But even if all HoN players suddenly got Dota 2 that's still not a lot of people is it? Considering Valve has been working on this for like two years or something it's just... so very limited. Their goal IS to at least get more players than LoL right? At the moment I don't see that happening.
On top of that... if you want to play Dota, you can still play Dota back on WC3. Yeah it may be a pain to set up and everything and a new version like this would be cool, but then the next thing you mention - Valve support - already kinda contradicts that. They are going to add more things to the game and it's going to be less and less Dota. Especially the real money store that's definitely coming is what I'm concerned about there considering how they handled it in TF2 (I personally would not trust Valve with updating an old game I liked at all in the first place, after all "Valve support" and their constant bloody updates are the very thing that made me not like TF2 anymore).
Dota 2... is probably more of a small side project really, in terms of scope? That's what it looks like to me. The problem then is that it also seems like Valve is trying super hard to make it popular and competitive and whatnot which I frankly can't see happening BECAUSE they copy Dota so closely. If they added more kinds of maps or game modes, sure, then it could be a big project, but then you may as well change and improve the original gameplay to actually work out better... which is also not what fans want? Trying to 100% fulfill the wants and "needs" of hardcore Dota fans is as niche as you could ever get.
In fact I can't believe Icefrog (or whoever the original mapper who made Dota into what it is was - I always preferred another AoS, Tides of Blood back in the WC3 days tbh) is that competent if he thinks the original Dota had no issues and everything has to be ported 1:1. It just... doesn't work well as gameplay concept, everything is so rough. I think a bunch of developers fell into this trap of thinking "hey many people like this there Dota mod, guess we'll make a full game like that" when in fact people just liked it because it was one of the best WC3 custom maps (then its popularity randomly exploded, I dunno why because again other good AoS maps existed). Point is that compared to full games it's not that great at all.
The entire idea of just updating Dota is just not promising. Yes it works as a little side project and a way to play Dota in a modern client in a modern engine is great. However... it's not a good game beyond that really. I can't see "outsiders" getting super interested in Dota 2 suddenly when they did not like the clones that already exist, and you're not even going to get all the people already playing AoS games, some will stay in LoL or HoN I'm sure.
But it doesn't seem like a small side project at all which makes me think they completely misjudged the scope/possible target audience.
Well as Mangy says they might still sell a lot of copies and might still get a lot of players, I'm not going to pretend I know this in advance. It just seems unlikely. And even if they do... spending so much time and effort making a game like that is, frankly, actually kind of wasted potential, you know? Did they really need to spend all these resources on just updating an old map? I may not like Valve much anymore but Dota 2 is far, far below the level of a Portal or Left 4 Dead and... well I wanted to say "I still know Valve can make very good games" but maybe that's not even true anymore. That would explain a lot.
im not sure what it is, but i hear praise for dota2 while everyone says how terrible lol is. should probably actually play em. maybe more newbie friendly and with a better community i guess? that's the main complaint of these games...
LoL is... kinda newbie-friendly. The entire "genre" isn't friendly by default and Dota 2 as I said is copying Dota so closely it's definitely less newbie-friendly than LoL. I suppose the mentoring feature could help but honestly that's just desperately trying to find a way to explain a far too complicated concept (and I doubt a lot of new players actually use the mentoring in TF2 either).