14 DAY TRIAL // Video game developer Valve has announced that all those interested in Defense of the Ancients 2 will be able to see the official reveal of the video game at a tournament that will be taking place between August 17 and 21 at the Gamescom trade event in Cologne, Germany.
Valve is calling the tournament “The International” and it will be bringing together 16 top teams that specialize in DotA, allowing them to play for a total of 1 million dollars in prize money.
The entire tournament will be broadcast over the Internet in English, Chinese, German and Russian, allowing all those interested in the mix between action and real-time strategy to learn some new strategies and get the first information on DotA 2.
Gabe Newell, who is the president of Valve, has said when the tournament was announced that, “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.”
He added, “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 is being developed by a team led by IceFrog, the man who created the original mod for Warcraft 3 and thought up the main gameplay concepts behind it.
When Valve initially announced that it was picking up the Defense of the Ancients game some fans of the idea protested, saying that the project should always remain in the public domain.
There is some speculation that this will be Valve' first free-to-play game.
At the moment DotA 2 is set to be launched on both the PC and Mac before the end of this year, but Valve is well known for ignoring launch dates if it feels that its games need some more development time.