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Dota 2 Coming Sooner Than Later
IceFrog explained on the Dota 2 blog that the team decided that the original plan to keep Dota 2 in a small, closed beta for another year as they added new heroes "was dumb." Valve's new plan – quickly get Dota 2 reasonably bug-free and playable without caveats, then open up the beta to a much larger crowd – sounds better to us, anyway.
IceFrog gave the immense "let us play the game already!" feedback from the million-dollar Gamescom tournament as the reasoning behind the decision.
The upcoming beta release will have the same heroes that were available at The International, and it will have no NDA associated with it. Get ready for a deluge of Dota 2 info from half the Internet when that happens, which IceFrog says will be "soon." He does work at Valve now, so take "soon" for what it is.
I'm as pumped as anyone to play Dota 2. The game looked great (if a little washed-out in its color palette) at Gamescom. It's unclear whether this early beta release will include any of the community features Valve has been hyping up for the game, like coaching and guides and in-game rewards for valuable contributions to the community, which is the element of Dota 2 I'm most interested in.
IceFrog didn't specify which platforms this announcement is for. Assuming the early beta is coming to Windows seems safe, but the status of the Mac version is unknown.
I do fear for the amount of trolls, griefers, and feeders that we'll be seeing in a relatively open beta. I get enough of those in League of Legends even with Tribunal punishments and persistent accounts.
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