathered together and made the community? And why?

Ti-Rex: It’s always useful to team up with others.

And speaking to people with a common interest I think is always exciting.

leshiy: There are no more than 300 people all over the world in the workshop. And of course, lots of them are in English speaking communities. I think the majority of us have had a lack of communication as lots of us work from our homes. Also, it’s a perfect opportunity to find the associates or partners for a join project (which is not that simple).

TG: Our little party was made spontaneously, one by one. Then we all have become friends.

And we still communicate with each other.

Do you use Source Filmmaker to create “the cover” for your things in the workshop?

Ti-Rex: I don’t. And, probably, I would try to do it. It’s always interesting to learn new things. leshiy: As for me personally, I don’t use it that way, but I really want to. And I know, sometimes guys create promo materials with its help.

TG: I know that some people make promo videos using SFM. But I have never heard it could be used to create a “cover”!

How do you create your models? What work phase do you consider to be the most exciting?

And the most boring? What tricks are there in your work?

leshiy: I haven’t done a complete cycle in the Dota 2 workshop, I solve the pre-production tasks. It’s designing (concept art creating), texturing (including all the masks) and the final image of the loading screen or promo illustration.

I often used to work with Sebastian, That’s why he is telling you the details of production.

Sebastian: The project goes like this: • We create a concept or discuss it if we work together with the artist • While creating the concept we make ingots, test models to test its workability and avoid possible problems. Then we remake the concept or go further.

• We sculpt (or just Hipoly model. It depends on our goals.)

• We create UV map and its correction, then we do its texturing.

• Then we check everything a lot, and upload it to the Workshop I like all the steps except the upload and making promo materials Ti-Rex: On the contrary, I think that the coolest part is when you click the ‘download’ button the last time. And the work with the concept is definitely great for me.

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Which programs do you use?

Ti-Rex: The main one I use is Photoshop. And occasionally I use 3DSMax, Zbrush and 3DCoatt.

Sebastian: They’re 3DSMax, Maya, Photoshop and Zbrush. leshiy: Photoshop, Maya, 3DCoat, Marmoset, Toolbag…and Notepad++(respect) TG: As I’m a concept artist I use Photoshop mainly. For other things there are 3DCoat, zBrush and 3dsMax. Lots of Valve’s models have specific geometry and structure, and the majority of SFM users creating animation complain about that. Are these aspects important for Workshoppers?

And has anything changed after the new Source 2 engine has been released?

Ti-Rex: Binding things, if take into account frequently awful limits, it would be real hell. For now tough the situation is quite the same. leshiy: Oh yes! Because of that legendary skinning and the topology of base models lots of memes and jokes have been made in the community. But, for example, I pay attention to the skeleton of a character while making a concept. And sometimes we have to change finished characters in order to avoid especially bad mistakes. As for the new engine, it’s the internat mechanism, which doesn’t influence the content. So it’s all the same as usual. But I like the new shaders as the materials are clearer.

Also, S2 gave us new test and download tools.

That’s very good.

Do you have an artist or modeller you like the most?

Ti-Rex: I think that Jeremy Klein, Motenai and Pior are definitely one of the best masters in their craft. Choosing from Russian speaking artists, they’re Leshiy and Kaas, sure. I’d like to be equal with these artists. leshiy: Speaking of the workshop, they’re Pior Oberson and two guys from Runic Games 13 | October

(the creators of Torchlight series). They’re Kyle Comelius and Jeremy Klein. In general, there are lots of artists, whose works I find the inspiring ones. And now I often watch the works of Jim Murray, Joe Madureira and Vasily Zorin TG: I prefer to say of people inspiring me. Now I often watch such people as Laurel D Austin, David Harrington, Arthur Gimaltdinov and Kevin Tan probably.

Sebastian: First CG artist I learned of was Raphael Lacoste. I was inspired by his works for a long time. I also watched for Luis Royo creation, whose works I saw on the Romantic Collections disks first. Now it’s more difficult as I constantly find new masterminds for myself. For now it’s Jim Murray as Oleg has written earlier.

Where do you get your inspiration from?

Ti-Rex: Sometimes ideas appear quite clearly in my mind. If I need to invent something exact, I would use my logical thinking and imagination. In my opinion, some of the best concept creation and other programs are Blizzard and Game Workshop. Also, I’m inspired by projects such as Allods, Darksiders and others. leshiy: It’s almost everything, for example, music.

More often we solve a task while listening to nice music.

TG: Inspiration comes from nothing. We’re inspired by everything we hear, see and feel around us. Just listen to Austin Wintory and you are ready to create.

Hobbies take lots of creative people’s time.

What do you do when you have free time?

Ti-Rex: I’m a third year student. Sometimes I play games, like reading good books and writing one (I hope it’d be good).

leshiy: I just play game with my friends. We don’t only play Dota, but that’s mostly it.

Sometimes I poke around my site to keep my software coding skills well. Rarely I go to the bar and drink a beer with my friends. Sometimes I find interesting technical books (I’m not a good reader). And films, series, and cartoons I enjoy watching before sleeping. In general, I do the same as others do in their free time, But my true passion is drawing. It gets the first place in my life.

TG: All my free time I try to spend improving my drawing skills. I get lots of ideas in my head, which I would like to put on to paper or use a computer for, and sometimes I can’t do it. I need more practice, and to do that I need free time.

Sebastian: Apart from improving my skills and looking through the mountains of tutorials and books I…ride a bike and play Low Whistle. And sometimes I play some games Were there moments when you wanted to give up? If so, what has made you continue your work?

with more experience these moments occur less often, and I’m getting more motivation.

My character has made me continue working.

I never give up facing troubles and always solve the hardest difficulties in my way of life. leshiy: Yes, there were a lot! (It’s a long story). But my faith in the world goodness is indestructible.

TG: Frankly speaking, I never had such moments.

Sebastian: Definitely there were, are and will be these moments. What kept me motivated?

Understanding that giving up won’t help me in any way.

It isn’t a secret that one of the most important questions for the beginner workshopper is money. How much do successful workshoppers earn, and is this worth it?

Ti-Rex: Somewhere there is the picture of huge numbers of “Rolton”. It worth it anyway, even if I can’t earn millions there. You should know that working there you get priceless experience and knowledge apart from money. And also you shouldn’t be fixed on the workshop only.

Ti-Rex: I had lots of these moments at first. But 14 | October

leshiy: I wouldn’t rely on the workshop only (it is good as the addition for main work, especially when you are a beginner). There is a huge risk of working and getting nothing in return, it’s like ‘Russian Roulette’, you know. But if you’re learning to use the program it’s a great opportunity to get some experience making some real projects with no risks.

TG: It’s a pity that I can’t say what my wage is.

And you can be sure that you will get good pay rise!

Do you have any future plans in the community?

Ti-Rex: Yes, I’ve got lots of them. The biggest one is the creation of my own Blizzard-studio, which makes brilliant games. To choose from less epic dreams and more realistic, there are a couple of my projects, where I’d like to reveal my style.

TG: We can probably think of this area as of gamedev. And the main goal is to work at a big good company and do the projects, which I like most. Or I could create my own game. leshiy: Anton, you would remember Phil Phish also. And I think everyone has their “the project of a dream” either gaming or animation one.

Although in my mind the content is more important than its view. We have things to speak of, but we have to study how to “speak” it.

Sebastian: Of course, I want to create games, but it’s far from the Bizzard level. I think it would be enough being like Marcus Person in gamedev.

Tell us of your collaboration with foreign workshoppers. Have you got some memorable moments or useful skills, which were learnt while working?

Sebastian: You don’t regret of your time. When it first appeared, everyone was collaborating with each other. It was easier to ask or advise because there were few people over there. I don’t know how appropriate it would sound there. When I was working on the Shadow Scale Set for Sryrim, I worked with Kwrrrrttty, who is from Canada as there weren’t people qualified 15 | October

enough in Russia. We have worked very well and the mod was successful. leshiy: Well, I don’t have any experience as everything is still going. I can speak of the high qualification and adequacy of our foreign colleagues (who aren’t from the workshop only). Everything is clearly and positively going according to plan. That’s it.

TG: The game has been found…leshiy, get it!

What would you advise to beginning artists and modellers?

Ti-Rex: You should never give up. The workshop’s way is hard and cruel. To go through it you should have strong both will and body.

Remember that getting experience requires time and lots of practice. There isn’t things you can do very well immediately. Even to go on foot we had to study. leshiy: I agree with Ti-Rex. The main thing is to never give up! You should look wider and more positively. There is no place for envy and hate, follow this and everything will be fine.

TG: It’s stubbornness. There aren’t magic Leshiy brushes or special Sebastian tricks. We all constantly work on ourselves, there is no other way. If you want to be a great artist you have to spend lots of hours on practicing and working really hard.

Thank you very much for your time!

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Name: Max Bondarenko

Name: Vladimir Slobtsov

Name: Anton

Nickname: TG

Nickname: Ti-Rex

Nickname: Sebastian

Links:

Links:

Links:

Name: Oleg Shekhovtsov Nickname: leshiy Links:

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Star List Meet the people who are associated with the creation of Team Fortress 2 video content 18 | Октябрь

Nickname: Jerma985 Real name: Jeremy Harrington Occupation: gamecastering, vlogs Birthday: 22th September 1985 Residence: Boston

Jerma is best known for his weekly recordings of gameplay of Team Fortress 2. He has created a lot of exciting videos showing his candid reactions to different game situations. For a fairly short period of time, the number of his channel subscribers crossed the hundred thousand mark and content range went far beyond a single lesson in a single game. Having a great imagination, Jerma has created the special world filled with fictional characters, interpretations of real events and specific jokes for his viewers. Among his the most popular projects we can mark “GrandpaPlays”, in which he plays as his own grandfather. The other is “The Jerma Rumble”. It’s the fight ring facing all the people in a row, starting with Gordon Freeman and ending with a simple milkman. Also “Dictation Disaster” which is the attempt to control the game using voice commands.

He also had a hand in the creation of two 3D animated films, which was created entirely in 1994s “Microsoft 3D Movie Maker” program. It has not been appreciated by great personalities from Hollywood. Among other things he is a volunteer at the animal shelter and a voice actor in the game “Apotheon”.

“The Jerma Rumble” as it is.

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Nickname: STAR_ Name: Steven Serge Occupation: eSports, gamecastering Birthday: 21th August 1985 Residence: Boston

STAR_ or ster, or even Niichts began his career with rather ordinary and boring tips about Team Fortress 2, but over time he has developed a great sense of humor and slightly manic, but enthusiastic personality.

Continuing to pour more and more videos, Star became widely known in the gaming community for the detailed analysis of individual game strategies, items and even eSports matches. Gradually he began to take everything less seriously and delight his viewers with a variety of non-standard ways of playing or visiting servers with pre-installed custom modifications.

Periodically he also conducts ÂŤStory TimeÂť vlog in which he openly shares his thoughts about his future or current life problems. STAR_ knows many well-known competitive players, which are Ma3la, stabbystabby and b4nny. Having artistic skills, he has given up them when he discovered the montage miracle. STAR_ owns a spare channel, which was worked long as the warehouse for normal gameplay records and was replaced recently to the profile in Twitch.

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Nickname: NISLT\siN Name: Unknown Occupation: video editing

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The user, who’s nickname is siN, is well known to almost everyone self-respecting member of the TF2 community. Daily content provided by users and promptly passing high quality processing of the initiator of the project became a key aspect of success. All the videos on his YouTube channel are divided into three main categories: “How To” – unusual or funny moments from the game, leading to sudden success or unexpected failure; “Frag Clip of the Day” - a trivial selection of the most distinguished killstreaks; “Pub Hero”, which is sort of a hybrid of both (“How To” and “Frag Clip”) and often demonstrates the total defeat of the enemy team or just beautifully executed kill.

About the channel owner nothing is known virtually, excluding his home country - Lithuania and a temporary partnership with “Machinima, Inc.”.

Nickname: MaxOfS2D Name: Maxim Lebled Occupation: modeling, animating

Max was a moderator and a member of the “Facepunch Studios” - the company video game development created by Garry Newman, most famous for creating popular network media spheres “Garry’s Mod”. Was originally hired to work with the game “Rust”, but he abandoned personally after finding another job. Sadly known for the love of the improper use of his position and an impulsive character. Max was one of the first people, who had improved his skills of animation in “Garry’s Mod” and “Source Filmmaker” and provided information on the most obvious features of both programs. Twice nominated for the award “Saxxy” and became the winner twice. Also he won “TI5 Dota 2 Short Film Contest” and posted about sixty items in the workshop, half of which eventually got into the game.

The moment from “The Wishmaker” 22 | October

Nickname: Krunkidile Name: Unknown Occupation: humor, animating

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Well known creator of acclaimed video series “Team Service Announcement”, which should teach the elementary truths of Team Fortress 2 mechanics, “anangrysockpuppet” was remembered not because of the provided instructions but thanks to the way of their submission. Each video was represented by a special, often excessive, look at seemingly ordinary situation.

Unfortunately the presence of a common sense of humor was noticed not only by ordinary visitors, but also needed to have other people’s help, radically changed the fate of his channel. Krunkidile advertised a number of people associated with supporting the fight against cancer. This was accompanied by the main channel clips which were not available. After these events the quality of his material began to appear much less frequently, and the animation has noticeably deteriorated. For hundred of thousands of indignant users who marked unpleasant changes he laid out the movie that tells about the need in financing which will give him the desire to create acceptable content.

Despite all the “buts”, the promise was kept and the world saw a few quite good videos.

The owner of a network server which filled with lots of single-handedly created modifications, the developer of a pretty indie game called “A Hat in Time”. He is also an incorrigible egomaniac. For a man who started as someone’s tool this is a big reason to be proud. John discovered almost limitless possibilities of the Source Nickname: Mecha the Slag engine just a couple of months before the release of the orange box. Being part of a small team of six people who worked on the revival of Mario Cart, he Name: Jonas Kaerlev learned the basics of programming, gaining valuable Occupation: programming, experience working in a team of more experienced people. It literally took a couple of years before he design came up with the idea of putting their knowledge into practice. Shortly about the unknown newcomer was known to almost everyone at AlliedModders. He became known thanks to a solid know-how and edits of other people’s plugins. As time went on, the quality of Jonas’ works grew as well as the interest of ordinary users to them. Everyone wanted to experience something new and literally held the place in line for the few servers that his modifications had. At this point the idea of creating a network of “SLAG Gaming” appeared, which absorbed all the best work for his name at the moment. To keep users on his servers the most popular mods were created as separate versions having high quality or stability. Over time, the server network also has acquired very original investments and lost European hosting because of a quarrel with members of the community. Being stubborn but nevertheless well-known person, Johnas managed not to show himself in the best way in front of the famous members of the community, including “MaxOfS2D”, “Rebbacus” and many others. At the moment almost all the videos on his Youtube channel are deleted for unknown reasons.

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DotA Defence of the Ancients (DotA) – multiplayer map for RTS Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and it’s an addon for Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, based on the map Aeon of Strife from Starcraft.

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Dota 2 Dota 2 — is a MOBA-game based on a famous map DotA from Warcraft III.

26 | October

27 | October

Nowadays it’s difficult to find a gamer who has never heard of DotA 2, but not many know about the first DotA – a community add-on for Warcraft 3, based on map AeonOfStrife for Starcraft. As you have already noticed, inspired many players to create worthy works. So add-ons like “Moo Moo”, “DotA”, “pudge wars”, “Dark Deeds” and many others appeared in game. And this conveyor wasn’t going to stop.

At the moment you can see lot’s of mods like pudge wars etc. in the Dota 2 workshop.

Neutral creep “Thunderlizard” from DotA

Neutral creep “Thunderlizard” from Dota 2

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Warcraft III is a RTS customized to building the base, picking and levelling a character and choosing units to support him. The aim is always the same - to destroy the enemy’s base. There are missions in campaign mode where you needed to reach a checkpoint with a character and a group of troops. Unlike of DotA, the game is not targeted on one exact character. And finally, here’s the main difference that turned warcraft into something different. You must only control your character, and you don’t have to control small groups of troops, that are replaced by creeps.

Screenshot from WC3: TFT company mode

Like in any genius game, the concept is simple – players fall into two teams – darkness and light and must eliminate each other. Both sides have an Ancient that must be destroyed. Buuuut it’s easier said than done. On the way to enemy’s Ancient, you will face crowds of creeps, three battle towers and some enemy characters.

In fact there are three paths to reach enemy’s fortress. They are called lines and each has a number of characters on it. Also groups of creeps strike every line after periods of time. Number of players on a single line depends on tactics. F.e. in CM (captain mode) three players can go on easy line and two others on mid and hard.

Red - Easy line Yellow - Hard line Blue - Mid line Green - some places for wards.

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Comparison of Hero BloodSeeker from DotA and Dota 2

Max level that affords game is 25th. Every team has 5 players as 5 characters. Starting from the lowest level character, they can take very little items in his inventory or level-up one ability. Dispersion of skills is very well balanced and familiar.

At the first level, a character can hardly kill 1 or 2 creeps and at 25, they would easily deal with more than five creeps.

The game includes 110 different characters at the moment, which is impressive, because at first there were only 32. However each character requires special playing ability and individual inventory set. By the way, items in inventory depend on player’s tactics. Every character can keep 6 items and combine them in appropriate recipes.

The main point of game focuses on destroying enemy’s Ancient and preventing destroying yours.

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The main point of the game focuses on destroying the enemy’s Ancient and preventing them destroying yours.

But let’s go back to the past. If on 29.05.2003 Blizzard hadn’t released the free “WorldEditor’ that was given with Warcraft The Frozen Throne, we wouldn’t have been writing this article.

This software was oriented on mapmakers and gave them a place for creating items, skills, models etc. Originally, the first version of dota was introduced by “Eul” before “WorldEditor” was released.

At that moment the game included 32 characters and 39 different items for them. The game was ready for new ideas so it started to evolve very quickly. After

“Worldeditor” had been released Steve “Guinsoo” presented DotA Allstars which contained bug fixes for Eul’s DotA. Originally Guinsoo wanted to make a small fan-version for him and his friends, as he was exhausted by lots of defects and imbalance. But after his enormous success he had to change the map by adding something new involving himself into eternal (everlasting/endless?) process of improving the game. A great number of people took part in development of the map and almost all of them stayed anonymous and the only thing about them that can be recognized are the names of the characters and the items.

Comprasion of hero Syllabear Lone Druid from DotA and Dota 2. Syllabear is named after Syl-la-ble from Clan TDA who worked with Guinsoo in the development of DotA Allstars.

Before leaving, he created this hero as to leave his mark in DotA.

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But the names of the most important people are written on the wall of evolvement: Eul, syl-la-ble, Nessaja, MercuialXen, Kunkka, Neichus - these people took part in the process of creation of one of the most popular videogames. They gave the game the appearance it has nowadays.

But let’s look at some more details.

Icefrog was the first who gave the most commitment to his job. He changed Fairydragon after less than two weeks after the release of the new version of map. In players’ opinion it was too imbalanced. But like most talented people he preferred to stay a private person. So once when he was interviewed he said: «I usually prefer to not do interviews”.

And nobody has interviewed with him

since. Also, there’s no verified information about him. Furthermore, the probability that ordinary players have ever met him in real life is quite low. In September 2006 part of the website rtsgames.com with DotAAllstars became offline and wasn’t paid any attention for almost a month.

Nobody planned to miss an opportunity to continue the game’s development.

A bit later a man called “Pendragon” appeared on the stage and joined Syllable and Dankys to launch “DotA-Allstars. com” which replaced the old page. No one expected that their project would progress so quickly – by 2009 there were more than 3.5 million posts on the forum, 1.5 million registered users and nearly 1 million unique visitors per month.

Art from Kunkka who worked on the loading screen in DotA

32 | October

But time passed by and many developers Left the project. Guinsoo and Pendragon moved to “Riot Games” whereas IceFrog stayed with his creation. In fall of 2009 IceFrog reported that he’s ready to gladden DotA fans. Later it turned out that he was the leader of Valve’s developers team. After that there were no news again. It was just known that valve registered “Dota” trademark and on the 16 October 2011 closed beta testing sterted. On 23 september 2011 Valve decided not to string along the players and started open beta. And finally we reached modern concept of game.

“Eul, Guinsoo or IceFrog alone did not make the map. The DOTA community…makes the map” - one player said.

Today dota 2 is not only one of the most popular videogames in the world, it’s a result of meticulous work of many people. It’s evolvement would never stop as long as there will be unsatisfied players, which would want the game to be upgraded, made more interesting and approachable for players. Nobody dares to predict when the final period of dota begins and that means that the game will surprise us for many many times.

33 | October

Some interesting things About items Guinsoo’s Scythe of Vyse (Dota 2 - Scythe of Vyse) A tribute to the Guinsoo an editor of DotA:Allstars.

Eul’s Scepter of Divinity. A tribute to the creator of the original DotA

Yasha. A type of demon in Indian mythology. Also refers to another sword from the game Phantasy Star Online.

About heroes Lina Inverse, Slayer (Dota 2 - Lina) - Powerful spellcaster, whose name and spells originate from Slayers, a famous manga and anime.

Venomancer. Uses a model of a character in Starcraft, the Zerg Hydralisk. This model is included in the Warcraft III data files as an easter egg.

Sven, Rogue Knight. Comes from the Swedish Body Builder infamous for using the line «I want to pump *clap* you up!».

Rattlerap, Clockwerk Goblin (In Dota 2 - he is not goblin) - One of the Maximals on Transformers: The Beast Wars. His beast form was that of a rat.

34 | October

Night after night we sat there glued to our screens. Our faces lit from the false light of this game we love. For more than two years they planned, they built their rockets, their suits, their weapons and their maps. Until finally the day came. Now, for us all, it is too late; they are among us.

And we are grateful to them all. May of 2013 - Robotic Boogaloo was released, the first entirely community made Team Fortress 2 update. Even before the finely ground metal flakes had floated gently to the floor, lovingly scraped from the latest in digital millinery, there were those who looked on with envious eyes. The best ideas are often the simplest. With robots and zombies taken, there was a glaring void that Team Fortress 2 lacked from the first person shooter genre.

Aliens. The word alone brims with possibilities.

The Ronin (the man who was to became the Overall Project Manager for this Invasion update) had missed out on Boogaloo but was determined to be involved with a project.

He wanted to see more than just another sleugh of cosmetic items though.

He wanted there to be truly diverse content, 35 | October

maps, weapons and more. His first port of call was to the mapping community.

By encouraging them to hold a series of seemingly innocent contests, such as the TF2 Maps “Mercs vs Aliens” summer mapping contest, he was able to source out some talented mappers.

Getting them on-side would prove to be a win-win for everyone since he now had some valuable connections and the outlines of a map or two to build on.

There was never a guarantee from Valve that this update would be picked up and made real. In the event that it wasn’t accepted, the idea was to release the community’s work as a big fun weekend.

Making a community update is a daunting task. Anyone can have an idea

idea is just the beginning. A project lead must do more than merely possess an idea. A project lead must not only be able to deliver content themselves, but persuade other people to join in making content with the distinct possibility that at the end all their hard work could be for naught. Even so, once you’ve convinced them to join in, you still have to keep them on track, keep everyone moving forwards, and try and keep them all together on a journey that has no definite end date or guaranteed reward.

are a big part of TF2 and no update would be complete without them, but he wanted to sink his teeth into providing some actual playable content, maps. It’s worth noting that a lot of these plans were hatched before End of the Line was being considered for a community update. He already had friends in the item creation community from his own work there. This was a chance to bring together all of the major contentcreating communities of Team Fortress 2, with everyone playing their part.

Enter The Ronin

Cosmetic Conquest

The Ronin (we’re going to call him just “Ronin” from now on) was the proverbial Man With the Plan. Robotic Boogaloo was the first update which was 100% planned and executed by the community. It was a cosmetics only update with the premise of robotising well-known and popular hats and it broke new ground as to what the community thought of as being possible.

For the Invasion update, Ronin wanted to take things to the next level. Cosmetics

What update would be complete without a shed load of highly coveted Cosmetics? Well, other than Valve’s gameplay balancing updates. Or their updates before they implemented hats.

Or– look the point is, Invasion would not be complete without cosmetics. Early on in development, items were originally being developed for the SFM with the intent of being converted into cosmetic items. However, this is a community

36 | October

update, so it needed an injection of items created by the community at large.

From this need, the Cosmetic Conquest Contest (try saying that five times fast) was spawned. Facepunch has been the home to many a themed item creating contest in the past, so it seemed like a natural place for people to flex their creative

by Valve with a main-page blog post.

Void also contributed a metric buttload (which I am told is the equivalent to 63 US gallons) of items to the update. If you’re wearing one of the new cosmetics, check the label and see if “Made by Void” is stitched in there somewhere. Wearing a Void-label jacket is the TF2 equivalent

“We made the movie in a way that only the sure items or the sure props would be used and then we diversified as we went through the contest.” - The Ronin muscles. When the contest was launched, nobody had heard the name “Invasion” and nobody knew that this was intended for an update - exactly according to plan.

The contest was launched by Ronin and Bang and run by Void. Void is a well known item maker who contributed some long needed hotpants to TF2 and was the excellent man behind Meet Your Makers, an in depth look into the world of TF2 community content which was recognised and honoured

37 | October

of wearing real world Roberto Cavalli, Versace or Alexander McQueen. Void was also willing to put his money where his mouth was - he put up his own money with $100 for the first place winner, with $70 going to second and $40 to third. The contest ran until October 8th, 2014, giving people just over 3 months to put their ideas into practice. Ideas were plenty - ranging from Modern Movies to Sci-Fi comics of days gone by. Think “The Blob” attacking “The Flash” and everything inbetween.

It was quickly assumed that this contest was inspired by or in association with the Moonbase update, which Valve had only recently put into beta with the Robot Destruction map Asteroid.

Although the two have never been related, the look and style of 1940’s zeerust was just the direction invasion was hoping for. Those with particularly fetching cosmetics were contacted and discreetly brought into the fold.

Unusual effects Invasion’s cosmetics wouldn’t be limited to hats, jackets and shoes. These items alone are not enough to dress a person of truly impeccable taste. No, you must add what some might call a certain… “je ne sais quois”, or others might call “pretty glowy things!” - though the technical term term is “Aurora Unusualis”, they are more commonly known as “Unusual effects”. We’ll be honest with you here.

We are reasonably sure that ChaoFanatic is actually a witch. We haven’t had a chance to do the “does he weigh as much as a duck” test, but anyone who can do a good job of particle effects is a strong contender for “Witch of the Month” (Note: While receiving the title “Witch

of the Month” is a prestigious award in it’s own right, it does not in fact entitle you to a Lo-Fi Longwave, despite rumors to the contrary). Also, I think we saw him floating.

Chaofanatic’s body of previous works speaks for itself - however, seeing as how this is a primarily text-based page, we’ll save you some effort: From Robotic Boogaloo we find the atomic green AntiFreeze (one of the few effects that stands up alongside Scorching Flames in my opinion) and Power Surge (which I have always thought of as “an orbiting effect done right!”). End of the Line brought us a less lively, but equally gorgeous, set of effects, such as Frostbite (of which the only downside is that no one will stop telling you that you have a “cool” effect, groan) or Death at Dusk (which is by far and away the single most gorgeous weatherthemed effect in the game, hands down).

“We spoke to Void whilst he was at the gym once. Make sure you write nice things about him, I don’t want to get beaten up!” - Tempest, probably.

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“At that point it was just ‘we need something alien themed’...and that was it”

For Invasion, Chaofanatic was allowed to unleash his unearthly talents once more and I can tell you this now - he does not disappoint. For starters, he helped create some of the visual effects you see in the SFM produced for the update - custom particles that flash and swirl - strong enough to have a noticeable presence, but gentle enough that they aren’t flashing obnoxiously in your face. He also produced custom effects for pd_watergate by Egan, lending the map its own personal flair, making sure that Egan’s map has a flavour all of its own.

His unusual effects are truly eye catching, purple nebulas floating and twinkling gently, much like the swirling clouds around a 39 | October

certain Lo-Fi tower featured this page which unsurprisingly is also his work.

Originally, the movie was supposed to generate interest in the mapping contest by being released before said contest. The SFM team blew everyone away, offering a short movie that had a scope far beyond what had been originally planned. The 30 second teaser became a 3 minute trailer-style short movie with an in-movie movie, custom made props and particle effects, and even its own original score.

But this vast expansion of the project meant the short took significantly longer than originally expected, and the Cosmetic Conquest Contest - with a hard, pre-established date - was launched without the short and the movie was instead saved for the launch of the update.

If you have yet to watch the Great work done by the SFM team, head over to the official landing page for the update and watch it for yourself. If you have seen it, then take a look at the Visual Effects Breakdown by Harry101 below

CobaltGemini If I told you to create 3 minutes of high quality SFM - and I mean, good, cutting edge SFM animation here - how long would you guess it would take?

A week? Two weeks? Four minutes?

Twelve lightyears? One hundred and eighty! I’m just shouting numbers now.

In actuality, It took 6 people several months to create the final SFM short that announced Invasion.

CobaltGemini, the SFM lead, was introduced to Ronin along with the rest of the Lil’ Guardian Pyro team and Ronin was happy to give the team full creative freedom. The animation was primarily done by CobaltGemini, who takes stiff and somewhat clunky computer generated models and gently breathes life into them. The art of animation is not for the

faint of heart. It takes many painstaking hours, starting with lifeless bodies and the vaguest of sketches of how the models might be placed in the environment.

Slowly, CobaltGemini grafts movement onto them, making the Demoman sit with his shoulders and arms at just the right angle to show his annoyance with the the dreadful 3D glasses, or making the interaction between the Heavy and Medic fit the characters, but subtle enough that it doesn’t scream “I AM EMOTING AND ACTING, ALL AT ONCE” at you.

Slipping into Uncanny Valley (a term used for when things look almost right, but are just wrong enough that the final result is oddly creepy to look at) is a common pitfall, but CobaltGemini deftly steers characters we know and love through that valley and out the other side.

“PANIC! ALIENS ARE COMING. PANIC! PANIC! PANIC! SAVE THE HATS FIRST”

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Harry101UK Harry101UK did the sound design, which is typically an under appreciated art. When a sound designer does his job well, the audience most likely won’t notice it at all. Harry101UK’s job was to find sounds for all the things that happen in the SFM, synchronize them accurately, and weave them carefully into the background of the movie.

Often, sound designers have to get creative. Using the “correct” sounds are often surprisingly unsatisfying to the audience. For example, in a lot of hollywood movies, the sound of rain in the background is actually the sound of bacon sizzling. Incidentally, this also implies that at some point in history, someone was desperately wracking their brain, trying to figure out how to make sound effects while cooking breakfast. Harry101UK pours through libraries of sounds and makes the silent void of an SFM vibrant;

the crunches of footsteps, the creaking of the barn as it gets destroyed, the whir of the projector. If any of these were absent, a lot of people wouldn’t even know what was wrong with what they were watching, but it would just feel empty.

What’s more, if a sound is too loud or too soft it ruins the feel of it, forcibly jarring the viewer out of their suspension of disbelief. If you’ve never heard of it before, these background sounds are called “Foley”. Impress your friends with this mostly relatively useless bit of trivia!

Especially if any of them are named “Foley”. Fitting foley to the movie is a relatively thankless job, but Harry101UK does it wonderfully. Go and rewatch the SFM and really listen to it and appreciate all the little sounds you might have missed. Wonder at whether the barn creaking is just one sound… or actually 9 different sounds cleverly interwoven to seamlessly make you believe that it really is being ripped apart.

“Whilst admiring the sound and animation, the keen eyed viewers may spot a little pyro floating in the wind.”

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“I hope valve takes him to do something for tf2” score is at about 2:00 minutes Hasan “Hasan2300” musical in when the music, which was building toward a crescendo, suddenly releases into Abdullah Now, no movie is complete without a sound track. Soundtracks really are a modern lynchpin of making hearts soar, stomachs flutter and tears fall. For Invasion, this job belongs to Hassan.

Hasan “Hasan2300” Abdullah’s job was to inject the movie with emotional cues that bring the magnitude of what’s happening on screen home.

Hasan was originally brought onto the Lil guardian Pyro team by Harry101UK, who actually lived with him whilst he was working on their team’s namesake SFM, which went on to win the 2013 Saxxys.

One of the most difficult things about creating a score has got to be making it so that the music matches, beat for beat, exactly what happens on screen, but not overwhelming people watching it.

If you keep the intensity up too long, it tires people out. Hasan brings the music up and down and then back up again with tremendous style, but simultaneously keeping it within the established style of the TF2 universe.

My personal favourite moment in the

a John Williams-esque swell of strings and wind instruments, bringing a moment of a calm child like wonder amidst the chaos.

Bang!

You may have noticed that the barn the map stands upon is not a normal TF2 map. Nor is it a map that was on the workshop. A bit like how a film crew will create a set for a Hollywood movie, Bang was tasked with quite literally setting the stage, making a map specifically for the short film. He then populated it with a number of custom props and assets, filling in the little details most people wouldn’t notice to make sure the set felt neither too crowded nor too empty. Also, it turns out that “breaking an entire barn apart” is, regrettably, not a specific function in Source Film Maker. Bang was the puppetmaster who made the barn debris from the barn rip itself apart, peeling away from its own structure before floating with a haunting grace, like flotsam from the wreckage of a ship, before it comes crashing down around the ears of the mercs, spilling its contents onto the floor.

Like a lot of hollywood magic, when done well you quickly forget that someone had to put in the hard graft to make even the small details work.

42 | October

Aliens contest had begun that they launched the 72 hour mapping contest.

The 72 hour contest is a gruelling weekend project - 3 days to create from scratch an entire, playable map.

It’s a tall order, and maps vary in quality, but because of the short

If you want something interesting and new - such as, I don’t know, something involving aliens - a 72 hour mapping contest is not a bad place to start.

In January of 2014, Ronin and Bang! approached Fr0z3nr, senior admin of tf2maps.net, about sponsoring a competition for mappers. By using a public mapping competition, they gave the community at large the opportunity to make a map that had the potential to make it into the game, but without spilling the beans on what the maps were actually for.

Ronin and Bang put together a prize pool of $1,000 out of their own pockets to help galvanise the community and set the needs of the competition out.

Then, Fr0z3nr was tasked with planning and orchestrating the 2014 Major Mapping competition: Mercs vs Aliens.

Organising mapping competitions is always a mammoth task, but this particular year ended up being even harder than usual; it was at this time that Fr0z3nr was approached by McVee and YM from the End of the Line team to help them work on cp_snowplow, which ended up being released in the Gun Mettle campaign.

It was barely after the Mercs vs 43 | October

timeline people aren’t as afraid to be wild and creative with their maps.

Released from the possibility of spending months on a map, only to realise it’s fundamentally flawed, people often try things that they wouldn’t do in their more serious maps. It worked. In the original 72hr Summer Mapping contest, all of the maps that were submitted to Valve were created. Interestingly, none of them actually won that original contest - those honours go to Inari by Freyja, Redplanet by Di Gorgonzola and and Alex76 by Auwi. Mappers were told that

they could use the maps from the 72 hour contest from the Mercs vs Aliens competition from the beginning. With more time to work with, the maps produced for Mercs vs Aleins were expected to be significantly more polished than those that came out of the original 72 hour mapping competition.

More art assets, including some gorgeous particle effects by MetroidFission, were provided and the rules included the caveat that the map must end with the Alien Mothership being destroyed, as per Ronin and Bang’s instructions.

The community didn’t disappoint. In fact, the first round of voting ended in a 3-way tie for first place. To choose a winner, people were asked to vote once more, but only on the 3 maps that tied for first place. If you want to see all of the efforts that came out of this contest, I strongly recommend watching this promo video that TF2maps.net put together.

But, like any other global event, “Invasion’s” update couldn’t happen without a huge drama. And it’s not about fame of set content from workshop (with the same name), which had revealed the mystery of “KritzKast” podcast, and not even about the video, which was put on the Web long

before the announcement. The original date of the release was suppose to be September 17. Flying saucers terrorized ordinary users for almost a week; people, who were involved in working on the project, retouch their steam avatars, setting the right preferences.

But the only event that day was universal disappointment.

44 | October

«Poopy Joe was an inside job» The update was never released, but information about the distribution of income and worker role project was offered to the public, and that revealed not the most pleasant news. 54% of the total income from the sale of cosmetic items, which was created by hundreds of different people, left in the wallet of managers of Ronin and Bang!’a project, and many project participants did not agree with it. They desided to resolve the differences before the end of the month.

Ronin got silent, making a statement that expected update will be released at the end of the campaign GunMettle. But who would not want to know more after such news? As it turned out, there was even more holes in this update than in a long-suffering EndoftheLine. The web page, which was unfinished it time, and the critical shortcomings of the code in one of the maps (which had to be solved

by Valve) finally disappointed users. The update is no longer evoked the usual

45 | October

hype. No one was waiting a miracle. No one was surprised about the lack of the renewal release on September 30. No one was surprised about a letter, which was put on the Web a couple of days after and which was requiring project participants to agree to the terms of income distributions (proposed by Valve until October 4), or the items simply will not get into update. But even though only sixteen items out of more than one hundred has got into the game, the update still brings a lot interesting and exciting things to the game and will permanently get into the memory of the players.

Most of materials are belong to kritzkast

46 | October

Hardware Author Egor Tsebro

It’s been a while since 2012 when Gabe Newell called one well-known operating system a «catastrophe» and «this giant sadness», and even a new wellknown operating system has appeared.

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to ask Mr. Newell what he thinks about these changes, but one thing we know for sure: after this statement Valve was not sitting idly by and was going to provide their own OS. Indeed, why depend on a platform which isn’t conjunctive, if you can create your own? A lot of things were said and wrote about Steam OS, so I’m sure you know that it was made on the basis of an open and independent 47 | October

Debian Linux and presents itself as a gaming OS. Furthermore, it does not limit you in actions - you can remove Steam and turn a gaming system into a working one (but why?).

On the other hand, this platform has received accusations of uselessness so we would like to acknowledge its contribution to the development of several components of the Steam and even some other projects.

Big picture For the first time, Valve has quite clearly demonstrated the seriousness of their

intentions to seize the living room with this interface. After the appearance of the official statements about SteamOS, it became obvious that BigPicture mode was the «first news» of the upcoming changes.

one important exception: the first one is available on all conceivable platforms, the second - on Windows 10 and Xbox One only. And what does all this mean for us? This means that there will be more performance!

In-Home Streaming The reason for the appearance of this technology is obvious - the number of games on SteamOS recently exceeded 1500 units. It is quite good, considering that 3 years ago Steam for Linux didn’t even exist, but some games on this platform are still lacking. Home broadcast offers the most elegant solution. Your powerful computer stands in the same place while its inefficient replacement gets near the TV. Take your gamepad and voil!

You experience all the charms of console gaming.

Linux As Linus Torvalds once said, Valve might save the desktop Linux. We’re saving the whole OS families! If you are still not sure that SteamOS is important, then I ran out of arguments.

Family Sharing What is the point of your powerful computer with a huge gaming library if it cannot be shared with people who are close to you?

Vulkan Due to certain circumstances OpenGL is obsolete and no longer meets the requirements of developers. Because of that, members of the Khronos Group have decided to create a new API in the development of which Valve occupies a significant role. Actually, Vulkan is a software layer that works with the video card. In many ways it is similar to DirectX12, with 48 | October

Perhaps one of the most acclaimed gaming devices in recent years. Fans of gamepads blame Steam Controller for the unusual placement of the buttons and sticks. Fans of keyboard and mice blame it for the presence of sticks, and players who have never touched our hero condemn the bad ergonomics and lack of precision of the trackpads.

We don’t want to add our meagre opinion here, so we suggest a small tour through the history of the controller development which will be full of 3D printers and crazy ideas.

Imagine yourself in a difficult situation: you need to come up with an input medium, which will fit in your hand, but also allows you to play shooter games (against the guys who use mice), strategy 49 | October

games and the whole Steam library, and use the browser to print text. Maybe, motion detection? It is worth mentioning that the input accuracy of such system turned out to be quite high, so such controlling could seem interesting. But pretty soon it became clear that players move to the sofa not for the sake of physical exercise or sweaty t-shirts.

How about a trackball? It exists to replace mice! Speaking generally, the solution is great. You basically take the surface of your desktop and wrap it into a sphere.

But there are a number of downsides which forces us to abandon such a wonderful idea: •It’s heavy. Exercises again, we just got

away from that!

•It is expensive.

•And worst of all - the trackball gathers dust and dirt. We don’t want to go back to the era of disassembly and cleaning input devices, right?

However, there is another device which can replace the mouse - the trackpad! Playing with the trackpad is uncomfortable though, everyone knows that. And yet it is a new space for research.

In the course of the research, we’ve identified a whole bunch of trackpad advantages: it’s cheaper, lighter and more compact, it can emulate any other input medium including the trackball, an analog stick and steering wheel.

Yes, it’s Razer Hydra sealed with duct tape with the controller from X360 50 | October

It’s time to match up the trackball and the trackpad face to face and reveal the winner! It turns out that playing with a trackball is still a bit nicer. The thing is, the trackball is physical.

We can move it and feel its frame.

And flat sensors stay as they were.

Solution? Force reactors. With good components and a sufficient number of experiments, we find that the tactile feedback of trackpads on actuators is equal to the trackball, plus it doesn’t come with the trackball’s weaknesses.

The discreteness of the force reactors is so great that we can emulate other devices through them, even transmit music and human voice. Well, we put the mouse in the controller, what to do with the keyboard? Moving a hundred buttons from the keyboard doesn’t seem like a very good idea. Although in some different games we have to use a 51 | October

variety of buttons, no game uses all the buttons at once. So it would be nice to emulate these keys using a touchscreen for example. But we have to look at the touchscreen before making each press to know which button we chose, and it distracts you from the game. You can create an overlay that will show the current selection directly on top of the game. However, what is the point of touchscreen after all? Let’s replace the most expensive and unnecessary component in the controller with the trackpad. But we already have two trackpads under our thumbs, why would we need another one in the middle?

Eventually, we come to the option with two trackpads and a void in between.

Long live progress! Let’s turn the whole controller into one big green sensor!

Okay, okay, this is too much; users are not ready for such a thing. Let’s take

something simpler. Trackpads, dualstage triggers, joystick and 11 buttons on all sides. Looks solid to me! By the way, in the process of working on the touchscreen and trackpad, it became apparent that the main feature of this controller will be the configurability.

And to not force each user to configure the device again, there will be configurations workshop. The attentive reader could notice the lack of VR system HTC Vive in this number, but since it’s not going to come out neither this month nor this year, we thought it’s better to dedicate this number to those devices, which you will see on store shelves soon. Maybe next time...

52 | October

Feedback Editor-in-Chief Evil Witch Deputy editors Victory, Enigmus

Our editorial staff is always open for your wishes or requests for articles, you can just write to main editor or deputy editors. Also we will publish your review in the next number. Be active!

Proof-readers 小loudy, Void, Twurtle Illustrator p0nystark Correspondent Darthbodan Authors Egor Tsebro, Sofka Ketamine Fly-o-bug Patrick Hunt Translators OPyshkin, Chiara, Nessy Cyrodiil

53 | October

Special thanks to Alexander Cherepanov and Alex Portman