http://www.dota2.com/reborn/part1/

Valve has unveiled their first in a three-part infodump for what they are calling "Dota 2 Reborn". It's a huge overhaul, encompassing a new interface, new engine, Custom Games, new viewing tools and streaming integration, enhanced tutorials, revamped hero customisation and testing facilities, overhauled party and chat systems, and a whole lot more.

I expect most people in the Dota 2 community are likely to have heard word of this (it's a pretty active fanbase, after all) but I thought I'd post it here for any people who haven't seen it, and for more general discussion on the changes. It all looks quite exciting to me, and I'm looking forward to seeing whatever they have left to announce. I'm particularly impressed with the hero testing, which lets you rapidly jump into any hero and fiddle with levels and items without requiring text commands. It'll also allow you to try out cosmetics for yourself in a game-like environment, which is a pretty neat feature.

What did you guys make of it? What features have you the most excited? What are you hoping to see from the remaining announcements? Just how much Daily Dota content can this be used as an excuse for? All these questions and more, right here.

The new interface looks neat. Looking forward to giving it a spin.

I wouldn't mind higher quality character models. Might be hard to do without breaking some of the older hats maybe.

More importantly I think it's worth a few weeks of actual daily dota!

I think the most important piece of information (for most folks) from this update is that the entire game is being ported over to Source 2. As far as I know, it's the first major use of Source 2, and the way Valve are hyping it up sounds pretty significant.

Apparently, it will scale quite well, even better than Source. They've gone on record to state that the game will run better, even with all the new bells and whistles, on older machines that struggled to run Dota previously. It also creates a framework that seems to be extremely customizable, inviting all kinds of mods and custom games to be developed.

Definitely an exciting time to be a fan of Dota, but I'm also really intrigued to see what Valve can do with Source 2.

Woooooo I'm going back to dota boys. Just when I thought I'm gonna quit it GabeN said nope

Just in time for this! Great. Been playing consistently for a couple weeks now and this sounds exciting even to me. Being able to quickly practice with new heroes is a godsend for newer players like myself!

Yeah, I've found the hero preview really fantastic especially. Being able to quickly jump in and mess with skills and such is fantastic - also I love the ability to test cosmetics out quickly.