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A New Chapter in DotA

Blogs > Heen
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Heen
Profile Blog Joined November 2003
Korea (South)2178 Posts
December 19 2015 17:18 GMT
#1
After 2 years of having played DotA full-time, I've decided it's time to let go and move on as a player. I won't go into the details of why I'm quitting but it wasn't any secret neither to myself nor my teammates that the fire you need as a player to succeed had been dwindling away for a long time. I wasn't playing enough DotA, not by a long shot, and looking back I somehow just wanted to win without putting in the proper effort.

So after my decision to stop playing competitively, the first question that came to mind naturally was: what now?

The answer to that question depends on the type of person I am. How did I get into Gaming/DotA? Why did I choose to play full-time after having earned a college degree? What's important to me?

I blame Starcraft. In 1998, Starcraft was released and it was instantly popular in Korea (I think, I was a kid so I don't remember for certain). For a while, it seemed as if SC was the only worthwhile hobby for males from ages 6-40. I've literally seen kindergarteners playing SC and more commonly many men well past their 30's with ties and suits, skipping work and lying to their wives for all I know, in PC bangs.

If you're an anime guy (I'm not for the record. Not that I have anything against anime!), you'll notice that Asians like putting numbers on people. Who's the stronger villain? Well it fucking says this guy's a 2 and that guy's a 5 so discussion over. School was kind of like that too in many regards. During my school years in Korea, we had seating arrangements usually decided by height so the shorter kids sat in the front of the class and the tall kids in the back, allowing everyone to see the blackboard clearly. I was always one of the shorter kids during my earlier years. I was always between 1 or 5. How well you're doing in school? Same deal. You know exactly which # you are in your class and in your year. It was kind of funny that when I had to leave Korea because of my dad's job and went to school in another country, a lot of kids would hide their test scores. I guess I was too used to knowing exactly how smart or dumb everyone was.

There were also rankings of fighting too. Who was the baddest mother fucker in the class? This was in elementary school so it might sound cute but when you're also a kid, some other kids can look really big and scary. There was a lot of fighting in school. Unless someone got seriously injured, parents and faculty didn't know or didn't care too much about it. I'm not sure if things are actually better now but when I think back on violence in school, it was mostly from the faculty anyway, not other kids. I've been kicked, punched, bitch slapped, hit with a large wooden stick, ran into a corner and beat the fuck up for a good 60 seconds etc. by teachers. And the craziest thing is that that was normal. No one's going to lift an eye if you say you received a beating for being late to class. If you want to be a cool kid, you have to take that beating and walk off like nothing happened. No tears allowed, show minimal or no signs of pain.

I kind of trailed off there but the point I wanted to get back to was that eventually it became cool to be good at Starcraft. You wanted to be that guy that maxed out 200/200 faster than everyone else and had more money than god. People wanted to be on your team. Winning was fun and the better you were at the game, the more fun you were to be around.

I was too small to be a badass and I wasn't doing too well at school so I wanted to be the best at something: Starcraft. But I mean... how good can a 11-12 year kid be? We were playing 30 min no rush on 50k mineral patches. I eventually became considered as one of the best players in school and that felt good. Looking back, Waxangel (we were friends and went to the same school) was probably much better but I was more popular so kids put me on the pedestal. Hi Wax.

After a year or two, my family had to leave the country because of my dad's job. When you're a child, being the new kid in school isn't so hard but it gets tougher in your teenage years. I was way more extroverted in my younger years. I was even somewhat of the class clown but going to school with a bunch of white kids made me feel shy all of the sudden. When I moved to the US in high school, that was pretty tough as well. I remember for my sophomore year there was only school and Warcraft III. I used to eat lunch by myself for the first few weeks of school but then some guy I had a class with told me I should come over and sit with him and his friends. I was like cool OK, and I went over and it turns out I sat at the wrong table. Ya'll white kids look the same man... And to make things worse the table I was supposed to sit with and the table I sat at were on bad terms. But it was too late and I eventually became friends with the guys I sat at over the next few years.

I became more social and comfortable by my junior year so school was more fun but that didn't mean my hobby of playing games at home was any less fun either. Playing Warcraft eventually lead to DotA but it was just some low-skill time passing custom game at the time anyway. When I got back to Korea for college though, DotA had become much more evolved. It was competitive. My roommates and I were looking for a game to play together. We didn't want to play a MMORPG because that shit might ruin our GPA. So we played DotA. Lots and lots of DotA and ended up with pathetic GPAs regardless.

Because IceFrog kept patching the game and releasing new heroes and items, I don't think I ever got tired of DotA. I played some other games here and there, even took 6+ month breaks from DotA but it was always the game that I went back to. After a while, I was considered the best Korean DotA player and I was. But the game was sort of a dead end in terms of playing it full time. It wasn't anything like playing SC professionally for example. Eventually I had to go to the army in 2011 (really late) and before I enlisted, TI1 was hosted, where Na'Vi won a million dollars. A million fucking dollars. It blew my mind. Nowadays people are too used to DotA's modern prize pool but in DotA 1, you flew over to other countries to play for a few thousand dollars for 1st place.

Flash forward a few years and I got a spot in MVP after having played less than 50 games of DotA 2 soley based on my reputation from DotA 1. Good things happened. Bad things happened. But for the most part 'Korean DotA' was making progress. However, I wasn't the same person I used to be. I used to spend hours upon hours in PC bangs for the pure love of the game. In MVP, I was given free shelter and food, and the environment to play 16+ hours of DotA a day if I wanted to but I couldn't. It wasn't that DotA had become boring. There were thoughts that clouded my mind as I was approaching my 30's that made it hard to focus. How much longer can I be doing this? What if this player leaves and we have to start all over again? Is it worth the effort and time to play from Korea given we're playing in arguably the worst region in the world with a ping disadvantage?

Eventually I came to two conclusions.
1. I had to stop playing full-time
2. I still liked DotA

I spent over 10 years playing this game and I wanted to stay a part of it somehow. So I thought about casting. I enjoy talking about the game. I have a lot of insights that I've acquired over the years as a player, drafter and captain. But the question was whether I could deliver. My English is OK but I haven't had much experience speaking to a larger audience so I had to find out. I got into contact with some of the casters in the scene and got my first series to cast: Signature.Trust vs First Departure with Tobi. I was worried at first that I might not have much to stay at times but that was hardly a problem as it turned out. What's more important is how and when I speak up.




I usually hate listening to myself but if I'm going to find out if I have any potential whatsoever as a caster, I had to swallow my personal awkwardness of listening to myself and look to improve. Apparently I did OK on my first cast so I got an opportunity to cast some of the WCA games. I was super eager to get the experience and said I'll cast the entire first two days (12 games each) without any break in between. I could play DotA for 24+ hours if I wanted to so I was confident that I could. However, what I didn't consider was the fact that WCA only allocated 90 minutes to each bo2 series with no break in between, which everyone thought was odd. Even if every game was on average 30 minutes long, there was no way they were going to be able to stick to that schedule. I've been to enough LANs to know that shit happens and there will almost ALWAYS be delays.

The day before the WCA, I studied some replays and stats of the participating teams because I wanted to have some edge that might separate myself from other casters and make up for the lack of experience. The first game was going to start at 1:30 PM Korean time. I was going to sleep at 5 AMish and then I find out that the 6.86 patch got released. Well, fuck. I hadn't taken a serious look at the patch notes so I spent a lot of time going over it and creating lobbies to test things for myself as well as checking out the new map layout. Before I knew it, it was already lunch time and I didn't have enough time to sleep. New patch or not it was irresponsible as fuck on my part. I ended up casting for a bit over 16 hours straight on the first day and the total amount of time I went on without sleeping was close to 40 hours.

My mind was drawing blanks throughout the day and I was having trouble looking for words or expressing my thoughts coherently. I must've come off as some retard with a speech impediment to a lot of people because I was saying um, uh, but uh, I mean.. every other sentence LOL

There was a 6 hour break between the 1st and 2nd day of WCA and I went to sleep right away after Day 1 had ended. I think I did a lot better on Day 2. But as I'm going through some of my casts I realize that even though I may have felt that I did a 6/10 cast during the game, I'm disappointed by my performance when I watch the VOD because it looks like a 2/10 and I'm thinking 'was I really this bad?'

I've asked some close friends to be give it to me straight about my casting and they've said that I should work on my delivery because I have some interesting points. Also I'm really unhype but that's how I am for matches as well. I might go crazy in pubs shouting at people and making jokes but I've always been calm and collected in matches so something to work on.

I was supposed to be in another city right now but I slept a ton and woke up at an awkward time so I figured I might reflect on what's been happening in my life recently. If anyone's watched some of my casts, feel free to leave criticisms. I've already seen some of the most savage flames so there's no need to hold back :p
('''(G_G/'''')
SilverStar
Profile Joined January 2012
Sweden18511 Posts
December 19 2015 18:28 GMT
#2
Good luck for the future!
synapse
Profile Blog Joined January 2009
China13814 Posts
December 19 2015 19:12 GMT
#3
Sad to see you go
GL in your future endeavors
:)
Myrddraal
Profile Joined December 2010
Australia937 Posts
December 19 2015 19:13 GMT
#4
I haven't seen any of your casts yet, but I liked this post, I'll try to get around to watching some of the games you casted and give you any feedback I think of. I'm sure you'll be fine man, just keep working at it.
[stranded]: http://www.indiedb.com/games/stranded
DavoS
Profile Blog Joined October 2012
United States4605 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-12-19 20:55:30
December 19 2015 20:51 GMT
#5
I wouldn't take WCA as a normal metric for how casters should perform. Tobi has seen one trillion different types of tournaments and I've never heard him be this exhausted by a tournament's schedule before.
You made a tough choice, but as long as you're confident it's the right one good things will follow. GL to whatever you pursue next, I hope you become #1 at it!
PS you are way too humble about your English. You have less of an accent than I do and I've lived in America my whole life
"KDA is actually the most useless stat in the game" Aui_2000
Nyan
Profile Joined April 2015
Germany1931 Posts
December 19 2015 21:31 GMT
#6
good luck. I'd love it if you would stick around and cast! just get a really good microphone
?=・ェ・=) oʞǝu (^=˃ᆺ˂) oʞǝu (=xェx=) oʞǝu (=^-ω-^=) ( ⓛ ω ⓛ *) oʞǝu (ㅇㅅㅇ❀) oʞǝu (=ↀωↀ=)✧ oʞǝu (=・ェ・=?
calippo
Profile Joined March 2011
Sweden2525 Posts
December 19 2015 22:33 GMT
#7
Best of luck Heen
in it for the game not for the .... - PMS Army. [WUFC-SDK. VIM. PMS]
Heyoka
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
Katowice25012 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-12-20 01:21:15
December 20 2015 01:21 GMT
#8
Cast more yo, you're good. Great blog! Lots of interesting stuff. Wax always said he was the best in his high school btw, I mean dude won a stereo once did YOU ever win a STEREO??

On December 20 2015 02:18 Heen wrote:
I wasn't playing enough DotA, not by a long shot, and looking back I somehow just wanted to win without putting in the proper effort.


This is my entire gaming career in a nutshell :[
@RealHeyoka | ESL / DreamHack StarCraft Lead
TheEmulator
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
28087 Posts
December 20 2015 01:46 GMT
#9
Wax vs Heen showmatch when?
Administrator
PhoenixVoid
Profile Blog Joined December 2011
Canada32740 Posts
December 20 2015 04:29 GMT
#10
Great blog Heen, and your English is perfectly fine, no need to be humble about it. Your casting is good and you add plenty of great insight, though you could be a bit more enthusiastic when needed. Hope to see you do more casting in the future!

And yes, Korean schools still don't seem to give much of a care about bullying and fights. You also have to arrange something with Waxangel to see who is better now.
I'm afraid of demented knife-wielding escaped lunatic libertarian zombie mutants
ahswtini
Profile Blog Joined June 2008
Northern Ireland22208 Posts
December 20 2015 05:34 GMT
#11
Didn't even know u were casting wca
"As I've said, balance isn't about strategies or counters, it's about probability and statistics." - paralleluniverse
Fallen750
Profile Joined December 2010
United States43 Posts
December 20 2015 05:56 GMT
#12
You've been my favorite Korean DotA2 player since I saw your first match.
Thank you for the games you've played and the effort you have put into Korean DotA2.

I look forward to hearing your casts. I look up to you Heen.
Best of luck in your future.

I hope my dreams of getting a Heen DotA2 siganture are not over, please be at an event casting in the future.
Everything is going to be okay.
Axyom_Fate
Profile Joined December 2015
United States6 Posts
December 20 2015 06:09 GMT
#13
That was a good read. Good luck in your future efforts.
I am just as confused as you are.
nojok
Profile Joined May 2011
France15845 Posts
December 20 2015 10:29 GMT
#14
I knew Korean school was tough and I knew about the beating and strict ranking in some aspect of certain professional life but it seems pretty fucked up from a foreigner perspective.

Interesting blog, GL casting
"Back then teams that won were credited, now it's called throw. I think it's sad." - Kuroky - Flap Flap Wings!
nanaoei
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
3358 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-12-20 12:31:28
December 20 2015 12:30 GMT
#15
If you notice things that casters and personalities do that you feel you can shine a light on and do better at, I think it's worth pursuing.

as a caster you make an example of yourself--like an idol--for people who have less knowledge. it's a perfectly suitable way for someone to live out their career and there's less pressure placed on you than say on a professor.

just be fun man
*@boesthius' FF7 nostalgia stream bomb* "we should work on a 'Final Progamer' fangame»whitera can be a protagonist---lastlie: "we save world and then defense it"
MaCRo.gg
Profile Joined June 2015
Korea (South)860 Posts
December 20 2015 16:48 GMT
#16
Good luck Heen.
Being a Gyo-po is sometimes a blessing and a curse.
It is always interesting to hear about others journeys.
c[A]ppuccino
Profile Joined December 2015
6 Posts
December 21 2015 04:06 GMT
#17
Happy trip to your journey :D
"Defeat is for the Valiant"
yookstah
Profile Joined October 2010
Australia655 Posts
December 21 2015 05:51 GMT
#18
If you're going to mostly be co-casting/analysis I wouldn't worry too much about 'being hype' , especially with the amount of sleep you had (I know from experience casting other games).

If a fight happens mid analysis then pass off to the Main Caster and collect your thoughts.
"I'm saying that you are all the time aggressive. I say to you choose situations to be aggressive and not aggressive. I'm talking it" - Cooller
les
Profile Joined February 2010
143 Posts
December 21 2015 20:09 GMT
#19
I didn't even think that you performed that bad at WCA. Sure, you had longer (than usual) periods of silence but I just thought that you're a bit shy. Which is kinda normal for a person new to casting (now that I know about your lack of sleep you performed pretty good).
I like your clear voice and on point comments. Keep going for another 6 months and you should do just fine and can judge if that's what you wanna do for the next years.
Dysisa
Profile Joined July 2014
Sweden2376 Posts
December 22 2015 02:36 GMT
#20
Really good and well written blog, I very much enjoyed reading it. I think you should stick to casting, you're definitely not perfect yet but you did a good job. I honestly like that you're not very HYPE like Toby for instance, people like that are needed too in my opinion. Merlini and Purge are both popular even though they never get excited over anything, so don't worry about it.
fuck dota 2 | "i don't like ppd, and i really look forward to one day beating that motherfucker" -Swindlemelonzz, my personal hero
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