Dota 2 Diretide event coming with major update later this year

Dota 2 fans have loudly expressed their disappointment in the lack of a Diretide event this year, something Valve has described as "clearly a mistake", while promising to deliver it with the next update - better late than never.

Writing on the Dota 2 blog, Valve said fans were "rightly upset" about the lack of Diretide - or Hallowe'en - this year.

"That was clearly a mistake, and then we compounded the problem by not telling you what was going on," the developer said.

Valve said it made the decision to skip Diretide this year for several reasons. First, it was working on a huge update that it had hoped to release by the end of October, and it didn't want to stop working on that to focus on Diretide.

Second, Diretide isn't easy to implement - especially as there's been a whole year of work on the MOBA since last year's event.

Third, it underestimated how much players wanted Diretide. Finally, it failed to revisit the decision to skip Diretide, or consult the community.

"By the time we’d realized we’d made a bad decision, the pitchforks were out," Valve mourned.

After compounding its error with poor communication, Valve decided to make things right, and as such, it will be shipping a Diretide event with the next major update, "which isn’t far away now".

"Paying attention to what is happening in the community around Dota 2 is one of the most important aspects of what we do at Valve. And while we are clearly not mistake-proof, hopefully it is useful for us to walk everyone through our process for recognizing and then fixing our mistakes," Valve added.

Thanks, Joystiq.