The Dota 2 Blog has word that Valve has a new timetable for the release of Dota 2, their MOBA sequel. They say they originally planned on spending "the next year or so in beta," but have decided this plan "was dumb" (thanks Steven). Here's word:

Welcome to the new plan: We’re going to take the current version of Dota 2, which has The International set of heroes, and get it out there as fast as we can. We’ve still got some work to do in a couple of areas, so we’ll be keeping it invite-only for a (hopefully short) period of time. But there’ll be no restrictions on what players can do with it – they can release screenshots, make movies, shoutcast matches, write guides, publicly make fun of our HUD, or anything else their hearts desire. While they do that, we’ll be shipping regular updates with more heroes, new features we’ve been working on, and improvements on the existing content as we get more and more feedback.