New tools for developing custom games are a focus of Dota 2 revamp

Last Friday Valve laid out plans to overhaul its remarkably popular Dota 2 MOBA with a new engine, a fresh UI and a set of tools to allow players to better build and browse custom games.

Throughout this E3 week the company seems to be dribbling out information on the revamp, which Valve calls its Dota 2 Reborn beta, and in an update today it promised a suite of Dota 2 mod tool improvements and additions that empower developers of all stripes to craft custom game types that can be played from within Dota 2.

Chief among the modder-oriented improvements are a new "Panorama UI" development environment and an enhanced Lua scripting system that makes most of the Dota 2 game functions available to Lua-savvy developers.

Many of these tools have been in some form of alpha testing already, and as Valve rolls them out as part of the Dota 2 Revamp beta this week you can check out a full list of what's changed in this Dota 2 Workshop changelog.