People sit in Benaroya Hall during "The International" Dota 2 video game competition in Seattle, Washington August 11, 2013. Sixteen teams from 12 countries battled for some $2.9 million in prize money, with Swedish team 'The Alliance'
People sit in Benaroya Hall during "The International" Dota 2 video game competition in Seattle, Washington August 11, 2013. Sixteen teams from 12 countries battled for some $2.9 million in prize money, with Swedish team 'The Alliance' claiming the top prize of $1.4 million after defeating Ukraine's 'Natus Vincere' in a final watched by an audience of 1700 at Benaroya Hall and streamed live on the Internet. REUTERS

The massive multiplayer online role playing game Defence of the Ancients (DOTA) 2 is steadily gaining a massive fan base and has extended its popularity with online betting during online tournaments with valued character items and accessories as the key trade chips. The trade transactions between players and spectators alike is intensifying with the launching of several Dota 2 related betting sites such as Dota2Lounge and Dota2Wage, adding pressures to the game developers to focus more on the item drop system.

This is the main reason why the latest patches of Dota 2 "Rekindling Souls" launched last Oct. 31 and Nov. 3 focused on the improvement of the item drop system from the level based system to a time based system. In essence, the game is putting less emphasis on the level of player and more on the time one has devoted to playing the game. The time based item drop system now includes full sets, treasures, bundles and Arcanas at a rare rate.

For players who are frequently playing Dota 2, the announcement is a welcome addition given that at times, the item drop is frequent but turn out to be common items which are either duplicates in the inventory or altogether undesirable. Given the change, the patch also removed all battle boosters which were procured by some players. As compensation for its removal, players with an active battle booster will receive a free Treasure of the Rotted Gallows while players who had an unused purchased battle booster in their armoury will receive a free Treasure Redemption Token. The said token can be swapped for a new treasure added to game, "Treasure of the Rotted Gallows."

Aside from the item drop changes, the new patch also reworked the buyback button which now only accepts left click entries. Aside from that, the buyback cool down has also been increased from 6 minutes to 7 minutes and several characters were tweaked to normalize and nerf their abilities such as reducing Death Prophet's crypt swarm damage, removing healing points regeneration for Omniknight during Guardian Angel mode and the increasing of Static Link cool down for Lightning Revenant.

Watch how the new item drop system is augmented by the latest patch:

(Youtube/Dota 2 Vietnam)