14 DAY TRIAL // Valve has rolled out a whopping three different updates in the last several hours, making some pretty big changes to Dota 2 in regards to mods created by users to replace the minimap, the heads-up display, the icons, the voice overs, or the hero models.
Dota 2 has already been around for quite some time, and developer Valve has introduced all sorts of brand new features to the game, while allowing players to create new hero skins, heads-up displays, loading screens, and more that are available for purchase through the official store.
User-made mods no longer work in games against other humans
However, the studio also allowed fans to make their own mods that came with different character models, voice over packs, icons, minimaps, or even textures, which could be allowed to overwrite the official files by simply adding a new command when starting the game.
Unfortunately, it seems that some recent mods gave users unfair advantages, and in order to keep things fair, Valve has rolled out different updates in recent hours, as noted on Reddit, to completely forbid the use of the -override_vpk command while playing games with other humans through the matchmaking mechanic.
This effectively meant that all user-made mods no longer worked in the game and led to a fierce backlash against Valve, even though many fans understood the reasoning.
A new update introduces a whitelist of moddable files
In order to still allow mods that don't result in an unfair advantage, Valve has also brought forward a so-called whitelist that specifies the files that can be modded by users. This whitelist works in combination with a new launch option called -enable_addons. It currently allows mods with new minimaps, HUD elements, icons, or voice over packs, and will be expanded upon in the future by Valve, once it studies the most popular mods to see what exact files they tweak.
As such, while right now some existing mods might not work, it seems that Valve is trying to make things right and continue to give Dota 2 players enough freedom when it comes to modifying the title.