DOTA 2 To Be Overhauled

Valve may not have a presence at E3 this year (yet again) but that hasn’t stopped them from making their own announcements this week. The publisher has announced it’s going to revamp its massively popular Moba game DOTA 2 (short for Defence Of The Ancients).

The update, which is being called DOTA 2 Reborn, will feature a new user interface, game engine, and custom games. The open beta for the update will be rolled out in stages, starting this week with a new interface for the game’s launcher.

“Everything in the dashboard has been completely redesigned utilizing a new UI framework, and the engine that powers the game has been fully replaced,” Valve said.

After the new interface has been rolled out, Valve will move on to implementing Custom Games. Exactly what that is remains to be seen, but Valve promised more information will come next week. After that we’ll see the new game engine rolled out. There aren’t any details on that either, but many are speculating it will be Source 2, the rumoured successor to Valve’s Source engine. While there’s nothing in particular wrong with the Source engine, it’s getting a little old. More than ten years, to be precise.

The interface changes include tweaks to the Hero Browser, updating friend invites, changing party voice chat, better party management, and updates to friends’ miniprofiles. For now, Valve isn’t touching the in-game HUD. “Throughout the beta we’ll be releasing frequent updates in order to fix bugs and make changes based on the feedback you provide. As you browse around in the new client, you’ll notice a few things that aren’t fully functional yet. Additionally, our focus has been on the dashboard so you’ll find the in-game HUD currently looks the same.”

There will also be changes to the way the new players are introduced to the game, with the aim of making picking up the basic mechanics easier. “Many of you told us that while our existing tutorials were good for teaching Dota’s mechanics, they weren’t great at helping new players understand why Dota is awesome. So we’ve built a new system of Guided Bot Matches, which allows a new player to jump right in and experience a full Dota game, all the while receiving guidance from an AI director.” There will be new tutorials to help players wrap their heads around the simplified mechanics and how matches work.