Dota 2: Dragon’s Blood is an animated TV series on Netflix. This review does not spoil the specifics of the plot.
The Netflix series was clearly not done by Valve. Valve makes video games. And they are good at it. One of the things I really enjoy about their video games, at least the ones that I play, is how they can work in story elements into games that are not driven by a plot.
Mirana and Davion sitting in the forest; Dota 2: Dragon’s Blood – image from the internet
Team Fortress 2, TF2, was one of the first games that I really played. It is a team based shooter. You and your team attack the enemy to gain the bases or check point or briefcase. The game play was fun, not too impossible for me to pick up, but with enough of a ceiling that my brother sank tons of hours into the game. There is no plot to the game. Yet, Valve was able to include clever dialogue lines, small hints to a greater story in the small background elements of the levels and later with their comics. Sure the stories from the comics were not deep, but they were well done – fun, amusing and competently written.
This attention to detail was carried into Dota 2. This multiplayer fighting game – MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) is not plot driven. There is no story that you learn by playing through the game. Yet, there are little clues to the world’s lore scattered through the short background notes for each of the heroes, the heroes voice lines and the fluff tags attached to items. From these cleverly written short bits, you get a feel for the world and the heroes you play. There are comics that I haven’t read, which delve deeper into the world. And they were even going to explain some of the world with their (now dead) digital card game, Artifact. So, while story and plot are not driving forces, the artists at Valve have been able to create a cohesive world filled with multiple races, beings and conflicts.
Davion, Dragon Knight and squire. Based on the characters in Dota 2; from the animated series: Dragon’s Blood by Studio Mir, Netflix Animation & Valve
There is a lot of potential for a story scattered throughout this game. So, I was excited to learn about the animated netflix series – Dota 2: Dragon’s Blood. This TV series was going to set a story in the Dota universe. I watched the sanctioned hype videos, which helped to create some interest. That said, on a scale of 1 – 10 (one being no interest and 10 being super excited), I was sitting at about 7 when I sat down on the couch to watch some TV. The intro raised my excitement to a 9, which then plummeted to a 5 by the end of the first episode.
Dragon’s Blood may be set in Valve’s world. But this outsourced production lacked the Valve touch. The best I can say is the 8 episode season was generic. The dialogue was bland and the animation was washed out. It was very surprising how many shots were still images, no movement. There were crowds cheering in the background while the audience stared at a stationary image. Everything about the series was flat. The key plot points were either entirely too predictable or so obtuse I couldn’t follow the show’s explanations. Honestly, I don’t get the ending. It doesn’t make sense, which must be off putting to those not familiar with the Dota 2 universe.
The video game is full of movement. One of the things I struggle with as a player is how many things are happening at once. Battle scenes are a swirl of chaotic movement and particle effects. It is very action focused, even during the ‘quiet’ moments of the game. So, an animated series that spent one third of the time used stationary images didn’t ring true. The animation was a bit better during fight scenes – during these moments they pulled more directly from the video game animating the skills of the heroes.
Mirana in a fight scene! Based on the characters in Dota 2; from the animated series: Dragon’s Blood by Studio Mir, Netflix Animation & Valve
The character lines in the video game are fun, witty and convey a surprising amount of information considering they have nothing to do with a plot. The dialogue in the animated series used cussing to seem edgy. Something Valve doesn’t need to resort to because they are better writers. As it was a Netflix series it also felt the need to incorporate orgies into some of the visuals, presumably to compensate for the lack of well developed characters and plot. Finally, the visuals were very white-washed. While this may be a common feature of anime, I feel like it is counter to the Dota vision that was trying to be more diverse with its character design.
While I feel like there is potential to pull stories out of the Dota 2 world, I found this first attempt underwhelming. As I am not an expert in the lore of the Dota 2 world, I cannot speak to the accuracy of the story. However, with generic dialogue and bland animation I cannot say I was impressed with this attempt to expand the franchise.
Happy Holidays to all my gorgeous readers. And Happy Holidays to you too, Derek.
It’s been quite a year; I think we can all agree on that. November was particularly hectic for me. Partly because of Nano. Partly because of a pandemic. Partly for other reasons. I’m exhausted and needed a little recovery. Now I’m back into editing the third novel in the Red Sabre series. Though, I’ve been speaking to Kait, and we have some lovely ideas for the new year. Hopefully something will shake out for that.
Anyway, I want to get a couple of blog posts out before we wrap up 2020, put a little bow on it then shove the entire year in the attic and forget about the whole darn thing until we die and someone has to clear our junk out. They won’t necessarily be the most exciting blog posts but hey, at least I’m fulfilling my duties in writing them.
This one is actually going to be about Dota 2 content. So if you’re disinterested in all that jazz, feel free to pop back later in the month.
However, I wanted to discuss Valve’s most recent event because it has been rather interesting and I’ve been tossing some words around in my head about it. And where else am I going to share my useless thoughts on a little seasonal game mode in a free-to-play computer game that’s pretty niche in terms of computer games?
So, Dota 2 has been around for quite some time. Not only is it a sequel (of a mod) but it “officially” released in 2013 after a few years in closed beta. And while I wasn’t the first through the door, I have been enjoying the game as it’s passed through its many iterations. Now, it’s a Valve game, which is to say it’s really well made but took its time. For those who don’t know, Valve has an atypical corporate structure that encourages collaborative and self-directed work amongst its employees. While great for moral, it certainly leads to products that don’t follow your typical development arc from other companies.
Diretide and all associated whatnots belong to Valve
First, the enthusiasm for a game just about to release is off the charts. When Dota 2 was finalizing its beta cycle and approaching it’s grand opening, there were so many updates, communiques and tools released that it was positively staggering. For instance, to celebrate Halloween in 2012 (yes, before official release), Valve wanted to showcase their own modding tools in the game by releasing a fun event mode called Diretide. Dota 2 is a game of five versus five players running around and trying to be the first team to destroy the other’s base. In Diretide, bases were removed and instead players had little candy stashes. Players ran around the map trying to collect the most candy – either through stealing it off the corpses of neutral creatures or from the corpses of their enemies before they could deliver their candy back to their team’s bucket. And, of course, you could steal it from your enemy’s bucket as well.
All the while, players were hunted by Roshan. Roshan is a giant monster that normally sits in the middle of a Dota 2 map passively awaiting for a team to come and kill him for a unique item and lots of experience. The Diretide mode was billed as a sort of “Roshan Revenge” where now he stomped across the map demanding candy from teams. Those that failed to deliver were pummeled to death at the end of his enormous claws.
After two ten minute rounds, players then came together to fight the much stronger Roshan. I believe he was even stronger depending on how much candy teams accumulated. But it was a peculiar moment of cooperation at the end of a grueling duel between two opposing teams.
It was cute for a festive event especially for a game that hadn’t received official release yet. Bizarrely, however, it was a cult hit. I remember discussing the mode with my old team after it concluded. While we appreciated the break in the regular Dota 2 format, we largely stuck with the mode for one simple reason: free hats.
I still think the enduring popularity of Diretide rode solely on the fact that the game mode was very, very, very, very generous in its rewards. Winning a round provided the victorious team with a free cosmetic. Prior to Diretide, the only way to get these were to either buy them from the marketplace or the store. I’m not even certain raising your profile rank dropped items yet at this time. Thus, people threw themselves with avarice upon the mode, yelling and screaming at teammates that may have cost them the chance of getting the precious new chapeau. Not only that, but at twenty minute long matches with a very difficult fight at the end, the mode wasn’t really relaxing even though it had ostensibly ripped out most of Dota 2’s regular strategic elements. As a test of what the game could do, it was cute. But even at the time, people were quick to point out the structural issues.
However, when 2013 rolled around, the community became rabid when there was no sign of Diretide in sight.
It was perhaps one of the most ridiculous things I had ever witnessed online. The community forums were spammed in all discussion threads with “Gib Diretide” as the players demanded the return of the mode. The fevered pitch at which their anguished cries reached extended well beyond the Steam forums or subreddits. Players began to “review bomb” Dota 2 on review sites. They would submit mass single ranking reports to drive the game’s community ranking into the toilet. Not because they thought the base game was bad. Only because they felt this was the only way for Valve to “hear them.”
Perhaps the most ridiculous display was when a whole brigand of players showed up on Volvo’s Facebook page to spam the endless “Gib Diretide” demands on their social media website. Needless to say, Volvo was confused why they were being inundated with these messages. Especially since the only connection between Valve and Volvo is literally just the misspelling of two vowels.
As I said, it was the lowest I’ve seen an Internet community stoop. Was I disappointed that Diretide didn’t return the next year and there was no word of a replacement? Sure. But I’ll honestly say the only reason I wanted the mode was for the free items. Valve cobbled together a playable version of the event mode, which was probably harder to do than it would typically seem since somewhere along the line between beta and release they had changed the game’s engine. The new version of Diretide had no item drops. While I didn’t engage with it outside of a few novelty matches, I got the distinct impression that people were thoroughly unhappy with it. I felt that was the peak example that no one actually cared for the damn mode, they just wanted easy, free hats.
After 2013, Diretide thankfully never showed its face again. Every Halloween there would be some cheeky “Gib Diretide” call but thankfully these were restricted back to the Dota 2 online communities and usually in sad threads that longed for some idealized version of a game mode that never existed.
Seven years later, and there weren’t even any more mewlings for the damn thing.
And yet, Valve went ahead and released Diretide this year.
I want to add a little context in that the annual Dota 2 grand tournament, The International, was cancelled due to the pandemic. Valve still released the compendium for the tournament, however, generating a lot of money from sales for a tournament that still hasn’t occurred. With that compendium, however, we got an excellent new event mode called Aghanim’s Labyrinth. Kait and I played this quite a lot as it was a cooperative four person romp through a rather complex rogue-like dungeon. It was excellently crafted, with a ton of new voice lines, a unique boss and quite a lot of challenging rooms. Outside of the characters, there is very little that connects it to a normal Dota 2 game. Unfortunately, it released a little late in the compendium’s run and ended when The International would have ended had it gone through.
But it demonstrated just how far Valve had come in creating custom games.
And then, out of nowhere, they drop a little trailer for Diretide 2020. I don’t know who is in charge of doing the animations for these new trailers at Valve but they are fantastic.
While seven years is quite a long time for a return of a mode, I must say the wait was well worth it. Diretide 2020 is a culmination of all that Valve has learned in custom game mode design. It looks fantastic, with a custom ink cell shading that visually sets it apart. And I can’t say how much Valve has fixed this mode. Kait and I get drawn back to Dota 2 for the International hype and then usually finish off the year enjoying the game before forgetting it until the next grand tournament rolls around. However, Diretide has been incredible for us.
For one, it’s a silly little mode. This is still a competitive 5 versus 5 mode. However, rounds are only five minutes long! And it’s a best of five so are often much shorter than the twenty minute slog of the original version. Furthermore, there’s no big fight at the end with Roshan. This is strictly you playing the game mode to win the candy rush. And speaking of the mode…
Valve created a completely new map for the game. And it is fantastic. I can finally see the appeal of Blizzard’s Heroes of the Storm game. HotS wanted to set itself apart from the other Dota 2 like games by having a variety of maps with unique objectives scattered about them. In Diretide 2020, you’re still trying to collect more candy than your enemy. However, there are only two lanes that circle around Roshan’s cell. At the top and bottom of the maps are spots were scarecrows spawn three times a round. These scarecrows drop ten candies and a neutral item for whoever kills them. Three secret shops mean that you can keep on the playing field to fight it out without having to retreat back to your base to heal. And your neutral creeps spawn around two candy wells – one in each lane. These are like towers in the regular game however they don’t attack and when destroyed also drop ten candy from their owner’s bucket to the enemy team. The candy wells are guarded by a strong, tethered monster allied with the team that offers some mild defence for your base.
And quite literally every change Valve made has turned Diretide into a frantic, brawling, violent romp over Halloween candies. Roshan still pursues teams while demanding candy tributes though he can’t be fought off. And his tithe increases the more ahead you get from your opponents. Fail to feed Roshan and he’ll kill his tributary while cursing the rest of the team with a wasting disease that will constantly sap your hero’s health until it expires. Kait and I have been playing this mode exclusively and, honestly, we’d probably be playing it even if it didn’t have item drops.
But it also has hats.
Recognizing that the only reason people played the original Diretide was for hats, Valve has a candy counter for rewards in playing Dota during the Diretide season. These rewards, smartly, apply to both regular Dota 2 matches and Diretide which allows those who are only interested in the hats to keep playing regular Dota while us pub stars stick with our stupid game mode. That was sorely needed and kudos to Valve for recognizing that. Everyone gains candy points for playing a match, regardless of winning or losing (also very smart to reduce toxicity from players). The bulk of your points are rewarded for how long the game goes. So five round, close matches will give more though short three round matches means you have time to queue up for another game so it balances out. There’s a single “First Win of the Day” bonus and then there’s very small bonuses for accomplishing certain things within the mode itself. These are worth two points and given for First Blood, First Scarecrow, First Candy Steal and the like. They’re nice to pursue but since a three round match gives everyone 9 points, we’re not talking about really vital goals to pursue.
Once your reward candy counter reaches 100, you are gifted a random item from a staggeringly large list of items. These include discontinued chests which I never expected to see since I don’t spend any more money on this game outside of International Compendiums. There’s also Diretide exclusive items and two chests that you can get this season too. One is just a normal item chest. These have spooky outfits for about nine of the heroes (and I was lucky enough to get two of these to drop and I didn’t even get the pudge set out of them too!). There’s a second Diretide chest which requires a paid key to open, reminiscent of the old Team Fortress 2 crate system. These chests can be sold on the market and include a lot more items from ambient sets, immortals to immortal sets worth several hundred dollars on the steam marketplace. Anything you want from these can also be sold on the marketplace so needless to say I haven’t opened any of these “money chests.” There are some ghostly item effects that drop as well, seasonally limited to the fall and can be applied to certain heroes and couriers.
I’ve been very happy being able to farm this mode to get new goodies. And I can’t imagine that Valve hasn’t made a bundle off these sale chests considering I’ve made around seven dollars on my own from people’s enthusiasm. There were some bugs and balance issues when this first dropped. Given that Dota 2 has over a hundred heroes with an enormous skill pool, certain heroes were considerably better than others. Valve had the foresight to allow each player a single ban at the start of the match and released a number of patches to the game mode post launch to bring certain heroes in line as well. I’ve enjoyed the evolving “meta-game” around the picks and bans of Diretide as well as finding my own list of heroes who everyone ignores at their peril.
Which is to say, Snapfire is OP. Wraithking as well. I think I lost maybe three times over the entire run with those two.
So, yeah, this has been an incredible surprise from Valve and I just wanted to share some positivity over a well constructed and launched custom game mode in Dota 2.
Dota 2 and the International belong to Valve. Check it out! It’s a lot of frustrating fun.
It’s that time of year again. Grab your tide green polo shirt. Pull up a massive bag of trail mix. Block out a week of your life. The Dota 2 International tournament is upon us. This year, the prize pool has broken a staggering 23 million dollars – for those that care about such things. Though Valve has listened to feedback and no longer does the finalist walk away with half that amount and the money is better spread to see that most participants are making a sizeable return should the make it to the prestigious event.
This year there’s no wild card slot. Instead, we had a massive number of teams qualify through regional competitions to get an invite. Of the eighteen participants, only six of them received a direct invite. Furthermore, no team will be eliminated in the first day before the group stages. Instead, the bottom teams from the two pools will not qualify for the main event. This is a reasonable compromise. It means the wild card teams who initially made it will see a bit more play and get a bit of a better chance to prove themselves. And while it sucks having teams invited not make the main event, dropping the bottom teams is fine since they have already demonstrated that they’re unlikely to do well against the top teams and it’s certainly a far better arrangement than prior wildcards received. They even got a cool $55,000 for showing up.
Kait and I are probably more excited for this years TI than most in recent memory. Partly because we missed last year (and Kait missed the year before) and partly because we’ve been trying to get back into Dota 2 as well. We certainly haven’t followed the professional scene and have no idea who is likely to be favourites going into the tournament. I’ll, of course, be cheering for the remnants of Fnatic reborn into the dominating OG team. OG has a tendency for ripping apart the competition throughout the year at Valve’s Major tournaments. Unfortunately, things seem to fall apart once they get to the big one. Will they be able to keep nerves in check and continue their streak? I almost am afraid for them to be successful and draw the awful Champion Curse upon themselves.
Kait, on the other hand, has lost her traditional underdogs. She’s been an Alliance fan since the history making TI 3. But the original players have scattered to the wind and the Alliance organization itself failed to qualify for this year. I think she’s tentatively swapped to cheering for OG as well but her loyalty is fickle and wavering. I know she has a soft spot for Burning so she might start supporting iG even if it seems unlikely for a team to win successive TIs.
All of this indicates that posting from us will be a little sparse over the coming week. But you’re welcome to tune in. Twitch.tv will be streaming the games and, of course, the tournament is free to watch within Valve’s Steam storefront and game client.
Either way, I’ve got my Dota 2 shirts ready and my digital banners ironed. Let’s go OG!
Dota 2 belongs to Valve and whatnot. The International I’d like to think belongs to us all.
I give my yearly impressions of the premier competitive event for a video game. Before, it probably seemed like a quaint little commentary on a budding hobby. But, really, I’m not certain we can truly consider this a small time thing anymore. For one, the prize pool for this International was over 18 million dollars. Eighteen million. That’s a lot of hats.
For pointless rivalry, that’s 16 million more than Riot Game’s League of Legends. But don’t worry, they’re future proofing their competitive league. Certainly, this furore for Dota 2 will abate. I mean, it’s not like we didn’t almost double from last year’s 10 and a bit. Which, to be fair, was insanity considering TI3 only had 2.8 million for it’s prize pool. Could this be a flash in the pan? I suppose. But two years in a row is a little surprising and, more than that, Valve is a very savvy developer and it’s hard to argue when the fan base is more than willing to throw money at this competition.
And why shouldn’t we be?
In case you aren’t aware how the International prize pool works, Valve sets the base prize every year at 1.6 million dollars. From there, everything else is contributed by fans through purchases of merchandise related to the event. Primary amongst these is the Compendium: a digital program with information about the event, teams and location. As this is a digital book–and part of a digital game–the compendium offers a number of interactive elements. You can vote for your favourite team and player, create your own all-star team and submit your most wanted for the goofy match which shares its namesake, make predictions of heroes picked and banned throughout the event along with other statistics and much more. The program is priced at ten dollars. Which, if you’re playing Dota 2, doesn’t seem that grave an investment given that the game is free. This is the first year I bought one, the prior two I was graciously gifted them, but even if I had bought all three that would mean I’ve spent a grand total of $30 on this game over three years. Considering that games, on average, launch for $60-70 in Canada, I have a few more to support before I even reach a point of overspending on this game.
From these compendium sales, 25% of the proceeds go towards the prize pool. Even more devious, Valve has released several chests filled with special, limited time hats for the event. Purchasing the chests also adds 25% of their cost to the prize pool. If any other company had been behind this scheme, it would be exploitative but since these hats really do nothing other than provide a vanity item to the game and their quality is rather top notch, it’s hard to fault this method. It’s so simple yet effective that, once again, I’m shocked no other developer has followed suit. Even more, these chests are rather reasonably priced (I suppose) at $2.50 a box. Granted, there’s a gambling element that I’m sure people will be quick to criticize as every chest that’s opened has a chance to hold an additional rarer item but it’s so minor that to complain about it feels more petty than anything else.
And even with all that, it comes packed full of goodies that it’s hard to argue with the value of the compendium itself. If you choose not to spend a single extra dollar outside of that original ten, then you get three immortal items, announcer pack, emoticons, wallpapers, taunts, in-game effects, new map type and courier. Granted, most of this stuff wasn’t assured as they were stretch goals achieved as total compendium sales reached specific milestones. Both years Valve has placed the stretch goals, however, they’ve been reached both times so it’s a moot point right now.
Anyway, all this just means that we have a big prize pool. What I really want to discuss is the competition itself.
Last year’s Internationals was good but there were some elements that detracted from the overall experience. I’m glad that Valve addressed those format issues this time around. This year, every team participated in the main event (instead of half of them being eliminated during the group stages a week before the main event. However, the group stages wasn’t just for setting up seeding in the main event. I liked how they made all the games important for the players. First amongst it was that the top four teams of the two divisions began in the upper bracket. This is a big deal since the first games in the lower bracket were a best of one.
That is a big deal.
Most tournament matches for Dota 2, especially if you’re in the later stages of a tournament, are a best of three. Resting your tournament hopes on a single match is incredibly dicey. Especially since the outcome of a game can be heavily reliant in the first ten minutes of the draft. A surprise hero pick can really turn a game and even a few mistakes can spiral into a crushing defeat. In this way, even the strongest teams can drop matches to much weaker or inconsistent teams. It’s a real dice roll and everyone’s going to be fighting to be out of that position.
It also makes those single matches very intense. And, once again, it’s great to see all sixteen finalist teams at the main event even if it’s just for a single match. The only complaint I have for this setup was that we had the lower bracket games after the upper bracket games. This meant, especially with the delays, some of these high stakes matches occurred well into two to three o’clock in the morning. Unfortunately, it was simply not feasible to catch all these matches.
The rest of the tournament, outside of the finals which was a best of five, were best of three sets. Teams in the upper bracket would drop to the lower with loses but if they won their first match in the upper bracket, then they were assured a top six final position. With this year’s division of the total prize pool, Valve went with a more distributed model. Last year saw the lion’s share of the tournament go to the winners with only the top eight teams really earning any significant portion of the money. This year, every team that got to the International got a piece of the pie and I preferred that. And that covetous top six spot meant that your team would get an excess of 1 million dollars.
I have no problem with every team getting paid for this tournament especially since almost half of them had a gruelling gauntlet to get to the tournament in the first place. Only ten of the teams got a direct invite. Four had to qualify from intense regional tournaments and two had to have a wild card tournament to get into the event. Even more than that, the regional tournaments were open to everyone in the world so there was competition from everywhere. Granted, while every Joe could sign up, the teams that got into the actual regional competition weren’t any real surprises and consisted of familiar professional players that weren’t on an invited team.
I’m really curious to hear more of the Major League that Valve is brewing for next year as well. I get the feeling that they prefer not having the International be an invite only competition though how they’ll make the qualifying process more transparent will be interesting to see. Opening up the competition beyond the twelve or so same faces, however, is really good and this tournament showed why.
Part of the compendium fun is trying to predict who would take the title and who would follow them closely behind. I can safely say that no one has correctly predicted the top six teams for the International 2015. That’s because two of the top six teams came in through the qualifiers. One of those teams came in through the wild card slot.
I would be surprised if anyone, in their wildest dreams, would have imagined CDEC getting into the grand finals. It’s unprecedented. The International has had the wild card before but they were usually eliminated rather quickly in the tournament. This year, however, this team of relatively unknown players simply crushed the competition. They came out of nowhere. And that isn’t an exaggeration. I believe four of them had never participated in a tournament before. The one that had did not win. It was a dream story and so unexpected that Valve didn’t even have any introductory video for them like they did all the other teams–and how could they?
But it wasn’t just CDEC that came out of nowhere. Ehome–while not a new face to the International–was resurrected and got a respectable 5-6th position. Complexity was mostly full of new players coming from Heroes of Newerth and they posted a 9-12th spot. MVP Phoenix snagged a 7-8th spot and won many hearts through March’s roars.
Even better, the grand winners were none other than Evil Geniuses themselves. Not only is this their first International victory but they’re also the first North American team to take the aegis as well. They even managed to maintain the surprisingly accurate tradition of having the tournament pass hands back and forth between eastern and western hands. I’m really happy that there hasn’t been a single team to win the tournament more than once. We haven’t even had a single player win multiple Internationals and no one region dominates the scene. I feel it’s really healthy for the scene to have such a diverse and competitive field. For the fans, you can’t know who is going to take the crown and if you’re a fan of western or eastern style Dota, then you’re going to be happy to see either thrive. Maybe even next year we’ll get a few more regions qualifying. I know South America has been on the cusp of making it and with MVP’s respectable placing maybe we’ll see more from the Koreans.
And with all this, I still haven’t even touched on how much better the actual production of the tournament was. We got more Kaci and her interviews. We had better insights into the players and their situations. The arena looked spectacular and that stage with its special effects were incredible. Deadmaus was kind of… odd as a closing celebration but at that point, most of us were simply ready for bed so whatever.
It’s great that Valve is still learning and improving with the tournament and it just keeps getting better and better. It’s hard not to keep interest when everything that was good is even greater than before. We’ll be entering into the post-TI slump were pretty much the entire scene takes a much needed break but hopefully we’ll hear what this new Majors system is going to be soon since it’s going to start shortly. And that’ll give teams very little time to do their team shuffle (which I hope leads to more stability which is still the one element sorely lacking).
It’s been some time since we’ve covered more broad topics than writing and fiction. Partly because the whole point of somewherepostculture is to create a repository for our own musings and explorations of the written medium and partly because we’re not very exciting people. However, today begins the first of a series of four regional qualifiers for Valve’s The International tournament. Those who have been browsing for awhile know of my fondness for Valve and their little game called Dota 2. Those who haven’t, well, I am fond of Valve and their little game called Dota 2.
This year, Valve has made the lead-up to the annual tournament and possibly biggest e-sport event a little different. Prior, they had teams fight for a coveted Wildcard position, inviting around ten teams to fight for the chance to get to the other-wise “invite only” competition. This proved to be so successful that Valve has opened the slots this year for five teams to battle each other to get a chance at the $3.8 million dollar and growing prize pool.
That’s right, there is $3.8 million dollars on the table for these teams.
E-sports, as ludicrous as its name may be, is a very new and often misunderstood competition. Yes, they are video games. Yes, people play them professionally. My sister struggled with this when she was first introduced to it because of our preconceived notions of athleticism, competition and the way technology historically interacted with our lives. Personally, I see this sort of event as a glimpse of the future. No longer are the ideas of virtual arenas and cyber-athletes the sort of idea regulated to science fiction visions of possible technological achievements. We are living in a transitory age where the established sport industry is being demonstrated that a physical interaction on a field not only is an unnecessary component but also an outdated one. The advent of the Internet and the gross amounts of money to be made through offering spectators a chance to watch people devoted to mastering the complexities of their games as created a seemingly sustainable enterprise which shows only signs of becoming larger.
I, for one, am excited to be a part of this landmark movement and draw inspiration in how technology will change the face of society and our way of life with each successive invention.
Though, mostly, I just enjoy watching the game being played. Which is weird since I used to loathe watching games being played. I could not understand how people got excited over football teams and matches. I found even our national sport to be rather dull when enjoyed from the bench. I always enjoyed playing the games but the activity of passively observing simply seemed a strange and pointless activity. Now, I understand the appeal. The one thing I really like about e-sports is the interesting connection between spectator and players. I can’t think of any other competition which is boosted and funded by the willing participation of its audience.
The International, in that regard, is both a new and exciting event. As the sole tournament sponsored and run by Valve – the creators of the game – the tournament is available for free in the game client itself. The only tickets to be bought are ones for physical admission to the arena in Seattle where the event will occur. I will not, obviously, be attending but I don’t see that as a missed opportunity because of I can enjoy the commentary right in the game itself rendering the need for visiting moot. It’s the sort of thing I can easily see transitioning to the realm of virtual space and exploration should virtual reality technology develop and catch on with the public. No, the interaction provided for the fans and teams is that Valve offers a digital book for sale which has challenges for the purchaser to attempt and predictions to make with the promise of free items when certain milestones are reached. Furthermore, twenty five percent of the purchase goes directly to the tournament’s prize pool itself.
This creates and easy excuse to rid oneself of the guilt over purchasing an item which will never have a physical component. You aren’t just buying this imaginary book but you are making the livelihood of your favourite teams and players easier by increasing their rewards for placing well in the tournament. It provides the spectator the feeling they are directly impacting the players and the production just by watching and participating in the event.
Clearly this is a valuable idea as the community doubled Valve’s initial 1.6 million starting prize pool in a mere two days. Reaching a prize pool of 4 million dollars seems a very real possibility and its kind of impressive and exciting to see how passionate the audience is for this game. It’s the sort of passion realized by fans who paint themselves and dress in their team’s memorabilia but realized in a space where most of the people involved may never meet face-to-face. I’m glad Valve is the company behind this enterprise since they have a history for innovation and ingenuity unrivaled by their peers.
Anyway, the long and the short of it is, the American qualifiers are on for the next three days followed by the South East Asia, Chinese and European qualifiers. I’m going to be watching quite a lot of Dota so my posts may not be of interest to many of you who come solely for short fiction and writing topics. I’m sure my lovely co-contributors will still provide their quality content but as I’m currently in Dota 2 fever, do not expect a lot of other culture commentary from me in the meanwhile.
If you are interested in Dota 2 and the International, I suggest you check out the official website at blog.dota2.com. Streams of the tournament are found on twitch.tv under the Dota 2 category. They should be easy to find since they’ll all say American Qualifiers and are the ones everyone’s watching.
OK, ladies and gents it’s time for another rant hour on the old blog post. Today, I want to address competitiveness and this nebulous concept of “playing to win.” We’ve all heard it before. Someone will leverage the accusation towards another in an attempt to belittle or undermine their adversary’s performance in some sort of competition. In our modern times, the most common occurrence will be during a game – be it video or otherwise.
Now, it’s no secret that I am a competitive individual. When I enter a contest, I desire to win. I enter with the intentions of trying my best and, should my best not be good enough, I seek to improve myself so that I can perform better the next time I face adversity in said game. Which is to say, I like to win. But who doesn’t? It’s enjoyable winning and unpleasant losing. The very purpose of a competition is to allow there to be either outcome. The better the competition the more the outcome is determined by the skill of the participants within than outlying factors. So, I do play to win. As does everyone.
Now, there are some people who claim otherwise. There are individuals that would say “having fun” is more important than winning. To this, I agree. But as I already established, winning is fun. I’m no philosopher but without the proper education in Game Theory, I’m certain that even if there is no tangible reward the average participant in a game strives to win. It makes sense on a basic level. Why would you participate in a game if you weren’t attempting to achieve the victory condition? I don’t set up a chessboard with the intent of creating the Mona Lisa with my pieces while my opponent is trying to capture my king. By engaging in the activity, we are entering into an unspecified contract to abide by the rules towards a singular victorious goal that is established by the activity itself.
This isn’t to say that these goals are immutable. Often times, games have a simplistic win state (“taking the enemy’s king”) that are complicated by the various aspects of the game (“getting past the pawns”) while avoiding the loss state (“losing my king”). There is no way to achieve victory in chess by your first move alone. Even the shortest win condition of two moves requires a very specific response from your opponent that is incredibly unlikely to occur the more experienced they are. Thus, it is often to my benefit to break down the distant and difficult win state into more immediate and advantageous goals that will make the final win state easier to achieve. My immediate goals could be something like “control the centre of the board” by having more pieces threaten the most squares in the middle while removing or preventing my opponent from doing so. I could also have the objective of “take the enemy’s queen,” a piece that is far more versatile and consequently more powerful than any other piece on the board.
In fact, this deconstruction of the win state is necessary for improvement. If I am only considering the final victory condition and move blindly towards it, I will be ill-prepared to deal with my opponent’s secondary and tertiary goals. I will concede those minor victories to him, likely obtaining little in return and increasing the difficulty of achieving a win as more and more small loses pile up. Furthermore, these secondary goals make incredibly complex games easier to understand and easier to analyze.
Dota 2, which I have made posts about before, is an incredibly complex and strategically challenging game. There is a huge overhead of knowledge required of the player between the staggering amount of interactions between the 110 current hero pool and the multitude of items that can be bought. Furthermore, the design of the game creates an ever changing balance of power between the accumulation of gold and experience on these different heroes with everyone one of them benefiting slightly differently. The win state, however, is very simple. The game ends with the destruction of the team’s “Ancient” – a large, impressive looking structure in the middle of their base. However, if I were to just pick a random hero and charge towards that structure I would invariably lose. Partly because the Ancient is invulnerable so long as it is protected by its tiered towers and partly because I would die well before I got anywhere near the base. This would “feed” both gold and experience to my enemies with each successive death giving them an ever growing advantage over my team that would eventually become insurmountable.
Thus, to succeed at Dota, it is imperative that objectives be broken down into far more manageable goals in order to win. A player needs to focus on their “laning” which requires them to outplay their opponent in the lane during the early portion of the game. Instead of focusing on destroying the Ancient, they’re looking at gaining an early advantage in gold and experience against the one to three opponents sharing the same space as them. If they are unable to secure an advantage themselves, they should look to either call in assistance or seek to help a teammate in another lane on the map. Once an advantage has been raised, whether through better farming of “creeps” for gold and experience or through a kill advantage against their opponent, they can then move on to the next objective of destroying the outer tier 1 towers. This provides more gold for the team and gives them greater influence over the map for them to slowly move in on the primary objective of the Ancient.
This breakdown of the game, as mentioned, also assists with learning. When looking back at a victory or loss, it’s natural to wonder how one team became victorious. If you merely look at the win state, it is impossible to see how it was achieved. Only by examining the secondary goals, their successes and failures, can you really analyze the play and learn where the biggest mistakes were made. The turn five loss of the Queen could have been the move that spelled disaster. The four deaths before five minutes to the enemy’s mid player could have jump started a surge in the enemy’s strength that spiraled out of control. By further breaking down secondary goals, you can see areas where you can improve. Perhaps your poor placement of pawns led to you losing control of the space that led to your Queen’s capture. Maybe your last hitting on the creeps allowed your opponent access to their second spell which gave them first blood and enough gold to purchase a bottle to hold runes in. You can examine these small mistakes and know where you can improve so next time you’re in a similar situation you are prepared with the knowledge of how to win them.
I want to make a few brief closing points on win states. There are some games with nebulous win states but clear loss states. Dungeons and Dragons doesn’t truly have a defined end goal. You don’t necessarily “win” D&D. Generally speaking, there will be an adventure with individual and party goals that you and the players are working towards. But because of its reactive nature, Dungeons and Dragons doesn’t really stop if you achieve or fail those goals. Likewise, even its loss state of death could just be a stumbling block depending on whether your Dungeon Master turns the story into some archetypal myth involving you or your party descending into the underworld to wrestle back your soul from the Lord of the Dead. Consequently, D&D is driven purely by its secondary goals be these a few job posting in pubs or a player’s desire to see the fall of a tyrannical lord.
And there is an exception to the statement that all players strive to win. There is a minority whose win state isn’t the established one of the game. These players are classified as “trolls” and their win state is self determined but usually set as creating as much animosity or grievance in their own teammates. They will do everything in their power to undermine their own team’s chances to win, deriving fun from the aggravation and frustration as they force a loss on their teammates. Consequently, these players are typically banned from participating when identified. Also, it is my personal opinion that these players will partake in this behaviour on throw-away accounts while maintaining a main account in order to participate in the established dynamic of the game but I have no evidence to back that up.
Benaroya Hall in glorious The International 3 colours. A fitting place for a tournament of heroes.
I swear, I totally planned on posting Friday. But, well, this is my Superbowl and things happen.
For those that haven’t paid attention to the Part 2 in the title, this last week Valve held their The International 3 Dota 2 tournament. Sixteen teams from around the world descended upon Seattle’s Benaroya Concert Hall to battle for a piece of the over 2.8 million dollar prize pool. It’s remarkable how people give you that questioning look when you inform them that you’re watching a video game tournament and suddenly their expression changes when they hear the prize pool.
E-sports are becoming a thing and times are exciting for those that are invested in it.
This is going to be another gushing post of positiveness and enthusiasm. Last year’s The International was a fantastic showing and Valve really demonstrated that they are capable of holding a very entertaining even despite their lack of experience. Knowing their work philosophy, I was excited to see how Valve would approach this year’s tournament and what improvements they would implement.
Even anticipating the change, I was still struck by the just how good this year’s event turned out.
I can not understate the grace and charisma that Kaci Aitchinson brought to an event that had historically been notoriously awkward.
One of the big improvements was the inclusion of this girl. Kaci Aitchinson. A local Seattle reporter had been conscripted by Valve to work the trenches of the event interviewing players, commentators and attendees alike. I won’t sugar coat it, there was a lot of trolling and awkwardness. Somehow, through it all, Ms. Aitchinson kept collected and cool and brought a great touch of humanity to the proceedings. She felt sincere and honest, apologetic in her ignorance of the event but constantly eager to learn more. There was some questioning of this stranger in our midst when she first appeared but within hours she was winning people over and learning more than she ever cared about Internet culture and bronies.
More importantly, her segments were a wonderful break that provided a new perspective to the production. She focused on players’ stories, the background working of the event and the reactions and feelings of special guests and the attendees. Last year, the interviews felt like a formality. A shallow stumbling through elements aped from other sports coverage. But Kaci’s bits were almost always entertaining and not just to see whether Iceiceice would discuss his diarrhea.
Kaci’s coverage also gave us unfortunate souls unable to attend a view of the additions to the venue. Valve clearly had a bunch of new ideas for bringing fans and teams together and their implementation was nothing short of genius.
Admiral Bulldog with his eponymous Nature’s Prophet. He’s the hero we deserve.
Tables were set up to allow fans to meet with their favourite players, voice actors and even workshop creators. See, Dota 2 is a free-to-play game which means anyone can download and play without giving a single cent to the developers. In order to make money, Valve has turned into a simulation hat manufacturer. Or distributor would be more accurate.
The Steam Workshop is an initiative that allows anybody to create and upload items to be sold in Dota 2. Fans vote for their favourites and after a quick quality assurance pass, Valve includes it into the main client. From there, every purchase will give the creators a portion of all earnings. You can take a couple of the over one hundred heroes and tweak their appearance to match your favourite player’s or cobble something practically unique.
Getting sports heroes’ signatures is rather popular and Valve, in their ingenuity, came up with a system that would net attendees a way to get their virtual items autographed by their stars. Every time you visited one of the tables, your visiting pass was scanned and your in-game account would receive a digital copy of your hard earned signature. I would kill to have Anuxi sign a set of Crystal Maiden’s Snowdrop set so just give the word Anuxi and someone can be expunged from existence at your beck!
Obviously, fan favourites would be voice actors like Ellen McLain (GladOS) or star players like Puppey. And if digital signatures weren’t enough, Valve returned with their Secret Shop to sell a load of new merchandise for eager fans. One of this year’s new items were little balls that contained a random plushie. Made, no doubt, to replicate the crate system in the game, you could buy a number of balls in the hopes of getting a doll version of your favourite character. And if you ended up with a Meepo, you could just toss it at N0tail.
Stolen from the Penny Arcade Report. Here’s Statsman Bruno from the main desk channeling the spirit of Godz for some insight on the outcome of the upcoming game between Alliance and Na’Vi in the winner’s bracket finals.
The hall itself was amazing. Spectators could see the teams in their booths – soundproof of course as the match’s commentators are just to the side of the main stage. This year they added the two large displays on either side of the main screen to showcase the heroes picked and banned during the first stage. Then, beneath the players were animated portraits of their chosen heroes including whatever cosmetic items they had equipped. These portraits would turn grey upon a player’s death and a counter would keep the audience updated on their respawn time.
Even more impressive was the personalized hard drives each of the players had. As is common for competitors, they had their own hardware from oversized mousepads to custom keyboards with specially made keys. The hard drives are important as they save each player’s personal settings which would be annoying and time consuming if they had to reset them every time a new team took the booth. It was fascinating to watch the Valve employees swap out the hardware for teams, having it down to almost five minutes to get in and out. As a result, time between matches was smooth and short.
My team was Fnatic. New faces to the Dota 2 scene, their tendency to pick neglected heroes as well as the enormous flexibility in their own roles won me over. Sadly, N0tail’s Meepo didn’t make an appearance. But I still believe for The International 4!
Perhaps the most exciting feature for all fans was the inclusion of the Interactive Compendium. For ten dollars, every fan could help contribute to the prize pool which topped off over 2.8 million dollars. In the time between Valve’s recording for the show’s audio, the prize pool had increased 200,000 dollars which made me smile every morning when the introduction announced the pool as “Greater than 2.6 million!” It’s a testament to the passion of the fans but since this is Valve, the Compendium really went on to make the matches even more exciting. You could choose your favourite team to support, create a fantasy team to garner points through each member’s performance during the event, collect trading cards of the participating players and even vote on the participants for a 1v1 tournament and a show match between the most popular players. Being invested in a team, even if it was because their picture was on the side of my digital book, made those matches even more intense. My sister was the only one of us to not have a Compendium and I think she began to regret that as we would cheer and cry over the performance of our own teams.
After an intense week of Dota with more games and plays than I could ever hope to cover, the event wound down to a close. It was exciting and exhilarating and even Kaci was caught up in the enthusiasm especially by the nerve-wracking Grand Finals which wound down to a nail biting game five. Everyone seemed exhausted but overjoyed and one team walked away 1.4 million dollars richer and the Aegis. Over five million spectators were logged in on Valve’s in-game client and the streams on Youtube and Twitch.tv. This doesn’t even include those that watched on the Swedish and Chinese channels that ran the shows or the hundreds of people gathered into pubs and theatres to watch with their fellow fans.
So I think the real hero to snag the Aegis is Dota 2 itself as it demonstrated the power and passion that e-sports are creating.
Rudely stolen from the Internet. I believe it’s a compilation of official Valve art put together by hydezz. Assuming my failing eyes aren’t complete rubbish, you can find his page at hydezz.deviantart.com
Alright, this is going to be something a little different today. For those not in the know, this week is Valve’s The International 3. It is, perhaps, the biggest tournament in e-sports. At least, it’s the biggest tournament I care about in e-sports. And while the category may carry a silly name, electronic sports may perhaps be the only type of sport I enjoy watching.
As such, I’ve been knocking back almost twelve hours a day of wall to wall action and high stakes combat. This means that my productivity is pretty much shot so I really don’t have anything prepared for the blog. I’m sorry to disappoint but you’ll have to rely on my co-creators for more meatier content this week.
For those with a slight interest, The International is a Dota 2 invitational only tournament. Held in Seattle, the best of the best are brought to Valve’s headquarters and Benaroya Hall to compete for a prize pool that is currently over 2.8 million dollars. See, I told you this is big. Granted, this is the entire pool and first place is only taking a measly 1.4 million. They’re practically paupers.
Now, there are two reasons I find Dota 2 a more engaging activity to watch over something like golf is two fold. For one, golf doesn’t involve a myriad host of critters and individuals stabbing each other in the face with swords, spears, pincers and what-have-you. Second, I actually play the game so watching people perform at the height of skill and competitiveness gives me pointers for improving my own performance in game. It’s fascinating watching the strategies that a cohesive team of five individuals will do to try and take the match against an equally fearsome opponent.
And Valve has done a remarkable job of making this spectating as engaging and enjoyable as possible. You can watch the entire tournament live from their in-game client for free. This allows you to listen to commentators and control the camera however you like. I can set it so I can watch the game from the perspective of my favourite player or ghost over the shoulders of the in-game casters as they make the calls for every play. Furthermore, I was graciously gifted this year’s compendium which is like one of those pamphlets they give out at sporting or theatre events. Only this one had a bunch of goodies packed inside and allowed me to construct a fantasy team of players who accrue me points and to make predictions based on the outcome of the game. This book, however, is not free and is priced at $10. Which might seem a little steep except it’s essentially a ticket for the event and $2.50 from it is contributed directly to the prize pool.
Hence why I initially stated that the pool is currently around 2.8.
The champion rings from last year because Valve really are that awesome. I know it’s nerdy, but I think I’d be so proud if I ever earned one of these.
Being able to invest directly into the tournament helps give a sense of proud ownership to each compendium holder. It’s nice to know that I’m directly supporting these players with my own money and, given the amount of entertainment they’ve provided, it’s a rather affordable price too. There’s even the option to purchase team pennants if you wanted to give money directly to your favourite team and those will cost you around $2.50 though you can give more by upgrading it. These pennants, in turn, increase your chances of obtaining tournament stamped digital items you can wear when you play though the chances of actually getting one are rather minuscule.
This year I’m throwing my support behind team Fnatic. They’re a relatively new team to the Dota 2 scene. Apparently, they were an old Heroes of Newerth (HoN) group who finally made the switch to Dota 2. I have no idea how highly ranked they were, but considering that my favourite caster Draskyl is also a former HoN competitive player, I won’t hold their origins against them. They’re a European team in the full sense of the term. Not a single member is from the same country but despite that they all get along seemingly extraordinary. I kind of like that global community feel. Plus they play some damn good an unconventional Dota. Anyone that picks and wins with Meepo in a tournament is surely to win my heart.
While I doubt I’ll make any converts of readers, I will likely post at least once more on this small obsession taking over my life. I consider this my Super Bowl, so I hope you’ll forgive me for minor consumption of my time. I’m trying to ride this wave of the future on a brand new phenomenon… or something.
I woke with a start. The world was dark and sulfurous. Pools of lava warmed the ground and filled my belly with fire. The air smelled like the great volcanoes in the heart of my mountains, but this was not the vast ledge where I roosted with my family. It was not the ancient forest of pine and fir I hunted for food and for sport. This was an unfamiliar world filled with strange creatures.
A spike of black rock curved in a semi-circle around me forming a nest of sorts. Tucked to one side was a funny looking man standing behind a wood stall and offering all sorts of strange objects. He took what little coin I had for potions of green and blue, a funny looking donkey and a stack of twigs. The man, round and chubby and looking more like a tasty treat, assured me that I would find use for these cryptic objects. Before I could press him for more information four strangers appeared at my side.
Looking left and right I counted four others appearing suddenly in this rock-nest. A man in metal, a man smelling of ozone and summonings, a man riding a piece of bird-meat, and a thing wreathed in purple haze. I knew nothing of these beings, though the chubby merchant smiled and sold them more objects from his stall. They were creatures unlike anything that I had seen in my mountains.
From the Great Sky a disembodied voice sited a countdown to the commencement of our hunt. Was this the ancient god of my race?
Dispersing from the rock-nest, I was sent to accompany the glowing purple demon. I hovered close to the wide paths as we trailed armed greenmen. The stagnant air affected my ability to gain the great heights I would reach in my home range. We moved cautiously through a sickly forest. The trees had turned to grey twigs; twisted stumps that hemmed in the path. We passed obsidian black towers as we rounded a corner to suddenly face two heavily armed opponents.
The bearded man hung back shooting at me from a metal tube. His unfamiliar teeth had range. But his lady moved in closer. She appealed to my right half with her silver flakes and touch of frost.
They crossed a mighty river to enter our woods choked with forgotten decay. At their feet, more greenmen rushed into the deadwood; raising spears into the air and sending small fires flying into our own greenmen. Their mall fires were pitiful in comparison to the flames burning in my own belly.
Greenmen attacked greenmen. Their deaths revealed fetid flesh that I would be loath to dine upon. Instead I turned my gaze to the river. The raging waters divided the land itself into the living and the dead. Beyond the ribbon of blue was a healthy forest of green. I knew it was fresh with delicious prey. Only two individuals stood in my way of that prize. Two individuals I would freeze and burn to reach that golden paradise.
Suddenly I am surrounded. Hulking strangers burst into the space around. Swords are hefted overhead and swung in a great arc. A boulder tumbled out of the cloudless sky. An arrow skimmed my outstretched wing.
I had no escape. Figures blurred in my vision. I became confused. , boulders came tumbling from the sky and arrows skim my outstretched wings. I panicked belching fire and breathing ice on those that came close. It didn’t work. Pain erupted in my chest. I fall from the sky hitting the ground hard. I could not lift my heads, every inch of my leather hide burns with pain. It was the end. The end of my own hunt, oblivion took over.
There was sweet blackness, the great release. Then the sulfurous stench of the Earth’s heart fills me once more. I blink awake in a ring of black stone. A nest with a merchant manning a wooden stall.
