Dota2 is going to be free to play

[burningsera]

Originally Posted by Leandros

You can see a "example" skin on Cyborgmatts Blog, they revealed a Orca skin for Tidehunter. Looks totally different, lol. But you can recognize him, this is what counts for me. I want to see clearly against which hero I fight.

the highly detailed models can easily to be 'skinned up' differently for people who want to pay. tbh if valve can get $1 from half the dota population, they would be counting money laughing like nintendo's wii.

[Sonic]

I wish Dota 2 be a closed Beta till 2018

[FF_MikeRoch]

Soooo... does that mean i have to buy the game?

[FoxCharge]

Originally Posted by Leandros

You can see a "example" skin on Cyborgmatts Blog, they revealed a Orca skin for Tidehunter. Looks totally different, lol. But you can recognize him, this is what counts for me. I want to see clearly against which hero I fight.

All the cosmetic items are geared to ensure the hero is easily recognizable. Notice that all of the Jugg/Furion items revealed so far stay within the character's color scheme, and none of them are so over-the-top that the hero's shape would look drastically different.

Keep in mind that all cosmetic items will be processed through the Steam Workshop. The SW guidelines are really strict, and only a small fraction of items submitted are actually let into the game. Of particular note, in TF2's case:

"TF's characters have distinctive silhouettes that help a player differentiate between classes in the heat of battle. Consequently, we tend to avoid items that overtly obscure or confuse these silhouettes."

There are also tons of general color/design requirements in the above link. Anyone who is convinced that the cosmetic items will ruin gameplay by drastically altering hero appearance should take a long, hard look at the guidelines above. Valve isn't retarded. They're not going to make the cosmetic items so distracting that they impact the gameplay, so calm your tits.

Anyone who has ever seen a competitive TF2 match knows that cosmetic items are disabled anyway, ffs. The same will apply for Dota 2, you're not going to see Furion with different antlers at this year's International, not that different antlers would keep ANYONE from being able to easily pick him out.

Seriously, if you see Jugg carrying an alternate sword and can't tell who he is, you...
A) are not at all familiar with the heroes and need to spend more time in Dota 2,
B) need to put on some glasses, and/or
C) have a cognitive handicap and should probably not be concerning yourself with becoming good at Dota.

Besides, the Orca Tidehunter skin is totally badass. I love that it also changes the hero portrait (which is probably why Valve decided to process the portrait in-engine instead of creating an alternate model like SC2 portraits). He still retains his silhouette and general appearance, though, and I would have absolutely no confusion about which hero just blinked in.

[smajlone]

Not bad!

[ristosr]

This is fake.. even CS:GO keys when activated says Retail but it will be paid for sure.

Fake news!

[zeruuwind]

There's no even remotely possibility of paid heroes.

[Claire Farron]

Originally Posted by Floryda

http://www.gamersbook.com/scene/news...-free-to-play/


ahahaha! YES!

Nah. I have thought in my mind that Valve will make Dota 2 as a free-to-run game but players are required to buy point to buy the Dota 2 heroes(once bought, the hero will remain for that Steam account only).
Other word, you can run it for free.
However, if you want to play it with hero, you will need to use your cash to buy the hero.
This is the best idea I think, to reduce the game cost, reduce the number of leavers/spoilers, and most important Valve can earn more when new hero is going to be released because most players will tend to spend money to get the new hero into their account.

[TheRealCreator]

Originally Posted by ristosr

This is fake.. even CS:GO keys when activated says Retail but it will be paid for sure.

Fake news!

nice 1st post

[Claire Farron]

Originally Posted by TheRealCreator

nice 1st post

It is 100% fake! Valve is not that stupid to run that big Dota 2 project without any good strategy to gain more profits back when it is releases. I am pretty sure they have many hidden strategies where only most of the good businessmen are able to see. Players like us(I admit it) only know to play the game but the developer actually got their strategies to slowly earn or eat our money.
I believe most of you already experienced it or saw a lot of MMORPG players are selling their accounts after played for months/years.

[doctorwoot]

Originally Posted by Claire Farron

Nah. I have thought in my mind that Valve will make Dota 2 as a free-to-run game but players are required to buy point to buy the Dota 2 heroes(once bought, the hero will remain for that Steam account only).
Other word, you can run it for free.
However, if you want to play it with hero, you will need to use your cash to buy the hero.
This is the best idea I think, to reduce the game cost, reduce the number of leavers/spoilers, and most important Valve can earn more when new hero is going to be released because most players will tend to spend money to get the new hero into their account.

Selling heroes would gimp the game strategy. Look at LoL, people "main" heroes rather than learn to play them all equally and build a good team comp. That's rather problematic if you want the game to be competitive.

[AlbinoBunny]

Yay, another place to talk about free to play models. Because I haven't done this before

Anyways, people wondering about extreme punishments for bans, it's a valve game, on steam, it will be VAC protected, which means that valve DO have the option of VAC banning the steam account which prevents the use of online games on that steam account, ANY GAME. IE, average people wont troll because it'll cost them the game library, wont stop dedicated trolls from making new accounts and so on but at least there's that punishment in place as possibility (though, I honestly doubt they'll use it considering what I see in League regarding 'OMG HE MADE MISTAKE REPORT HIM')

Unlocking characters slowly like any slow unlock content system is a good free to play model. I'd be willing to bet that valve would love to go with it to because it certainly brings in a good chunk of cash but there's two factors stopping it being likely:

1) DOTA1 exists, doesn't matter if people don't want to actually play it (like me, I don't like playing it) if they can point to it and go 'why am I unlocking/buying heroes if this exists' it'll undermine any attempts to charge for heroes.

2) it's a big thing up on League to allow anyone to have all the heroes, gives a big incentive for League players to switch over to DOTA2 or at least try it. If you don't think that Valve aren't eyeing up that tasty top of the genre money then your sorely mistaken.

Frankly I actually have to say this: I like having champions limited for lower skilled players, it encourages repeated playing, allowing players to get comftable with one hero and as a result start to learn aspects of the game as a whole rather than worrying about playing their character correctly.

And regarding people saying that competitive play would be undermined by this

Seriously, any 'competitive' player (or someone who at least thought of themselves as such) would likley by whatever packages (and I'll bet my left nut there WILL be launch packages if it's F2P) that contain game content and it'd become a non factor. Complaining that a game requires a money investment before you can compete is like saying you should be able to play competitive CS on a crappy internet connection, lovely in theory but not gonna happen.

[Trock]

never sell heroes out! fck that game if this is the case! cosmetics ok heroes no!

[WaIkingDisaster]

So did they announced release date yet?

[amaterv]

Originally Posted by digirider

there wont be a need to worry about trolls, noobs, new players or a way to screen them, once Dota2 goes full release they will update the match making system so that you will play with people in your skill level, meaning as long as you arent a idiot yourself, you wont play with them.

NOTE: currently MM is set up to even out your score and give all players a good game experience, pairing idiots with good players and vice versa averaging everyons win rate around 50% for beta purposes.

disagree

this happen to me sometimes more than 3 times
let we say i got around 200 wins then i go MM

dyou know what 1 got

i got 4 player with 0-50 wins and dunno who they are
and the opponent is 5 player party with around 200 wins

and the result is 99% same with my prediction when seeing what heroes that they pick

if u want a challenge to play with some trolls, tard, wood PC and bad connection
u can find them at midday on sunday, prepare ur self or u'll be mad

[TheDarkWolf]

Originally Posted by amaterv

disagree

this happen to me sometimes more than 3 times
let we say i got around 200 wins then i go MM

dyou know what 1 got

i got 4 player with 0-50 wins and dunno who they are
and the opponent is 5 player party with around 200 wins

and the result is 99% same with my prediction when seeing what heroes that they pick

if u want a challenge to play with some trolls, tard, wood PC and bad connection
u can find them at midday on sunday, prepare ur self or u'll be mad

Originally Posted by digirider

there wont be a need to worry about trolls, noobs, new players or a way to screen them, once Dota2 goes full release they will update the match making system so that you will play with people in your skill level, meaning as long as you arent a idiot yourself, you wont play with them.

NOTE: currently MM is set up to even out your score and give all players a good game experience, pairing idiots with good players and vice versa averaging everyons win rate around 50% for beta purposes.

I hope.

[One.More.Game.]

really?

[ShowThemHell]

Who the fuck necroed this?

Btw, this thread should be closed. Because everyone must know this by now and it was derailed.

[permafrosty]

Originally Posted by MonkeyEx

I certainly hope it has a really good entry restrictions, ban/report system

trolls/griefers can simply swarm dota 2 if it's f2p

yea. Guess we better take advantage of the current "better pubs" while we can Hopefully after it goes f2p i won't have idiots going gloves of haste on their first item.

[JohnAsmar]

OMG! YES!