AUTHOR TOPIC: GABE TALKS ABOUT DOTA 2 BETA, RELEASE DATE IN 2012 AND PRICING

In an interview with eurogamer.net Gabe Newell has revealed a few big pointers about DotA 2 that we have been discussing since it's announcement.

DotA 2 invitation-only beta to start soon after GamesCom
Valve plans to launch an invitation beta after the Gamescom tournament ends. After that a public beta will launch.

DotA 2 launch pushed back to 2012!
Talking about how the beta will work, Gabe said:

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We'll just go into progressively wider and wider distribution. I don't think it'll be shipped until next year. But then, with a game like this, you just keep shipping. You add new heroes. You try out new game modes. You are constantly tweaking item and hero balance. It's very much an ongoing thing.

Game polish is priority - no pricing decided yet
Gabe stressed that Valve is really looking at polishing the game and making it something the community really accepts and enjoys before they start thinking of setting a pricing model for the game.

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Could Dota 2 end up going free-to-play, like Team Fortress 2? "We don't know. We don't have plans yet," Newell said. "The problem isn't to figure out what your monetisation strategy is. If you have something with a super careful monetisation strategy and it sucks, it doesn't matter.

"The most important thing is to do something that resonates well with the existing Dota players and creates a vehicle for new players to join into the community. That's the hard problem. That's the interesting one to solve."

Community and beta tester feedback is important
For those unsure about the current user interface / icons and general feel of the game, Valve is all about community feedback!

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IceFrog has a bunch of testers he's worked with as long as he's been doing development. The first thing we've been working with is addressing their concerns. We've been through four or five different versions of the user interface, getting it to the point where we've addressed the feedback we've got from those guys.

For us now, this tournament is a really good step. A bunch of the features we're building in the design of Dota 2 related to being able to put on a tournament like this. There's a bunch of stat stuff. There's a bunch of website development, support for simultaneous, four-language broadcasting. This was the next step.