Quick DOTA 2 update

Hey everyone, I'm still very sick, but at least now my head no longer feels like it's caught in a vice. The next Freeman's Mind episode is coming soon, but in the meantime, I wanted to make a news update on the status of the Freeman's Mind Announcer Pack for DOTA 2 as it just hit 10k votes on Steam. As promised, I've release a downloadable copy of the trailer for those of you interested in it (I'll have an episode page on the site made for it later). More importantly I wanted to give you an update on the status of the pack itself. Right now the pack is currently in limbo. A few weeks ago I received the following email from Valve:

 

"

Thank you for your Steam Workshop Contribution Freeman's Mind Announcer Pack.

 

Unfortunately, for various reasons, the developers of "Dota 2" had to flag it as "incompatible", so it cannot be used within "Dota 2".

 

You can learn more about what kinds of items are accepted and why certain items are marked as "incompatible" here: http://www.dota2.com/workshop/

 

The Steam Support Team

http://www.steampowered.com

"

 

Unfortunately they have not told me WHY it's incompatible. I can only assume it has partially due to the title containing the word "Freeman" as they may feel that hits too close to home with their intellectual property. If that's the case, I'll just rename the pack to something else, like "Ross Scott announcer pack." Really that should be the only issue as far as IP goes. A bit of a spoiler, but the pack does NOT contain lines like "this one time at Black Mesa I saw this" or "that looks like a vortigaunt", none of the lines themselves contain any direct references to Valve's IP. Instead, I wrote all the lines with the same sort of personality established in Freeman's Mind, so it's more like Freeman "After Hours" rather than being full of HL2 references.

 

It's also possible Valve has changed the rules for announcer pack submissions again in the time I submitted it to the time I received that email. It's also possible they don't like one line and it needs to be changed, or they just don't like the sound of my voice, the point is I have NO IDEA why it's being marked as incompatible. So while I could just try renaming the pack and resubmitting it, but my intuition tells me if I do that, I'll just receive an email identical to the one above a few months from now with no other explanation. I do think this is kind of lame of them to send an email like that, but then give no other explanation and no means to contact them.

 

Despite being told it's "incompatible" via email, the actual entry on Steam has NOT yet been marked as "incompatible" or "rejected", so that makes me think there is hope for this still seeing the light of day.

 

I do not know who I should contact about this. The email sent to me was from [email protected]. I've tried contacting their front desk email, but have received no reply. If anyone has information how to actually communicate with someone at Valve about what needs to be fixed, please let me know. Until then, I'm completely in the dark on this. I'll keep trying to figure out what the holdup is once I get better.

 

ADHD version: Ross is still sick. Valve is playing "guess what number I'm thinking of" with the DOTA 2 voice pack.

 

LINK TO FORUM COMMENTS

Unfortunately, for various reasons, the developers of "Dota 2" had to flag it as "incompatible", so it cannot be used within "Dota 2".

 

You can learn more about what kinds of items are accepted and why certain items are marked as "incompatible" here: http://www.dota2.com/workshop/

 

Even more frustrating that the page they linked (and subpages) doesn't even mention the word "incompatible" (or "compatible" for that matter) at all.

 

Anyway, hope you get well, Ross. And that Valve learn us mere mortals cannot read minds.

After reading the link they sent you, the best option as for why the rejected your work would be Overall Tone: We may reject an item if we feel it deviates too far from the tone of Dota 2.

[email protected]

 

this is the email for support for modders. they can probably accomodate you. I used it a year ago maybe for a mod on portal 2 that i was trying to create and their response was quite prompt.

 

EDIT: hope you get better ross, need my FM fix soon

http://www.valvesoftware.com/contact/

 

list of valve emails

 

Get well soon

I think the problem is that your pack has too many lines. Your workshop page says it has over 600 lines.

 

Looking at the guidelines at http://www.dota2.com/workshop/requirements/announcers (under Artistic Suggestions):

Please also bear in mind that we have a limit of 600 lines for workshop announcers.

[email protected]

 

this is the email for support for modders. they can probably accomodate you. I used it a year ago maybe for a mod on portal 2 that i was trying to create and their response was quite prompt.

I'll probably try that next, this isn't really a mod the way CP stuff is (it's a ton of lines + a database file, nothing very technical), but it's the closest bet out of their categories.

 

I think the problem is that your pack has too many lines. Your workshop page says it has over 600 lines.

It has 603 (more will be added if it gets approved). They said 600 is a soft limit. I fulfilled all the mandatory lines and left out a lot of item-based optional ones to cut down the size. That can't be the issue.

just go support site. yes, it'll probably annoy them, but at least you can get decent communication doing

Just e-mail every Valve employee ever, someone is bound to answer you.

Are you sure this wasnt a troll message by someone else pretending to be valve? Since your pack is still up there.

Are you sure this wasnt a troll message by someone else pretending to be valve? Since your pack is still up there.

 

Googling "[email protected]" (minus the quotes) brings up threads/topics on all sorts of different sites wondering if it's a phishing scam or not. The best I can come up with is, it's fake. Someone took the "forgotten password" automated email, edited it enough to make it seem legit, and emailed Ross with that account. Now I don't fault Ross for worrying, I would of done the same, I think it was wise he did.

I think Gabe Newell is fucking with you big time Ross, and if I could, I would put him into the game (LITERALLY HACKING REALITY AND PLACING HIM INTO THE GAME) so he would NEVER ESCAPE the words: (in freemans voice) WELCOME!! TO!!! DOTA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was riiiiiight

Are you sure this wasnt a troll message by someone else pretending to be valve? Since your pack is still up there.

 

Googling "[email protected]" (minus the quotes) brings up threads/topics on all sorts of different sites wondering if it's a phishing scam or not. The best I can come up with is, it's fake. Someone took the "forgotten password" automated email, edited it enough to make it seem legit, and emailed Ross with that account. Now I don't fault Ross for worrying, I would of done the same, I think it was wise he did.

 

[email protected] is commonly used for store and support e-mails. If you've ever bought a game on steam, submitted a support ticket, changed your password, etc., you will have received an e-mail from that address.This e-mail is probably not a scam. If you are really worried, these two articles do a decent job of explaining how to audit Received: e-mail headers.

 

http://techbase.msu.edu/article.asp?id=974

http://techbase.msu.edu/article.asp?id=2045

 

If it helps you at all, all steam e-mails I've received have had these two headers.

Received: from smtp01.steampowered.com ([208.64.202.37]) by [random relay server]
Received: from [10.3.3.29] (helo=valvesoftware.com)
by smtp01.steampowered.com with smtp (Exim 4.76)