DoTA 2 Ditches Beta Keys

[Steven Bogos]

DoTA 2 Ditches Beta Keys

Valve has abolished the beta key system and DoTA 2 can now be accessed without a beta key.

Though the thousands of players and million dollar championships [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/119425-DotA-2-Champions-Win-1-Million] may suggest otherwise, DoTA 2 has actually been in a "semi-open beta" the whole time. Valve has abolished the beta key system and DoTA 2 can now be accessed without a beta key, making it completely free-to-play.

Up until now, players had to have a beta key to play the game. Nevermind the fact that Valve gave out the beta keys like candy (i think I have about 30 of them in my Steam inventory) and you could buy them on the Steam marketplace for a pittance, you still needed a beta key and thus the game was not entirely "free-to-play".

It looks as though new accounts from all parts of the world have free access to the game, with the sole exception of China. Chinese gamers can receive free access to Perfect World server (the official Chinese host for DoTA 2) if they clocked in more than 800 hours of the game on the normal Steam servers.

The only noticeable change that accompanies these new "non-beta" accounts is the addition of the game's trailer before the game fully loads.

Valve previously stated it planned to officially release the game before this summer. The abolition of the beta key does not necessarily mark the game's official release, as its steam store page still marks it as an "Early Access Game."

While most fans are happy the game is seeing an official release, some are disappointed at Valve's decision to not implement LAN functions before the release.

Source: Gosugamers [http://www.gosugamers.net/dota2/news/24543-dota-2-is-now-accessible-without-beta-keys]

Permalink

 

[WashAran]

Great, and how am I now suppose to get rid of the 20 that are still laying around in my inventory?

 

[Easton Dark]

Oh cool. I somehow never came into contact with the beta keys so I can finally try it out. Hopefully I do well starting out and not get frustrated and quit :l

 

[Halceon]

Ahhhh, excellent! Now, how do I dump the keys that Valve has been spamming me with?

 

[KeyMaster45]

I know that DOTA was originally a Warcraft 3 mod, but couldn't have Valve at least put out the effort to not make all the characters and units in the video instantly be recognizable as knock offs of the original units and heroes?

 

[NerfedFalcon]

(Got screwed by my Internet. Better post below.)

 

[NerfedFalcon]

I know that DOTA was originally a Warcraft 3 mod, but couldn't have Valve at least put out the effort to not make all the characters and units in the video instantly be recognizable as knock offs of the original units and heroes?

The whole point is that it's a graphical upgrade of Defense of the Ancients that also gets rid of some of the limitations of the Warcraft 3 engine, such as being able to use QWER(DF) as your ability keys. They're not knockoffs - they're exactly the same, except where copyright won't allow it. That's the point.

Oh cool. I somehow never came into contact with the beta keys so I can finally try it out. Hopefully I do well starting out and not get frustrated and quit :l

There's a lot of things that Dota has to teach you, but my pro tip is find four other people to play with and don't go it alone until you've learned a few things. You'll feel a lot better about losing if you know the people playing with you and that they won't hate you for your failures. And there will be failures. Think you know what it's like to suck at a video game? Welcome to the ninth circle.

 

[Combustion Kevin]

I know that DOTA was originally a Warcraft 3 mod, but couldn't have Valve at least put out the effort to not make all the characters and units in the video instantly be recognizable as knock offs of the original units and heroes?

The design team actually made it a point that all hero's kept the same silhouette as they did in the original mod so that they'd be instantly recognisable, and just like in Team fortress 2, each hero has a unique silhouette and color pallate to identify them, I actually quite admire it.

 

[Aeshi]

They're not knockoffs - they're exactly the same, except where copyright won't allow it. That's the point.

"exactly the same, except where copyright won't allow it" is the very definition of 'knockoff', To call DOTA2 a 'update' of DOTA would be like saying that that Chinese knock-off of LoL that made the news here a while back was an 'update' of LoL

Valve didn't seem to care about making sure TF2 [http://cdn3.steampowered.com/v/gfx/apps/440/0000002574.1920x1080.jpg?t=1371246222] remained "exactly the same" as the original Team Fortress [http://cdn3.steampowered.com/v/gfx/apps/20/0000000168.1920x1080.jpg?t=1364932044] in terms of gameplay OR graphics, so I fail to see why they decided to change their tune here other than sheer laziness (and possibly because now they're popular enough to get away with it)

 

[Imre Csete]

You can permanently delete the keys from your Steam Inventory.

 

[hazabaza1]

I've still got 23 in my inventory! I need to sell them quick before people realize!

 

[NerfedFalcon]

"exactly the same, except where copyright won't allow it" is the very definition of 'knockoff', To call DOTA2 a 'update' of DOTA would be like saying that that Chinese knock-off of LoL that made the news here a while back was an 'update' of LoL

Valve didn't seem to care about making sure TF2 [http://cdn3.steampowered.com/v/gfx/apps/440/0000002574.1920x1080.jpg?t=1371246222] remained "exactly the same" as the original Team Fortress [http://cdn3.steampowered.com/v/gfx/apps/20/0000000168.1920x1080.jpg?t=1364932044] in terms of gameplay OR graphics, so I fail to see why they decided to change their tune here other than sheer laziness (and possibly because now they're popular enough to get away with it)

If you want to point the knockoff stick anywhere, point it at something that's not endorsed by Icefrog, AKA the guy in charge of Dota. Perhaps I should have been clearer on the copyright point. I meant Blizzard's copyrights, not Icefrog's. And it's not like DotA: Allstars was the most original game ever to begin with.

Did that Chinese game improve on LoL's engine? The consensus is that you can't improve on Dota's strategic depth. What they could fix was the engine limitations - Warcraft 3 is a ten-year-old game, and besides, there have been a few improvements on accessibility, such as having all your ability keys in the same place for every hero. That's what Dota 2 is about.

If you have a problem with that, nothing is stopping you from just continuing to play the original. And don't say 'lack of population' because we both know that's bull.

 

[saxxon.de]

Plus, the game isn't officially released yet. Maybe they started out by saying "first we'll port the original game to the source engine, improve on the community aspects (which they did and still do) and after that's done, we can think about integrating new heroes / items / whatever".

There's also a fine tuned balancing in place which is still overhauled from time to time like Valve did with the last big patch. Before you implement new heroes you better make sure the already existing ones are finished. That's a well known advice to everyone writing code. First you make sure the stuff you already have in there works. Then you can add new stuff. That way you can make sure the new features integrate well and don't screw everything up at once.

See TF2 for reference. First they build Vanilla TF2 and made sure it played perfectly with a balancing as good as possible. Then they released updates, each after weeks of playtesting. Then they evened out the little problems that occured in the game when a broader player base got their hands on it and gave their feedback. Only then they started working on new features. Even today with all the community stuff, everything still gets tested by Valve before it goes into the actual game.

It's totally possible that there will be new game modes, heroes and other stuff in Dota 2 a couple of years from now.

 

[Alcaste]

Hmmm. Interesting. Weren't people using the keys as a form of currency for item trading? What will become of that?

 

[scienceguy8]

Question: I can play a mean Gunner in Super Monday Night Combat, a Third Person Shooter DotA/LoL-esque game. You think I'd be any good at this? Any suggestions?

 

[TheRussian]

Hmmm. Interesting. Weren't people using the keys as a form of currency for item trading? What will become of that?

Nope, they weren't. Those keys are pretty much worthless so now they are even more worthless

That's not exactly true. When Dota 2 first implemented beta pass keys, I got my hands on one and managed to trade it for a few good TF2 hats. They have only been worthless relatively recently.

On the subject, good. Even though I personally don't think Dota 2 is any fun, it's good to have a F2P game actually be F2P.

 

[Alcaste]

Hmmm. Interesting. Weren't people using the keys as a form of currency for item trading? What will become of that?

Nope, they weren't. Those keys are pretty much worthless so now they are even more worthless

Strange. I was under the impression that they were used as currency for trading within the game - Like for random drops and stuff. There are price listings for it and everything, but maybe I'm mistaken. I only did it a couple of times.