In case you aren't one of the 611,480 people playing Dota 2 as I write this, you will be happy to know that the game is finally open to everyone. While it officially released this summer, Valve had been slowly allowing more players to sign up, to help prevent the servers from crashing. The sign up process has been removed, and everyone can just download the game on Steam and start playing right away.

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A huge update for Valve's remake of the classic Warcraft-based MOBA is scheduled to arrive next week, on September 23. In addition to a number of gameplay tweaks, be they for the better or worse, the First Blood update will introduce a number of new features and the much-anticipated Portal Pack, which includes GLaDOS as an announcer.

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Have you heard? Dota 2 is officially released now, and what better way to celebrate than to release a new hero. Abaddon is a ghostly knight with a glowing blue horse, typically played as a support role. He’s rather special in that fact that he has a habit of refusing to die thanks to his ultimate Borrowed Time. He can also heal and shield enemies while also throwing the hurt his enemies way when the time calls for it. Also in this update: a wealth of cosmetic items, all themed around the ongoing Steam summer sale.

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Although Dota 2 has been playable--competitively, at that--for the past two years now, it's technically been in "beta." Valve promised that its MOBA would officially launch before August, and in a weird reversal of Valve Time, it appears they've launched early.

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Valve’s Dota sequel will ditch its closed beta status and become ‘free for everyone’ later this summer, Erik Johnson told me during a visit to the developer earlier this year. We mentioned Valve’s comments on the Dota 2 release date in PC Gamer issue 254, and community-run Valve news site ValveTime have since confirmed the release window via an e-mail exchange with Valve.

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This week’s Dota 2 update is a chunky one in spite of the addition of just the one hero. Templar Assassin’s long range traps and invisibility powers will give gankers an intriguing new skillset to work with, but this week’s winners are fans of Dota 2′s round blue king of camp, Storm Spirit.

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Blizzard said today it has reached an agreement with Valve regarding the trademark issue with DOTA. According to the agreement, Valve will continue to use DOTA commercially, including DOTA 2, while Blizzard will preserve noncommercial use of DOTA for its community with regard to player-created maps for Warcraft III and StarCraft II.

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Valve has today announced that the second 'International Dota 2 Championships' will this year be held in Seattle, during the PAX Prime event, August 31 - September 2, 2012. The tournament will again be broadcast in multiple languages, free of charge.

First launched last year in Cologne, Germany during Gamescom, the International Dota 2 Championships sees 16 of the most elite Dota teams competing in a group stage, double elimination playoff format for a grand prize of $1 million.

Valve has also confirmed that last years champions Na’Vi will be one of the first teams to be invited to this years event to defend their title.

Coming to the PC this year, Dota 2 promises to take the unique blend of online RTS and RPG action that has made Dota popular with tens of millions of gamers around the world.

Dota 2 is doing rather too well for a game that hasn’t been released. According to Steam stats, it’s the second most played game on Steam right now, ahead of Counter-Strike: Source, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Skyrim and lots of other games that have actually been released. Dota 2 is currently in an ever-expanding beta that’s been running since late last year.

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Valve will pursue its experiment with the free-to-play games model with a new plan to release its upcoming game DOTA 2 for free, the company’s managing director has said. Gabe Newell claimed Valve is not applying a wholly conventional freemium model for the online action strategy game.

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Valve’s Erik Johnson has told Join Dota that Dota 2 will be getting a LAN mode. “There are some systems that LAN mode requires that we haven’t finished yet, mainly because we’ve been focused on matchmaking. We know how important this feature is for the community,” says Johnson.

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Blizzard once made a game called WarCraft III. Then someone made an awesome mod for it called DOTA. Then Valve decided to make a game called DOTA 2. Then Blizzard decided to make something called Blizzard DOTA. And now Blizzard is fighting a legal battle with Valve over the whole thing. What a mess.

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It looks like gamers hungry for their shot at Valve's upcoming expansion into the multiplayer online battle arena genre may be satiated soon.

"We've just finished our first significant expansion of Dota 2 server capacity around the world, and that means it's time to kick this thing up a notch," a blog post on the official Dota 2 site revealed yesterday.

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A post on the official Dota 2 blog has highlighted the superb replay tools that’ll feature when the game gets released next year. The tools were hinted at during the Dota 2 tournament that took place at Gamescom.

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In a recent blog post, Valve has revealed it will be releasing Dota 2 early due to high demand from gamers.

Valve originally planned that Dota 2 will remain in beta for the next year, adding new features and slowly adding new heroes until it reached a level of parity with Dota 1. But in a turn around, Valve now plans to release Dota 2 as 'early as possible' with The International set of heroes, while shipping regular updates to include new features and more heroes.

In the meantime Dota 2 will remain in an 'invite only' beta with sign ups available through steam.

Source: Dota 2 blog

As the company begins to let Dota 2 into the wild, Gamasutra speaks to Valve boss Gabe Newell and to project leader Erik Johnson to find out both the decision-making process that lead to the game and also about how things work at Valve.

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Value has opened up the beta registration for Dota 2 to the public, gamers can now sign in to there steam account and click on 'Get on the List' to join. No details on when the beta will start have yet been confirmed.

In addition to the beta registration fans will be able to watch the Dota 2 'International Championship' live which is happening at Gamescom this week, the final will be played on Sunday with the winning team picking up a cool $1 million.

*Update
Beta registration will be available inbetween live matches.

Valve will be holding a tournament for Dota 2, which will take place between August 17th -21st at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany. The tournament will be the first time Dota 2 is shown to the public.

Sixteen of the best Dota teams from around the world will be competing in the Dota 2 Championships through a group stage, double elimination playoff format over the course of Cologne's five-day trade show. The Tournament will be broadcast in four languages (Chinese, German, Russian, and English) free of charge, with the winning team picking up a cool $1 million.

“The International is the first public Dota 2 event and will give the tens of millions of gamers playing Dota around the world their first look at the new game,” said Gabe Newell, president and founder of Valve. “I have had the good fortune to watch the competitors as they prepare for the tournament, and the level of play is extraordinary.”

Dota 2 will be available for the PC and Mac later this year. For more information about the tournament visit www.dota2.com/