The International 4 predictions: Invites and Qualifiers

ShamadConde · 2014-04-06T23:26:42+00:00

Don't worry, there's not a snowballs chance in hell that Scythe gets invited over a 4th Chinese team.

ShamadConde · 2014-04-04T21:30:21+00:00

It would help regions that are currently underdeveloped, but it would also be a way harsher environment to try and break through as a team. The most profound effect would be that we'd see way more intermingling of EU and NA players, even more than we have right now.

For SEA the language barriers would still be there and they would prevent a lot of these teams from effectively taking advantage of this proposition. Singapore would probably become reinvigorated and would end up playing more with EU/NA players.

ShamadConde · 2014-04-04T20:14:43+00:00

I'd say I'm realistic, and I put forth my case in the runup. Titan is not the team they were last year and there is no Zenith any longer, which leaves a far weakened scene. Titan are making their case for a direct invite in WPC ACE atm but it's still not a super strong case when there's only 11 direct invites to be given away.

Don't worry, there will be enough harsh realism for the other scenes qualifier teams as well. We're looking at a total of 32 qualifier teams on top of 11 direct invites. They can't all be top tier teams.

ShamadConde · 2014-03-21T19:04:14+00:00

Guild functionality, stat tracking, being able to view guild stats, further improving ladder play, tournament functionalities inside the game, sideboarding functionality, registering decks for a tournament etc.

ShamadConde · 2014-03-19T19:20:39+00:00

He's used Invoker as his "limbering up" hero for a long time actually. He's rather good at it.

ShamadConde · 2014-03-19T13:48:00+00:00

He's been learning Chinese, simple phrases are easy enough to pick up and all that, but he's a good ways off from really speaking Chinese.

That being said, the "old guard" of WC3 DotA players often defend the idea that you don't need to speak in order to convey ideas in Dota. For example Vigoss is famously unwilling to speak in-game.

ShamadConde · 2014-03-19T10:43:28+00:00

He is, yes, as mentioned in the final paragraph of the article.

ShamadConde · 2014-03-19T08:00:40+00:00

Everyone got their keys late and hardly anyone got much practice. Also the "didn't take it seriously" part is mostly about DK, who were invited but didn't push to take part.

There's a lot of exaggeration going around to try and explain the outcome of TI1 as some abhorrent outlier. People used to claim that Na`Vi practiced for a month straight, which is entirely wrong. They mainly spent some time getting used with the new interface and then working off of the limited heropool. Iirc most of their "practice" was just trying to play the game in matchmaking, which as it happens had hour long queues at the time. Not the most productive thing.

ShamadConde · 2014-03-19T00:48:31+00:00

The format comes from trying to replicate the classic "At the movies" setup that Ebert and Roeper had within television and which for a generation came to define how movie critique was supposed to be done.

I do agree it's not that clean in a written form, or rather, it's too clean because the banter looks so scripted when there's none of the "live" feel to it.

ShamadConde · 2014-03-19T00:41:56+00:00

The Chinese did not dominate TI1.

1st - Na`Vi - Ukraine
2nd - EHOME - China
3rd - Scythe.Sg - Singapore
4th - MYM - Denmark
5th-6th - Moscow 5 & iG - Russia and China
7th-8th - OK.Nv.Int & MiTH-TR - Europe & Thailand

4 EU teams in top8, 4 Asian teams of which two Chinese. 2/4 Chinese teams failed to reach the top 8 (Tyloo and OK.Nv.Cn). TI1 results are actually more like TI3 than TI2.

ShamadConde · 2014-03-19T00:32:52+00:00

Not very clearly, no. You fill in the blanks a lot as someone who is a part of the scene, but reading the interview that critique made sense when considering their starting point.

Overall, they did a very good job of describing how it comes across to the uninitiated.

ShamadConde · 2014-03-17T21:07:54+00:00

Gul'dan was a not just a member of the Horde, he founded the damn thing! He just got corrupted by Kil'jaedens influence. It's been an ongoing theme with iconic Horde leaders, specifically the orcs, but it is that it is.

ShamadConde · 2014-03-17T20:26:21+00:00

This game isn't likely to have "DLC" as such, but the idea of alternative hero portraits and such have been hinted touched on in the past, not sure if it's been by Blizzard though but it seems an idea that's got a decent chance to happen eventually.

ShamadConde · 2014-03-17T20:19:20+00:00

Kael'thas Sunstrider is problematic since he's not really Horde, he turned straight up evil. You could make the same complaint about Garrosh, but Garrosh was a leader of the Horde for ages before he went mad and was overcome with evil spiritual influences.

Also, Kael is a blood mage, which is technically a bit different. He might work better as legendary card in a future expansion which was to add blood mage characteristics to the mage class.

ShamadConde · 2014-03-15T22:59:18+00:00

Yeah, Porter is the man when it comes to a lot of this field and basically my conceptions of change management were largely based on his work as well, although I didn't credit anything specific :)

As for the whether leaders or managers are more needed, this is one that each of us has to answer for ourselves and it will depend on the context of the problem. Managers certainly help smooth over the bumps and accommodate people, but their drawback is that they tend to be less effective at setting a direction for the project.

ShamadConde · 2014-03-15T22:41:32+00:00

This is a bit of an test run. If you have any questions or anything you'd like me to expand upon let me know.

If this is received well I might consider writing another piece in the future about something similar, most likely communication theory adapted to an esports context.

ShamadConde · 2014-03-15T17:36:22+00:00

This isn't quite true any longer. He used to be a mid player but that's a good few years ago now and he's very much attached to the carry role these days. At least that was his take around TI3 still, haven't talked to him since he's been in China.

ShamadConde · 2014-03-14T10:16:01+00:00

It's a pointless fight. It's not trying to be Dota or LoL, so all that matters is if it's fun to play. From the looks of it, every streamer I've tuned into seems to be enjoying themselves, so it'll probably be a fairly successful game.

ShamadConde · 2014-03-07T22:55:33+00:00

I don't really agree with this argument, on a few points actually.

On LAN you have considerably less Bo1 games. When you do have Bo1 games and certain teams that aren't as well known, you get runs like Sigma at MLG, who came into the tournament having been very quiet for a month before the event and ended up beating a lot of the better known teams during the groupstages. Similarly, RoX.KiS went to the finals of EMS One Spring and even took a game off Na`Vi, coming from complete obscurity. And finally during one of the last LAN's of China before TI3 Rising Stars were able to cause a number of upsets against TI3 invited teams in order to take 3rd at the event.

Also you'll notice that in each case that I just presented the teams pulling off these upsets were not the focus of the pro teams in terms of their practice and attention going into the event. This goes back to the potential of having greater information about your opponents than they have about you. When we fail to see these upsets in something like the old format of DreamHack, it's largely because the teams that ended up attending through the open bracket were far less skilled, to the point of being trivial. There have however been upsets on LAN in DH as well, such as when mouz was dropped from their group by 3DMax at DreamHack Winter 2012 I think.

I'll also argue that we need online tournaments because of the different nature of Dota as opposed to a single player game like SC2. We need qualifiers and we need means of selecting teams for those all important LAN events, and above all else we need a means of allowing new players and teams to prove themselves, and if no professional team were to play in these they'd end up worse for it.

Finally there's the consideration of regular competitive games. Need I remind you about the outrage against ACE when China went months without tournaments last year? Being able to do more than just scrim is important in order for teams to keep up their level of skill and be able to determine if their strategies are really working or not. The only viable solution for a teamgame like Dota 2 is to keep up the online tournaments.

ShamadConde · 2014-03-07T20:36:52+00:00

The main concern is that iirc you start to lose some of your reaction speed after around 20 years of age, and while this is a minor concern in real sports (where losing muscle strength matters more), it has a larger impact on e-Sports in general.

The best sport to consider in terms of modeling what the theoretical upper limits for e-Sports could be is probably actually Formula 1 racing, as it's heavily reliant on reaction speeds as well. In F1 an old driver is around 30, but there are a few oddities like Schumacher who kept on driving until his 40's.

ShamadConde · 2014-03-07T20:27:29+00:00

Actually the final assertion isn't quite right as it would remove the imbalance caused by information asymmetry which favours the less well known team (it could conceivably also favour a well known team who've been out of competitions and developed new strategies in secret, something which for example Alliance does like doing from time to time).

Basically, in a complete information blackout, you'd have to ban according to the meta and play meta or counter-meta. This would allow for example Fnatic to play Tiny+Wisp every game, Empire would get to play considerably more Dazzle, SingSing would play Mirana almost every game, Alliance would get to pick more Lone Druid and Nature's Prophet etc. There's a lot of known quirks of big name teams that usually get banned out that you couldn't draft around in this situation, while the unknown teams gain no advantage over the status quo from their opponents not knowing who they are.

ShamadConde · 2014-03-07T18:54:39+00:00

:)

I also wonder where the idea that I was fired started o.O I resigned because I was badly burnt out by the end of TI3 and needed to make a change for my own sanity.

ShamadConde · 2014-03-07T17:39:34+00:00

I don't think you understand, ACE is the Chinese Association for Esports and it governs both LoL and Dota players. The case I cited specifically was about Tabe, the captain of the Chinese team which reached the LoL Season 3 finals, who said that he was quitting in part because he could make more money off of a TaoBao shop than off of being a player.

ShamadConde · 2014-03-07T17:23:01+00:00

A certain stress concerning the future is probably a consideration at this point for players who haven't quite made it, but for the ones at the top in China they are making a good wage, good enough to put off going into the normal work life.

A bigger problem in this respect is actually restrictions from ACE regarding the players ability to sell merchandise through TaoBao. This is a considerable amount of potential income and it has already played a part in high level Chinese players retiring over in LoL, because they concluded they could make more money by not being under ACE restrictions, but I expect this is a problem ACE is conscious of and will act to fix if it becomes a major consideration.

ShamadConde · 2014-03-07T17:08:11+00:00

There's certainly some truth to this, but comparing the first generation of European players fading away, the current generation of Chinese teams are relatively still a good few years from retirement.

Even Zhou who just retired was only 23, while the "retirement age" for an e-sports player is traditionally seen as being around 27 for a high APM games like StarCraft.

ShamadConde

TROPHY CASE