Dota 2 Not Coming Out Until 2012?

According to Valve boss Gabe Newell,Defense of the Ancients 2 probably isn't going to come out until 2012. Ugh.

Valve is planning to launch a closed-beta after the one million dollar Dota 2 tournament from Gamescom 2011 ends, and after that a public beta will launch. Once the public beta is out, then Valve will start considering how to monetize the fantasy strategy game. You can sign up for the beta on the Dota 2 website.

"With a game like this, you just keep shipping. You add new heroes. You try out new game modes," said Newell. "You are constantly tweaking items and hero balance. It's very much an ongoing thing."

• VIDEO: Dota 2 Gamescom 2011 Trailer

He didn't mention whether or not Dota 2 will be a free to play game like League of Legends or Heroes of Newerth, only that they haven't even begun to consider how they're going to make money on it. "If you have something with a super careful monetization strategy and it sucks, it doesn't matter. He's right, and that's why Valve got the help of the IceFrog, one of the original developers on Dota Allstars for WarCraft 3 mod to help them create an amazing product.

At GamesCom 2011, Dota 2 is being shown to the public for the first time. For long time Dota fans, the game seems very promising and true to the original with a lot of little improvements. "For us now, this tournament is a really good step. A bunch of the features we're building in the design of Dota 2 related to being able to put on a tournament like this. There's a bunch of stat stuff. There's a bunch of website development, support for simultaneous, four-language broadcasting.

"The most important thing is to do something that resonates well with the existing Dota players and creates a vehicle for new players to join into the community. That's the hard problem. That's the interesting one to solve."

And there you have it. Be sure to check back for the continuation of the Dota 2 tournament from GamesCom at 1 AM PDT, it's getting intense!
Source: Eurogamer