Dota 2 "New Bloom 2015" Update - Part 1

[Omnomnick]

Chinese New Year is right around the corner, and that means the New Bloom Festival is nearly upon us! The now-annual update for Dota 2 was first introduced in 2014, where the players and their heroes were pitted against the mysterious and powerful Year Beast in a special gamemode. A brand new Source Filmmaker trailer for the event was shown off earlier today during the finals of the Dota Asia Championships and appears to shine some new light on what we can expect to see once New Bloom arrives in a week or so.

The trailer has since been uploaded to Valve's own YouTube channel alongside the first unveiling of the New Bloom 2015 update page. Concrete details are scarce at the current time, but the video does provide some additional back story regarding Nian the Year Beast while also drawing particular focus to Crystal Maiden (who appears to transform) and Winter Wyvern (shown flying and landing near the end), one of the three remaining heroes yet to be ported from the original DotA All-Stars.

Much of the community currently believes Crystal Maiden will receive an Arcana item set as part of the update, which would certainly explain her strange apparent transformation. The majority of Winter Wyvern's assets were previously added into the game files as part of the Shifting Snows update, making it pretty likely the hero, voiced by Merle Dandridge, will be added alongside this year's New Bloom event.

It isn't currently known how the heroes intend to "tame" the Year Beast, as explained in the trailer, but I personally like to believe it's not too unlikely we'll see Nian take on the role as Dota 2's first totally-brand-new hero. Hmm, maybe not then. We'll be sure to bring you more details regarding this year's New Bloom Festival event for Dota 2 when Part 2 is revealed.

 

[TheWiktor]

ok

 

[Omnomnick]

ok

yes

 

[User With No Name]

Wait. So that was Winter Wyvern at the end? Holy...

I'm also intrigued in the icy theme they seem to be going for.

 

[Omnomnick]

Wait. So that was Winter Wyvern at the end? Holy...

I'm also intrigued in the icy theme they seem to be going for.

Yep, that's Wyvern. Now can you imagine Merle Dandridge's voice coming out of it?

Last year's New Bloom Festival focused quite heavily on the arrival of Springtime and the melting of the Winter snow. This was shown in both the New Bloom version of the map game map and the level used for the battle with the Year Beast. Not sure if that had anything to do with all of the snow-themed characters showing up in the trailer, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

 

[AYKO]

Is this the event where they will release new Source 2 version of Dota 2? I heard that game will be updated to new engine this year.

Sorry, if that question sounds stupid. I don't play/follow Dota. I am only interested in Source 2.

 

[Omnomnick]

Is this the event where they will release new Source 2 version of Dota 2? I heard that game will be updated to new engine this year.

Sorry, if that question sounds stupid. I don't play/follow Dota. I am only interested in Source 2.

It's not a stupid question, I've definitely thought the same thing myself. It's entirely possible New Bloom WILL port Dota 2 over to Source 2, but I have serious doubts. I feel it's more likely they'll get New Bloom out of the way as a gameplay and cosmetic-focused event before introducing Source 2 a little later in the year.

Porting the game to Source 2 alongside new heroes, cosmetics, and possible gamemodes while normal users are just trying to enjoy the game is too risky. While it's obviously going to be tested like crazy before release, it'll take some time to properly guarantee things won't just hit the fan upon release.

 

[AYKO]

I thought there was a beta (or alpha?) testing already going on. Those workshop tools came with new version of the game, right? Or am i wrong again?


Plus, i don't know how it was in previous events but making a good trailer for an event could sign big things coming.

 

[User With No Name]

Yep, that's Wyvern. Now can you imagine Merle Dandridge's voice coming out of it?

At first I was wondering why that name sounded familiar, then I remembered she voiced Alyx Vance and my mind was blown. Basically proving my longtime Half-Life 3 theory in which Alyx becomes a Dragon, kills all the combine, avenges her father death, and she and Gordon fly hastily to the moon soon thereafter.

Last year's New Bloom Festival focused quite heavily on the arrival of Springtime and the melting of the Winter snow. This was shown in both the New Bloom version of the map game map and the level used for the battle with the Year Beast. Not sure if that had anything to do with all of the snow-themed characters showing up in the trailer, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

View attachment 25061

Good point. Funny how you showed Phoenix in that picture, as in a sense Winter Wyvern could be considered a polar opposite being how Phoenix is a fiery bird whilst Wyvern is a and Icy dragon, she even has "Winter" in her name. So there's definitely some contrast to be made here when comparing this New Bloom to last year's, at least so far.

It's not a stupid question, I've definitely thought the same thing myself. It's entirely possible New Bloom WILL port Dota 2 over to Source 2, but I have serious doubts. I feel it's more likely they'll get New Bloom out of the way as a gameplay and cosmetic-focused event before introducing Source 2 a little later in the year.

Porting the game to Source 2 alongside new heroes, cosmetics, and possible gamemodes while normal users are just trying to enjoy the game is too risky. While it's obviously going to be tested like crazy before release, it'll take some time to properly guarantee things won't just hit the fan upon release.

Yeah, also considering this quote from the blog regarding Frostivus:

This doesn’t mean that you won’t see interesting updates from us before the engine improvement goes out next year. We are already hard at work on our next major update, the New Bloom Festival in February, although we will continue to avoid building new game modes until the engine improvements come along.

http://blog.dota2.com/2014/12/future-changes-frostivus/

Basically implying that the Source 2 update will be coming in an update after New Bloom, most likely April or May. I'm curious as to whether or not the engine update will focus more on the possibilities of new gamemodes, the improvements it gives to Dota 2, or the engine itself. Needless to say, it's a very exciting time to be a fan of any Valve game.

 

[Omnomnick]

At first I was wondering why that name sounded familiar, then I remembered she voiced Alyx Vance and my mind was blown. Basically proving my longtime Half-Life 3 theory in which Alyx becomes a Dragon, kills all the combine, avenges her father death, and she and Gordon fly hastily to the moon soon thereafter.

She voiced the character something like a year and a half ago, and Wyvern is only now being released. She previously voiced Legion Commander.

Good point. Funny how you showed Phoenix in that picture, as in a sense Winter Wyvern could be considered a polar opposite being how Phoenix is a fiery bird whilst Wyvern is a and Icy dragon, she even has "Winter" in her name. So there's definitely some contrast to be made here when comparing this New Bloom to last year's, at least so far.

That's a random image I grabbed from Google.

Basically implying that the Source 2 update will be coming in an update after New Bloom, most likely April or May. I'm curious as to whether or not the engine update will focus more on the possibilities of new gamemodes, the improvements it gives to Dota 2, or the engine itself. Needless to say, it's a very exciting time to be a fan of any Valve game.

It'll like just make it far easier for both Valve and the community to make content such as gamemodes and maps. I doubt we'll really see any totally "new" improvements to Dota 2 like new visuals, etc. I do, however, hope we'll see an improvement in optimisation and load times (not that it needs it, but faster is always better), as well as the 64bit OS support we already know comes as standard.

 

[tomemozok]

I think that they will release an update to the workshop tools and bring them to beta status now.
The final release should be end of may/beginning of june,for it to be ready for ti5.
That will probably have a better streaming option,so it can boost steam streaming,so makes sense.
And they need to polish bugs,so there is that. I wouldn't be surprised if we receive source 2 now.

I also think that this will coincide with gdc next month,so they will have something working ingame to show for the new glnext.
AND this will probably improve linux support by a lot,so they will have a bump from linux users for the newbloom festival.

MIght be wrong on all of the things, but my logis says things will happen like that because of those reasons