Transitioning Into Launch Mode

posted origenly on dota 2 blog.

At June 21, 2013 - Dota Team

We are now approaching the two year anniversary of Dota 2’s limited release, and we feel like we’re ready to expand to include anyone who wants to give it a try. In the case of Dota 2, or other games with large backend systems that support them, this isn’t quite as simple as pressing the big red launch button, then sitting back and watching, because of the large infrastructure they rely upon.

As a result, we’re going to take a different approach to the launch of Dota 2 than we have with our previous titles. Our goals are to create little disruption for the existing Dota 2 audience, to bring new players into a system that will work reliably, and to not immediately melt down all of our datacenters. We aren’t sure how long this is going to take, but in our experience everything with Dota ends up involving a lot more people than we predict, so we’re going to ease our way into it.

The first step we’ll be taking is to release a larger set of training features, and retire the existing Dota 2 Invites. The combination of these two things makes now the best time to use any remaining Dota 2 Invites you have to bring your friends in that are unfamiliar with the game. After that, we’ll start allowing all users to join in.

We’ll be controlling the launch by granting large numbers of people access to the game in batches, so we can ensure our infrastructure is holding up. We’ll also be letting everyone know how we are dealing with the increased load, so we all have a shared understanding of how the launch is going.

There are several parts of the backend infrastructure that we’ll be keeping an eye on as the number of users increases.