official Dota 2

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Check out the screenshots here (and the trailer below): http://www.joystiq.com/2011/08/15/dota-2-gamescom-trailer-ponders-the-nature-of-heroism/

[Ayepecks]

I never played the first, but I may give this a shot. I believe it'll likely be a F2P game, even though I don't think Valve's officially said as much.

Also, not to be a grammar Nazi, but I think it's just "Dota 2" (no capitalization for the other letters). Valve felt the acronym was more used than "Defense of the Ancients", so they just made it a brand new word. :laugh:

[SojIrOu]

Yay looks good. I can't wait for it to come out. Great that they kept the heroes the same. I couldn't play LoL because I didn't want to memorize all the new characters' abilities.

It's always been DotA and always will be. So DotA 2. :p Dislike how they use Dota 2 instead.

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I've been waiting for this for ages. My friends and I played Dota almost religiously back in the day. Then we moved to HoN. More recently I've tried LoL, and it's ok. However, neither game has captured my friend's or my attention like the original DotA.

I hope they keep the same heroes, because Icefrog did an amazing job with the roster. All I'm hoping for are updated graphics, and maybe some new modes/maps.

[shakey]

I'm happy and scared this is coming out. I want it to be good, but on the other hand, I just got into LoL not too long ago lol.

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Beta sign ups for Steam members at dota2.com. Oh Boy!

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

I never played the first, but I may give this a shot. I believe it'll likely be a F2P game, even though I don't think Valve's officially said as much.

Also, not to be a grammar Nazi, but I think it's just "Dota 2" (no capitalization for the other letters). Valve felt the acronym was more used than "Defense of the Ancients", so they just made it a brand new word. :laugh:

I've played the first one a couple of times and it's fun, but only if you've got the hang of things. Otherwise, it's quite frustrating. As for the title, it seems like you're right. I'll change it right now.

Beta sign ups for Steam members at dota2.com. Oh Boy!

Thanks for the heads up on that. I just signed up! :)

[Holey]

Just signed up also :) keen!

[SoapyHamHocks Member]

50 mins until the tournament. Anyone else watching live?

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First gameplay footage here (IGN)

It looks solid, and just as it should. I'm exicted to see how the tournament goes today! I wonder if I can stream the matches while I'm in the office... :shiftyninja:

[DukeEsquire]

DotA is an amazing game--played it almost daily for about 2 years--but the problem is that newbies have an EXTREMELY hard time with it.

Due to the inherent nature of the game, a single newbie in a game can ruin the game for all the people because that newbie will just be sniped over and over and over again for tons of cash. On the other hand, if you have a group of knowledgeable players, the game can be extremely intense and fun.

I hope Valve does something to separate the "newbies" and "pros" into some kind of division system.

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DotA is an amazing game--played it almost daily for about 2 years--but the problem is that newbies have an EXTREMELY hard time with it.

Due to the inherent nature of the game, a single newbie in a game can ruin the game for all the people because that newbie will just be sniped over and over and over again for tons of cash. On the other hand, if you have a group of knowledgeable players, the game can be extremely intense and fun.

I hope Valve does something to separate the "newbies" and "pros" into some kind of division system.

I'm sure they will implement some kind of rating system.

My one gripe with that solution is that it opens the possibility for flame/harassment by the elitist d-bags in the community. In HoN for example, when someone has a low Elo or a bad kill:death ratio, that player is immediately called out and people overreact in the worst possible way. Making these stats visible to other players is the worst thing HoN did, and it was included from the start. I've said it from day one of beta that the game would suffer for it. And it has. I hope the dev's at Valve take a different approach.

Leauge of Legends takes a better approach where the match making criteria is under the hood, and people can't immediately judge a player. Even if you inspect another player's profile, you can only see their "positive" stats like summoner level, takedowns and wins. Their level is purely based on the number of games that you've played, and you can't see their total games played. So you can't infer anything about losses, deaths or anything else that would give the viewer ammunition against that player. And, for the most part, the community in LoL is far less likely to harass less skilled players right off the bat. That's not to say that it doesn't happen during a match when players are bad, but that's going to happen no matter what.

It would be perfect if Valve takes this approach a step further and leaves all of that stat tracking behind the scenes. Hide all stats from everyone, even the player themselves. Keep the game purely about the team/strategy aspect, and not about the padding your K:D ratio or number of creep kills. They can even globally rank clans and individual players without getting into stat heavy ****ing matches.

Sadly, the shallow people in the target community will demand stat tracking of some sort and Valve will probably include it. All I hope for is that Valve stays on top of bad attitude/harassing players, and VAC bans them when appropriate.

[CentralDogma]

As someone who is not familiar with MOBA games, despite the technical issues and, from what I?m told, is a grindy match I came away from the watching the Invitational interested enough to play.

The question is, how is Dota 2 going to fair against other MOBA games. A lot of games have cropped up over what is admittedly a niche genre. You have a hardcore following in Heroes of Newerth, you have a more casual atmosphere in League of Legends, and Blizzard DOTA is coming on the horizon (which seems like an odd fit as a Starcraft 2 mod and almost seems like it should be a World of Warcraft mod). All of these are Free-to-Play (granted Blizzard DOTA will require SC2). It puts Valve in a very tough place.

Sure, Valve can add features like LAN, a tutoring system, a single player mode (which they have already said they have no plans to implement), and the promise of incremental updates, but they?ve essentially just updated the graphics on the original Defense of the Ancients. Considering all the alternatives, Valve is going to have a hard time releasing this as anything other than Free-to-Play.

That being said, Dota 2 definitely has an opportunity to become the dominate MOBA game. Valve has already shown that they have the ability to generate hype and they have mentioned their plans to bring in new players.

[S00N3R FR3AK]

So I watched one match do none of them have any shout casting? I got use to it while watching SC2 matches.

As for the game itself i saw no reason for me to spend any money on it. Only way I play it will be if its F2P.

[BetaAddict]

I never played the first, but I may give this a shot. I believe it'll likely be a F2P game, even though I don't think Valve's officially said as much.

Also, not to be a grammar Nazi, but I think it's just "Dota 2" (no capitalization for the other letters). Valve felt the acronym was more used than "Defense of the Ancients", so they just made it a brand new word. :laugh:

It has been said by Valve that they are working on releasing one other F2P game, so speculation can only suggest that is DOTA2 given its popularity.

HON recently went F2P, by limiting the number of games you can play per week and purchasing new heroes after they are released. But this model is just plain horrible.

I'm sure they will implement some kind of rating system.

My one gripe with that solution is that it opens the possibility for flame/harassment by the elitist d-bags in the community. In HoN for example, when someone has a low Elo or a bad kill:death ratio, that player is immediately called out and people overreact in the worst possible way. Making these stats visible to other players is the worst thing HoN did, and it was included from the start. I've said it from day one of beta that the game would suffer for it. And it has. I hope the dev's at Valve take a different approach.

Leauge of Legends takes a better approach where the match making criteria is under the hood, and people can't immediately judge a player. Even if you inspect another player's profile, you can only see their "positive" stats like summoner level, takedowns and wins. Their level is purely based on the number of games that you've played, and you can't see their total games played. So you can't infer anything about losses, deaths or anything else that would give the viewer ammunition against that player. And, for the most part, the community in LoL is far less likely to harass less skilled players right off the bat. That's not to say that it doesn't happen during a match when players are bad, but that's going to happen no matter what.

It would be perfect if Valve takes this approach a step further and leaves all of that stat tracking behind the scenes. Hide all stats from everyone, even the player themselves. Keep the game purely about the team/strategy aspect, and not about the padding your K:D ratio or number of creep kills. They can even globally rank clans and individual players without getting into stat heavy ****ing matches.

Sadly, the shallow people in the target community will demand stat tracking of some sort and Valve will probably include it. All I hope for is that Valve stays on top of bad attitude/harassing players, and VAC bans them when appropriate.

Very difficult to recover once your kdr is trashed, partly because the matchmaking system sometimes is just horrible and HON makes it very easy to distinguish who is the weakest player (player names are listed from highest to lowest psr order). In a recent game, I had someone with a 1100 rating on my team when everyone else was 1500+.

Dota devs are far more experienced and wise, and I truly believe they will not do anything that will alienate current players or abandon their core philosophy in maintaining good quality gameplay. I have every confidence that they will take dota many levels ahead of all the other knockoffs.

[Alladaskill17]

Ok, I am confused - tried reading up and googling about the original "DOTA"; maybe I am just really intoxicated. Everything I google returns either:

Defense of the Ancients; a mod of sorts for Warcraft 3

DotA 2 and Valve

So my question is, am I incapable of using google or did this start out as a mod and was later purcased by Valve for a full on game (that by the 1 non gameplay trailer I saw did not seem RTS-like at all).

Very curious!

[troGGers]

DotA was originally a free mod of WC3. The original developer, Icefrog, began working for Valve and developing DotA 2.

[CentralDogma]

Newell: Dota 2 won't ship until 2012

Fantasy strategy game Dota 2 won't ship until 2012, Valve boss Gabe Newell has revealed.

Valve plans to launch an invitation beta after the Gamescom tournament ends. After that a public beta will launch. ?And then we'll probably start worrying about how we'll monetise it,? Newell told Eurogamer.

?We'll just go into progressively wider and wider distribution. I don't think it'll be shipped until next year.?

Dota 2 was penned for launch this year.

?But then,? Newell continued, ?with a game like this, you just keep shipping. You add new heroes. You try out new game modes. You are constantly tweaking item and hero balance. It's very much an ongoing thing.?

Dota 2 is the sequel to Warcraft 3 mod Defense of the Ancients, and is being developed by the reclusive IceFrog, one of a number of of modders who helped make Dota what it is.

While Dota 2 will be distributed through Valve's own platform, Steam, the firm is yet to decide on a business model.

?We don't have a plan,? Newell said. ?IceFrog has a bunch of testers he's worked with as long as he's been doing development. The first thing we've been working with is addressing their concerns. We've been through four or five different versions of the user interface, getting it to the point where we've addressed the feedback we've got from those guys.

?For us now, this tournament is a really good step. A bunch of the features we're building in the design of Dota 2 related to being able to put on a tournament like this. There's a bunch of stat stuff. There's a bunch of website development, support for simultaneous, four-language broadcasting.

?This was the next step.?

Dota 2 could end up going free-to-play, like Team Fortress 2. ?We don't know. We don't have plans yet,? Newell said. ?The problem isn't to figure out what your monetisation strategy is. If you have something with a super careful monetisation strategy and it sucks, it doesn't matter.

?The most important thing is to do something that resonates well with the existing Dota players and creates a vehicle for new players to join into the community. That's the hard problem. That's the interesting one to solve.?

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Nothing until 2012? That sucks. Hopefully I (or someone I know) gets into the beta. As for the pricing structure, I have a hard time seeing Valve releasing such a hyped and sought after game as Free-to-Play right off the bat.

[Ayepecks]

Nothing until 2012? That sucks. Hopefully I (or someone I know) gets into the beta. As for the pricing structure, I have a hard time seeing Valve releasing such a hyped and sought after game as Free-to-Play right off the bat.

Nothing officially released until 2012. There will be a beta relatively soon.

And I'm almost positive this will end up being F2P. That's how almost all the DoTA spinoffs/knock-offs have gone.

[mattmatik]

Love Newell's comment at the end about trying to get a balance for seasoned players as well as newcomers. I'm a newcomer myself and would hate to ruin the game for others while being trashed on myself. Hopefully they can figure that out, I really want to get into this one.

[BetaAddict]

Nothing officially released until 2012. There will be a beta relatively soon.

And I'm almost positive this will end up being F2P. That's how almost all the DoTA spinoffs/knock-offs have gone.

Going F2P is a given. As Newell said, monetising the game is a second priority and wi

Hopefully it will be a much more moderated version of F2P that HON has recently released. Maybe limit each F2P player to 15 games per week (probably all majority of us have time for with studying and work) and offer cash shop cosmetic items, but maintain access to all heroes, maps, and core gameplay features like matchmaking. This would be enough for casual players.

For hardcore 1337 pros, give them chance to purchase the game for access to high ranking tiered gaming or daily/weekly tourneys (cash shop prizes?). Features like this are not essential to basic gameplay, but can offer an extra dimension of fun for those who would otherwise are pro enough to get bored from playing matchmaking games over and over, and know every hero inside out to bother experiementing.

[DukeEsquire]

Nothing until 2012? That sucks. Hopefully I (or someone I know) gets into the beta. As for the pricing structure, I have a hard time seeing Valve releasing such a hyped and sought after game as Free-to-Play right off the bat.

I would be shocked if the WASN'T F2P.

The two biggest competitors are LoL and HoN and both of them are F2P. They have a huge head start on Dota2 so, unless Dota2 can offer something huge that the other two cannot offer, I see few reasons to purchase Dota2.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

Here's a replay of the international tournament:

More here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8EBB8D9316821346

[Tharp Daddy]

Finally got into the beta, and i'm quite enjoying myself! Coming from playing League for the past few years it's quite a shock at how rusty i've become. Thankfully, i'm not feeding and actually managing to get a few kills here and there. One thing that has really stood out to me is how polished everything is. The ui is clean and simple, the graphics are beautiful, the characters have quality voice work, and best of all the screen does not turn into a cluster **** of spells (looking at you, Heroes of Newerth) when a large team fight breaks out. All in all i'm very impressed. If anyone wants to play a few matches my steam ID is The Tharp Daddy.