Esports Today 8/4/15: Looking to TI5, Predicting the LCS Playoffs

[Chris]

Esports Today 8/4/15:

Looking to TI5, Predicting the LCS Playoffs

Welcome to Esports Today! In our inaugural episode, hosts Andrew Groen and Rob Zacny discuss The International's group stage and what to expect from the main tournament. Then, they take a look at their favorites in the StarCraft II GSL Season 3 round of 32. Finally, some predictions for the League of Legends LCS quarterfinals, and the state of League heading into Worlds.

Games Discussed: Dota 2, StarCraft II, League of Legends

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[Badfinger]

EXCELLENT first episode! I have been waiting literal years to find a competitive gaming podcast that's approachable, on topic, and non-hyperbolic. It's completely unsurprising that Idle Thumbs and you, Rob (and Andrew, hi Andrew!), got it rolling right off the bat. For instance, I'm primarily interested and familiar with League of Legends, but I'm the same sort of The International drifter that Rob is. Even though I'm unfamiliar with the specifics of Dota, because I'm very familiar with LoMas overall, the description of how teams are building their compositions and play styles was instantly informative. I would have liked to have known who the players that left Na'Vi were when you mentioned it. All I knew was "not Dendi", and then had to guess (incorrectly).

 

I'm curious what the intent on the breadth and depth of the program is going to be. Are you going for a certain length on every episode? There was less immediately to discuss for DOTA and LoL because the episode was recorded right before/in between the really big stuff kicking off, but are you going to take deep dives on particular games or series, or keep it broad and general? Are you going to focus on a few particular video games, or cover what's happening in the moment this week (e.g., would you have taken on EVO, or is the SC/DOTA/LoL/CS:GO pocket the sweet spot)? I am eternally happy with that particular sweet spot, but is there Hearthstone and Smite in our future?

[AndrewGroen]

EXCELLENT first episode! I have been waiting literal years to find a competitive gaming podcast that's approachable, on topic, and non-hyperbolic. It's completely unsurprising that Idle Thumbs and you, Rob (and Andrew, hi Andrew!), got it rolling right off the bat. For instance, I'm primarily interested and familiar with League of Legends, but I'm the same sort of The International drifter that Rob is. Even though I'm unfamiliar with the specifics of Dota, because I'm very familiar with LoMas overall, the description of how teams are building their compositions and play styles was instantly informative. I would have liked to have known who the players that left Na'Vi were when you mentioned it. All I knew was "not Dendi", and then had to guess (incorrectly).

 

I'm curious what the intent on the breadth and depth of the program is going to be. Are you going for a certain length on every episode? There was less immediately to discuss for DOTA and LoL because the episode was recorded right before/in between the really big stuff kicking off, but are you going to take deep dives on particular games or series, or keep it broad and general? Are you going to focus on a few particular video games, or cover what's happening in the moment this week (e.g., would you have taken on EVO, or is the SC/DOTA/LoL/CS:GO pocket the sweet spot)? I am eternally happy with that particular sweet spot, but is there Hearthstone and Smite in our future?

 

Thanks, Badfinger! And it's great to meet you as well (I'm Andrew Groen.) I'm so glad you enjoyed the first episode. We had a really great time putting this together, and we're impatiently counting the days until we get to record another episode.

 

Re your feedback: I'll try to be a bit more specific in the future. We do several hours of pre-show prep, but sometimes even that isn't enough to gather all of the details we'd like to inform people of. Sometimes we get rolling in a good conversation and it takes us places we weren't expecting. 

As for the focus of the show, some of that is still being defined. We definitely would have covered EVO if we had launched a few weeks earlier. Definitely. EVO is a boatload of fun. We like to cover anything that falls under the purview of spectator-friendly competitive gaming. However, we are a little constrained by our personal knowledge of certain scenes. So Hearthstone and Smite, for example, will be difficult at first since we don't currently know those scenes very well. With that said, I'd be surprised if we never covered those games. We just may have to bring in a guest expert, or approach the subject from our own limited-knowledge vantage point. The bulk of the show will focus on that SC/DOTA/LoL/CS:GO sweet spot you mentioned. But there will be frequent moments when we step out to explore Halo, Call of Duty, Fighting Games, up-and-coming titles etc.  

 

We're excited for you to hear more!

Andrew

[sclpls]

I haven't heard the first episode yet, but I'm curious if you'll be doing answering questions from listener emails? A show like this seems ideal for that format. Either way very excited for this show!

[Bastwood]

Pretty nifty first episode. I'm only really familiar with Dota so that's where my nitpicks lie:

1. A Compendium purchase is not necessary to watch TI5 matches with the in-game client.
2. Calling Towers Turrets. Took me several seconds to get over this one.

[Shinan]

I love the idea of this. I'm a fairly casual e-sports follower (the twitch mobile app has helped a lot with this. Sometimes before bed I just check the app to see if there's any games to fall asleep to) and I basically stay away from the management of lords.

 

One thing I noticed is that you transitioned between games without even mentioning the games in question. Mostly I noticed this with Starcraft where you started to talk about WCS and GSL and for a new (or casual) listener they'd have no idea what you were talking about. So basically a clearer transition between different games would be good (especially considering the teams names are generally the same for all of these sports )

[voxn]

great podcast! Always happy to get more Rob in my life (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

 

I'm only familiar with dota, and Andrew's coverage was quite good, but I'm going be a pendant and submit a few notes:

- Arteezy is Canadian, and Team Secret actually has some kind of weird Turkish millionaire as a manager. I have no idea on the specifics of the arrangement, and I'm not sure anyone does.

- Na'Vi remains a crowd favorite from their years of amazing games, but they did quite poorly last year, and no one expected anything of them this year (which they delivered on, sadly)

- A compendium isn't required to watch International games, though most other tournaments are gated behind tickets (and the arms race of cosmetics to sell tourny tickets is a whole conversation in itself)

- Suicide Squad is a large facet of Techies, but the more important aspect is how landmines fundamentally alter the flow of a game. The phrase "This isn't even dota" gets thrown around a lot.

 

It was fun hearing about other esports scenes as well -- I haven't watched starcraft since the days of jumpsuits, GOM player and spraypainted foam sets, and have never even dipped a toe into league. The main issue being time, which might be good fodder for discussion on the show. Every game has marquee events, but also seems to churn the year long, and keeping pace with even one absolutely devours time. Over-saturation of tournaments has been an ongoing point of discussion for a while now inside the dota scene.

[Badfinger]

Following up on Voxn's point and stemming from the 3MA Legacy of the Void discussion, one of the reasons it was tough for me to remain interested in the SC2 scene was 1) it was hilariously fragmented and 2) partly because of point one I never knew when the hell anything was happening so I couldn't plan to watch it.

 

Outside of The International I feel similarly about Dota. Unless I actively recognize a team (probably from previous TI exposure) I have no idea what the level of a tournament is and still would have no idea of its importance.

[AndrewGroen]

Hey folks, thanks for all the feedback. 

 

I think the fragmentation of the Dota scene is going to start getting better this year. Valve introduced the Dota Majors system. So most of the other tournaments will fall away over time, and we can just focus on the four obvious big ones. Which I think will give Dota a good frequency that's similar to StarCraft's WCS or GSL systems that run about quarterly or thrice per year.

 

Oh, and we're aiming for about 30-40 minutes with the show. We want something that can cover a good amount of ground without asking people to give us their entire afternoon just to listen. Any questions just let me know!

 

Andrew

[AndrewGroen]

Oh! And we're doing some amount of Q&A at some point (we'll be experimenting with how that fits into our format in future shows.) So if you have any questions about Esports or the show send us your questions at Questions@esports.today.

[ewokskick]

Pretty nifty first episode. I'm only really familiar with Dota so that's where my nitpicks lie:

1. A Compendium purchase is not necessary to watch TI5 matches with the in-game client.
2. Calling Towers Turrets. Took me several seconds to get over this one.

 

Is 2 a League thing?  I've never played that game, but it's pretty clear these guys are a lot more interested in that than Dota 2.  That doesn't bother me, I kinda like listening to someone who is trying to cover it all even if it means they won't be as into my one specific game as me.

[Badfinger]

Yes. Tower/Turret is 100% interchangeable in my lexicon. As it turns out, they're completely the same thing and you shouldn't worry about it! I swap between them freely depending on who I'm talking to and in what situation.

 

I am going to pre-expose you to the fact that they will refer to your side's ever-marching expendable army as "minions" and "super-minions", as that is also the League Lexicon. The NPCs in the jungle are "monsters". The playable characters, which we know as Lords, are called "champions". Somehow you still refer to the number of non-player kills as your CS, though.

[Rob Zacny]

Wait, are y'all telling me that Andrew made me buy a compendium for NOTHING? Dammit to hell. That guy is the worst.

 

Funny thing is I used to call everything a tower because that's what they plainly are, but I spent two years working for LoLEsports doing freelance stuff and the house style infected my speech patterns. Another thing I hate? How you gotta be really careful about calling LoL characters "champions" and Dota characters "heroes". But I'm not sure I can get away with calling them lords every week, given the tenor of show we're going for.

[Reyturner]

How many games do you guys plan on covering? Do you have people in mind to cover games you don't know / like? Will you concentrate on the big games or dive into weird, small regional scenes?

[AndrewGroen]

Haha Rob you don't know how bad I felt about that all week. Next two beers are on me. I spent my first year as a Lords Management player in LoL and then spent the last two in Dota so my vocab is super interchangable. I generally say "characters" rather than hero/champion, for instance. I just love Lords Managements, I don't care too much about the nitty gritty specifics.

 

@Reyturner

We'll be focusing a lot on SC2/LoL/Dota/CSGO as the bulk of the show, but I certainly know I'll be looking for any opportunity (particularly during uneventful weeks) to cover other scenes like Call of Duty, Hearthstone, Halo, Quake, and Fighting Games. Doing something on "weird, small regional scenes" could be cool, but I'm not sure how many opportunities we'll have to do it. It would be neat to go to something like a local Smash Bros tournament.

[jennegatron]

I'm very excited for everyone who is brought into the forums through this show to be very confused by the m o b a -> lords managment replace.

[AndrewGroen]

I learned my lesson.

[robotslave]

Valve introduced the Dota Majors system.

 

Except they didn't really, did they?  Valve announced a majors system, and then re-announced it, and then in typical Valve fashion went totally silent and we haven't heard a peep about it since.

 

They haven't introduced a blessed thing yet.  No locations, no formats, no tentative schedule, no casting partnerships, nothing.  

 

If there are supposed to be three of these things a year outside The International, then there are all of three months left before the "main event" LAN of the next one begins.  And nobody outside of Valve Headquarters has any inkling of, say, what a team is supposed to do to even qualify for it.  Or, like, what the name of the event will be.

 

The only thing Valve has done so far is dump an enormous bucket of ice water on the burgeoning independent tournament circuit, for better or for worse.

[Badfinger]

Since this thread seems pretty well read, I'll put this here rather than email.

 

I'd be really interested in having a discussion about the differences in the LoL vs DOTA metas. Not what they are, but rather how they evolve/what they revolve around. Based on what I've seen, the DOTA meta seems way more settled than it did the last time I paid much attention. The positions seem much more set and less volatile, as well. The Riot casters often focus in on "win conditions", which is what teams target with their compositions and the map in order to win in the style their team is built. I'm curious what the win conditions are, what teams are doing to build towards them, and how win conditions vary from game to game and match to match.

[Twig]

Except they didn't really, did they?  Valve announced a majors system, and then re-announced it, and then in typical Valve fashion went totally silent and we haven't heard a peep about it since.

 

They haven't introduced a blessed thing yet.  No locations, no formats, no tentative schedule, no casting partnerships, nothing.  

 

If there are supposed to be three of these things a year outside The International, then there are all of three months left before the "main event" LAN of the next one begins.  And nobody outside of Valve Headquarters has any inkling of, say, what a team is supposed to do to even qualify for it.  Or, like, what the name of the event will be.

 

The only thing Valve has done so far is dump an enormous bucket of ice water on the burgeoning independent tournament circuit, for better or for worse.

Well, it'll be named the "Dota 2 Fall Majors", if the original naming convention that they set up when they announced the thing and named it still stands. I think it's supposed to happen in November, maybe? Also someone told me Europe. This someone is usually much more knowledgeable than me on these things, so I generally trust him, although he's been known to be wrong, and I'm lazy so I don't feel like confirming because it's not easy to google.

 

Valve's goal with the majors is to solve one of the number one gripes in the scene: team instability. The "burgeoning independent tournament circuit" is also one of the major complaints. Too many tournaments. This is from players, too, not just viewers, so whether or not you agree (I personally don't care all that much), it's still an important issue. Also, there's no indication that the majors system, whatever it ends up being, will make all independent tournament circuits null and void.

 

Give it some time. TI5 LITERALLY just ended yesterday.

[AndrewGroen]

Give it some time. TI5 LITERALLY just ended yesterday.

Yeah, I agree. Valve isn't a huge company and The International is arguably the biggest event of the year in esports so you can be pretty sure their bandwidth for anything besides TI until now has been nonexistent. Hopefully we'll see them make more traction on this now that the behemoth is behind them. Personally I'd like to see them partner with a group like Starladder for an Eastern European major, and then perhaps something in South Korea (in addition to NA's TI, and China's DAC.) Continue the trend of showing support to the worldwide community.

[robotslave]

Yeah, I agree. Valve isn't a huge company and The International is arguably the biggest event of the year in esports so you can be pretty sure their bandwidth for anything besides TI until now has been nonexistent.

 

If Valve is too overwhelmed to do the work necessary to organize a tournament with a LAN finals in November, then they should have stepped aside and let a company that does have the bandwidth set up an event.

 

I understand that "TI5 JUST LITERALLY ENDED OMG STOP WHINING," but there have to be teams that would like to have a crack at breaking into the pros who are going to be screwed because Valve hasn't managed to get their ducks in a row soon enough to, say, let sub-pro teams know whether or not they're eligible for the next event and give them time to prepare for open qualifiers.

 

I mean, there will of course be open qualifiers, won't there?

 

And TI itself was hardly an example of good planning on Valve's part.  The public didn't know when the group stage would begin, what the match schedule would be, or even what format it would have, until ten days before it started.  The wildcard qualifiers were held so far ahead of the event that the play of some of the winners was barely recognizable in Seattle.

 

I absolutely do think the independent tournament circuit was producing an overabundance of events, but Valve could just as easily have stayed out of the way and allowed the various companies holding events to eventually work the problem out between themselves.

 

Instead, they killed the entire system dead, and unless they pull up their pants and start acting like organizers, the upshot is going to be fewer paydays, accessible only to the small group of teams that are lucky enough to be on a mysterious shortlist somewhere at Valve HQ that's used to pick the invitees.

[Twig]

I never said "stop whining"; I said "give it some time". They'll talk about it soon enough.

[robotslave]

I never said "stop whining"; I said "give it some time". They'll talk about it soon enough.

 

Soon enough for what?  An invite-only LAN?

[Twig]

Who knows! They'll talk about it soon enough!