The Dota 2 Boston Major has concluded and the champions have claimed their trophy, but instead of winding down, excitement amongst fans has exploded with the announcement that version 7.00 will arrive early Monday morning. People are calling it the end of an era.
Version 7.00 was announced by a teaser video at the close of the Boston Major.
Dota 2 players were already eagerly anticipating the addition of a new hero, the Monkey King, announced at the Dota 2 International in August. He was to be the first new hero added to Dota 2 who was not included in the original mod, and many considered it the next evolution for a game that began as a Warcraft 3 mod.
However, nobody anticipated the arrival of version 7.00 with the new hero, particularly as the latest update was patch 6.88f, an insignificant number which merely contained standard balance changes.
The last version, 6.00, was released over a decade ago in 2005. Still a mod at the time, 6.00 added 10 new heroes: Axe, Bloodseeker, Dazzle, Earthshaker, Enchantress, Enigma, Phantom Lancer, Shadow Fiend, Tiny and Weaver. The addition of a deluge of new heroes changed the game significantly, but they have now been around for so long that it’s difficult to imagine it without them.
No new heroes aside from the Monkey King have been announced for 7.00, but even so, fans are (justifiably) losing it.
7.00 . SOMEONE PLEASE, HOLD ME @dota2
— aros (@thatgreendragon) December 11, 2016
Dota 2 version 7.00 announced…I’m crying…literally tears in my eyes, I love this game ????
— nii-san???? (@ecchisukecchi) December 11, 2016
7.00 fhjsdkljflaksdjfklsajflkasdjkladjfl #dota2
— Yura (@kevinyoufool) December 11, 2016
IceFrog, the reclusive lead developer of both the mod that grew to be Dota 2 and Dota 2 itself, tweeted that version 7.00 will arrive on test servers.
7.00 is coming to the Test Client tomorrow, check out the teaser and countdown here: https://t.co/F0BFSWqe7e
— IceFrog (@IceFrog) December 11, 2016
Many fans are taking this communication from IceFrog as a further sign that the changes coming will be huge, as this and his congratulations to the Boston Major winners are his first tweets since joining Twitter in 2008.
dota 2 6.xx was, iirc, when icefrog took over
so 7.xx is half life 3, right
— M (short version) (new edit) (@tinyvalor) December 11, 2016
Sadly, any fans running to the site linked in the video for patch notes will be sorely disappointed. Currently, it only shows the teaser video and a countdown to 7.00, on track to end December 12 at 4:00AM AEDT. It looks like we’ll have to wait for it to come out to find out how Dota 2 will change.
Update December 12, 4:34AM AEDT: The countdown is now over but the site is down, probably because a million people are trying to access it at once. The freakout continues.
Update December 12, 5:06AM AEDT: The site is live – and in Chinese, which is fitting of the Journey to the West update. A cursory look reveals new hero the Monkey King is a melee carry as speculated. He comes with a comic and several skins.
This update is also bringing us a new HUD, pre-game options to enable players to form a plan of attack and see the balance of their team, gameplay changes including a new hero talent tree and AI scripting.
Comments