Valve has issued an emphatic response to fans eager to play Dota 2. According to Dota creator IceFrog, the company has fast-tracked development. While the original plan was to reach “a level of parity with Dota 1” regarding hero selection before going public, now Valve wants to get the game out to the masses as soon as possible.

The ongoing closed beta, which will likely remain invite-only for a short period of time, will essentially serve as a final polishing phase. Once the gates are open for the general public, Valve will continue to ship regular updates.

“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,” explained IceFrog.

“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.”

Of course, “soon” is relative — especially when you factor in Valve time, but it sounds like the wait is nearly over.

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