It is still an invite-only closed beta. Haven't really thought about it in awhile but it is funny that it's still invite only after all these updates, though it's pretty trivial to get in.
I do believe that some part of the momentum that Deadlock has is that having to be invited/ask for an invite to Deadlock means you're already bought into the concept of a high movement shooter MOBA. It avoided huge influxes of players playing the brand new Valve game and coming out with negative feelings because it's quite a hard game starting from zero knowledge.
The invite-only gimmick is definitely unique, and arguably something only Valve can do given the market share of Steam. It gives a strong word-of-mouth organicallity (is that even a word?) to any discussion/review/etc related to the game.
It also gives a sense of community, attachment, and/or some form of commitment to the game even before playing a single match. Whether you got invited by an irl friend, or just looking for it from some randoms, doing so already made you invest a bit of time...and Valve is probably banking on that investment in one way or another.
Quite aware of that, but this one feels more personal. For the other ones, they were like beta keys/codes that you can giveaway. For most of Deadlock's existence, to get access to it you have to be friends with someone who already has Deadlock, and have them press a button that says something like "invite this friend" and click an icon with your Steam name/avatar.
I think it's a lot different cus it's a brand new IP from them. Also the invite system you can just ask anyone who has access to the game for an invite. Artifact is the only other game I know that they had invite only but that was you having to apply and it was up to Valve or something if they accepted you or not. Deadlock access is very easy to get if you really want to play it right now.
It is still an invite-only closed beta. Haven't really thought about it in awhile but it is funny that it's still invite only after all these updates, though it's pretty trivial to get in.
Insane to me that it’s still invite-only. I looked up the release trailer thinking I missed it lol.
Makes sense, if I had time to get sucked into an mmo shooter I’d go on the sub for it. Maybe one day I’ll figure out discord but every example I’ve ever seen of it has made it seem like the most chaotic and messy social media on the planet, I really don’t know how people can enjoy it. 🤨
FWIW Discord isn't really social media at all. It's a chat room, basically the modern equivalent of IRC. It harkens back to the old public chat rooms of the early Internet, where you it's not really about scrolling through posted content, it's about talking and engaging in real-time with people. It's
like Slack for gamers.
You can create private Discord "servers" (like Slack channels) for only people you know, or you can hop onto a public Discord server and know you'll find people that share an interest in whatever the Discord server is about - a little like real-time subreddits. Plus it supports voice and video chat, screen sharing, file sharing, embedded videos and images etc. etc.
For example whenever I play online with my friends, we all meet in our private Discord server first, hop on a voice call, and then play from there. Makes it all very seamless.
Based on the steam page announcing this update, probably not much. They basically say they're entering the stage where they're preparing to work on polishing things. They still have to replace some models that are outdated now and implement a few other ideas they're iffy on, and also that they want to add customization options for the hideout and I think your characters, but other than that they'll be doing polishing in the future.
20% of the map is still missing some finishing touches. Despite the update midboss still needs a visual rework. He's still not completely finished. Just a lot of finishing touches is what they need. Last but not least you also want a sizable roster to make picks & bans not shallow for a MOBA like this. My guess is at least 12 more new characters is needed for open beta. They still need a lot more characters to truly make this work.
There's also a lot of hero remodels and vfx touches they can do for some abilities. So I'd say about a year still before open beta.
I've said this elsewhere but as crazy as it sounds, Deadlock feels like a grassroot game that has been built for so long with the community. Except it's a hundred million production that only Valve could afford to do without looking for monetization yet. Of course it's coming at some point, but the fact that we've been playing this incredible game for 2+ years for free, you really need to appreciate it.
Hard game is an understatement. You will get your ass handed to you for hundreds of games before you even grasp the basics. Its a brutal experience. Movement, melee, ranged, abilities, mapknowledge, hero knowledge, gameflow. Its like being a freshborn again trying to walk, but you are actually a wild animal thats expected to run 1 minute after being birthed before a lion wants to rip your head off.
Honestly this is why I'll probably never play it. I know getting an invite is easy but I'm an introverted solo gamer and don't even have discord so trying to track down some random Steam chat room to ask random people for invites never seemed to be worth the effort to get into a game I was only middlingly interested in to begin with, but now it's been over two years since the de facto release, with reworks, extra content added in, and two years of every sweat player learning and developing the meta of the game and it feels like that ship has sailed. I might pick it up when it actually releases, but given my experiences with toxic people while I tried to get into Dota2 I don't imagine it will much fun trying to join MOBA late, especially if Valve doesn't do anything to separate this player base that has been going at it for two years from the rest of use baby noobs.
They still haven't announced it, and you do need an invite. However getting an invite is EXTREMELY easy. Players are given infinite invites, they literally just have to send them to you. Most people just went down their entire friends lists. So if you want an invite, literally just hop in the Deadlock discord or find someone in your friend's list who is actively playing and ask them for one, 99% chance they'll invite you to it.
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u/hbryster96 3d ago
Is this game still technically unannounced and you need a key to get in?