XoO - Dota 2 Dota 2 is the recreation of the massively popular Warcraft III mod Defense of the Ancients. Icefrog, the mastermind mind behind Dota, has been hired by Valve to create his mod on its own platform and through Steam to remove the limitations of the outdated WC3 engine and BattleNet servers. The game is being run on the source engine and will feature all the great matchmaking you've come to expect from a steam product. Gabe Newell (Valve president) has stated that they plan to leave all of the mechanics in Dota the same. Dota has proven to be a resilient game with a large player base even as a WC3 mod. Icefrog has also noted that Dota 2 represents the long term future for the game. Dota 2 is still in development as of now, however it will be revealed to the world at Gamescon with a tournament they are calling The International. The tournament will feature the top 16 Dota teams from around the world with the winner taking home $1,000,000 USD of a 1.6 Million prize purse. This unprecedented tournament will kick off Dota 2 in a way that no other company has ever matched. The Open beta is anticipated to follow The International and full release will be close behind this fall. It is unknown wither the game will be free or not, however, from listening to interviews I expect the game to function like Team Fortress 2 with either a free or small one time fee complimented by microtransactions to allow for customization if you desire. If you are interested in Dota 2 Please check out the Dota 2 forum section in the other games section!