This time, ESL and crew are heading to Malaysia to the Resorts World Genting.
The competition will unfold in the Arena of Stars from Jan. 6-8 and will feature a prize pool of $250,000.
ESL One and Dota 2
The ESL One brand is among the most recognizable organizations in the field of Dota 2 tournaments. The company already has three major events in different corners of the world — ESL One Frankfurt, Manila, and New York — and is now heading to Malaysia for ESL One Genting.
Having had tremendous success with its past events, ESL One has decided to “search for more opportunities to bring esports to the big stage in Southeast Asia.”
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Kevin Tann, vice president of Resorts World Genting, commented on the new project:
“Esports is a massive and growing industry globally, and we hope to play a meaningful role in developing the local and regional market. We are proud to be collaborating with ESL, the world’s biggest professional provider of esports, that offers not just tournaments like ESL One but also news, live broadcast and support in the esports community.”
The event will see eight participating teams, some of which will receive direct invites and others that will have to qualify. The group will also include a local Malaysian team.
The venue, Arena of Stars, is owned by Resorts World Genting and seats 6,000. Esports is pretty huge is Southeast Asia — the ESL One Manila brought 16,000 Dota 2 enthusiasts to the Mall of Asia — so there is no doubt that fans will be excited to come watch and support their favorite teams fight for glory.
“With their very deep understanding of the local market and its high-end facilities, Resorts World Genting will help us open a whole new avenue for delivering the region’s best esports event to date, and take this competition to new heights,” said Ulrich Schulze, vice president of Pro Gaming at ESL.
Dota 2 is getting a VR feature
Just in time for The International 2016, Valve has launched the Dota VR Hub, a platform that enables fans to use VR headsets to watch live matches or replays of Dota 2 — something that could potentially change the viewership experience in the industry.
The Dota VR Hub is free to download and allows fans to “jump” into the game to watch the battle in a first-person view. Up to 15 friends can use the VR theater simultaneously, and even though the game cannot, for now, be played using this service, it’s an incredible accomplishment.
Dota VR Hub’s website boasts of the new feature:
“Change the camera height on the fly to look down from on high at an unfolding gank, hover close overhead to witness the battle dance of the mid-lane matchup, or stand at ground level beneath the mighty Roshan himself as a tournament-defining team fight breaks out around you.”
As The International approaches, Valve is working to fine tune the service, aiming to make it a flawless experience for everyone. Besides a SteamVR-capable headset with tracked controllers, an equivalent of a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970, AMD Radeon R9 290 GPU is needed to run the software.
Valve also suggests using an Intel Core i7-3930K CPU or better for an uninterrupted streaming experience.
To see what Dota VR Hub actually looks like using a VR headset, fans over at Polygon have prepared an awesome sample for those who wish to see what can be expected.
