If you’re hoping to squeeze in a couple of games of Dota over lunch, you might want to find other plans.
Over the past three days, Dota 2 tournaments both large and small have suffered crippling delays and extensive lag, forcing at least one team to take extreme measures to deal with the persistent problems. The joinDOTA MLG Pro League, Starladder group stage, Summit 3 qualifiers, DotaPit Season 3 group stage, and D2CL group stage have all seen delays ranging from a few seconds to several minutes.
Things got so bad at one point that Team Secret resorted to drastic measures in its Starladder match against Duza to keep the proceedings on schedule. After multiple pauses across several competitions, the European juggernaut opted not to pause when two of its members disconnected, leaving Ludwig “Zai” Wahlberg to control three heroes at once. Secret won the match two games to zero.
While server issues have reached a tipping point for competitive play over the past several days, Dota 2 is no stranger to these troubles. The popular Dota 2 subreddit is home to a semi-weekly forum post highlighting persistent issues in Western Europe and the Eastern United States. Even prior to this week, multiple competitions have seen extended periods of heightened latency, though rarely with the same frequency or duration as those faced recently.
Still, with player and administrator frustrations mounting and viewers enduring sporadic, protracted delays, the issue remains decidedly out of their control. And with little resolution in sight, few would disagree with Valve’s recent statement that the company needs to do a better job communicating with fans.
