Valve Is Reportedly Developing a New System to Help Load Crashed Dota 2 Games

Valve is reportedly working on a new project that will allow players to connect to the point in a Dota 2 game where it crashed. The professional scene of Dota 2 is not known for crash-prone games, but if they happen, there is no way to reverse the damage currently. As the game has so many variables, it is nigh impossible to recreate a scenario that matches exactly with the one at the time of a crash. The evidence of such a feature was discovered in the Dota 2 game files by Matthew "Cyborgmatt" Bailey, Team Secret's Director of Operations.

Valve’s potential new system will allow Dota 2 players to reconnect to crashed games

Cyborgmatt reported through his Twitter account that this new system will allow the spectators to “save a snapshot of the current match (teams, heroes, items, buildings, shop stocks & entities) into a JSON file.” According to him, this feature is likely used to save a game at various points and then allow the players to reconnect from the relevant point at a later time if required.

Well-known Dota 2 statistician, Ben "Noxville" Steenhuisen, observed that the game's data files, that Cyborgmatt tweeted, had a small amount of data and the project was still a work-in-progress.

Dota 2 used to have a similar kind of feature when it was powered by the Source 1 Engine before it was moved to Source 2 in 2015. Source 2 seemingly lacks such a feature since the crashed games have had to be remade.

Team Nigma and Team Secret were involved in the WePlay AniMajor series when a server error caused the second game to crash. The game was then remade with the same draft, lanes, and starting items. While this game was still in its early stages and neither side had a significant lead, such crash issues can adversely affect the outcomes of games that have been played for longer periods of time.

Because of occasional instances like these, there have been discussions and requests about adding such a feature, which would allow players to connect to games that have crashed, for a very long time now.

Additionally, a new game bug caused a spike in this crash issue when players were accidentally forced to abandon the game. The "Abandon" bug occurs occasionally when players disconnect from a game, then click on "Red Power" to quit the game. Players, however, encounter the "Yes, Abandon Game" option instead of "Quit Game," and they click "Yes" out of habit.

Several professional players have been unable to connect to their official games because of this bug, which has adversely affected their teams. The bug was caught on camera as well by Dota 2 streamer, Janne "Gorgc" Stefanovski, who encountered it a couple of times on his Twitch livestream.

Noxville and Cyborgmatt have both concluded from the files in the game that this feature is still in development, so it will be interesting to see if Valve can release the final version before The International 10 (TI10) begins on 7th Oct 2021.