Erik Johnson, the DOTA 2 project lead, has confirmed to joinDOTA that they are currently working on the implementation of LAN mode.
“There are some systems that LAN mode requires that we haven’t finished yet, mainly because we’ve been focused on matchmaking. We know how important this feature is for the community,” he clarifies.
This move is likely to be welcomed in China and South East Asia, where LAN centres and competitions appeal to a very significant and passionate gaming community.
Johnson has reiterated that it is their ambition to get as many localised servers out into the world as possible so that players can enjoy sub-100ms latency.
Modders can also smile. When asked about the mods, custom maps and mini-games often enjoyed by players in Warcraft 3, Johnson added that Valve has a long history of supporting the mod community and that Valve would like to continue that support with DOTA 2.
One day when i have my grand kid on my knee, i’m going to tell him of the days where we had offline LAN… and what beautiful days they were, then i’m going to show him the movie “2012” and explain in graphic details how his awesome grandfather survived it ;P