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Valve Upgrading Steam's Backend, Teases Dota 2 'Soon'

What 'soon' means to Valve, however, remains to be seen.

Artwork from the game is among the small pile of details we know about Valve's plan for Dota 2.
Artwork from the game is among the small pile of details we know about Valve's plan for Dota 2.

Downloading a game as big as The Witcher 2--13.9 GB!--is going to take longer than a lunch break. Valve's hoping to improve the overall speed of Steam with a tweaked backend, which the company detailed in a blog post that goes into the nitty gritty tech details behind it.

In summary: downloading games and other content off Steam is going to get faster. HD trailers featured on Steam are already piping through the new content delivery system, with the first major stress test being Dota 2.

That game's been announced for a while now, but Valve hasn't shown what it looks like or said when we'll play it.

"Over time, more and more of the content on Steam will be delivered using this new system," said the company. "Soon, Dota 2 will be delivered using it."

Dota (Defense of the Ancients) is a strategy game that first showed up as a mod for WarCraft III, where players control incredibly powerful singular units. The mod spawned a genre unto itself, with games like League of Legends taking the concept, running with it--and monetizing it, to boot.

Rumors have pointed to an official unveiling of Dota 2 at next months' Gamescom event in Germany.

If you're still confused about Dota, just watch this. Makes sense, right?

Patrick Klepek on Google+