While Valve has, for quite some time, been known as a developer that knows they are in possession of a very treasured franchise, but keeps it from the public, they are actually changing their tune with DotA 2. Initially, Valve’s plan was to, while the game remained in beta, continue to introduce the iconic heroes into the world until the game was on par with the first DotA in terms of the amount of heroes available, but they thought that plan was "dumb."
Instead, Valve realized that those gamers who are participating in the beta want nothing more than to be able to show their friends the matches they’ve experience, and, therefore, are going to give them that. That isn’t to say that Valve will stop rolling out new heroes for DotA 2, or that they feel the game is done, they just want to give diehard fans the chance to play the game and talk about it.
With that should come a flurry of screenshots, gameplay videos, and the like, that allow those who aren’t in on the beta to finally see what Valve has been cooking up with IceFrog. So that vague “when it’s ready” release date that Valve dropped a while back turned out to be a form of misdirection. What they really meant was push us enough, and we’ll give it to you.
Now unfortunately the same can’t be said about Half-Life 2: Episode 3, which Valve continues to tease gamers about but refuses to confirm or deny. Yes, this speedy release of DotA 2 reminds gamers that Valve is a friendly developer, but it doesn’t change the fact they like to toy with our emotions.
But, let’s also not get ahead of ourselves, DotA 2, despite this announcement, still does not have a release date, so I wouldn’t be expecting to see it anytime soon. More likely the need to get it out sooner or later will only prompt an early 2012 release rather than a late one.
How do you feel about this decision to speed up the release of DotA 2? Do you think that Valve should have waited until all the heroes and features were in place, or would you rather just get your hands on the game already?
Source: DotA Blog