Dota 2 release fast-tracked

Dota 2 will see its release pushed forward developer IceFrog has revealed on the game’s official blog.

Originally set to go through a prolonged beta period, IceFrog and Valve now plan to get the game into the hands of gamers much earlier, albeit with fewer features.

“Our original plan was to spend the next year or so in beta, adding new features and slowly growing the number of heroes until we reached a level of parity with Dota 1, at which point we’d release Dota 2 to the world,” explained an IceFrog blog. “But the feedback we’re seeing everywhere is that people just want to play it, even though there’s still a ton of heroes yet to be implemented. We’ve also seen that the folks who are already in the beta are chomping at the bit to show everyone else some of the fun games they’ve had. So we decided our original plan was dumb.

“Welcome to the new plan: We’re going to take the current version of Dota 2, which has The International set of heroes, and get it out there as fast as we can.”

Don’t think you’ll be seeing the game on Steam immediately though.

“We’ve still got some work to do in a couple of areas, so we’ll be keeping it invite-only for a (hopefully short) period of time,” said IceFrog. “But there’ll be no restrictions on what players can do with it – they can release screenshots, make movies, shoutcast matches, write guides, publicly make fun of our HUD, or anything else their hearts’ desire. While they do that, we’ll be shipping regular updates with more heroes, new features we’ve been working on, and improvements on the existing content as we get more and more feedback.”

So what does this mean for gamers desperate for the game? “It means it’s even more important that you get on the list that we’ll be inviting from. If you’re talented, you could take a shot at winning an invite in the GosuGamers competition or the Playdota contest. Once you’ve got your hands on the game, feel free to talk about it however you’d like – we’re excited to see what you’ll produce.”