Or: How I stopped being an elitist and learned how to love all esports
This past weekend I got an opportunity to go the LEC (European LoL league) finals in Rotterdam, as the TL office is just about an hour away by train. At first I was hesitant. I've never been a big fan of LoL, I've always seen the gameplay as slow and the fact that there aren't as many kills as in Dota makes the laning stage a lot less interesting. After thinking it over I decided to go, mostly to get to see Rotterdam. While I'd like to say I just decided to ignore my Dota elitism, I was definitely worried I'd spend the day being bored out of my mind. Walking in to the venue I had already prepped a bad excuse about not feeling well, so I could leave after the first game. That didn't happen.
The first sign of me deciding to stay came as we took our seats. We had seats close to the stage and the setup was interesting. There was no sound-proof booths which made the players seem more accessible. While I can see the problem with that, it was also really cool. Booths transport the players to another place as they walk in and, even if they're completely see through, I have to say that this "open air" solution actually made it feel like I was closer to the players. But that's not what I wanted to talk about here. I want to talk about the intro to the show and how it completely blew me away. It made me realize how far behind Dota event organizers are. How much better it could be. I'm going to start off by linking you the video of the intro, so you can make up your own mind:
Before you start saying "cringe" about the "EU, EU, EU" chant, I also want you to check out this video as the stream didn't properly pick up the audio level. Cause holy shit, that was LOUD. Goosebumps were had.
Then it got real crazy. Everything was so well choreographed. From the small details, like the blonde caster turning around with a light in his back, to players literally sprinting across the stage as they had two locations where the intros were filmed. Oh, I forgot to tell you the craziest thing: none of this was pre-recorded! Take a moment to appriciate how crazy that is. They pulled off that entire intro where they had to adapt to the lighting, positions of the cameras, graphics, players turning around at the right time, running around the stage. All of that. Live. That shit would be hard to pull off in a studio and they did it live on stage in front of a huge crowd. And all they had was one small mistake where a player turned the wrong way. And then the finale. The curtains fell and the teams were facing eachother. Oh my lord, just brilliant visual storytelling. That alone had me SOLD.
At the same time, I felt a bit sad. I realized that we're never going to see this kind of production in Dota. A key part of why Riot could pull this off is because they have a different approach than Valve. The players are well taken care of but the understanding is that they are available for this kind of media production. Valve would never demand that of the players which, in turns, means that they won't do it for any TO in Dota. Don't get me wrong, the cards they used for TI8 were very well made and even a bit personal, with players smiling, but it wasn't anywhere near this. Imagine if they would've used this concept for the TI8 finals. Have Chalice line up next to Notail/Jerax/Ana. Or Topson face to face with Maybe. That builds a storyline. Instead of that we got the same intro Valve had been using the entire tournament and a new player would have no way of connecting who would face off with who in the lane. There was no visual storytelling because Valve are scared to ask this of the players. Instead we get the same old "stand in a V formation and fold your arms" in every single tournament. No one is taking risks. And while risks might not always pay off, they push you to your limits.
In the end this past Sunday didn't turn me into a fan of LoL. Or the LEC. But it made me interested in the LEC. And I'll definitely tune in a few times next season.
@EU chants: Made the experience on a metal festival that it doesn't matter how much cringe whatever you're chanting is, if you're chanting it with 10k people and in the crowd the blood starts boiling and the adrenaline starts pumping.
It's a little scary as a German, not gonna lie
That being said every organizer who isn't utilizing that is wasting a lot of potential, I'd be probably hyped as fuck if I was in that crowd. I don't really watch LoL, but if you look at trailers (holy shit) and pre-shows LoL is way ahead and really on top of their game. It's a shame LoL games look so bland.
It's also a shame Valve barely invests any money at all here. Guess I'll have to continue watching LoL trailers and Dota games and hope tournament organizers in Dota continue to step up their game.
i believe tournament organizers in dota are in a weird limbo where investing any more into production bleeds them harder. that's not to say they couldn't have done it before, but those were slightly different times. they can't fill their stadiums and it's a self consuming cycle up until the point that it becomes relatively the same as starcraft 2.
simply, it's an entirely different ecosystem where the level of subsidizing makes it successful on some level. i'm okay with dota being a game better played than watched, the only sad part being that more don't do it.
personally i'm not sold on dota having the same "visual storytelling", or the flash and business. the two don't work together the same because it's an extremely complicated game.
On April 21 2019 10:06 nanaoei wrote: i believe tournament organizers in dota are in a weird limbo where investing any more into production bleeds them harder. that's not to say they couldn't have done it before, but those were slightly different times. they can't fill their stadiums and it's a self consuming cycle up until the point that it becomes relatively the same as starcraft 2.
simply, it's an entirely different ecosystem where the level of subsidizing makes it successful on some level. i'm okay with dota being a game better played than watched, the only sad part being that more don't do it.
personally i'm not sold on dota having the same "visual storytelling", or the flash and business. the two don't work together the same because it's an extremely complicated game.
the amount of money riot and blizzard put into their esports production cant be understated. unfortunately this dota season really shows that.
about dota being better played than watched, valve has also stepped away from multiple compendiums a year thereby reducing the amount dota esports on front page and cosmetics, whereas lol and overwatch inject that esports stuff constantly into the client.
personally i think valve is being way too hands off this year, considering dota2 puts out way higher prize pools than csgo
and about open air games for dota2, it could never be done at a live event with casters, it takes too much away from the casting. its able to be done in league since its much more about the action than sly moves and strategies
agreed to open air casting, that shouldn't stop tournament organizers from involving their players and fanbase more in their pre-show. Also I'm not sure I'd call it just hands off. There's a reason it's a common claim on reddit that Valve doesn't care, they aren't injecting money into the game barring the prize pools (which are huge, but get financed multiple times over by compendiums), whenever shit hits the fan Valve doesn't get involved until the shitstorm reaches epic proportions and they take the lion's share of everything the fanbase develops and monetizes. I love dota, but the trailers are fairly simplistic in-engine trailers, the launcher etc could be in a much better state and patchnotes etc often leave the impression that the employees Valve has on Dota 2 count a dozen or less (not counting the staff for TI). Companies like Creative Assembly do more marketing for each of their 10$ DLCs than Valve does for Dota 2 over the entire year.
On April 21 2019 10:06 nanaoei wrote: i believe tournament organizers in dota are in a weird limbo where investing any more into production bleeds them harder. that's not to say they couldn't have done it before, but those were slightly different times. they can't fill their stadiums and it's a self consuming cycle up until the point that it becomes relatively the same as starcraft 2.
simply, it's an entirely different ecosystem where the level of subsidizing makes it successful on some level. i'm okay with dota being a game better played than watched, the only sad part being that more don't do it.
personally i'm not sold on dota having the same "visual storytelling", or the flash and business. the two don't work together the same because it's an extremely complicated game.
According to my experience that isn't true, I know multiple people that don't play dota at all anymore and still watch TI and occasionally a tourney or two. I'm in a similar boat myself, I watch roughly 5 times as much as I play.
Imo visual storytelling and flash and business are dependent on how much you invest into it and how continuously you provide content in that regard. Lol's visual storytelling has little to do with the actual gameplay, it's about establishing characters in media or lifting players up to icons. Everybody after ti8 talked about how it was a beautiful storyline. The comics and the shortfilm contests are always fun. The stories are right there to capitalize, Valve just doesn't.
That shouldn't be everything casters talk about, but it's not like Tastosis can't talk about what a sick journey player xy had to this point and then give a decently deep analysis of the game. I can't see why this can't work in dota, especially since we have a bunch of casters like Tobi, Moxxi and Sheever who are shoutcasters and hype persons with fairly little ingame knowledge to begin with.
EPT
