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

Faster Steam is awesome. DotA 2 should be awesome. All is good and right with the universe, if only for a fleeting moment.

I think the soon comment is a little unfounded as Valve won't mention something unless thy are ready. Why do you think they haven't said about word about HL3 or shown anything relevant for it?

Not long at all!
 

@Seedofpower: CSS is actually Counterstrike 3.

This is definitely good news since though I get 20mbps speeds, I rarely ever get even half that when downloading from Steam (depending on how busy the servers are of course)

I now understand DOTA so much better. Thanks Patrick!

@Jokers_Wild: If it is going to be as close to the original DoTA as possible why even bother calling it DoTA 2? Not that I'm saying that you are wrong but it just seems weird to make as close to the exact same game and then slap a number on the end of it. Unless you are Activision of course.

@buckybit said:

I am disappointed. Valve going "Port 80 exclusive" is a blow to ALL the poor folks who have low bandwidth and it throttles their already bad Internet access during downloads.

Instead of going peer-to-peer and embracing torrent-technology in a LEGAL way, like many others are doing (Blizzard, GNU/Linux, legal TV/Movie-streaming - yes, there is something like that!), VALVE decided to go the other way. Partner ISP's will like that. If you have a close-by server, even you might like that - future IPv6 last-mile throttling to come...

As if DRM (online registration) isn't bad enough, high speed Internet is now a MUST for modern PC Games. I don't like this at all.

Poor people (who cannot afford high-speed-Internet connections), people in poor countries (who have no high-speed available), and people in rural areas would profit from P2P-technology?

Do you even know how the internet works? Putting steam on a torrent platform would only make it worse for low bandwidth connections.

@McDunkin:

Wait, you're saying that if someone's going to make a sequel to a game that doesn't do anything crazy different from the original and remains a continuation to a franchise they shouldn't put a 2 on the end? Should they add something confusing and misleading like "Storm of Mythos!" or "Crown of Gandofan!" to the end of the name instead?

@UnrealDP: DoTA has been a Warcraft 3 mod for what almost SEVEN years now? League of Legends is also insanely popular and already free to play as well and follows the exact same DoTA formula. If you think Valve is going to put out a game in an existing genre that doesn't completely raise the bar on that specific genre's game-play then you obviously don't know Valve very well. If Valve puts out DoTA 2 and it's the same as the first with a few UI tweaks and a new engine then it will be an absolute first for them. They never even made the first game so the fact that there is a big fat '2' on the end should mean that there is definitely something more to it than it being just another DoTA game.

@McDunkin:

I also think Valve will do amazing things to the game and make it a huge amazing game, but that doesn't change the fact that at the core its still DOTA. DOTA is still a huge brand to have as it is the original, it created the genre and is beloved by millions, so i guess valve should just ditch the huge brand name and start from scratch with a more generic name like "Heroes of Something!" or "Defense Blah!". It is more than just another DOTA game, but that doesn't change the fact that it still is a DOTA game, its a sequel that will improve on the franchise, so they shouldn't just ditch the brand and confuse us with generic terms added to the name that mean nothing!

Steam really does need faster download times so this is good.