Valve's Market Director of Operations, Erik Johnson, assures the DOTA2 gamers that there will be LAN mode for the game. The interview also touches base on the upcoming The International #2 on how they aim for everyone to be able to view the games live inside the game.The LAN mode announcement comes as manna from the sky for the Southeast Asian and Chinese community in their battle against the recurring ping issues. Johnson says that there are some systems that LAN mode requires that they haven't finished yet as their main focus has been on matchmaking, but that it will definitely be included.
Valve are also working actively on solving the challenges of the Chinese scene sticking to WarCraft 3's DotA.
- "China is the largest Dota audience in the world, and we want to make sure that they, like everyone else, are there as Dota moves forward," says Erik Johnson to joinDOTA.com.
"A goal of everyone being able to view the matches live inside the game"
He further assesses the problem of inadequate server capacity which, according to him, is the gating factor on getting everyone playing Dota 2 right now. Erik Johnson does reveal that their release date is not tied to the upcoming The International, but that they do have a goal of everyone being able to view the matches live inside the game which might which might signal towards a discontinued partnership with last year's streaming partner own3D.tv.
No finalized business model - free to play still up in the open
When equired upon the recent screenshots showing in-game stores in DOTA2, Erik Johnson could not comment on anything other than "we are still working it" on whether it was just a cosmetic option or a path to finance what would probably be a free to play game.
"[The International] doesn't preclude us from participating in smaller events throughout the year"
As a given, Valve will be looking at improving their The International from last year.
- "We all had huge lists of things coming out of the event that we thought we could improve upon this year, and we're all really excited to see how it plays out," says Johnson.
As for expanding to more leagues and competitions, Valve have a lot of ideas and state that the two are not mutually exclusive, but that as of now their focus is only on The International.
- "We don't think the two are mutually exclusive, so while we are going to host a large event each year with the best teams from around the world, that doesn't preclude us from participating in smaller events throughout the year," says Johnson.
Source: joinDOTA.com