http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cil3U32zkbs&feature=related

ISaid Good Day Sir!September 23, 2011-IceFrog

We've been a bit quiet lately. As always, we learn a lot whenever we put something out and get feedback from you all. Showing Dota 2 to the world at The International gave us a lot of feedback to chew through, and the many recent forum threads talking about the information leaking out of the beta has added to the pile. After a bunch of thinking, we've decided to change our plans a little.

Our original plan was to spend the next year or so in beta, adding new features and slowly growing the number of heroes until we reached a level of parity with Dota 1, at which point we'd release Dota 2 to the world. But the feedback we're seeing everywhere is that people just want to play it, even though there's still a ton of heroes yet to be implemented. We've also seen that the folks who are already in the beta are chomping at the bit to show everyone else some of the fun games they've had. So we decided our original plan was dumb.

Welcome to the new plan: We're going to take the current version of Dota 2, which has The International set of heroes, and get it out there as fast as we can. We've still got some work to do in a couple of areas, so we'll be keeping it invite-only for a (hopefully short) period of time. But there'll be no restrictions on what players can do with it – they can release screenshots, make movies, shoutcast matches, write guides, publicly make fun of our HUD, or anything else their hearts desire. While they do that, we'll be shipping regular updates with more heroes, new features we've been working on, and improvements on the existing content as we get more and more feedback.

What does this mean for you? It means it's even more important that youget on the listthat we'll be inviting from. If you're talented, you could take a shot at winning an invite in theGosuGamers competitionor thePlaydota contest. Once you've got your hands on the game, feel free to talk about it however you'd like – we're excited to see what you'll produce.

In the meantime, we're going to be ratcheting this blog up a little too, so you can expect some more regular posting from us.

Get into the beta for dota 2 simply by going to the website www.dota2.com you need to sign in through steam

I think the beta starts early october or in november, knowing valve it will probably be in november since they delay everything possible.

Interesting images have been leaked from the beta:

Hopefully they add a region for the asia/pacific area because i know there are many people that play from australia and new zealand, me being one of them lol..

liking the new interface and the leveling system. ROFL prestige...someones coping mw haha.

Absolutly loving the new character models. i know some people who are die hard fans hate it...but i think its in the best interests of the game to dramatically change the appearence and well i think blizzard would have something to say if they didnt change the appearence, plus, they look AWESOME! btw Chen ftw.

Roshan looks absolutely awesome, they i.e valve/icefrog have put considerable amounts of effort to make him look like a beast.. in the first dota roshy was somewhat fail.. nice work in the graphics department also.

so if you havn't signed up to the beta...DO SO ALREADY what are you waiting for...

The diablo 3 beta is going well, currently enjoying the game as a wizard. should be awesome upon release. until then beta the hell out of this game!

After playing the original dota for so many years, i cantcontemplatemy life without it. When i saw what dota 2 had to offer at the recent tournament my jaw just dropped. Everything that dota had to offer was in the second game and more! better graphics, gameplay ran smoothly, and the introduction of 'dropout' just makes things juicier. AHHH just thinking about it makes my mouth water, next year will be the death of me.