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opterown
Australia54784 Posts
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/7Jgvel6.jpg) For a bit of backstory behind this, go to the end of the post
Hey guys,
In light of recent community response to the launch of liquiddota.com, I wanted to share my own opinions on the site. Expanding to LiquidDota was not a light decision, and much deliberation and planning went into its launch. As such, it's a bit saddening to see a fairly negative community reaction, so I'll try to summarise my own thoughts about the site.
While it pains me to link to a StarTale fan's post, Zealously has already written a post detailing some staff opinions to some popular criticisms. While I am also staff, I'd like to talk from my own views as a user and contributor of the site. My staff status is more of a convenience for me anyway (to manage the calendar and LRs and so on), and not because I'm involved with executive decisions, so you shouldn't take this as an official TL stance - it's just opterown's 2 cents.
TeamLiquid and Dota 2
When Dota 2 was first introduced on TeamLiquid, it wasn't exactly to unanimous appeal. While many people were positive, there were concerns that Dota 2 would bring excessive clutter, split staff focus up, and that TL would lose its longstanding focus on StarCraft.
With the announcement of the Liquid Dota pro-team and TeamLiquid coverage, there was an initial increase in the number of users who registered specifically for our Dota content. However, there have always been small issues with TeamLiquid and its Dota coverage. For example, Dota 2 favourite teams took a while to add, and user icons were still Brood War units. The Dota eSports scene isn't particularly suited to the TeamLiquid Calendar, which had otherwise worked fine with StarCraft before that. Sure, Brood War and SC2 share many similarities, but most do not extend to Dota 2.
While there was some initial interest in the Dota coverage, over time it became clear that our Dota section was not growing as it should. If you look through the announcement thread, you can see many users have single-digit post counts - which reflects a fleeting interest in Dota 2 with the announcement, but little retention of that interest.
Furthermore, TeamLiquid coverage started to become very crowded. With the sheer volume of eSports content from both games, news and spotlights got half the screen time they would have otherwise had. TeamLiquid started as a StarCraft site, and inevitably users who visited for StarCraft would have an impaired experience, due to the presence of other featured coverage on the front page too. Dota fans who wanted Dota content would be inundated with StarCraft news, which was always TL's priority.
Even though filters were available to allow users to customise their TeamLiquid content, the vast majority of TL's userbase were either not logged in, not aware of the filter options, or never bothered with it despite knowing it was there. Filters are a way to keep the power user or the hardcore member happy, but they are near useless for most users. This means negatively impacting the users who wanted StarCraft only, or Dota only. Thus, TeamLiquid did not become a site that catered for a fan of Dota - it was a site that catered to fans of StarCraft who also liked Dota, and TeamLiquid became "that StarCraft site that covers Dota as well."
So, in the end, our TeamLiquid staff were in favour of splitting the Dota 2 coverage off the main TeamLiquid site, and moving it offsite, much like LiquidHearth.
The justification for LiquidDota
An offsite hub for Dota-specific content had
Yes, it may seem that LiquidDota is stepping on veteran users' toes in order to attract new users, but sometimes progress must be achieved. If TeamLiquid's Dota coverage had a stagnant userbase that was not attracting new users, eventually it would peter out as forum members age and move on.
Another positive about moving Dota 2 offsite is the benefits for StarCraft fans. As I talked about above, TeamLiquid was becoming crowded with too much coverage. Without Dota 2, StarCraft news should be more strongly featured, which is ideal for fans of StarCraft who are not interested in Dota. LiquidDota itself is ideal for fans of Dota who are not interested in StarCraft. For fans of both games, we're hopeful than an extra bookmark is not too great an inconvenience.
General community
The discussion on whether to keep or leave the community forums was complex - while almost all staff were in favour of splitting coverage, opinions were divided on keeping the existing non-game communities or to build anew on LiquidDota. LiquidDota, as it is, has a brand new community forum without any existing links to TeamLiquid's communities, such as Tech Support, Media & Entertainment, or Sports. In part this is due to technical complications, but there are also ramifications for newer users.
For a recently-registered user, it may not be easy to be a part of those non-game communities. If you visitthe TL General Forum, or larger threads such as Korean Music Discussion, it is daunting to participate. Hell, I've been on TeamLiquid for nearly three years and I'm too scared to venture into the General forum, and I'm sure many newer users think the same.
Bringing those forums over and integrating them on LiquidDota may provide that sense of community, and appease veteran members, but it is not an organic way to build a site community. New users will be similarly deterred by threads with tens of thousands of posts, and the LiquidDota site could not build its own culture with its own userbase - rather, the community still would be carried over from "that StarCraft site that covers Dota."
Of course, there were technical issues with integration of the databases anyway, so the decision was taken out of our hands. While our resident wizard R1CH may be able to address this in the future, it's a difficult discussion with its pros and cons.
What LiquidDota can offer
I'm sure you've noticed many of the new features on LiquidDota. Perhaps the biggest change to the forum is localising it to Dota - with hero icons instead of BW unit icons, Dota 2 favourite teams, and a better forum structure to present Dota, it should be more welcoming than TeamLiquid's StarCraft presentation.
The calendar, too, is brilliant. It was the feature given most thought when designing the site, as the current TeamLiquid calender was woefully inadequate for the Dota eSports scene. You can see the matches of the event, set them to pending/live/done, have clear Liquipedia and Live Report Links, and more. The weekly and monthly views provide a great preview of games to come, and you can filter out games of your favoured teams only. Frankly, as someone who does a lot of calendar and live report work, this is by far the most exciting thing.
LiquidDota has introduced a few new things too, such as the Player and Team threads, where you can discuss, criticise constructively or fanboy over the eSports personality. It's hoped that the players and teams themselves would interact with our community - and EE in particular has taken well to it.
Our coverage team will step it up now that we've got our own site, with regular content and features. As LiquidDota grows, our forums will expand as requires. We don't really have plans for this yet, as it's best for organic growth and to cater to what the community needs, and not what staff thinks the community should be.
Of course, staff will be looking to port any suitable features from the LiquidDota forum over to TeamLiquid and LiquidHeath in due time.
Looking forward
LiquidDota, as you may have noticed, is not quite complete. There are features such as user items not fully implemented, and some design changes may be implemented (such as the colour palette). This is in part due to the launch deadline being before the TI4 qualifiers, but rest assured staff will continue to work on those site features.
As always, constructive criticism is welcome.
Shoutouts
Huge shoutout to wo1fwood and R1CH for being absolute wizards and implementing the site as it is.
Shoutout to the Dota 2 Staff - Heyoka, riptide, TheEmulator, editors, writers and all contributors. I hope we can make LiquidDota into the best place it can be!
Personal shoutout to my TL buddies - you guys know who you are, and you're too numerous to list. I've made too many friends on TL to risk not mentioning one of you here, for which I'd be crucified ;p.
Shoutout to my Dota 2 stack! My in-game team is yth, or Yes Tidehunter. Now, that's not exactly an original name with nth being around before they were Alliance, but it stems from our solo mid player (MaGiCTimE-) essentially forcing all the newer players in the stack to play Tidehunter, and Tidehunter only. He thought it was a fairly easy hero to play, and difficult to feed with. While everyone in the stack is fairly experienced now and plays a wider variety of heroes, Tidehunter remains the most iconic hero of our stack. I was pleasantly surprised when LiquidDota adopted a Tidehunter banner ;p.
And finally, shoutout to everyone reading this post. I hope you can make the most of LiquidDota, and that you enjoy your stay here for many years to come. It's a bit of a long post and I lost my train of thought halfway, but I hope it's coherent. Feel free to leave any comments, criticisms or queries around!
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1001 YEARS KESPAJAIL22272 Posts
so much drama in blogs
also wtf i'm a pleb on liquiddota?
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5/5 opterown blog
not really bothered by the split. as if another tab in my browser would be that much of a hassle and most of the vets' elitism leaking out.
expansion is great way for TL to grow. we shouldnt let it stagnate just because it inconveniences the veteran users
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On May 12 2014 16:05 lichter wrote:
so much drama in blogs
also wtf i'm a pleb on liquiddota?
You have no power here!
I actually really love the new calendar and sidebar (as well as the header image, it's sexy as fuck), as I'm sure much of the TL Dota community does. Aside from the few people who are heavily invested in both SC2 and Dota, the main complaint is that we no longer get direct access to the other non-esport community forums. It's a bit of a shame that this one problem has turned everyone against the overall decision to section off the Dota forums, but it does kind of feel like we're getting kicked out of TL. We still love the community and merely want to stay a part of it.
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so many bookmarks.
i liked reading this
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Thank you for the insight opterown. As someone who only uses TL for Dota nowadays I think the only two downside is the community forums being gone from this site but that is not big deal. The other downside being some small css things I don't like but I can change that myself.
Also you don't have a star over here D:
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An offsite hub for Dota-specific content had
Had what? Plz, I'm dying to know!
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Lalalaland34487 Posts
On May 12 2014 17:44 Zvenn3n wrote:Had what? Plz, I'm dying to know!
And this is why we have editors.
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I really like the site. I do.
But if I miss a single SC2 liquibet I will come down upon TL LIKE THE HAMMER OF THOR. THE THUNDER OF MY VENGEANCE WILL ECHO THROUGH THESE FORUMS LIKE THE GUST OF A THOUSAND WINDS!!
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LiquidDotA probably never will have a Health and Fitness sub-forum, nor will it know the weirdness of KMD. All you are achieving right now and taking away the history of the website.
It's a choice alright; but it's a terrible one and the argumentation of the potential usefulness of having separate communities without intersections is very dehumanized and I can't understand how it made its way into TL.
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United Kingdom14103 Posts
On May 12 2014 16:05 lichter wrote:
so much drama in blogs
also wtf i'm a pleb on liquiddota?
this makes me as happy as seeing shelly
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Just change post count to CS and the vets should be happy, upping their GPM to 4 digits like RTZ.
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On May 12 2014 18:33 Otolia wrote:
LiquidDotA probably never will have a Health and Fitness sub-forum, nor will it know the weirdness of KMD. All you are achieving right now and taking away the history of the website.
It's a choice alright; but it's a terrible one and the argumentation of the potential usefulness of having separate communities without intersections is very dehumanized and I can't understand how it made its way into TL.
Don't say that. Ok KMD might seem far fetched but with LiquidDota we have a chance to form our own community with our own weird threads.
I'm staff both here and on TL so I've known about this for quite some time and I've been in the discussions surrounding this. At first I was, like most people here, very hesitant to this change. I too saw it as splitting up what TL is. What made me change my mind was a post saying that with LD we can build something on our own, while still having the awesome back end support that TL has to offer. Right now we are basically where TL was pre SC2. You have a shot at getting to know people in the forum. Sometimes when talking to other people they will bring out a great post and I will go into the thread, read the great post and realize that the guy in question has 10k posts and this is the first one I can remember reading. There's not going to be a new Konadora (for example) on a site with SC2 and Dota.
The problem on TL was that it was getting so incredibly crowded. Not just the release schedule for the writers which, from what I gather, was kind of a nightmare at times. Look at the forum sidebar here. It actually gives me a overview of what's going on. I don't have to scroll a mile tog view all the forums. I've already started remembering names. Look at the blog section, I laughed so hard yesterday following all the blogs about change and combo breakers. TL with SC2 and Dota would move so fast that something like that could never have happened. Not to speak about the calendar. Now I can know when Alliance is playing Navi so I don't have to sit through RoX.KIS playing hehe (two first non absolute top tier teams I could come up with, no disrepect to those teams).
So give LiquidDota 6 months, that's all I think anyone could ask, and I think you will look back at it and realize you wouldn't want to go back. I'll still keep reading TL.net and I'll also use LD.com. It's the same as having one news source for american football and one for football.
TL;DR
We have a chance of building something for ourselves here!
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neat.. why does the design for liquiddota looks nicer than teamliquid..
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I didn't know you actually played Dota opterown. I thought you were just the self-sacrificial LR topic workhorse :D
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The random combination of General, TLHF and Dota had me returning to TL. Now split in two i fear that neither TL or LD have enough content on their own that interests me that will keep me coming to either site. =[
The integration of 'Community' would remedy my issues though so fingers crossed that happens in the future.
NUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU MY POST COUNT.
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opterown has lots of money, he has tons of tickets on his profile
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opterown
Australia54784 Posts
On May 12 2014 20:02 icystorage wrote:
opterown has lots of money, he has tons of tickets on his profile
not that many i'm sure there are a lot that have more haha
On May 12 2014 19:55 AwfuL_ wrote:
I didn't know you actually played Dota opterown. I thought you were just the self-sacrificial LR topic workhorse :D
i only play when my team needs a 3rd or 5th player, i'm not exactly good lol. have played about 200 games?
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Two things:
1: why do i have a god dam butterfly graphic in my chrome tabs for this site.
2. Please for the love of god give us liquibets for Dota!
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opterown
Australia54784 Posts
liquibets are in the works TM, although there are more pressing issues like forum bugs, TLPD and stuff first.
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I've always thought its about time there's a separate dota site from TL. I used to follow SC2 a lot but since TI2 I've almost exclusively came to TL for dota news. the design looks awesome too!
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On May 12 2014 19:22 Julmust wrote:
...
TL;DR
We have a chance of building something for ourselves here!
But you're taking away what we built in the community threads. =/
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On May 12 2014 19:27 kaleidoscope wrote:
neat.. why does the design for liquiddota looks nicer than teamliquid..
because i'm crazy. for serious. 
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On May 12 2014 19:22 Julmust wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2014 18:33 Otolia wrote:
LiquidDotA probably never will have a Health and Fitness sub-forum, nor will it know the weirdness of KMD. All you are achieving right now and taking away the history of the website.
It's a choice alright; but it's a terrible one and the argumentation of the potential usefulness of having separate communities without intersections is very dehumanized and I can't understand how it made its way into TL. Don't say that. Ok KMD might seem far fetched but with LiquidDota we have a chance to form our own community with our own weird threads. I'm staff both here and on TL so I've known about this for quite some time and I've been in the discussions surrounding this. At first I was, like most people here, very hesitant to this change. I too saw it as splitting up what TL is. What made me change my mind was a post saying that with LD we can build something on our own, while still having the awesome back end support that TL has to offer. Right now we are basically where TL was pre SC2. You have a shot at getting to know people in the forum. Sometimes when talking to other people they will bring out a great post and I will go into the thread, read the great post and realize that the guy in question has 10k posts and this is the first one I can remember reading. There's not going to be a new Konadora (for example) on a site with SC2 and Dota. The problem on TL was that it was getting so incredibly crowded. Not just the release schedule for the writers which, from what I gather, was kind of a nightmare at times. Look at the forum sidebar here. It actually gives me a overview of what's going on. I don't have to scroll a mile tog view all the forums. I've already started remembering names. Look at the blog section, I laughed so hard yesterday following all the blogs about change and combo breakers. TL with SC2 and Dota would move so fast that something like that could never have happened. Not to speak about the calendar. Now I can know when Alliance is playing Navi so I don't have to sit through RoX.KIS playing hehe (two first non absolute top tier teams I could come up with, no disrepect to those teams). So give LiquidDota 6 months, that's all I think anyone could ask, and I think you will look back at it and realize you wouldn't want to go back. I'll still keep reading TL.net and I'll also use LD.com. It's the same as having one news source for american football and one for football. TL;DR We have a chance of building something for ourselves here!
But what if I want to discuss the World Cup with people that watch DotA and those who watch primarly SC2 ?! Razing everything to built anew may seem enticing but it's also a daunting task and presenting newcomers to a barren General Forum without any pointers as to how they are expected to behave isn't useful at all.
Time will tell but there is a clear need for adjustment regarding General. I don't want TL to turn into Curse network where everybody minds its own business and rake the money. We are different because we didn't forgot where we came from. Don't take our history away.
PS : I swear I'll write a SJW blog if need be !
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opterown
Australia54784 Posts
pointing newcomers to a highly populated and complex general forum and expecting them to know the cliques and injokes and thread specific rules isn't exactly useful, either.
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On May 12 2014 21:40 opterown wrote:
pointing newcomers to a highly populated and complex general forum and expecting them to know the cliques and injokes and thread specific rules isn't exactly useful, either.
Then what if we took it upon ourselves to create a welcoming environment without forgetting to mention TL's history ? After all, a community is only what we put into it.
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On May 12 2014 20:10 opterown wrote:
liquibets are in the works TM, although there are more pressing issues like forum bugs, TLPD and stuff first.
Is that a TLPD for dota? If so is there any way to help out?
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I want to help out too.
I need to raise my spam rate, I mean post count, I mean contribute.
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Really like the change! New forum, calendar, etc looks amazing! Love the team icons too
sick humblebrag about being staff opti
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Thanks for doing this, this is a really well-done website!
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On May 12 2014 21:38 Otolia wrote:Show nested quote +On May 12 2014 19:22 Julmust wrote:On May 12 2014 18:33 Otolia wrote:
LiquidDotA probably never will have a Health and Fitness sub-forum, nor will it know the weirdness of KMD. All you are achieving right now and taking away the history of the website.
It's a choice alright; but it's a terrible one and the argumentation of the potential usefulness of having separate communities without intersections is very dehumanized and I can't understand how it made its way into TL. Don't say that. Ok KMD might seem far fetched but with LiquidDota we have a chance to form our own community with our own weird threads. I'm staff both here and on TL so I've known about this for quite some time and I've been in the discussions surrounding this. At first I was, like most people here, very hesitant to this change. I too saw it as splitting up what TL is. What made me change my mind was a post saying that with LD we can build something on our own, while still having the awesome back end support that TL has to offer. Right now we are basically where TL was pre SC2. You have a shot at getting to know people in the forum. Sometimes when talking to other people they will bring out a great post and I will go into the thread, read the great post and realize that the guy in question has 10k posts and this is the first one I can remember reading. There's not going to be a new Konadora (for example) on a site with SC2 and Dota. The problem on TL was that it was getting so incredibly crowded. Not just the release schedule for the writers which, from what I gather, was kind of a nightmare at times. Look at the forum sidebar here. It actually gives me a overview of what's going on. I don't have to scroll a mile tog view all the forums. I've already started remembering names. Look at the blog section, I laughed so hard yesterday following all the blogs about change and combo breakers. TL with SC2 and Dota would move so fast that something like that could never have happened. Not to speak about the calendar. Now I can know when Alliance is playing Navi so I don't have to sit through RoX.KIS playing hehe (two first non absolute top tier teams I could come up with, no disrepect to those teams). So give LiquidDota 6 months, that's all I think anyone could ask, and I think you will look back at it and realize you wouldn't want to go back. I'll still keep reading TL.net and I'll also use LD.com. It's the same as having one news source for american football and one for football. TL;DR We have a chance of building something for ourselves here! But what if I want to discuss the World Cup with people that watch DotA and those who watch primarly SC2 ?! Razing everything to built anew may seem enticing but it's also a daunting task and presenting newcomers to a barren General Forum without any pointers as to how they are expected to behave isn't useful at all. Time will tell but there is a clear need for adjustment regarding General. I don't want TL to turn into Curse network where everybody minds its own business and rake the money. We are different because we didn't forgot where we came from. Don't take our history away. PS : I swear I'll write a SJW blog if need be !
I'm waiting for the SJW blog.
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LiquidDota is the shit imo, the new calendar/events/stream tabs are amazing and the content that has been produced since launch has been top notch (Emu do you even sleep?).
Opterown was on point when he said (paraphrasing) differentiating TeamLiquid from LiquidDota and having to use both separately is akin to using both r/starcraft and r/dota2 if you're a fan of both games.
I personally love the change and am looking forward to LiquidDota developing it's own unique culture and continuing to grow!
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EPT
