The International 2021 Ticket Sales

We are pleased to announce that after careful consideration, tickets to join the audience live at the Main Event for The International 2021 in Bucharest, Romania will go on sale September 22, 2021. Please note that our efforts to keep this event safe for all involved include some additional requirementswhich are outlined belowfor those who choose to attend, as we aim to bring the community together both in person and virtually to finally watch the best teams in the world battle it out for the Aegis of Champions. The International Dota 2 Championships begin with Group Stage October 7 - 10, followed by the Main Event at National Arena October 12 - 17. Tickets to attend the Main Event will be sold in three separate two-day bundles:

• Midweek 1 (October 12 and 13): 249 Lei
• Midweek 2: (October 14 and 15) 249 Lei
• Finals: (October 16 and 17) 999 Lei

Tickets will go on sale September 22, 2021 at 12:00 EEST. All tickets can be purchased here: theinternational2021.entertix.ro We're looking forward to welcoming members of the Dota community in person at the arena, and millions more around the world on our livestream broadcast throughout the event. ****All attendees of the live event must be fully vaccinated and masked. If you intend to travel, please check for any rules and restrictions specific to your city/country of origin. Additional protocols will be in place in an effort to keep everyone at the event as safe as possible. Click HERE to read more in our FAQ.****

The International Compendium

The field of teams is set, the tickets are prepared, and The International is almost upon us. To help everyone keep pace with the upcoming action, today's update includes free access for all Dota players to The International 2021 Compendium. Start collecting Player Cards and check out the Talent roster today--the rest of the Compendium will unlock as the event approaches including predictions, fantasy, and a set of rewards featuring legacy items themed to the black and gold styling of this year's event. Have a favorite team heading to The International? All Supporters Clubs are now half price, so take advantage of this opportunity to show off your allegiances in your own games.

Player Cards

Start planning your fantasy lineups, because Player Cards are dropping today. Claim your 10 free packs now, and earn another pack each day by winning a single match. You can also purchase team packs for $0.49, with 50% of each purchase going to the team. Team packs guarantee that the best card in the pack (guaranteed gold or silver) is from that team. In recognition of exemplary fandom, Supporters Clubs members also earn card packs:

• Bronze: 1 basic pack, 1 team pack
• Silver: 6 basic packs, 2 team packs (for a total of 7 basic and 3 team packs)
• Gold: 7 basic packs, 3 team packs (for a total of 14 basic and 6 team packs)

Spectator HUD Updates

There's a lot to keep track of when watching Dota. To improve your experience watching live games, replays, and overwatch cases, we've given the spectator HUD a timely refresh that touches on Status Indicators, Info Graphs, Camera Options, and Playback Controls.

Status Indicators

• Top bar now shows smoked heroes and if heroes have Aegis or Cheese.
• BKB duration, Aegis timer, and shared Tango timer now show in the inventory. This has been added for both spectators and players.
  
• Roshan timer now shows a countdown.
• Players can now ping Aegis to broadcast time remaining to allies.
  
• Added a Power Rune spawn top/bottom indicator.
  
• Buyback status indicator now shows in the stats dropdown.
• Items panel now includes neutral items and which players have Aghanim's Scepter / Aghanim's Shard.
• Added a combat log entry for when players deny runes.
• Item quantities for sentries / observer wards / smokes now show for spectators when they open a team's shop.

Graph Improvements

• Combo graph shows win probability, gold, and XP all at once, as well as deltas, without needing to select separate graphs.
• Added momentum indicator, pointing out which team's performance is increasing more within the last 2 minutes.

Camera

• Override Cam allows you to move the camera in non-free camera modes when you want to inspect other areas of the map, returning you to your selected camera mode after a short delay.
• Directed Cam lets you click on heroes to temporarily select them as the subject of your focus.
• Fixed directed camera jumping to origins at times.

Playback

• Improved 'Next Highlight' feature lets you easily skip to the action (fixed old version).
• Added the ability to skip to the match instead of waiting for draft phase to end.

Moving Dota Technology Forward

As Dota has grown and expanded over the years, so has the technology that powers itboth hardware and software. In order to keep the game and the Source 2 engine fresh, we're planning on removing support for some older systems and configurations. Nothing is changing today, but in the coming months we'll implement the following changes:

• Remove support for Dota on 32-bit systems. You will need to have a 64-bit machine and OS to run Dota.
• Remove support for macOS versions below 10.14.
• Remove support for DirectX 9. Customers using DirectX 9 will instead switch to DirectX 11.
• Remove support for OpenGL. Customers using OpenGL will instead switch to Vulkan.
• Remove support for XAudio (-xaudio) and switch to using SDL Audio (-sdlaudio).

For the vast majority of players, nothing will change when these changes are implemented. Most machines already support any of the newer technologies necessary. In fact, most players are already benefiting from the newer technologies, whether it's via larger content sizes, higher frame rates, better graphical fidelity, or cleaner sounding audio. Removing these older technologies will let us streamline our development efforts as well as use the newer features of these APIs to provide an even better Dota experience. If you have concerns, your chosen graphics API can be adjusted on the settings panel and the audio system can be changed by the command line options above. We encourage players to switch to the newer APIs if they haven't already, and let us know if problems come up.