Dota 2 will be free to play
By
Laura Parker, Associate Editor
Valve confirms online battle game will be free; introduces Dota Store and Steam Workshop Integration.
Valve today confirmed Dota 2 will be free to play.
The publisher also announced the inclusion of an in-game store, where players will be able to buy gear and customise heroes--however, all items in the store will be cosmetic and will not affect gameplay.
All heroes will be available free of charge, with Valve writing on the Dota 2 blog: "We believe restricting player access to heroes could be destructive to game design, so it's something we plan to avoid."
Upon opening, the Dota Store will offer items created by Valve and members of the community that may be used immediately and carried over after the public launch of the game. Early access to the game will not be required to purchase items before launch.
However, those wishing to get into the game now can do so by purchasing the Dota 2 Early Access Bundle of items through Steam. The bundle costs $39.99 and includes some items that can be traded.
Valve also announced that Dota 2 is now part of the Steam Workshop, a place for fan-created content that can be voted on by other players and translated to the official game by the Valve development team (with the original creator of the content receiving a slice of the sales from the in-game store).
Valve said over $3.5 million dollars was paid out to Team Fortress 2 fans whose creations became part of the game in the first year.
"The opening of the Dota Store is a big part of our final push to launch," Dota 2 design lead IceFrog said in a statement. "By making the game free to play, we hope to give gamers the ability to decide how--and how much--they want to invest in the game."
Dota 2 is scheduled for PC and Mac release this year. The game combines action and real-time strategy elements in multiplayer matches that pit teams of player-controlled heroes against one another. The game will include integrated voice chat and computer-controlled characters that will take over for players who disconnect during play sessions, as well as a coaching system, where veteran players will have the chance to tutor newcomers.
By
Laura Parker, Associate Editor
Laura Parker is the Associate Editor of GameSpot Australia. She loves adventure games, sparkly stuff, Trivial Pursuit, cake, Master Chief, earthworms, and rhetorical questions. She once stole a sandwich from Peter Molyneux.
179 comments
I think it should be a paid game, just buy a key and play... for when hacks begin to appear, and they surely will, having to buy another account to play would certainly make hackers think twice before using their shitty programs...
Excellent game at an unbeatable price. Couldn't ask for more, and wouldn't expect less from Valve.
I don't like that they did this. I've had the beta for more than 6 months now and I would have gladly paid $50-60 for the game even though its pretty much Warcraft 3 dota with better graphics and refined mechanics. But I trust Valve when they say they won't go the pay-to-win hero route and as long as they keep the matchmaking system we can stay clear out of the noob bracket of f2p and league of legend players.
Played lot of LoL lately. Good to hear this is free to play as well. I get to enjoy both so no complaints from me.
1 Like I don't know why there are people who will pay substantial amounts of money for hats and clothing, but more power to them if it lets people who don't care about such things play for free.
It's like the folks who don't use Adblock. They're supporting the product for the rest of us!
4 Like VALVE does smart move, the money they gonna get from selling item/hats/armor (or whatever the hero can wear ingame) definitely is much more than the game price itself.
now Blizzard, its your turn with Blizzard_All_stars
2 Like @minhlehong blizzard is nowhere near the level valve is at. they were the best once but got rid of the talent
@minhlehong I dont think blizzard allstars will be any good, Blizz charges their games too much, not to mention that Blizzard makes games that are too flashy in graphics.
@KermitBeef unless youre talking about WoWs art style blizzard games have average graphics with little flash
3 Like Well, I have been playing DotA, LoL, Demigod(horrible), HoN and now im playing DotA2. And this is what I can say about LoL system and DotA system. AP/AD and Rune system changes everything since it increases the damage of your skills, heck i can jungle with Sona and Brand with the right runes, everyone has Summoner Spells that let you escape every fight, and it doesnt make sense at all. With this you can pick out other champions and thus Profit. but in DotA and DotA 2, Stats and Hero picks changes everything, not everyone can jungle, you cant have 100% critical like in LoL, not everyone can blink out of fights unless you buy an item that lets you do it, and requires alot of macro depending on the hero you chose, given this you MUST NOT hinder the access of the other heroes. Some heroes are very powerful if their counterpart is out.I've been on HoN since beta, It had potential, but when they applied the rules just like LoL. Im not even gonna touch it anymore.Given this, there is no way that they can add items to be purchased at shop that will affect your hero in dota, it will affect the game too much, its balanced as it is. Cosmetics are the only thing left for them, and its good that Valve is sticking to it.
surely they can charge something for it though? why would they even do that? will it run on my 6 years old imac?
havent played the game yet.. i hope comes out really awesome.. i like LoL but it lacks so many features and its not too mature.. still very VERY addictive game.. lets see what dota 2 has to offer
trying to sustain a game with cosmetic accessories only ? strong words guys
sooner or later we will see pay-to-win heroes and trinkets that negate all damage for 20 seconds
@Talavaj I wouldn't doubt Valve's ability to sustain a game with cosmetics only. I don't know if you heard, but TF2 made a lot more money once it went free to play than it ever did as a purchased game. All because of hats.
@Talavaj Valve and IceFrog have "some" experience unlike Riot and they know what they're doing.
1 Like @Talavaj LoL seems to pull it off just fine and lacks those pay-to-win heroes and trinkets you speak of. The worst they have is double ip (unlocking crap points) and xp (useless after level 30).
I never thought of LoL close to balance, some characters lacked any CC, then you got some that have more then enough and bring as much pain... as much as the ones without. I would also assume thats probably the reason some characters would take 10x longer to unlock then others. "Longer, not cost more because its newer"LoL is lol :PDOTA is just going to follow it like every thing else that copys that WC3 Dota game.
LoL is on version what... 1.0.1? Nothing but bug fixes instead of any sort of balancing?.I've seen some characters annilhilate MULTI characters with them having no escape.(thats with a single move!)
2 Like @Master_Vexov You must be new to LoL I've been playing off and on since beta and i can tell you they are constantly balancing new and old champions. To the point of changing a champs abilitys completely. Yes it may seem like some are better than others but its more of a snowball effect, the more gold the faster you make it the better you will be. Any champ can look overpowered, some take more skill than others. If it wasn't a close to balanced game then why would MLG pick them up?
"We believe restricting player access to heroes could be destructive to game design, so it's something we plan to avoid."
Bull. It's deliberately doing something different than your competition and claiming that your way is better by design. Is it actually better by design? Who knows. I haven't played Dota 2 so I can't say... technically it indicates bad design because it's insinuating that this will make up for bad character balancing issues since everyone will have access to the broken characters.
In League of Legends you don't start owning any characters. Every week or so they rotate free characters so it's not like you'll be stuck with no characters to play as, but the characters they give you are always balanced so you can fill one of any number of roles on a team. Balance in LoL isn't perfect but unless you're in ultra-high level competitive play it doesn't matter that much in most cases. Many of the characters are dirt cheap too(in-game currency cheap that is).
To be honest I find it fun to not buy any characters at all and just use the free ones in LoL... you're forced to switch your game up regularly and learn new characters that way. Valve will be cheating themselves out of a lot of money by going this route in the name of good will towards gamers... which isn't exactly a bad thing by the way but there's something to be said for replay value when you have characters to unlock along the way.
YEHEY! integrated voice chat and computer controlled characters when you quit a team battle? *ME GUSTA*
3 Like Anything else would have been stupid, since the genre is completely dominated by the free 2 play model. Also, considering the (yet) small difference between Dota 2 and the current map, I don't think a lot of people would have spent their money on it initially. I welcome the idea of not having to unlock heroes, but I fear this may make a huge difference in the profitability of their shop. I've always figured Riot earned a lot that way.
2 Like I hope they can offer a feature like an offline or single player mode for Dota2, plus LAN can also be a welcome addition, where some of us don't have the feature of having connected to the internet all the time. Also that way the game can be approachable for new players.
@MattPS2X Agreed. I'd love a game like this to have a viable single-player mode, with solid AI.
5 Like Awesome. Normally skeptical with F2P games, but Valve rocks. They are probably my favorite developer since Blizz went corporate. Ironic how DoTA is now Valve... Love it.
Yes now i can play less Dota-style games like League of Legends and HON (heroes of Newearth);although, i rather of had it been a game with a msrp and you unlock customization by actually playing the game.
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