Valve Software Trademarks "DOTA"

Looks like Valve Software is indeed working on a standalone version of Defense of the Ancients.

Over the weekend, Duke Nukem voice actor John St. John posted a message on his Twitter page revealing that Valve Software is working on a project related to the popular Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos mod, Defense of the Ancients.

"Had a great time in Seattle last week recording for DotA," he said. "The guys at ValveSoftware are awesome!" Sometime later the Twitter entry was deleted.

The "confirmation" arrives after Valve recruited Defense of the Ancients designer Icefrog last year, hired on to tackle an unnamed project. Although nothing official has been released by Valve regarding the supposed game's development, Superannuation recently uncovered a trademark filed by the company for "DOTA," giving the rumor more substance.

Defense of the Ancients is a custom scenario for Blizzard's fantasy-themed RTS. The object is to destroy the enemy team's Ancients--heavily guarded structures at opposing corners of the maps. Players use heroes and AI-controlled fighters called "creeps" to complete the mission, leveling up and purchasing new equipment in the process.

Recently Valve released a standalone, Source Engine-powered version of the Unreal Tournament 2004 mod, Alien Swarm. The game is free to download and play on Steam, offering a 4 player co-op "epic bug hunt" viewed in a top-down perspective. It's speculated that Defense of the Ancients may also follow in the footsteps of Alien Swarm, offering a free-to-play experience for Steam gamers as well.

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Top Comments

28

adikos , August 12, 2010 1:03 AM

i <3 valve
10

sliem , August 12, 2010 1:11 AM

Copy paste skill unchallenged.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients

Other Comments

28

adikos , August 12, 2010 1:03 AM

i <3 valve
-5

chaosgs , August 12, 2010 1:04 AM

SWEET, i have been playing Dota for like 5 years now and LOVE IT. I cant wait for a icefrog/valve standalone game to be made. LOL and HON suck and HON cost money.
1

anonymous@guest , August 12, 2010 1:05 AM

Heroes of Newerth by S@GAmes has already managed to get the job done quite well. though maybe steam can further approve upon it.
10

sliem , August 12, 2010 1:11 AM

Copy paste skill unchallenged.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients
2

Ragnar-Kon , August 12, 2010 1:12 AM

Awww... that probably means Starcraft 2 will never see an official version of DotA from Icefrog.

Oh well.
0

Darkerson , August 12, 2010 1:16 AM

I dunno about everyone else, but I though League of Legends was pretty fun, and the whole F2P with the option to buy stuff in the store seems to be working for it pretty well. Battleforge and Demigod, while not completely the same, are still good fun too.
3

rick4937 , August 12, 2010 1:25 AM

League of Legends is BY FAR the best commercial Dota game.
2

decoppel , August 12, 2010 1:26 AM

League of Legends was FUN, but it wasn't competitive. Heroes of Newerth is competitive BUT has balance issues of a growing game. I sincerely hope the Valve-DOTA has that stuff ironed out immediately.
-4

stm1185 , August 12, 2010 1:33 AM

I wonder how much this new DOTA is going to steal from Blizzards work.
3

fulle , August 12, 2010 1:37 AM

stm1185I wonder how much this new DOTA is going to steal from Blizzards work.

Blizzard's work basically robs the Warhammer Universe blind. So I wouldn't shed your tears for them.
0

stm1185 , August 12, 2010 1:51 AM

And Warhammer ripped it off from LOTR. But I am thinking more stylistically, and how much its going to copy from the interface and art.
0

Haiku214 , August 12, 2010 1:53 AM

@decoppel League of Legends is not competitive?? Obviously you haven't played it that much. What level were you? lol! In fact, League of Legends is included in World Cyber Games 2010!!!
0

decoppel , August 12, 2010 1:56 AM

Haiku214@decoppel League of Legends is not competitive?? Obviously you haven't played it that much. What level were you? lol! In fact, League of Legends is included in World Cyber Games 2010!!!

It's not as competitive as HoN; being in tournaments doesn't mean playing games unranked or ranked are typically competitive. There are plenty of features in LoL that make the game more noob accessible, and lower the overall skill.
-2

tolham , August 12, 2010 1:56 AM

not that i'm complaining, but why is valve making mods for other developers' games?
0

anonymous@guest , August 12, 2010 1:57 AM

none of the spinoffs or any of the TFT versions beat the original RoC dota - Mandevar with 2 EB's ftw.
2

LORD_ORION , August 12, 2010 1:58 AM

Seriously, play Demigod.

That is how you make this kind of game.
-4

turbotong , August 12, 2010 2:15 AM

I can see a lawsuit happening sometime in the near future:
Blizzard V Valve.
Then I can see someone making a Blizzard VS Valve flash game and it winding up on one of those stupid free flash game websites.
0

dasper , August 12, 2010 2:21 AM

Demigod was great on the fact that they wanted it to be easy to learn yet hard to master. The only gripe I have about DOTA is the fact there seem to be too many heroes and items that it makes getting started in the game virtually impossible without support and education from other players. I blame most of this on the limitations of the Warcraft 3 editor though, probably limiting how many spells a hero has and not having a talent tree possible.

My biggest hope is they try to improve on what makes it fun and not feel limited to clone the original.
-2

xerroz , August 12, 2010 2:23 AM

Sure this sounds great and all but the thing is that this game will most likely not be remotely close to what the original dota is. I know valve and they want $ and they will go the same route Riot games went with League of legends. They will go with a type of game that attracts the most audiences, a game with low level graphics that anyone can just pick up and play so that they can get the most profits. Dota is a game with a very steep learning curve which is another reason for valve to go for the league of legends route and make it more accessible for noobs to play.

I might have been excited about it at one point but really, if you think about it well enough this game won't be as good as it should be.
0

milkman172 , August 12, 2010 2:27 AM

tolhamnot that i'm complaining, but why is valve making mods for other developers' games?
I don't think Valve is making a mod for any game, they are simply hiring the developers that made those successful mods of those games to make a standalone game with the source engine.

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