Valve push up DotA 2's release

Valve are listening to fan demand and pushing forward the release of DotA 2 so that folks can get their hands on it as soon as possible, they've announced.

Writing on the official blog of the game, Valve's IceFrog confirmed that the plan has changed thanks to feedback from fans.

"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," he explained.

"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."

He goes on to reveal that while the game will remain in invite-only beta for a little while longer Valve won't be restricting what fans can do, allowing them to create screenshots, videos, live streams, guides or anything they like. It'll be a truly 'open' Beta - just in a different sense of the word.

DotA 2's launch date is currently unannounced, but it seems we can now expect more from both Valve and outside sources on the game going forward.

Thanks, D'toid.