Something went wrong. Try again later

Giant Bomb News

113 Comments

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+

113 Comments

Avatar image for boylie
boylie

321

Forum Posts

287

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 7

Edited By boylie
@TorMasturba not even CLOSE
Avatar image for phatseejay
PhatSeeJay

3331

Forum Posts

9727

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 5

User Lists: 17

Edited By PhatSeeJay

Yaaay... Dota 2...

Avatar image for aetheldod
Aetheldod

3914

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 2

Edited By Aetheldod

But ... but what about Half life 3??? (Sorry folks it was unavoidable someone was prone to ask :P ) So faster downloads for Steam? that is good , that means faster reasons to spend on more Steam sales .... I wonder who's wallet is going to last any longer

Avatar image for tormasturba
TorMasturba

1123

Forum Posts

36

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Edited By TorMasturba

first

EDIT: darn

Avatar image for vonocourt
Vonocourt

2197

Forum Posts

127

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 11

Edited By Vonocourt

Ahh Basshunter, still entertaining after all these years.

Avatar image for ndn_shadow
NDN_Shadow

161

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 2

Edited By NDN_Shadow

After getting into these DotA style games with LoL, I'm really looking forward to seeing it.

Avatar image for djjoejoe
DJJoeJoe

1433

Forum Posts

508

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 19

Edited By DJJoeJoe

I'm pretty excited about the changes to steam, I always love updates and this seems like a significant one.

Avatar image for rolyatkcinmai
Rolyatkcinmai

2763

Forum Posts

16308

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 5

Edited By Rolyatkcinmai

Sounds cool. Steam already downloads at a crazy fast pace for me though. I've seen 4MB/s before and who can really ask for more than that?

Avatar image for deactivated-5a00c029ab7c1
deactivated-5a00c029ab7c1

1777

Forum Posts

0

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 1

Great news.

Avatar image for 014
014

430

Forum Posts

106

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 11

User Lists: 7

Edited By 014

I just installed Saints Row 2 the other day from Steam. It was 12GB. That took a while even at 1.5MBps.

Avatar image for colt45
Colt45

91

Forum Posts

31

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 5

Edited By Colt45

DOTA 2 WTF

Avatar image for ht101
ht101

2157

Forum Posts

378

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 1

User Lists: 11

Edited By ht101

Heck yeah this is great.

Avatar image for patrickklepek
patrickklepek

6835

Forum Posts

1300

Wiki Points

0

Followers

Reviews: 0

User Lists: 0

Edited By patrickklepek
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?