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On August 03 2011 06:00 Kznn wrote:- Yes. there are a LOT of dota fans, and when I mean a lot, I really mean it. of course, the most of it is locate on china, but here in brazil, europe and USA, we have a LOT of servers, and a lot of people watching pro games. I can tell you that dota hits 50-60k views on big tornaments streams and 70-90k on huge/unique tornamets. they just need sponsors and support. 
any proof on this? last time i watched SMM grand finals 2010. the viewer maxed out on 12k. and SMM is one of the Biggest LAN tournaments there is.
50/60k is too far fetched. let alone 70-90k.
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dont compare Dota to Sc2 by stream viewers just log on sometime to ggc and check the users online even now that many people has stop playing its pretty big number
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On August 03 2011 06:05 sicajung wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2011 06:00 Kznn wrote:- Yes. there are a LOT of dota fans, and when I mean a lot, I really mean it. of course, the most of it is locate on china, but here in brazil, europe and USA, we have a LOT of servers, and a lot of people watching pro games. I can tell you that dota hits 50-60k views on big tornaments streams and 70-90k on huge/unique tornamets. they just need sponsors and support. any proof on this? last time i watched SMM grand finals 2010. the viewer maxed out on 12k. and SMM is one of the Biggest LAN tournaments there is. 50/60k is too far fetched. let alone 70-90k.
You problably saw the european stream, if you check the chineses streams you would probably see a different number
I don't really remind if the numbers are 100% correct, but I'm pretty sure i saw something alike 65k on the last g-league finals on the chineses streams.
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Disclaimer: Though I've played DotA casually for four or so years now, I gave your questions to a friend of mine who has followed the game since its RoC days (but can't get on TL to post his responses himself). These are his responses, unedited by me.
Also, djWHEAT: TobiWanKenobi (probably the most active DotA shoutcaster in today's scene) expressed interest in coming onto Lo3 to talk about DotA and Dota 2 on his stream today. Something to consider if you haven't already been told? I'd personally love to hear his responses to the questions that I'm sure the hosts will have.
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- Of the established leagues and competitions, who is the largest, what is the frequency of said events, and how much prize money has been given out (average) during these competitions?
There are too many leagues to count, mostly because the Dota community uses too many platforms to host Dota with custom clients such as Dotalicious to Garena to B.net leagues such as Dotacash and Throneit. Comp play uses private servers and services such as Dotalicious. Most tourneys nowadays are Internet affairs, varying between 50 Euro + gear to 1000-3000 Euro for first place (5k euro total prize pool). Three big Dota tourneys are coming up in SE Asia in the fall, SMM, ESWC and one more. Chinese Dota is a little more secretive than Euro/Western Dota, but they have tournaments and the reported 6.2mil USD buy of CCM.
- DotA is popular in Asia, so are a million really bad MMO's... what efforts have been made to bring DotA OUT of Asia to other countries? (i.e. GomTV began English broadcasting several years ago). Does it need to leave Asia?
Shoutcasters such as TobiWanKenobi and Slash have recently bandied around numbers between 18-20 million, getdota.com reports around 10 million dl's? The other half is estimated to be Chinese dota alone. This does not include one map download which is spread through lan centers. There exists english/german/russian dota with a number of sites, primarily centered around gosugamers.net, mymym.com, prodota.ru. Shoutcasts exist at joindota.com for english, there are shoutcasters that take replays and redub at LuminiouStudios on youtube, as one example. Eurodota exists and works well.
- Who is the Day[9] of DotA?
Quite honestly, there is none for english speaking dota. TobiWanKenobi is the most wellknown but does not have a good understanding of comp. dota, usually shoutcasts in tandem with a pro player such as Slash (german) or SyndereN- (danish, plays for nevo), they also shoutcast for other places such as MYM for SyndereN-. There is noone that can do everything that day[9] does for dota.
- With such a popular community, teams, etc... why haven't we seen DotA showcased at well-known international eSports competitions? I know that it made some appearances at WCG, ESWC, and Blizzard events, but these were typically "one off" type competitions?
ESWC still exists, MYM used to run the only major dota tourney called MYM Prime and MYM Prime Nations, a national pride tourney. There exists OSPL in Kazakstan with a reputed 10k USD prize purse, going for second/third year now. Most corporate sponsorship/lan center (such as SMM in Malaysia) happens in SEAsia.
- Does the population of Chinese players (which sounds like it's the biggest landscape of players) rely on non-legit versions of WarCraft 3: TFT? I always felt like one of the biggest issues with the advancement of DotA dating back to like BlizzCon 2005 was the fact that new players had to purchase WC3... this was also a problem with games like Quake 3. I'm just curious how that works in China (and everywhere else for that matter)
China/SEAsia to a limited extent relies on non-legal versions, requiring switching between versions to watch their replays. Everywhere else uses the latest version.
- Is the DotA community satisfied living in a self-contained bubble? It seems like other eSports games/audiences are fairly uneducated when it comes to the history Rotegirte provided in this thread.
Some of us are, some of us aren't. Some of us just want dota to get the recognition it deserves - it's the dark shadow in the corner, the 4chan of eSports, and while we love that, we want you to know how good it is too.
- Why do you think there are people (like myself) who have extensive knowledge in eSports, yet don't know much about DotA? Is this the fault of the individual? Or is it the fault of the collective DotA community? Or is there no fault at all and it's just two paths that have not crossed?
See above. Also it's incredibly hard to get into, you get frustrated and take breaks and come back and find everything has changed, it's a equal split - something i'd like to rectify and that a lot of people are waiting to change. There are coaches ready for the dota2 feature alone. Some of it comes down to a Nome post over at S2 - people play ladder for ladder, people play dota for dota.
- If someone heard about DotA and wanted to get into it at the most basic level, which website would you send them to? If I had no one to ask, how hard would it be for me to find? Would it be PLAYDOTA.com?
Playdota.com is the official site for dota/englishdota. Check your local language site for better local interaction.
- SC2 and Street Fighter 4 have been two games that have proven that they can carry an active audience of people who do not even play the game. Do you think this audience already exists in the DotA scene and if not, do you think it can?
It doesn't yet. Can it? I believe it can, it just needs positive press to get pass the negative first impressions, and shoutcasters like day[9]/tastosis to explain it. Valve is providing some of the first, and we have some to fill the latter, but not all to fill the latter.
- Who is your favorite team?
(5:04:51 PM) him: MYM FIGHTING
(5:04:54 PM) him: easy.
(5:04:57 PM) me: verbatim?
(5:04:59 PM) me: lol
(5:04:59 PM) him: yes
(5:05:00 PM) me: k
(5:05:09 PM) him: easy.
- Which country do you believe has the largest population of players and fans?
China is estimated to have roughly 10 mil players, at G1 recently commentated by Tobi they said the finals were held in a outdoor stadium. Easily the biggest, although dota is popular in india as well - although no one in really knows much about them.
- As a DotA fan, do you follow any other eSports titles? If so, which ones and how often?
Dota fans play all other titles: SC, WC3, CS, CoD, FIFA, etc. Other gamers don't necessarily play Dota. I follow SC2, Fighting scene mostly.
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I will answer a few of those, maybe i will answer more later when i have more time.
On August 03 2011 05:01 djWHEAT wrote:
- Does the population of Chinese players (which sounds like it's the biggest landscape of players) rely on non-legit versions of WarCraft 3: TFT? I always felt like one of the biggest issues with the advancement of DotA dating back to like BlizzCon 2005 was the fact that new players had to purchase WC3... this was also a problem with games like Quake 3. I'm just curious how that works in China (and everywhere else for that matter)
If you have already heard of the platform garena, then this one is easy.
They practically have their own platforms that are pretty similar to garena in functionality, thus they are using non-legit versions of wc3.
Im pretty sure they dont have one big platform, just as we europeans dont have one big platform (other than battlenet ofcourse), to name a few: garena, iccup, dotacash, rgc, dotalicious and there are hundreds more.
On August 03 2011 05:01 djWHEAT wrote:
- Why do you think there are people (like myself) who have extensive knowledge in eSports, yet don't know much about DotA? Is this the fault of the individual? Or is it the fault of the collective DotA community? Or is there no fault at all and it's just two paths that have not crossed?
My first guess would be partly the same reason as to why you didnt know much about LoL´s until it hit 150k viewers on their stream, which came to you guys as a huge surprise, while it was pretty much a nobrainer for all the LoL players.
Two paths not crossing is therefore (partly) true, but i would also like to add one more reason:
There was no company owning the game that coudlve supported stuff like esports.
The community + Icefrog did all of that on their own, FOR the community, not for people they wouldve liked to watch tournaments.
With a company behind DotA, this will drastically change, especially since Valve made it clear that they are supportive of the idea to make DotA2 an esports title.
People like me always knew about all those tournaments, because we were lingering around on the community sites, but they didnt exactly advertise themselves on them.
On August 03 2011 05:01 djWHEAT wrote:
- If someone heard about DotA and wanted to get into it at the most basic level, which website would you send them to? If I had no one to ask, how hard would it be for me to find? Would it be PLAYDOTA.com?
playdota.com is the official community site for dota, even including a chinese section for the chinese (since icefrog can speak some chinese as far as i know, atleast i saw him post in the chinese tournament section a few times).
Playdota has all the information you need to get into the game, including guides, tutorials, strategy, mechanic explanations etc, everything you would like to know. it is there.
Just press on the tutorial button or mechanics button on the top of the site to see for yourself.
The information in there is ginormous, because (who woudlve guessed it) it was made by the community itself.
When icefrog announced the site, it was an empty shell, he asked the community to fill in the blanks.
We did.
And if by chance, you dont find an answer to your question in one of those sections, you go into the forum and ask in the mechanic section (or wherever your question fits into).
The community will answer asap.
Type dota into google and playdota.com is the first hit. Should answer your question.
On August 03 2011 05:01 djWHEAT wrote:
- Who is your favorite team?
Ehome. Some of the domination they demonstrated was crazy, their teamplay is incredible.
On August 03 2011 05:01 djWHEAT wrote:
- Which country do you believe has the largest population of players and fans?
Mostly europeans, russians and asians. Also many germans.
Basically the four languages that have been anounced on blog.dota2.com:
"The tournament will be broadcast in four languages (Chinese, German, Russian, and English) free of charge. The winning team will receive $1 million."
What a coincidence, right?.
On August 03 2011 05:01 djWHEAT wrote:
- As a DotA fan, do you follow any other eSports titles? If so, which ones and how often?
Im following sc2 very closely (on teamliquid every day, pretty much) and i am also following sf4 (but less than sc2).
Basically i am following the games that i am playing myself, with DotA being the one i put most of the time into.
edit:
There is no day9 for dota.
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People watch more replays than streams/vods.
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djWHEAT as far as getting knowledge of the DotA community i think your best bet is to get TobiWanKenobi, who will be the English caster for the Gamescom event, on LO3. I do not know if he will be willing to go on the show, as he is currently in Germany, which could potentially cause time zone problems.
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On August 03 2011 05:45 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2011 05:30 djWHEAT wrote:BTW, since everyone is quoting me on this: I know you will disagree with me, but DotA has made ZERO advancement in terms of a globally popular spotlighted eSports title. I feel as if I need to provide more information. Although some of the information provided in this thread was very insightful and unknown to me, I do feel as if I'm aware of the popularity of DotA. With that being said, it was a pretty fucking stupid statement to make without putting context behind it. I have respect for any community which can sustain itself, teams, popularity, content, etc. However, many of you are in the DotA community, and have been for quite sometime. My focus has been in "eSports" as dictated by popular global events. These global events have maintained a fairly consistent game line-up for the past 12 years. The most prominent of these games (the A-Listers) include, Counter-Strike 1.6, Quake, StarCraft, and WC3. These are globally popular spotlighted eSports titles. The context to which I would like to add to the quote above is that I have never seen DotA consistently join the ranks the games mentioned above. And that is where my "Zero Advancement" came from. I would make the exact same statement about "Call of Duty", another game that is ridiculously popular, has an established team base, will be awarding 1mil to a team, yet it still seems foreign if Slasher reported CoD scores each week on Lo3. I'm not trying to shit on DotA or the community. I'm simply trying to explain why I personally (and I believe many others) see DotA as a "B-List" eSports title. (Hopefully I can change this perspective with some answers to the questions above). DotA is probably a A-List title to many of you, and I respect that, please understand my reasoning behind why it's on my B-List, and I will do my best to understand why it's on your A-List. I have been harsh on DotA and it's little brothers (LoL, HoN, etc) before, but believe me, if I really didn't give a damn, I wouldn't even be harsh. I think some (and I understand why) people have pinned me as this person who is anti-DotA... but that is simply not the case. I think this is a very worthwhile line of discussion djWHEAT, especially when one considers how unprecedented the recent explosion in spectator e-sports is. I, for one, think that the mechanics of DotA and its clones leave a great deal to be desired in terms of excitement and watchability, while it seems clear that games like Sc2 and SF4 can be quite compelling from a spectator standpoint. To understand why some games are easier to take in and more enjoyable to watch, especially when it comes to e-sports, is to come that much closer to broaching the mainstream.
SC2, Street Fighter, and pretty much any FPS all have the advantage of being instantly understandable at least at a very basic level. In Street Fighter, if I'm punching you or throwing a fireball at you, it's probably going to hurt you. In Starcraft, if I have more things firing lasers and missiles at your things, I'm probably winning. In an FPS, if I shoot you, you die. There are obvious parallels to things we've seen in movies and in life where everyone just intuitively can see what is happening, even if they have no idea why. Someone who's never played these games can at least understand that someone is getting punched or shot at, so someone else is winning.
I don't think that exists in DOTA, just as it does not exist in WoW or any other game based on fantasy/RPG mechanics. You cannot intuitively see and understand item upgrades, spell effects, leveling up, etc. They only make sense when you've played the game a little bit and have had the time to read their descriptions and build an understanding of what everything does. There's no obvious visual indicators that a non-player would understand. Add to that the long game times that frequently include long lame-duck situations where the game is all but over but has not technically ended yet, and it's a game that's practically hostile to unfamiliar spectators. Yes, SC2 also has these lame duck situations, but they tend to only play out when a player desperately does not want to GG, and it seems fairly rare.
I also don't actually play the game. My brother has made frequent attempts to explain it and get me into it, and I just find it uninteresting.
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I can help out with the some of the questions. I've been a dota players WC3 RoC days and have been semi competitive for about a year in it. And I don't think Dota is a good esport for the audience unless you play it. Dota at the simplest form is pretty to understand, 5 heroes against 5, goal is to destroy the others' base. But if you deconstruct the game into details. It will be hard to explain to the audience if they never play it, from team composition, lane partnering, creep farming/denying, then item composition per character, then per team, then counter items, map control, ward war and neutral creep denying... the list goes on. Once you get those basics down, which are more like the "rule" of this game, you need to understand the movement and positioning of every heroes in team battle. Come to think of it, it's not as hard as i thought to educate the audience, perhaps if there are a willing base to join that community.
Another thing, from my 4-5 years experience, the community was not the friendliest place. Since it's a team game where one weak player can be the difference between a close contest or a steamroll, a lot of the players don't like new players and harsh words are thrown here and there, almost every single game. I think this is why the Dota genre didn't expand as quickly as it should. The newer games such as LoL and HoN implements mentor system and points to create more "fair" team, despite those, the community still has that elitist attitude where most self proclaimed high level players just don't like to help the community. There are always exception to this as you can see on youtube, tutorials and in forums where people discuss builds and strats, but most players who frequent those forums are at a higher level then beginners already.
I would compare watching Dota watching Soccer, sc2 sf4 mvc3 to basketball. I'm a big soccer fan(football should be the right term but just in case we don't want to confuse people), but i don't think non-players see the depth and the complexity as good as a player do. Basketball (SC2 SF4 MvC3) has depth, lots of depth, but a lot of the gameplay is exciting, even non-players can get hype watching Where as soccer/dota can get monotonous if u don't see the little battles between map control and creep denying etc. People will only get excited about ganking and team battles which rarely decide the game at high level, usually what comes before decide it. Dota matches at high level can be seen like a SF4 of Ryu vs Guile, where connoisseur will appreciate the footsie/zoning game while the casual audience might just find it boring...
I think this is one of the big reasons why SC2 and SF4 community flourish is because the community helps each other out. I play SC2, SF4, MvC3 and the community in everyone of them have been friendly (there are always exceptions online), what i mean is, you can discuss strategy and most people will be willing to give you advice and tips. There will always be trash talker , bad winners and bad losers, but the degree which Dota community complain is out of this world. .
I stop paying attention of the scene at the same time of stop playing. I'll be playing Dota 2 when it comes out, but I don't think the attitude will change in that community. It's only really fun when you have a full team of people that you can count on.
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On August 03 2011 05:45 djWHEAT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 03 2011 05:42 Grettin wrote:
Wheat, i think you should post all those questions to the "official" Dota thread also. People might actually read it more than this. Yeah, you're probably right unfortunately it becomes difficult for me to easily sort through all the answers/posts. I also hope to get answers based on the context of this thread...
You probably should, but be prepared for the trolls.
The more people gather, the more trolls emerge. DotA has many people, therefore they have many trolls. Just like on teamliquid
If they dont know you, you will probably get trolled. You should contact Icefrog. he might post it in your stead. He is easy to find, just go on playdota and search for his username.
This will ensure that only serious people post.
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i grew up in the Philippines and i spent most of my college years playing DotA or some MMO. (besides from getting drunk.)
i can't answer your questions with specific answers. i can only give you information based on my own experiences.
for me, during my college days, DotA was a quick, cheap, and easy getaway.
it is so easy to go to a PC bang and just sit down, get a 5v5 game, and finish one before your 1hour break is done.
in the process, you get to hang out with your friends and share the experience of competition.
this is much more simpler to do as to playing basketball or other physically enduring activity as you don't need to change clothes and stuff to perform well.
im pretty sure that most people here know that in Asia, PC bangs are everywhere.
in urban places in the Philippines, there is at least 1 or 2 PC bangs in every corner and you can expect that all of those have WC3 installed in them and the latest DotA map version.
it is pretty easy to install WC3 as you don't need the most latest PC specs thus allowing more people with crappy PC install it and enjoy DotA even by themselves. (DotA AI)
also, it is easy to get a fake copy as well making the cost of starting a PC bang very cheap.
About Pro DotA. I am still pretty new to it as i have just been introduced to it last year but it looks like it has a very strong viewership.
One time, the MPGL(Mineski Pro Gaming League), a Philippine based event, garnered 27,000 viewers watching the finals at the same time.
This is pretty high considering that the target audience are Filipinos and the casting is in Filipino as well.
i think one of the main reasons why you aren't aware as much with DotA because you do tend to focus more on bigger events that are in your field.
DotA is not an A-lister for me in terms of E-sports. But it is the easiest way to play and hang out with friends for cheap.
^_^
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One thing that makes dota tournaments painful to organize is the old and glitchy engine. It's wasn't designed for this kind of game and as a result crashes and players disconnect too often. When that happens all you can do is load the latest save file (before the crash) and continue from that. Streams (kinda like HLTV) crashing used to be a big problem in the past too.
Maybe you should post this survey on gosugamers or some other dota forum. You'll probably get a ton of shitty responses but maybe there's one or two valuable bits of information.
And yeah, there's no day9 in dota. It's the worst mannered and the most immature community out there, though I haven't seen halo/xboxlive. TobiWanKenobi is the only sane public face in the dota scene.
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Brazil1429 Posts
Hello djWHEAT. I'll try to answer you questions the best I can.
On August 03 2011 05:01 djWHEAT wrote:- Of the established leagues and competitions, who is the largest, what is the frequency of said events, and how much prize money has been given out (average) during these competitions? If you're asking for the largest, I'll name WDC and SMM. They're the biggest LAN events until now. WDC is stronger in terms of skill, having the strongest chinese teams and the strongest european teams, with a prize pool of 30000 USD (1st getting 15k, 2rd 7,5k, 3rd 4,5k, 4th 3k)
SMM has more teams on it, so the skill level is smaller, but still lots of strong teams from China (and some from Europe) compete on it for a prize pool of aprox. 20000 euro.
Both LAN events happens once in a year. Unfortunately I don't have information on this year's prize pool, but I guess they'll be at least the same.- DotA is popular in Asia, so are a million really bad MMO's... what efforts have been made to bring DotA OUT of Asia to other countries? (i.e. GomTV began English broadcasting several years ago). Does it need to leave Asia? Unless I'm wrong, DotA in asia had it's biggest impulse when the legendary russian team VP (Virtus Pro) went to China and fought chinese teams non-stop. Europe had a scene already. So the correct is that DotA is popular both in Asia and Europe.
At April 2010, based only on getdota's download count (he can't track other sites), Icefrog said that the community had between 7 and 11 million players, NOT COUNTING CHINA (source: http://www.playdota.com/forums/blogs/icefrog/892/q-session-4/)- Who is the Day[9] of DotA? Tobi Wan Kenobi- With such a popular community, teams, etc... why haven't we seen DotA showcased at well-known international eSports competitions? I know that it made some appearances at WCG, ESWC, and Blizzard events, but these were typically "one off" type competitions? Mostly because DotA doesn't have the support of a big company. Blizzard did nothing for DotA. But WCG DotA tournament is very strong at Asia, and ESWC adopted DotA mostly because of the gigantic player base. So I dont think they were typically "one off" competitions.- Does the population of Chinese players (which sounds like it's the biggest landscape of players) rely on non-legit versions of WarCraft 3: TFT? I always felt like one of the biggest issues with the advancement of DotA dating back to like BlizzCon 2005 was the fact that new players had to purchase WC3... this was also a problem with games like Quake 3. I'm just curious how that works in China (and everywhere else for that matter). [b]I can't say for sure. I can imagine that the game is quite expensive there and I can imagine a lot of players around the world playing non-legit W3 TFT. I can only say for myself - mine is legit. - Is the DotA community satisfied living in a self-contained bubble? It seems like other eSports games/audiences are fairly uneducated when it comes to the history Rotegirte provided in this thread. Once again I can't speak for the community. But, my two cents: You have to understand the history of the game, a custom mod becoming so huge and so exciting as a game, without the support and the money of a big company to back up the game. There were no campaigns to promote DotA. I don't think we're satisfied, we want the game to get huge, the scene to get more professional, etc. In the end, I think we want the same the other eSports audiences wants.- Why do you think there are people (like myself) who have extensive knowledge in eSports, yet don't know much about DotA? Is this the fault of the individual? Or is it the fault of the collective DotA community? Or is there no fault at all and it's just two paths that have not crossed? There are a lot of factors. Fistly, because of the lack of backup from a big company, DotA doesn't have publicity, so it's natural that some people doesn't know it.
At the same time, we have individuals that had the chance to meet and learn the game, but somehow failed (like you did in LO3 first episode when you state that no one cares about DotA. A small study would probably make you change your words).
And it's also true that there's no fault at all and it's just two paths that have not crossed.- If someone heard about DotA and wanted to get into it at the most basic level, which website would you send them to? If I had no one to ask, how hard would it be for me to find? Would it be PLAYDOTA.com? PLAYDOTA.com is the best site for the basic level. You can find guides for every hero there, information on the mecanics and even guides about everything else in the game.
For a more strategical insight on the game, dotacommentaries.com and gosugamers.net provides in depth analysis of games.- SC2 and Street Fighter 4 have been two games that have proven that they can carry an active audience of people who do not even play the game. Do you think this audience already exists in the DotA scene and if not, do you think it can? This is probably the greatest challenge of DotA. Firstly, curretly DotA is not newbie-friendly. It requires some time for you to understand what's going on, and you need this knowledge to get what's happening in the screen. I think this is the biggest challenge DOTA2 has to face.
Secondly, the W3 TFT mechanic is not caster-friendly. The UI is bad for casters. It's hard to access information and statistics without risking to lose the action going on in the map. Another challenge for DOTA2.- Who is your favorite team? MYM and LGD- Which country do you believe has the largest population of players and fans? China, definitely- As a DotA fan, do you follow any other eSports titles? If so, which ones and how often? I follow SC II since beta, and also followed some of the SC and SCBW scene
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On July 22 2011 01:27 djWHEAT wrote:Show nested quote +On July 21 2011 07:52 dacthehork wrote:
It's gonna be sad when they've dismissed dota for the last 5 years, then dota 2 comes out and they try hard to ride the popularity wave. Can't wait for the episode after gamescom when they try to hop aboard.
I can't wait for the episode after gamescom where we continue to ignore the game. (/sarcasm) I will wait for the episode after DotA actually proves itself as a legitimate competitive game that organizations want to support via tournaments, teams, etc. I know you will disagree with me, but DotA has made ZERO advancement in terms of a globally popular spotlighted eSports title. I really am not going out of my way to discredit the game(s) at all because I enjoy them casually myself, but I'm definitely not convinced that it will ever be able to exist like BW, CS, Quake, SC2, etc. I really hope I'm wrong, because the features they mention are certainly on the right track. But you can't really eat up Valve's bullshit about eSports so easily. They had the same opportunity to support and advance CS 1.6 at it's prime and they chose to take a very obvious backseat almost to the point of ignoring it. I think DotA 2 will be alot more like TF2, where it appears as if the potential is there, but the actual direction from Valve never let's it get beyond a "casual game that a fuckload of people play". It's also going to be very tough for HoN, LoL, BLC, and DotA 2 to all co-exist, and most certainly not at the same tournaments. I HOPE that the competition between these companies will change the way they all approach eSports.
Look at China NOW. The DotA scene there is nearly as big as Korean BW scene. And that means it is bigger than SC2 scene right now.
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Canada2068 Posts
- Who is the Day[9] of DotA? There's an ex-Dota pro by the name of 2009 who hails from China and makes tutorial videos on how to play each hero, as well as doing commentary on games between pro teams. It's kind of similar to Day[9], but he usually releases 2-3 videos a week, not every day like Day[9]. A few of 2009's videos have been subtitled in English. http://www.gosugamers.net/dota/news/15158-2009-talks-dota-episode-1
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+ Show Spoiler +On August 03 2011 05:01 djWHEAT wrote:
In preparation for the upcoming LO3 discussion on DotA, I would appreciate it if the well versed members of the community (which many of you have demonstrated you are) could help answer the following questions. Keep in mind, these are not meant to be condescending or "set up" questions, after reading everything in this thread, these are the things I'm still a bit unsure about. Instead of making assumptions, I'd rather hear from you guys.
You can also send your answers to: djWHEAT @ OneMoreGame.tv
- Of the established leagues and competitions, who is the largest, what is the frequency of said events, and how much prize money has been given out (average) during these competitions?
- DotA is popular in Asia, so are a million really bad MMO's... what efforts have been made to bring DotA OUT of Asia to other countries? (i.e. GomTV began English broadcasting several years ago). Does it need to leave Asia?
- Who is the Day[9] of DotA?
- With such a popular community, teams, etc... why haven't we seen DotA showcased at well-known international eSports competitions? I know that it made some appearances at WCG, ESWC, and Blizzard events, but these were typically "one off" type competitions?
- Does the population of Chinese players (which sounds like it's the biggest landscape of players) rely on non-legit versions of WarCraft 3: TFT? I always felt like one of the biggest issues with the advancement of DotA dating back to like BlizzCon 2005 was the fact that new players had to purchase WC3... this was also a problem with games like Quake 3. I'm just curious how that works in China (and everywhere else for that matter)
- Is the DotA community satisfied living in a self-contained bubble? It seems like other eSports games/audiences are fairly uneducated when it comes to the history Rotegirte provided in this thread.
- Why do you think there are people (like myself) who have extensive knowledge in eSports, yet don't know much about DotA? Is this the fault of the individual? Or is it the fault of the collective DotA community? Or is there no fault at all and it's just two paths that have not crossed?
- If someone heard about DotA and wanted to get into it at the most basic level, which website would you send them to? If I had no one to ask, how hard would it be for me to find? Would it be PLAYDOTA.com?
- SC2 and Street Fighter 4 have been two games that have proven that they can carry an active audience of people who do not even play the game. Do you think this audience already exists in the DotA scene and if not, do you think it can?
- Who is your favorite team?
- Which country do you believe has the largest population of players and fans?
- As a DotA fan, do you follow any other eSports titles? If so, which ones and how often?
Biggest tournaments/league?
ESWC, Once a year and that's the best place we get to see an actual Asia vs. the World type of scenario. Sendi Mutiara Mutlimedia (SMM) +$20K, once a year (Singapore). Monthly Chinese event (G-League and other names) usually pool +$10K. For Europe it's Farm 4 Fame +$3K and Pick League (Dota-League.com) - It's been running since it started in 2008. The scene lost a lot of leagues/tournaments such as ESL and MYM tournament don't happen as frequent as they used to. There is no GSL/THATONELEAGUE that everyone cares most about.
What efforts have been made to bring DotA OUT of Asia to other countries?
I do not know if you know, but DotA did not start out big in Asia and most importantly China. DotA only started getting big in China at around 2009 when WC3 started declining. In fact it was quite the opposite. It was big in the US/European (where it was getting most attention) and thanks to Garena expanded to Asian regions where we started seeing Asian stars and with league such as ADC rising up. There is no bring DotA OUT of Asia to other countries? The game was big in the West and then expanded to the East. It was just accepted in Asia and out grew what he had going in West. DotA also did not receive a lot of support in the West, even though the scene was big, due to mixed feelings and also there was no company like say Blizzard, to back it up.
Who is the Day[9] of DotA?
Depends on what you mean by Day9. If you mean as a caster that commentates most tournament, that would be Towiwankenobi. If you mean an iconic figure like Day9 is for SC2, than I'll be the first to say, DotA has none. DotA is one of those scene where casters are the least important persons in the scene. Always have and always will be. In the DotA scene, the players have always been the icons people look up to not, the casters unlike SC2 where people are more excited about the casters than the player. So I'll it again, DotA has no Day9 in that iconic sense. It has also always been argued whether Tobiwan can even be considered a good caster. He's gotten a lot better now but he's always been criticized for not knowing what he's talking about most of the time. I should know because I was one of those people when he first starting making appearance in the scene.
With such a popular community, teams, etc... why haven't we seen DotA showcased at well-known international eSports competitions? I know that it made some appearances at WCG, ESWC, and Blizzard events, but these were typically "one off" type competitions?
I'm not sure what you mean by one off, but it's a ESWC main title, period. Not a promotional event or anything. It's also a main title for WCG Asia. Most of it had to do with the financial backing. DotA being a custom-map could not buy its way into tournaments and Blizzard never cared enough to support it as well. DotA had to basically prove itself worthy to make it into the ESWC and other tournament. One of the ESWC admins themselves commented back in 2008 how they were amazed of the DotA community. No matter if the WCG votes for DotA heavily outweighed other games, DotA was never included as a main title for WCG globals, because of Blizzard.
Does the population of Chinese players (which sounds like it's the biggest landscape of players) rely on non-legit versions of WarCraft 3: TFT? I always felt like one of the biggest issues with the advancement of DotA dating back to like BlizzCon 2005 was the fact that new players had to purchase WC3... this was also a problem with games like Quake 3. I'm just curious how that works in China (and everywhere else for that matter)
This is debatable because you see with Garena and other third party programs you could play this game through a virtual private network like Hamachi. So you can't really tell who is playing on a legit version, unless you make them play on Battle.net, which was never used because of lag issues. Garena was always the main platform DotA is played on.
Is the DotA community satisfied living in a self-contained bubble?
I'm not sure I understand the question, but I'll answer it like I think it is. The community always wanted DotA to go main stream. I remember when ESWC first announced DotA, people were so happy. The idea was never to have DotA be a self contained, hidden, underground scene. People always tried to looked for sponsors, spread the word out to tournament organizers and even news site tried their best to cover the game. Though we can agree that over the last few years coverage has been pretty poor, I don't think the idea was for DotA to be a self-contained bubble.
Why do you think there are people (like myself) who have extensive knowledge in eSports, yet don't know much about DotA?
I think in your case, I hate to throw you under the bus, it's your fault. You simply chose to ignore DotA or just didn't care for it. There were enough news coverage sites at the time myMYM.com, SK-Gaming and GosuGamers being the biggest back then that were covering DotA. Me working for myMYM I will tell you that DotA brought 75% of the traffic for that site. DotA news was all around. If you mean the game itself, not understanding it or that, that's no ones fault. It's just not for you.
SC2 and Street Fighter 4 have been two games that have proven that they can carry an active audience of people who do not even play the game. Do you think this audience already exists in the DotA scene and if not, do you think it can?
No! Simply because of how the game is designed. You need to atleast have a few basic understanding of the game, or you just won't get it at all. But it's not hard to learn those basics. It took me less than an hour to get my friends to understand whats happening (back when I was in 8th grade). They just watched as I explained when I played. Sure you won't get everything but the whole laning, pushing, farming, ganking and etc. you'll get.
- If someone heard about DotA and wanted to get into it at the most basic level, which website would you send them to? If I had no one to ask, how hard would it be for me to find? Would it be PLAYDOTA.com?
It used to be DotA-Allstars, but now it's playdota.com (not as good but still good)
Who is your favorite team?
MYM. Forever in my heart. Maelk, MaNia, Levent, H4nn1 and Slasher was my favorite team of all time and their current roster is my favorite team.
Which country do you believe has the largest population of players and fans?
China, Singapore and other Asian countries.
As a DotA fan, do you follow any other eSports titles? If so, which ones and how often?
SC2 > Fighting games | DotA/HoN/LoL > WC3 > COD4 > QL > Console scene
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guys how can u argue about dota being not popular?
on chinese platform called vs client(or something like that) got 1million users logged in AT THE SAME TIME
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People keep saying Dota is huge in asia, so what? What does that have to do with it being big in the western world? Its not, thats why wheat doesn't give the game any attention on LO3. Whats the issue here? There are other bigger western esport titles that gets attention on LO3.
I'm struggeling to see why you guys are so bitter about it when there's nothing to talk about. He's gonna try to get involved in the chinese scene? How is that relevant to the show? How many will actually be interested to hear about some unknown godly chinese dota team that a vast majority of LO3 listeners know nothing about or has any interest in.
TWO lans per year doesn't exactly make a interesting dota scene. So while you guys love to complain about wheats ignorance to the massive AMAZING dota scene, there's not much to be ignorant about, atleast to us "foreigners".
There's no dota coverage on esport sites, why is that? There has to be a very good reason why nobody wants to cover this game.
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- With such a popular community, teams, etc... why haven't we seen DotA showcased at well-known international eSports competitions?
Hi Wheat,
1) Dota is just a mod/map for WC3 and isn't often treated as a "real game" (especially by western sponsors)
2) The WC3 engine is a huge limiting factor for the game.
In competative play you need to save the game every 5-10 minutes (witch takes a pause and roughly about 30 seconds).
If one player drops from the game (there are 10 Players, so the chances are quite high, especially online) you have to relay on the last save (taken maybe 5-10 minutes ago), because WC3 dosn't allow reconnecting.
Even in this 5-10 minutes could have happened alot and there is sometimes alot arguing going on because one team saw itself in an advantageous position.
Rehosting again takes about 5-10 minutes. (because of the third party programmes/finding channels/group up etc.)
Sponsors/organizers see this online tournaments and are afraid to support/host a tournament for Dota because they how much of a potential struggle it can be. In alot of cases the games don't go very smooth. (There were some BO3 in the past which took about 5 hours and watching it was a huge pain in the ass, as you can imagine).
Also it's quite hard to implement new and innovative mechanics like: better observer features, easier shop-system to the game because you can only do what the WC3-Map-tool is allowing you to do.
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EPT
