Dota2 Items [ID : Name Mapping]

Hello All!

I am currently working on an app for iOS based on DOTA2 match history details and all. The app is very basic but needs to display the images for DOTA2 items in a specific match. The API returns only the Item IDs and no information or API exists for getting the ID -> Name mapping for the items.

Hence I am putting across this post to share how I am able to get the mapping automated.

Step 1: GCFScape

Download “GCFScape.exe” from google. pretty simple. You don’t need to install this but require to download only extract version. It will give you the exe file directly which you can run.

Step 2: Extract items

Launch GCFScape and open the file name “pak01_dir.vpk” located under your dota2 steam directory. Once you open it, extract the “items.txt” as per below image to any location.

Once you have extracted the npc_items, I though my work was easy. But as a matter of fact, for a normal application or even a complex application you will need data either in XML/EXCEL format to be able to maintain configuration data. the npc/items is not that parsable format in fact.

So I have written a utility to parse the same to get Item -> Alias, Name and ID for my reference you can extend it to parse more details.

You can download the program from HERE.

the output of this function would be like below:

<DOTA2Items>
    <DOTA2Item>
        <Alias>Blink dagger</Alias>
        <Name>item_blink</Name>
        <ID>1</ID>
    </DOTA2Item>
    .
    .
    .
   
</DOTA2Items>

Feel free to shoot any questions you have.