The tenth anniversary of Dota 2's full release is coming up soon (yes, we're working on trivia for that event; no, we definitely won't make it to Steam's July 9th date). A decade is a long time, and while it is important to look back, even more important will be how we approach the next ten years. So we're taking this opportunity to share with you the long history of Dota updates. Let's talk about what we learned and how it will help our plans to make Dota an even better game over the next decade.
Past
Early Dota updates varied widely in form and scope, covering everything from new heroes to new cosmetic items, game modes, and client features. Despite the actual difference, all of these updates had one goal in mind: to keep existing Dota players happy and entertained, as well as attract new ones. Some were successful (2012's Season of Darkness) and some not so much (2013's Season of Darkness). We learned from them all and continued to experiment.
In 2013, after two years of hosting The International, we noticed how great a time people were having at it, so we had an idea: why not make this fun available to those who can't come to the tournament in person? So we created a digital tournament guide and called it The International Interactive Compendium.
Over the years, the compendium grew in scope and eventually transformed into a battle pass with a reward line and a large variety of content. The Battle Pass gradually absorbed what used to be new game modes, features, and goodies: thematic updates, mini-games, item sets, secret items, voice phrases… in short, anything that could be included in it.
The nature of the battle pass is that it can be added to any content we develop for Dota throughout the year. That's what happened over the past few years: the battle pass season has grown and made for an incredibly exciting time in Dota, but the rest of the year has been relatively empty.
The present
Last year we started asking ourselves if it was good for Dota to have such a single focus around which all game content is developed. Each step taken individually made sense: any individual piece of in-game content became more valuable when added to the Battle Pass, so we kept adding more and more. This resulted in a lot of content coming out at once every year, but it also severely limited our ability to do interesting and valuable things for players that couldn't be placed on the Battle Pass reward line.
Once we realized this, we made a conscious experiment at the beginning of the year: freeing up some of the resources that would normally go into creating content for the Battle Pass and redirecting them to separate updates with features and content that couldn't be added to the Battle Pass. While we're still working on some of the upcoming updates, the first of them, New Frontiers and Gameplay Update 7.33, has already been released. It wouldn't have happened if we continued to focus all of our efforts on creating content for the Battle Pass.
Most Dota players have never purchased a battle pass and never received rewards from it. However, every single Dota player explored a new map, experimented with new items, and randomly died from the Tormentor. Every Dota player has enjoyed the improved interface and new features of the client. Player response to New Frontiers has helped us to believe that working less on cosmetic Battle Pass items and more on various interesting updates is the right long-term path for Dota as a game and as a community.
Future
We are going to continue the path started by "New Frontiers". This means that we are developing a lot of features and content for the game, which will be added in various ways. We'll still be releasing a lot of cosmetic items throughout the year, but we'll also be adding a variety of updates for all Dota players.
We understand that this will affect The International. We still love this tournament and are looking forward to this year's event, both as organizers and as attendees, and we are working on a themed update that will be released in September. As before, the update will allow direct replenishment of the prize pool and will focus on the tournament, players and games, but the new cosmetic items will not play a significant role. This is a significant change from the past few years, so to be clear about our shift in focus from the massive reward line to the event itself, we're deliberately not going to call this update a Battle Pass.
We look forward to the future of Dota and what these changes will allow us to do. We're already working on the next updates and new cosmetic items, and we've started negotiations on the venue for The International 2024. By freeing Dota's update and content cycle from the time and structure constraints of the Battle Pass, we can get back to creating content the way we know best : coming up with interesting ideas of all sizes and shapes and exploring them with you.
This is awesome.
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