Turning a Warcraft 3 mod into a fully-fledged product is probably a tricky process, especially when that mod has a feverishly devoted fan base. Valve senior project manager Erik Johnson recently spoke to IGN about how the Dota 2 dev team is tiptoeing through this potential minefield, explaining that the core gameplay of the mod will remain unchanged. "We'd be pretty hard-pressed to improve on that," Johnson explained.

Valve's additions to the DotA formula will be largely cosmetic, focusing on "infrastructure, art, and providing helpful tools to newcomers so they can figure out what's going on." That seems like a good compromise -- keep the things that hardcore DotA fans already know and love, while giving a leg-up to people like us, who manage to lose DotA matches within mere milliseconds.