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?

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?

Heck yeah this is great.

DOTA 2 WTF

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

Great news.

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?

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

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

Ahh Basshunter, still entertaining after all these years.

first

EDIT: darn

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

Yaaay... Dota 2...

Dota 2's gotta be free to play right? Might try if it is.

So what that video is saying that if I play DotA then I'll be able to get into clubs? Umm...okay I guess.

half life 2

-ep.1

-ep.2

Left 4 Dead 2

Portal 2

Dota 2

Team fortress 2

Counter strike: Source (2)

God damn it Valve..... I starting to think you are doing this on purpose. Waiting for the next big engine release before counting to 3?

I hope so.

DOTA 2 will be F2P for sure but I'm afraid Valve will go the LoL way instead of staying true to the DotA hardcoreness(?). I'll keep an eye on it but I'm ready to be disappointed.

You left out the coolest part about this new download system. Apparently before whenever you would download an update that needed to change some aspect of say a 10 mb file, the way it works now you would have to download the entire 10 mb file again. In this new method they are going to use, you will only have to download the part of the file that changes. So it will cut the update sizes down considerably in some cases.

The max DL speed I tend to get on my internet is 350 kb/s,

I hate my internet.

Just started playing League of Legends last week, my first DotA style game. Loving it so far and really interested to see what Valve has to offer.

Love me some Basshunter.

after the video, all is clear

the video made nothing clear! other than they use ventrilo

@Tylea002 said:

The max DL speed I tend to get on my internet is 350 kb/s,

I hate my internet.

Same here... Australia sucks, especially in my area.

Am I the only one that's annoyed that the game is still called DotA 2?

@Seedofpower said:

half life 2

-ep.1

-ep.2

Left 4 Dead 2

Portal 2

Dota 2

Team fortress 2

Counter strike: Source (2)

God damn it Valve..... I starting to think you are doing this on purpose. Waiting for the next big engine release before counting to 3?

I hope so.

Sounds like March 3rd 2013, they'll start rolling out the 3rd installment of every game the 3rd of every month.

That would be pretty nuts.

I need to upgrade my internet soon or downloading games really fast won't matter if they use up 20% of my monthly cap. Also Basshunter is great live.

Just started playing League of Legends last week, my first DotA style game. Loving it so far and really interested to see what Valve has to offer.

While yes DOTA 2 is nice, I would like to see some HL3 plz!

Hopefully part of this new system will enable people to pick their DLC to download. While I appreciate the rapid addition of DLC to the system when the need was made clear to support it, there is no ability to pick what you download. Maybe the DLC changes something in the game and you want to experience it vanilla, maybe you just want a faster download as you'e only going to be on a PC for a few hours (or are running out of HDD space). From what I can figure out there is no way of telling Steam to not download everything when you ask it to install the game (you can tell it to not update and so stop both patches and DLC from being downloaded but then you block patches and have to have done an initial download before buying the DLC).

To take the worst example of this I've experience, I have Frozen Synapse and the soundtrack DLC. To download the 200MB of FS I am forced to also download my purchased DLC with it, that comes with mp3s, FLACs, and even wavs. All 1GB of them. Literally! When logging into my account on a new PC for a quick game of something I have to grab a 1.2GB block and wait for it to all download before playing my 200MB game. I could really do with the ability to tell it to only download the core game.

wow wait, Steam is already crazy fast!

I really hope Dota 2 comes out and is fantastic and kicks the ass off of every other game in the sub-genre, it could probably get me into those games. 

Wait could this be whats causing my log in problems, cause I've been locked out of my account since yesterday, and when I try to get back in Steam says my account isn't there. That despite the fact that my steam profile page is still perfectly intact.

HUR KAN BASSHUNTER - DOTA "INTE VISAS I MITT LAND"!?

By soon, Valve means 2013.

About time Steam did some squats.

@crusader8463: That's awesome. It'll avoid issues like the witcher 2 update problem.

Basshunter's DoTA is my summer jam, yo!

I am glad they are doing this. I don't have the fastest ISP so downloading on Steam can be a chore sometimes.

DOTA 2 get hype?

Nice water elemental.

@Sjupp said:

HUR KAN BASSHUNTER - DOTA "INTE VISAS I MITT LAND"!?

StrongVPN.com är din vän. :p

@Chris2KLee said:

Just started playing League of Legends last week, my first DotA style game. Loving it so far and really interested to see what Valve has to offer.

how are you finding the general community, I've always been interested in these games but my understanding is that they arent very understanding of new players.

@NDN_Shadow said:

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

Don't get your hopes to high dude.. Icefraud is behind this .. ughh.

Nice water elemental.

I need a bigger drive for my desktop! Yesterdays raptor drives feel so stupid with todays ssd:s

first

EDIT: darn

The max DL speed I tend to get on my internet is 350 kb/s,

I hate my internet.

You left out the coolest part about this new download system. Apparently before whenever you would download an update that needed to change some aspect of say a 10 mb file, the way it works now you would have to download the entire 10 mb file again. In this new method they are going to use, you will only have to download the part of the file that changes. So it will cut the update sizes down considerably in some cases.