An International 4 Stream For People Like Me

@irvandus said:

It's key to note that Dota makes it very, very easy to mute people. In Purge's guide that I mentioned, he literally tells you how to do this before explaining any gameplay elements.

Personally I think the communities volatility is exaggerated -- there's the occasional huge asshole that you're stuck in a room with for 45 minutes, but you just mute them and move along. Most people are actually pretty friendly.

Also anyone making fun of the noob stream is an idiot~ More people interested in the game is better.

This video seemed alright. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akUNmFAzS98

@rotnac: Yeah. I regret to inform you that even in the GB chat people were making fun of the fact that their was a noob stream.

As someone with 200 or so games under my belt, I didn't really think this stream was very helpful for someone just barely coming to the game or who has never watched it before. SUNSfan (among one or two other casters) was using character names from Dota 1, and still talking about things from a pretty high level. Maybe I missed it, but they didn't do a lot of explaining about what the safelane is, what it means, why pro dota players run trilanes and offlanes, etc. which is a concept that even after hundreds of games I still don't quite grasp.

Hopefully the stream improves as TI4 continues but, at least to myself as someone who has played enough dota to gain a passing familiarity with almost all the heroes and items, it seemed like it left a bit to be desired from an educational perspective.

It's hard to tell though, because I do know the basics at least. I hope to hear Patrick talk about what he takes away from this throughout the week.

There are two casting teams for this stream in particular -- one with Blitz, Pyrion Flax, and Shane, then another one with Purge and SUNSfan. The first team was earlier in the morning today, and they didn't do quite as good a job of explaining concepts (though it was pretty funny.) Purge's run is the one you want -- he's been making videos explaining Dota in patient detail for years, and in fact his article 'Welcome to Dota, you suck' (google it) might sound sort of hostile but it's a one-stop new-to-dota shop and the first thing I recommend a new player read. If there are particular heroes you're interested in it's guaranteed he has a few games on youtube talking about decision making and skills.

I want a Purge / Pyrion stream for the finals, might make for a good straight man / funny man combo.

Don't succumb to peer pressure Patrick.

No!!! Patrick, stop inflicting so much pain upon yourself.

Dota has more in common with drug addiction than ANY kind of positive escapism.

I don't play Dota 2 either, but joining a moba on your own is never a good idea. Brad did it the right way -- he played with friends that showed him what was what and didn't get mad at him. Randoms on the internet will always be assholes, it's not exclusive to moba titles -- it just flares up more there because those randoms are relying on someone who has no idea what they're doing.

Whether that's a realistically fixable problem without bringing in friends, I dunno, but you kind of get a team going with these games anyway, queuing up solo even if you're experienced seems miserable.

I have a pretty good understanding of the game and I'm watching this just cause I like listening to to purge

Even as a person who knows quite a bit about Dota, I like tuning into this every now and then. They have a really relaxed pace and are great for putting on in the background while I'm not focusing on the action. Good stuff.

As much appreciation that I have for this being a thing, it still won't get me into DOTA 2. The community itself is far from being noob friendly. They need to do a lot more than this to get rid of the intolerant assholes.

They were really breaking down some of the basics of DOTA during the 10-15 that I just watched. Focusing on wards and their usefulness, item choices, farming, and pushing.

A brilliant move by Valve.

Everyone I know likes sports, but I have zero interest in anything to do with them (sports = worse than DOTA), so can't quite understand Patrick's logic, but still may check out the stream later out of morbid curiosity.

Edit: Watched 10 minutes... not sure how that was newb friendly, they weren't really explaining anything. Just not for me I guess!

Really smart that they provide that.

Very cool to see them implement this. I played a bit of DOTA2, but I have trouble following all of the high-level commentary that is in the main stream. Looking forward to watching again this year.