There’s hasn’t been much official word on Dota 2 since the game was officially announced by Valve back in October 2010. Notable in their absence from E3 2011, Valve has now officially listed as an exhibitor at Gamescom 2011, to be held in Germany over 17-21 August 2011.
The listing on the Gamescom website has Valve down for a ‘strategy’ game. Time is running out for Valve to meet their vague Dota 2 release window of 2011, and since Dota 2 is the only Valve game which is officially under development at the moment, the logical conclusion is that we will be getting our first look at Dota 2 during Gamescom.
There’s also a rumour going around that Valve will be launching Dota 2 using a free-to-play model. There is evidence of Valve’s vigourous adoption of the micro-transaction revenue stream as they recently launched support for free-to-play games and micro-transactions on Steam, and of course, shifted Team Fortress 2 to a free-to-play model. Hopefully such rumours will be confirmed or laid to rest at Gamescom.
About Dota 2
Dota 2 is shaping up to be a remake of the original DotA. The entire 100+ character roster from DotA will be brought to Dota 2, and gameplay is said to remain largely unchanged.
The game is being developed using Valve’s Source Engine and we can therefore anticipate all the graphical wonderment it is capable of. True cloth simulation and an improved global lighting engine have been specifically mentioned. Interface enhancements will add to the game, such as voice chat and Steam community integration.
There will not be a single player campaign, but there will be AI bots, in-game rewards and a new coaching system. Experienced players will be able to spectate and coach novices, and will even be able to earn in-game rewards for being highly rated by students. Coaches will be able to give tips in-game via voice chat.
Dota 2 has roots in Blizzard’s StarCraft custom game Aeon of Strife. Based on that concept, WarCraft III custom map Defense of the Ancients (DotA) went on to become one of the most dominant and popular free and officially unsupported mod maps ever created. It could even be credited with carving a new niche sub-genre within the RTS sphere.
Although not supported officially, there was and still is a lot of top-grade unofficial support and development for DotA. Steve “Pendragon” Mescon and Steve “Guinsoo” Feak were two of the original DotA-Allstars developers, and they have since moved on to form Riot Games, known for its DotA inspired game League of Legends.
Abdul ‘IceFrog’ Ismail took over most of the development responsibilities of DotA in 2005, and he continues his work on the map to this day. Under his tenure many new features, heroes and gameplay mechanics, fixes and tweaks have been introduced.
Ismail was rumoured to have been hired by Valve way back in 2009; his position with the company only became official when Dota 2 was announced in October 2010. Valve’s project lead Erik Johnson heaped praise on Ismail saying “IceFrog is one of the smartest designers we’ve ever met. He’s made so many good decisions over the years in building the product. He virtually never makes a decision that doesn’t have some reasoning behind it and a way to pick apart the logic behind it.”
Valve’s drive to create Dota 2 wasn’t without controversy though, most notably because they filed to trademark ‘Dota’. Community representatives and even a few Blizzard employees weighed in saying that the name should remain the property of the gaming community and not owned by a corporation.
Although the game was birthed as a WarCraft III custom map, it seems Blizzard is okay with Valve’s move because the two companies are generally amicable toward one another. Blizzard appears to have learnt a lesson here however, and their control over custom maps developed for StarCraft II is far tighter.
Blizzard is busy with their own version of StarCraft Dota which will feature an array of characters from all of Blizzard’s popular titles. There is currently no release window in sight for StarCraft Dota. With Blizzard’s own rendition on the way, Valve’s Dota 2 pegged for release by the end of 2011, currently available League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth, and a stalwart original DotA community, competition in the Aeon of Strife style gameplay arena is heating up.
Dota 2 at Gamescom: What you need to know << Comments and views
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