Sean

Dota Today 12: Creating a Gestalt with Aaron Ayesee Chambers

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Wow. Probably my favorite episode to date. Made me more appreciative of Aaron as a person and the work casters do in general.

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I like Ayesee. He DOES have a super great voice. I'm definitely in support of him being on future episodes! He brings a nice different angled perspective compared to Sean and Brad who are, self-admittedly, not experts at the game.

 

Thumbs up!

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Love it! Good to see the dotatoes back in action!

I also have mad respect for the dota 2 casters who can call the play by play in team fights. I can barely comprehend and react when playing (usually poorly), let alone process the action into words.

Is there an archive of Ayesee's Reported! show? I poked around can came up with nothing.

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Love it! Good to see the dotatoes back in action!

I also have mad repect for the dota 2

casters who can call the play by play in team fights. I can barely process and react when playing (usually poorly), let alone process the action into words.

Is there an archive of Ayesee's Reported! show? I poked around can came up with nothing.

 

latest episode hasn't been added so you can find it on twitch http://www.twitch.tv/d2l/b/527341057

 

 

Play by play when it's in a really big LAN event or something is just so damn hype! from tobiwan, ayesee, LD, Lumi etc. I can still remember phrases from commentators during big moments in the international.

 

And finally a guest on Dota Today! You've talked about having people on previous cast but never actually had many guests in the last like 5-6 episodes so it's nice to hear a new voice. :D

 

 

To talk about some things mentioned in the show I would like to go into the "what will happen after the parity is complete" topic. Some things I know are coming are custom games, this coming week I think you will be able to play Pudge wars which is a parity of a wc3 map with same name and I reckon more of the favourite wc3 custom maps will come to Dota2 (funny how that goes) although you will start of needing a third party program to play it I reckon Valve will put in a system for custom games later, it's a no brainer really seeing how popular it is. During my time playing wc3DotA if you had a couple terrible games you could go cool off in a fun custom game and then go back to DotA with a fresh mind which probably increased my playing time a lot when I think about it. When it comes to patches I think Ayesee has it spot on, Icefrog will continue as he did with wc3DotA releasing smaller patches(fixes etc) and bigger patches that sometimes have heroes and sometimes huge changelogs that changed the way you play, we got maybe 2 heroes per year or something and we were perfectly happy with that because inbetween there were these big changelogs that changed it all up and made the game feel fresh again.

 

The other topic was one that ayesee mentioned with the oversaturation of tournaments lately that made MLG and other tournaments cancel their events. For me as a spectator at the moment I try to catch everything because I want to go into the TI4 qualifiers with good knowledge and it's fun watching teams I don't normally watch BUT the rest of the year I basically only watch the big LAN events so I hope that is where it's going to go in the future I feel most of the oversaturation problems is from the online leagues anyway, it's just that this one time Dreamhack, MLG, ESL and TI4 just happened to be scheduled so close together that MLG had to scrap their plans which is unfortunate cause I feel these big organizers should have an easier time communicating their big events so it doesn't step on anyones toes. So more LAN events less offline stuff or make the offline stuff cater more towards the scene below Tier1 teams so we might get couple of new teams every now and then come up to the big league.

 

Anyway great episode, more guests! :D

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Great episode, and really interesting to hear Aaron's insight into the emerging world of professional Dota. As someone who is new to the game and has only watched a handful of pro games (the Free to Play documentary actually got me interested in Dota to begin with) I definitely agreed with a lot of what he said about making the broadcasts more accessible by simply being more professional; as someone who had never watched any esports before but watches loads of sport in general, I was both surprised by how slick and professional the presentation was at The International 3, but also the odd detail really stuck out and just pulled me out of it, stuff like the stupid gamer handles and the odd caster or analyst not maintaining that level of professionalism (protip: if you want to be taken seriously as an actual sport, maybe stop using the word "rape" to describe a sick play). But it is an incredibly young phenomenon and with people like Aaron who clearly have the right idea and care about the future of the scene this stuff can definitely improve.

 

As was also mentioned though, I think the bigger problem is that the action itself can be just so incomprehensible to someone who hasn't played a fair amount of the game; I've played about 100 hours now according to steam and I still don't feel like I really know what's happening in a pro game. Another thing that struck me with the comparison to sports, most popular spectator sports are ball sports where the ball is the focal point of the action; anyone who has the most basic idea of the rules can at least follow the ball and know they will see most of the crucial action, in Dota you just don't know what you should be looking at.

 

My final point also on the comparison to other sports is I think people need to be careful not to focus too much on American sports, especially when using that comparison to try and create a frame of reference for new viewers. As a British person who watches the NFL religiously and a bit of NBA too, American sports share a whole host of terminology and organisational mechanics which were initially pretty alien to me when I first started watching them, and since I get the impression that Dota is very much a global esport I think casters need to be aware of that. To be fair I've not heard Aaron cast enough games to say that he does that too much, and in the podcast he did mention using the term "hattrick" to describe a triple kill so I'm sure he is at least aware of it.

 

Anyway thanks again for the cool show and the cool guest!

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This was a great listen, I hope you'll manage to get another one out with ayesee soon.

 

There's a point to calling players by their nicknames. Everyone who watches dota now knows who dendi, S4, iceiceice are. Noone knows who Danil Ishutin, Gustav Magnusson, Daryl Koh Pei Xiang are. It would be horrible if at some point there'll be a commentator yelling people actual names. 

 

Few people know who these people are:

Chai Yee Fung

Xu Zhilei 

Johan Sundstein

Joakim Akterhall

Andrew Chipenko

 

You have sports teams in America making up names to call themselves. Otherwise it's mostly sponsors' names in the team names or the team's city.

 

Even in Korean starcraft leagues the players have their own chosen nicknames, though the korean casters use the players real names. 

 

protip: if you want to be taken seriously as an actual sport, maybe stop using the word "rape" to describe a sick play

I can't remember the last time this was a thing.

 

 

About professionalism, what's the point? Some of it is a worthwhile goal to strive for, like being punctual with schedules but you're streaming on twitch and you're calling a player via skype after the game, but you don't need to make it soulless. You can see how well made SC2 streams are now. It's fucking boring. The game's probably a bit at fault but everything is like watching some 2 AM pool tournament on eurosport.

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Being professional doesn't mean you have to stop having fun. No one's asking for robots to commentate the game. And your defense of using nicknames is flawed. We use nicknames because that's what people know? ...People would know real names if that's what we used by default. I'm not sure I have a huge issue with nicknames, personally, but some of them are pretty fucking stupid, like Fucking Mad, which was called out on this episode. Dendi's a good nickname. SingSing's a good nickname (it's even based on his real name!). Eternal Envy is pretty dumb. iceiceice is a bad nickname because aren't there like ten ice's in the pro scene?

 

Icefrog isn't a great nickname, either.

 

Also... 

I can't remember the last time this was a thing.

It's easy to forget something when no one makes a big deal of it. It's definitely happened more than once in the past year or so.

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The fact that Dota uses the nicknames in game across the game seems simple enough a reason for why commentators should use them. If the game used real names (like sports uniforms which print the players last name on their back) it would be an easy call in that direction too. If a player wishes to be called their real name they can set that as their display name. What is the complicating factor in this discussion? (Asking genuinely, not rhetorically or to be a dick.)

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2GD Studio does a great job of balancing production value and entertainment. YJames and Statsman Bruno are great personalies to have in Dota 2 esports, and their bants between matches are like 75% fine, even when normal people are involved.

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I think that nicknames are good since unlike regular sports you don't see the players outside of big LAN events so it's easier to associate a person with a nickname than their last name. Also, they're always going to have nicknames since most people in general don't use their real names when playing online and pro players start off as normal people.

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I should clarify, when I said "stupid gamer handles" I meant specifically the really dumb ones, not nicknames in general. I think it's a bit weird when it gets extended to the commentators and analysts being known by their nicknames, but I understand why it's like that and I don't have a problem with it.

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Also... 

It's easy to forget something when no one makes a big deal of it. It's definitely happened more than once in the past year or so.

 

I'm glad there isn't a big deal if someone slips a word. There was a SC2 caster that was nailed to a cross because someone found a one year old VOD of him being not EG level of PR. So he got sacked from casting a tournament.

 

Here's all the ices in dota btw: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/dota2/Ice

 

It's funny how in a few hours between this podcast going up the compendium was released and the prize money is already matching last year's amount. But I guess this was recorded a few days ago.

 

http://www.dota2.com/international/compendium/

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It should be a big deal, because otherwise people don't learn.

wZ41Yqk.png

 

Stuff like this is weird, too. Like, I go not issue with someone saying this in private or in an unofficial personal capacity, that's fine, whatever, but does it really need to be a part of the professional scene?

Arteezy's never been a prime example of a stand-up human being, either.

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Yeah it should be a big deal. At TI or some big studio production. I don't think they call ganks rapes there. Maybe Tobi slips once a year.

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It should be a big deal, because otherwise people don't learn.

wZ41Yqk.png

Stuff like this is weird, too. Like, I go not issue with someone saying this in private or in an unofficial personal capacity, that's fine, whatever, but does it really need to be a part of the professional scene?

Arteezy's never been a prime example of a stand-up human being, either.

I mean they were all annoyed at Na'Vi for pausing after they were down 5k a couple minutes into the game and trying to force a remake. It doesn't normally happen and in terms of professionalism I don't find it near as bad as the less obvious stuff like the server shenanigans C9 always pulls or any of the shady stuff Na'Vi does.

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 I don't really have an issue with any of the nicknames, but I dislike players who change them for specific tournaments or during tournaments. Handles are just one aspect of gaming/internet culture that's kinda ingrained in my mind. I can understand why it might present difficulties for those who aren't close to that sort of stuff though. The multicultural aspect does add a wrinkle. A lot of nicknames across the board are less diverse than the names they represent, so it makes it much easier to learn both for casters and viewers. I think for a lot of players, their accomplishments are heavily tied to their chosen nicknames, DotA 1 used to randomly load up signature nicknames for heroes when they spawned in. It would be kinda hard going forward to remove the nicknames entirely, but showing full names along with handles in lower thirds is very important for expanding awareness of the players.


I also think a lot of the nicknames are amazing. Banana is like the best nickname ever.

 

Er, regarding that picture, I saw this where I came across it "on a more serious note, Arteezy's referring to Dara from 2NE1, a South Korean girl band group. Probably also explains why he's been playing Korean music on his stream all the time." Which doesn't excuse what he said in response to the other comments, but it's, uh... something? Kinda makes you wish there was some sort of central body, or at least central rule set that could set penalties/responses for unbecoming behaviour.

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I mean they were all annoyed at Na'Vi for pausing after they were down 5k a couple minutes into the game and trying to force a remake. It doesn't normally happen and in terms of professionalism I don't find it near as bad as the less obvious stuff like the server shenanigans C9 always pulls or any of the shady stuff Na'Vi does.

I don't really care what the reasons for the conversation were. I don't mind trash talk among teams and players, but the kind of thing we're seeing right here is gross and just perpetuates the gamer culture bullshit. There's no defending it.

 

Getting rid of THAT kind of stuff is probably what people are talking about most when they want the scene to be more professional. At least, it is for me.

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Yeah, I don't mean to defend it, I agree it should happen less, but I don't like when the conversation on professionalism ends at stoppign people from being immature.  There's so much more that needs to be addressed about both players and event organizers.

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Ayesee is awesome (if you happen to be reading this, you are awesome). What a great guest, you guys. Where do I go to watch matches that he casts, exclusively? I know it was mentioned, but someone point me in the right direction please? He kept me in the International, basically. I suffer through the 8 megabyte/27 minute updates to keep Dota 2 installed just because the spectator client is SO GOOD.

 

My final point also on the comparison to other sports is I think people need to be careful not to focus too much on American sports, especially when using that comparison to try and create a frame of reference for new viewers. As a British person who watches the NFL religiously and a bit of NBA too, American sports share a whole host of terminology and organisational mechanics which were initially pretty alien to me when I first started watching them, and since I get the impression that Dota is very much a global esport I think casters need to be aware of that. To be fair I've not heard Aaron cast enough games to say that he does that too much, and in the podcast he did mention using the term "hattrick" to describe a triple kill so I'm sure he is at least aware of it.

 

Hat trick is a hockey reference in North America. ;)

 

While I am sympathetic to your point, he is an American casting to an English-speaking audience, which is more likely to be Americanized. Using those references as touchstones is authentic because it's him and what he knows. There was no such thing as soccer or cricket in the 90s in WV (or the vast majority of America).

 

Regarding nicknames, I'm honestly surprised how diverse and unique the handles of professional gamers across all spectrums are. All of us have probably have played plenty of rounds with xXSilkenGokuXx or *GameDerivativeJokeName*, but that seems to generally not penetrate the highest levels of competition (at least not their official handles). I just get mad when my name is taken. I had it all to myself for almost 10 years and now I never get it anymore. Guess I'm just too popular.  :angry:

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Yeah, I don't mean to defend it, I agree it should happen less, but I don't like when the conversation on professionalism ends at stoppign people from being immature.  There's so much more that needs to be addressed about both players and event organizers.

Oh sure. There's also things like event runners never paying out their prize pool. It's not great.

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Hey, fellow readers. On the topic of silly handles bringing down the overall level of prestige:

 

- iwinyougetnothing

- Whykickamoocow

- Hoof Hearted

- Myexwifesashes

- Sofa Can Fast

- Onewaytickettothegluefactory

- Oh No, It's My Mother-in-Law

- DoReMiFaSaLaTiDo

- AARRRRRRR

- Maythehorsebewithyou

- Blow Me 

- Sorry About That

- Curried King Prawns

- Hahahahahaha

- In Front

- Date More Minors

- Flat Fleet Feet

- Gay Crusader

- No Fat Chicks

- Little Hitler

 

All racehorse names (from here, and here). I feel that horse racing is perceived as being in some ways synonymous with prestige and class in spite of the oft irreverent naming.- so it's not impossible to combine class and silliness.

 

 

Lastly, this tidbit: Gee Spot/Gee Wizz/Bee Gees - Many racehorse owners have made a play on the name Gee Gee.

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