Since the direct link is currently the only way to access the new blog I'm gonna post the link here until we get access to it on the main site:
http://teamstaygreen.com/?p=451
Enjoy
Friday, May 17, 2013
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
My Beef with Tralf
This has been slowly building up over the past 3 or so months, and I'm pretty tired of being asked about it on streams, on skype, and even by fucking text message; and I'm just gonna air it out on my last blog post on hongossip before I move to the stayGreen website. So here goes:
I never really understood why Tralf decided to get so mad at me for seemingly no reason. At first I thought it was because I blogged here about him. Shortly after those blogs went public I started to get people coming to my stream telling me that Tralf called me a faggot. Understandable, I guess in some way, as I had basically outed his intentions of playing competitive HoN again. But at the same time, I wasn't really posting anything in an inflammatory way about the guy.. just the information I was getting. And it's not like I was the first and only person who was talking about it.
Then I posted the second blog post, which speculates about him posting under the name T90ly, where T90ly (who is supposedly Tralfs former roommate) praises Tralfamadore in a few threads and also disparages his at the time teammates, including current (assumed) teammates; Moonmeander and Bkid. I ended the post saying that if it were actually Tralf posting on T90ly it wouldn't surprise me. Again, this is hardly anything offensive.
My third post about Tralfamadore was about his very controversial exit of the clan One Trick Pony, which lead to a flurry of hate posts on the HoN forums. I simply picked posts out of the threads and left some remarks as to what I thought about the posts in general, as well as had some very obvious sarcastic comments like:
"Luckily for OTP, CM decided to let Xibbe have Chipper both in both games 2 and 3, leading me to believe that Milkfat asked CM to throw to allow OTP to stay in Diamond while cursing the name of Tralfamadore under his breath."
Again, nothing really spiteful or even untrue. Everything I posted about Tralf quitting the team and the way he did it was completely factual, which was supported in the fourth blog post about Znoowy's response on the official HoN forums.
So, as this continues on, I start losing focus on HoN Gossip. Yet while streaming I keep getting people coming to twitch.tv/S2phil and telling me stories about Tralfamadore talking copious amount of shit.
"Phil is a sad person. He's such a faggot. Why would someone who got fired still try to support the company by keeping the S2 name. Why is this person still allowed to be on podcasts. I can't stand the guy."
The entire time, I'm thinking about my history with Tralfamadore. So I'm gonna talk about it here. I never really knew Tralf that well when he was in SK. I was pretty friendly with Cardinal and we TMM'd in low brackets every now and then. Sometimes I would see Tralf but never really talked to him until we launched NASL Season 2. Of course by that time I was working for S2 Games but it hadn't been made public (Honcast was acquired by S2 Games in July 2011). My times talking with Tralfamadore were pretty minimal as Swindle was the captain of the team, but we spoke every now and then. I started to get more involved with the event coordination of things and Breaky mostly took over the administrative roles for NASL and I basically tried to back him whenever I could but my heart was mostly in casting the games and working with the marketing team on the new Honcast studio, the NASL Finals and the upcoming MSI Beat IT tournament which would lead into Dreamhack Winter 2011.
I knew that Dreamhack Winter was going to be my last Dreamhack spent casting, as things were getting rough around the office with the Director of eSports position. So when Dreamhack Winter 2011 rolled around, I made sure that I started talking with the players. I made sure to meet with Bkid, Sender, Tralf, Swindle, and all of the vocal members of the competitive community who were in attendance. I wanted them to know that things were in the right hands now, and even though I said a lot of things and made a lot of promises that took a long time to appear, I truthfully meant what I said. I wanted the best for those players and for competitive Heroes of Newerth. In December when I was appointed as the interim Competitive Director I tried my best to show that I could be of worth as more than a shoutcaster, and in January after a successful CES event I was offered the position full time. I knew that I had to get out of the casting role because the scene had been left in complete shambles. This is a bit off-topic but I want it to be said here plainly: It takes time to plan events guys, especially at the time because S2's upper management wasn't really buying into the eSports/marketing venture after watching NASL's 3 week turn around post production errors.
I knew that we needed to make a change and some of the competitors were already on the move. Rumors of Fnatic leaving for DOTA 2 lit the fire under our asses at the office, and I can't count the amount of times that Breaky came into my office asking "what can we do to save HoN." This was around the time when I left casting and Breaky was stuck with the King of the Hill tournament that we were trying to get off the ground but the teams were just so unstable due to lack of events. This is also the time when Breaky started casting with Zyori. Now, I don't want to sound like a huge dick, but I was never a fan of Zyori's casting. I didn't think he was a better caster than me. Maybe a better main caster and certainly a better cameraman, but he didn't bring anything dynamic to the team and when they were talking about bringing him on I was not a fan. Want to know who I was advocating before he even expressed interest?
Tralf.
It doesn't really matter though, because he didn't know that and I'm sure my desire to have Tralf brought to Honcast wouldn't have made any influence at all into the hiring decision, but I'm still gonna put it out there. I was supporting Tralf before he asked for my opinion on him possible casting. When Tralf and team sent in their deck to Complexity Gaming do you know who they asked first about the team? Yep, it was me. I told them, they will be the best team in HoN for you to pick up. This is the only team who can give Fnatic a run for their money. Ask Jason Lake or Jason Bass, Tralf, ask them what I said about you personally. That you were a stand up guy who could lead your team to success.
Then Dreamhack Summer 2012 rolled around and man we had problems. Not Tralf and I, but the tournament had problems. I'm not gonna go into why, but still, we all toughed it out. Tralf and I would go out and smoke cigarettes during breaks and just shoot the shit. He asked me about the quality of life at S2, and I told him he would be a great addition. I wanted my friends to get hired at S2, because who wouldn't? Who wouldn't want to have that kind of work environment. And so it was. You got the job as the new co-caster and we all couldn't wait for you to get there.
And when you got there everything seemed great. We talked all the time at the office, I even offered you and Lisa the option to sleep in the spare bedroom that I had if your apartment wasn't ready. When I left, I sold you a $1,500 bed and box spring for $200 because I wanted to help you out. I know my desk and chair weren't in the best shape, but I offered them to you for free, because that's what friends do.
So tell me Mark, at what point did I get "annoying." At what point did I wrong you so badly that "you can't stand the sound of my voice?"
I might troll, and I might be caught in a place where I'm in love with a game that is run by a company that hates me, I might play Legionnaire every game and still be fucking awful at it... but those are my problems.. not yours. To my recollection, between the two of us, we've never had words. Nothing but a smile, some light humor, HoN talk and bummed cigarettes ever passed between us... yet I get to hear things like this:
http://www.twitch.tv/tralf/b/398769032?t=30m30s
Listen to yourself.
Congratulations. You've won the hearts of 1,000 stream viewers, all the YEA PHIL SUCKS and LOL'S PHIL FAIL LEGIONNAIRE comments are the wind beneath your wings. But remember, that guy who "you don't like" was always one of your biggest supporters. I'm sure you won't lose any sleep over this; but once HoN is gone, once your ability to press buttons on a keyboard has faded away, I hope those people will still be there...
Because I won't be.
I never really understood why Tralf decided to get so mad at me for seemingly no reason. At first I thought it was because I blogged here about him. Shortly after those blogs went public I started to get people coming to my stream telling me that Tralf called me a faggot. Understandable, I guess in some way, as I had basically outed his intentions of playing competitive HoN again. But at the same time, I wasn't really posting anything in an inflammatory way about the guy.. just the information I was getting. And it's not like I was the first and only person who was talking about it.
Then I posted the second blog post, which speculates about him posting under the name T90ly, where T90ly (who is supposedly Tralfs former roommate) praises Tralfamadore in a few threads and also disparages his at the time teammates, including current (assumed) teammates; Moonmeander and Bkid. I ended the post saying that if it were actually Tralf posting on T90ly it wouldn't surprise me. Again, this is hardly anything offensive.
My third post about Tralfamadore was about his very controversial exit of the clan One Trick Pony, which lead to a flurry of hate posts on the HoN forums. I simply picked posts out of the threads and left some remarks as to what I thought about the posts in general, as well as had some very obvious sarcastic comments like:
"Luckily for OTP, CM decided to let Xibbe have Chipper both in both games 2 and 3, leading me to believe that Milkfat asked CM to throw to allow OTP to stay in Diamond while cursing the name of Tralfamadore under his breath."
Again, nothing really spiteful or even untrue. Everything I posted about Tralf quitting the team and the way he did it was completely factual, which was supported in the fourth blog post about Znoowy's response on the official HoN forums.
So, as this continues on, I start losing focus on HoN Gossip. Yet while streaming I keep getting people coming to twitch.tv/S2phil and telling me stories about Tralfamadore talking copious amount of shit.
"Phil is a sad person. He's such a faggot. Why would someone who got fired still try to support the company by keeping the S2 name. Why is this person still allowed to be on podcasts. I can't stand the guy."
The entire time, I'm thinking about my history with Tralfamadore. So I'm gonna talk about it here. I never really knew Tralf that well when he was in SK. I was pretty friendly with Cardinal and we TMM'd in low brackets every now and then. Sometimes I would see Tralf but never really talked to him until we launched NASL Season 2. Of course by that time I was working for S2 Games but it hadn't been made public (Honcast was acquired by S2 Games in July 2011). My times talking with Tralfamadore were pretty minimal as Swindle was the captain of the team, but we spoke every now and then. I started to get more involved with the event coordination of things and Breaky mostly took over the administrative roles for NASL and I basically tried to back him whenever I could but my heart was mostly in casting the games and working with the marketing team on the new Honcast studio, the NASL Finals and the upcoming MSI Beat IT tournament which would lead into Dreamhack Winter 2011.
I knew that Dreamhack Winter was going to be my last Dreamhack spent casting, as things were getting rough around the office with the Director of eSports position. So when Dreamhack Winter 2011 rolled around, I made sure that I started talking with the players. I made sure to meet with Bkid, Sender, Tralf, Swindle, and all of the vocal members of the competitive community who were in attendance. I wanted them to know that things were in the right hands now, and even though I said a lot of things and made a lot of promises that took a long time to appear, I truthfully meant what I said. I wanted the best for those players and for competitive Heroes of Newerth. In December when I was appointed as the interim Competitive Director I tried my best to show that I could be of worth as more than a shoutcaster, and in January after a successful CES event I was offered the position full time. I knew that I had to get out of the casting role because the scene had been left in complete shambles. This is a bit off-topic but I want it to be said here plainly: It takes time to plan events guys, especially at the time because S2's upper management wasn't really buying into the eSports/marketing venture after watching NASL's 3 week turn around post production errors.
I knew that we needed to make a change and some of the competitors were already on the move. Rumors of Fnatic leaving for DOTA 2 lit the fire under our asses at the office, and I can't count the amount of times that Breaky came into my office asking "what can we do to save HoN." This was around the time when I left casting and Breaky was stuck with the King of the Hill tournament that we were trying to get off the ground but the teams were just so unstable due to lack of events. This is also the time when Breaky started casting with Zyori. Now, I don't want to sound like a huge dick, but I was never a fan of Zyori's casting. I didn't think he was a better caster than me. Maybe a better main caster and certainly a better cameraman, but he didn't bring anything dynamic to the team and when they were talking about bringing him on I was not a fan. Want to know who I was advocating before he even expressed interest?
Tralf.
It doesn't really matter though, because he didn't know that and I'm sure my desire to have Tralf brought to Honcast wouldn't have made any influence at all into the hiring decision, but I'm still gonna put it out there. I was supporting Tralf before he asked for my opinion on him possible casting. When Tralf and team sent in their deck to Complexity Gaming do you know who they asked first about the team? Yep, it was me. I told them, they will be the best team in HoN for you to pick up. This is the only team who can give Fnatic a run for their money. Ask Jason Lake or Jason Bass, Tralf, ask them what I said about you personally. That you were a stand up guy who could lead your team to success.
Then Dreamhack Summer 2012 rolled around and man we had problems. Not Tralf and I, but the tournament had problems. I'm not gonna go into why, but still, we all toughed it out. Tralf and I would go out and smoke cigarettes during breaks and just shoot the shit. He asked me about the quality of life at S2, and I told him he would be a great addition. I wanted my friends to get hired at S2, because who wouldn't? Who wouldn't want to have that kind of work environment. And so it was. You got the job as the new co-caster and we all couldn't wait for you to get there.
And when you got there everything seemed great. We talked all the time at the office, I even offered you and Lisa the option to sleep in the spare bedroom that I had if your apartment wasn't ready. When I left, I sold you a $1,500 bed and box spring for $200 because I wanted to help you out. I know my desk and chair weren't in the best shape, but I offered them to you for free, because that's what friends do.
So tell me Mark, at what point did I get "annoying." At what point did I wrong you so badly that "you can't stand the sound of my voice?"
I might troll, and I might be caught in a place where I'm in love with a game that is run by a company that hates me, I might play Legionnaire every game and still be fucking awful at it... but those are my problems.. not yours. To my recollection, between the two of us, we've never had words. Nothing but a smile, some light humor, HoN talk and bummed cigarettes ever passed between us... yet I get to hear things like this:
http://www.twitch.tv/tralf/b/398769032?t=30m30s
Listen to yourself.
Congratulations. You've won the hearts of 1,000 stream viewers, all the YEA PHIL SUCKS and LOL'S PHIL FAIL LEGIONNAIRE comments are the wind beneath your wings. But remember, that guy who "you don't like" was always one of your biggest supporters. I'm sure you won't lose any sleep over this; but once HoN is gone, once your ability to press buttons on a keyboard has faded away, I hope those people will still be there...
Because I won't be.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
CEO of S2 Games Confirms: Two Will Lose Their Jobs
And the lucky winners AREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Nathan Garcia: Director of Operations for Heroes of Newerth
and
Laura Baker: Director of Marketing for S2 Games
According to my sources within S2 Games, both employees were terminated earlier this afternoon and a post on the forums by Maliken helps to confirm this bit of gossip:
Laura aka S2LuLu has been a part of HoN since the very beginning. LuLu has made appearances and been the leader of HoN's eSports events since all the way back to Dreamhack Summer 2010, and probably prior to that. She was the first person I ever interacted with from S2 Games and was one of the major people involved in the acquisition of Honcast. I would like to thank her for everything she taught me while I was with the company, and for being a true friend.
Nathan, better known as Zero_MnotW was at one time the marketing assistant to LuLu and having shown great promise he was promoted to Director of Operations after Brad Bower aka Konran departed to lead the iGames division. His Facebook page confirmed his departure from the company stating that "S2 Games no longer has any future for me." Nate was an integral part of the eSports scene and my right hand man when I was the Director of eSports, even though he did not answer directly to me he was always the person who I knew would get things done. The successes of Dreamhack Winter 2011 and 2012 can be partially attributed to his willingness to get shit done.
Both of these figures I considered friends at S2 Games and it is sad to see them go, especially because there is someone else who should be accountable as well, but he's one of the favorite pets around the office, so he wont be. And no, I don't mean Milkfat.
Nathan Garcia: Director of Operations for Heroes of Newerth
and
Laura Baker: Director of Marketing for S2 Games
According to my sources within S2 Games, both employees were terminated earlier this afternoon and a post on the forums by Maliken helps to confirm this bit of gossip:
Laura aka S2LuLu has been a part of HoN since the very beginning. LuLu has made appearances and been the leader of HoN's eSports events since all the way back to Dreamhack Summer 2010, and probably prior to that. She was the first person I ever interacted with from S2 Games and was one of the major people involved in the acquisition of Honcast. I would like to thank her for everything she taught me while I was with the company, and for being a true friend.
Nathan, better known as Zero_MnotW was at one time the marketing assistant to LuLu and having shown great promise he was promoted to Director of Operations after Brad Bower aka Konran departed to lead the iGames division. His Facebook page confirmed his departure from the company stating that "S2 Games no longer has any future for me." Nate was an integral part of the eSports scene and my right hand man when I was the Director of eSports, even though he did not answer directly to me he was always the person who I knew would get things done. The successes of Dreamhack Winter 2011 and 2012 can be partially attributed to his willingness to get shit done.
Both of these figures I considered friends at S2 Games and it is sad to see them go, especially because there is someone else who should be accountable as well, but he's one of the favorite pets around the office, so he wont be. And no, I don't mean Milkfat.
Friday, April 19, 2013
tdM Team Manager "AvuKamu" Talks About Dropping HoN and x-tdM disbanding
So apparently, Trademark eSports is officially done with Heroes of Newerth. Tonight in Tralf's TwitchTV stream chat the following was posted:
According to the Team Manager of Trademark eSports, not only was the split between tdM and their HoN squad "mutual" but the organization itself will disband. Avukamu went on to say that CEO of Trademark eSports, John Jenkinson, has decided to call it quits. Avukamu and noted Trademark eSports writer "Showtime" will continue on with the goals set down by Mr Jenkinson originally but this time with "better management."
Avukamu also made the statement that he believe that noobG and possibly Limmp will continue to play HoN, while Fittske and Zai` may test their mettle in DOTA 2. He speculates that Mynuts will simply retire.
With the future of Heroes of Newerth competitive scene still somewhat cloudy after the HoN Tour Finals, and a massive balance patch on the way, what kind of shake ups will we see?
According to the Team Manager of Trademark eSports, not only was the split between tdM and their HoN squad "mutual" but the organization itself will disband. Avukamu went on to say that CEO of Trademark eSports, John Jenkinson, has decided to call it quits. Avukamu and noted Trademark eSports writer "Showtime" will continue on with the goals set down by Mr Jenkinson originally but this time with "better management."
Avukamu also made the statement that he believe that noobG and possibly Limmp will continue to play HoN, while Fittske and Zai` may test their mettle in DOTA 2. He speculates that Mynuts will simply retire.
With the future of Heroes of Newerth competitive scene still somewhat cloudy after the HoN Tour Finals, and a massive balance patch on the way, what kind of shake ups will we see?
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Pew Breaks Newest HoN Drama Involving Killerorange
As most people know, Pew is about half a chromosome short of actually being a human being. But while this turd is often a waste of internet and oxygen, occasionally he posts something of value.
You can head on over to Pew's blog to get all the info:
http://xcetpew.blogspot.se/2013/04/warning-drama.html
I didn't post the image here because Pew discovered it and he deserves to get a few blog hits, since I already get about 5000x as many.
Edit: KillerOrange responds (click for full size)
I really respect KillerOrange. Always have and always will. When we worked together, there were times when we didn't agree with each other, but we always aired things out and made sure we tried to do what is best for the community. He deserves all the credit for what Honcast became during HoN Tour, and the lack of his presence in Thailand and in Vegas was not only miss, but VERY VERY noted. We spoke briefly after he put his two weeks notice in and I pasted him part of the XanderK article I didn't publish, which resonates in the post he removed from the forums. I don't know exactly what Matt will do in the future but I hope I run into him again at some point so we can play some Euchre and drink a few beers and laugh at everything that happened while we were S2 employees.
Here is the excerpt from the XanderK article I never published:
"S2 Games is an indie company, as much as they want to believe differently. They have three games under their belt, two of which were relatively unknown and Heroes of Newerth. There's nothing wrong with being an indie company, some of the most loved games have come from or were inspired by concepts that were initially from indie companies. The negative stigma however, is that indie companies are "supposed to make mistakes, because they are just indie companies." This is the stigma which S2 has tried to distance itself from moving into the future. Needless to say, nepotism runs rampant in many indie companies, and S2 is no different. While some of these hires have paid nearly literal dividends, others have either continued to be illogically coddled at the breast of S2 Games executive members or dismissed due to consistent failure to achieve results which were either unobtainable or undefined."
You can head on over to Pew's blog to get all the info:
http://xcetpew.blogspot.se/2013/04/warning-drama.html
I didn't post the image here because Pew discovered it and he deserves to get a few blog hits, since I already get about 5000x as many.
Edit: KillerOrange responds (click for full size)
I really respect KillerOrange. Always have and always will. When we worked together, there were times when we didn't agree with each other, but we always aired things out and made sure we tried to do what is best for the community. He deserves all the credit for what Honcast became during HoN Tour, and the lack of his presence in Thailand and in Vegas was not only miss, but VERY VERY noted. We spoke briefly after he put his two weeks notice in and I pasted him part of the XanderK article I didn't publish, which resonates in the post he removed from the forums. I don't know exactly what Matt will do in the future but I hope I run into him again at some point so we can play some Euchre and drink a few beers and laugh at everything that happened while we were S2 employees.
Here is the excerpt from the XanderK article I never published:
"S2 Games is an indie company, as much as they want to believe differently. They have three games under their belt, two of which were relatively unknown and Heroes of Newerth. There's nothing wrong with being an indie company, some of the most loved games have come from or were inspired by concepts that were initially from indie companies. The negative stigma however, is that indie companies are "supposed to make mistakes, because they are just indie companies." This is the stigma which S2 has tried to distance itself from moving into the future. Needless to say, nepotism runs rampant in many indie companies, and S2 is no different. While some of these hires have paid nearly literal dividends, others have either continued to be illogically coddled at the breast of S2 Games executive members or dismissed due to consistent failure to achieve results which were either unobtainable or undefined."
HT Finals Day 1 - I Laughed, I Cried, I Came..hngggg
Like most HoN lovers, I have been waiting for the HoN Tour Finals since October. Having been one of the major persons involved with the planning (I was the person who suggested the Hardwood Suite once upper management decided on Vegas, though I lobbied for Orlando, FL for the Finals since Vegas offers more for the 21+ crowd than say a trip to Disney World or Universal Studios or something along those lines) I wanted to see what was going to happen when S2 had over half a year to plan and execute their first ever official LAN tournament.
Now, the first thing I'm about to say is going to make me look stupid, but in the interest of fairness I should disclose it: I wasn't sure exactly what time the first game was supposed to start. Sure, I should have checked Hontour.com or even /r/heroesofnewerth but instead at around 12:30 I went to Honcast.com at which point I read that the next upcoming match was scheduled for 6:00PM EST. Luckily, I was going to watch some FPV streaming of HoN for a bit while getting ready for the day when I went to the main Twitch page and saw that Honcast was live. While this isn't directly the point of this post, why is the Honcast site still a pile of shit? I mean, Tralf hasn't been with the company for what.. over 2 months now? Yet he's still listed on the Staff section of Honcast and his name is all over the descriptions of stuff. That's not even that important, but why is it when I go to Honcast.com and Honcast is live is the "Featured Video" section not automatically replaced with the Honcast Live Stream? Am I blind? But I didn't notice a "Honcast is Live" message either. Even the old balls python Honcast.com site had a Honcast Live button that you could click on.
Whatever.
I Laughed:
So I tuned into the Live stream and watched Breaky and Emperor chatting back and forth about the upcoming matches. First thing I noticed is that the step-and-repeat was really wrinkled. I mean it looks like it was sloppily packed, and then it was the last thing they unwrapped before going live and just hung it up as a backdrop. A similar thing happened at Dreamhack Summer 2012 when we wanted to reuse this big ass Monkey King backdrop and it looked like complete shit so we hung it on the back of our booth in a dark room to avoid total embarrassment. Then they said the words I was waiting for "The game is underway, let's jump on in" at which point I asked myself "what's going to be fucked up this time."
I must have laughed for a solid 30 seconds without stopping. It was a genuine laugh, not because I was happy that Honcast's production crew has screwed up for the 5th event in a row, but because S2's employees had spent the previous two weeks talking about how the production was going to be top notch:
https://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?489797-Hontour-Finals-in-Vegas-open-for-public&p=15642093&viewfull=1#post15642093
And it reminded me of the shit I used to talk about when I was the Director of eSports. The truth is Milkfat knows about as much as I did when it comes to streaming/production/etc: Absolutely fuck-all. We're coordinators, event planners, and tournament organizers. When we make plans, we plan for the people put into their positions to execute their jobs properly. The issue with this is we always waiting until the last minute to start testing the streams. So I figured this time, having heard that certain members of the Honcast team were in Vegas a few days prior to the event, that the stream would be mostly flawless, at least the in-game portion. Man was I wrong.
How does this keep happening? I was in the competitors skype sharing a good laugh with the rest of the players who didn't get to go to Vegas and Beefpotpie said:
[4/17/2013 1:00:57 PM] Kyle "Beef" Bautista: they did test it
[4/17/2013 1:01:04 PM] Kyle "Beef" Bautista: theyve been in here for 40 hours straight
[4/17/2013 1:01:09 PM] Kyle "Beef" Bautista: but mistakes are happening =/
How is it that after 40 hours straight they were unable to reliably say "This looks good." What kind of "mistakes" happen that make a game look like this:
While the Garena stream looks like this:
Just awful.
I Cried:
So what else went wrong?
1. AceJR
- I don't know why they chose to let this guy host the Finals. I see some people saying they should have hired a professional, but that's also pretty stupid considering whoever hosts this event needs to have an intimate understanding of this specific game. My problem with AceJR is he has absolutely nothing prepared for his interviews, he seems extremely nervous on camera, and is in general an awful public speaker. I would have rather seen S2 bring in someone like Tralfamadore or Zyori to host the Finals. Hell, I would have done it for free (although S2 would never let that happen) if they paid for the plane ticket and hotel.
2. Opening Ceremony
- I have seen Iraqi prison cells with better lightning. They called in the players and teams who came in through a fog machine but there was no one around them to welcome them in or anything like that. On top of this, they played VTZ music during the intro. Just what I wanted to hear, the same shit that Honcast plays nonstop already. This cherry on the top of this awkward ceremony was AceJR's horrendous announcing.
3. Interviews
- A good interview is done with the interviewer facing the interviewee at a slight angle in two separate chairs. See any talk show ever for confirmation of this. Having two dudes sit awkwardly next to one another on a couch that was no doubt used in a budget pornographic casting couch film with all the lights turned out was terrible. Again, AceJR showed his speaking prowess in these interview sessions. I mean, why would get you someone who very obviously understands little to nothing about competitive HoN to interview competitive players? Again, having someone like Tralf or hell, even Beefpotpie (who was already there) would have been a major improvement.
4. Delays Between Games
- It goes without saying that you have to plan for 5-6 hours between scheduled series when you have a Best of Five planned. But you also have to take into consideration that there's a possibility, especially between the #1 and #4 seed game, that a game is going to end early. So why not have content, or at least planned content, ready for the longer breaks. I don't have an issue with Honcast sticking to their schedule because that means reliability, but going to a screen with VTZ Beats music on for nearly 2 hours is just plain unacceptable, especially when you have 20 of the worlds best HoN players at your disposal. You should be asking questions, having [intelligent] interviews, and showing off what is supposed to be an amazing venue. Bringing me to my final point...
5. No Venue Cameras
- I supported HoN having a private/VIP event for the HoN Tour Season 1 Finals. But at least make me jealous that I'm not there. Aside from seeing half of the half court in the Opening Ceremony and the rape couch in the interviews, where are the other shots? I know there's a sweet social area in the Hardwood Suite with TV's and a full bar and all kinds of seating... so why aren't we getting to see that? Especially during downtime I would like to see people mingling with each other, pro players having a good time and the S2 staff that is in attendance enjoying themselves. Instead I get to see a motion version of the background graphic from Hontour.com and listen to VTZ Beats! WOOOOOO!
I guess it's to be expected though. No matter how hard people seem to be working, something is always fucked up with Honcast. It's kind of sad because I know people who were planning on tuning in for these matches who are DOTA 2 players just to watch a game they used to play (like SUNSfan, DetonatR and others) to support how far they've come and messaged me with a simple "LOL" and "How have things actually gotten worse?" It's gotta be embarrassing for S2 that hundred of thousands of dollars in production gear, employee salaries and event costs over the past year has yielded this result. Sure, the production of the HoN Tour online events was decent, but if you can't pull off a live event, you're never going to garner the respect of any third party who is invested in eSports (team sponsors, event sponsors, tournament organizers, etc).
I Came:
I do want to say there were some things that went well. Emperor looks much better wearing his blazer and button up than he did with a wife beater on during the GSL stream. Breaky continues to be as energetic as always and actually seems to be genuinely having a good time casting these games. I feel bad for Breaky because when we used to do shit like Dreamhack Summer 2010, DYA and Dreamhack Summer 2011 we had the time of our lives sitting there with a webcam and casting off two laptops, and he was so obviously frustrated at the technical difficulties his production team caused him once again. I thought the games themselves were extremely entertaining and even the games with few hero kills were intense all throughout. I bet the will to win is palpable in that Suite from the teams who are there, especially Stay Green who are on their way to winning the first ever Triple Crown in HoN (GSL, HoN Tour Finals, Dreamhack Summer 2013) and shattering any questions on whether or not they are the undisputed world champions of Heroes of Newerth.
I'm looking forward to Day Two.
Now, the first thing I'm about to say is going to make me look stupid, but in the interest of fairness I should disclose it: I wasn't sure exactly what time the first game was supposed to start. Sure, I should have checked Hontour.com or even /r/heroesofnewerth but instead at around 12:30 I went to Honcast.com at which point I read that the next upcoming match was scheduled for 6:00PM EST. Luckily, I was going to watch some FPV streaming of HoN for a bit while getting ready for the day when I went to the main Twitch page and saw that Honcast was live. While this isn't directly the point of this post, why is the Honcast site still a pile of shit? I mean, Tralf hasn't been with the company for what.. over 2 months now? Yet he's still listed on the Staff section of Honcast and his name is all over the descriptions of stuff. That's not even that important, but why is it when I go to Honcast.com and Honcast is live is the "Featured Video" section not automatically replaced with the Honcast Live Stream? Am I blind? But I didn't notice a "Honcast is Live" message either. Even the old balls python Honcast.com site had a Honcast Live button that you could click on.
Whatever.
I Laughed:
So I tuned into the Live stream and watched Breaky and Emperor chatting back and forth about the upcoming matches. First thing I noticed is that the step-and-repeat was really wrinkled. I mean it looks like it was sloppily packed, and then it was the last thing they unwrapped before going live and just hung it up as a backdrop. A similar thing happened at Dreamhack Summer 2012 when we wanted to reuse this big ass Monkey King backdrop and it looked like complete shit so we hung it on the back of our booth in a dark room to avoid total embarrassment. Then they said the words I was waiting for "The game is underway, let's jump on in" at which point I asked myself "what's going to be fucked up this time."
I must have laughed for a solid 30 seconds without stopping. It was a genuine laugh, not because I was happy that Honcast's production crew has screwed up for the 5th event in a row, but because S2's employees had spent the previous two weeks talking about how the production was going to be top notch:
https://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?489797-Hontour-Finals-in-Vegas-open-for-public&p=15642093&viewfull=1#post15642093
And it reminded me of the shit I used to talk about when I was the Director of eSports. The truth is Milkfat knows about as much as I did when it comes to streaming/production/etc: Absolutely fuck-all. We're coordinators, event planners, and tournament organizers. When we make plans, we plan for the people put into their positions to execute their jobs properly. The issue with this is we always waiting until the last minute to start testing the streams. So I figured this time, having heard that certain members of the Honcast team were in Vegas a few days prior to the event, that the stream would be mostly flawless, at least the in-game portion. Man was I wrong.
How does this keep happening? I was in the competitors skype sharing a good laugh with the rest of the players who didn't get to go to Vegas and Beefpotpie said:
[4/17/2013 1:00:57 PM] Kyle "Beef" Bautista: they did test it
[4/17/2013 1:01:04 PM] Kyle "Beef" Bautista: theyve been in here for 40 hours straight
[4/17/2013 1:01:09 PM] Kyle "Beef" Bautista: but mistakes are happening =/
How is it that after 40 hours straight they were unable to reliably say "This looks good." What kind of "mistakes" happen that make a game look like this:
While the Garena stream looks like this:
Just awful.
I Cried:
So what else went wrong?
1. AceJR
- I don't know why they chose to let this guy host the Finals. I see some people saying they should have hired a professional, but that's also pretty stupid considering whoever hosts this event needs to have an intimate understanding of this specific game. My problem with AceJR is he has absolutely nothing prepared for his interviews, he seems extremely nervous on camera, and is in general an awful public speaker. I would have rather seen S2 bring in someone like Tralfamadore or Zyori to host the Finals. Hell, I would have done it for free (although S2 would never let that happen) if they paid for the plane ticket and hotel.
2. Opening Ceremony
- I have seen Iraqi prison cells with better lightning. They called in the players and teams who came in through a fog machine but there was no one around them to welcome them in or anything like that. On top of this, they played VTZ music during the intro. Just what I wanted to hear, the same shit that Honcast plays nonstop already. This cherry on the top of this awkward ceremony was AceJR's horrendous announcing.
3. Interviews
- A good interview is done with the interviewer facing the interviewee at a slight angle in two separate chairs. See any talk show ever for confirmation of this. Having two dudes sit awkwardly next to one another on a couch that was no doubt used in a budget pornographic casting couch film with all the lights turned out was terrible. Again, AceJR showed his speaking prowess in these interview sessions. I mean, why would get you someone who very obviously understands little to nothing about competitive HoN to interview competitive players? Again, having someone like Tralf or hell, even Beefpotpie (who was already there) would have been a major improvement.
4. Delays Between Games
- It goes without saying that you have to plan for 5-6 hours between scheduled series when you have a Best of Five planned. But you also have to take into consideration that there's a possibility, especially between the #1 and #4 seed game, that a game is going to end early. So why not have content, or at least planned content, ready for the longer breaks. I don't have an issue with Honcast sticking to their schedule because that means reliability, but going to a screen with VTZ Beats music on for nearly 2 hours is just plain unacceptable, especially when you have 20 of the worlds best HoN players at your disposal. You should be asking questions, having [intelligent] interviews, and showing off what is supposed to be an amazing venue. Bringing me to my final point...
5. No Venue Cameras
- I supported HoN having a private/VIP event for the HoN Tour Season 1 Finals. But at least make me jealous that I'm not there. Aside from seeing half of the half court in the Opening Ceremony and the rape couch in the interviews, where are the other shots? I know there's a sweet social area in the Hardwood Suite with TV's and a full bar and all kinds of seating... so why aren't we getting to see that? Especially during downtime I would like to see people mingling with each other, pro players having a good time and the S2 staff that is in attendance enjoying themselves. Instead I get to see a motion version of the background graphic from Hontour.com and listen to VTZ Beats! WOOOOOO!
I guess it's to be expected though. No matter how hard people seem to be working, something is always fucked up with Honcast. It's kind of sad because I know people who were planning on tuning in for these matches who are DOTA 2 players just to watch a game they used to play (like SUNSfan, DetonatR and others) to support how far they've come and messaged me with a simple "LOL" and "How have things actually gotten worse?" It's gotta be embarrassing for S2 that hundred of thousands of dollars in production gear, employee salaries and event costs over the past year has yielded this result. Sure, the production of the HoN Tour online events was decent, but if you can't pull off a live event, you're never going to garner the respect of any third party who is invested in eSports (team sponsors, event sponsors, tournament organizers, etc).
I Came:
I do want to say there were some things that went well. Emperor looks much better wearing his blazer and button up than he did with a wife beater on during the GSL stream. Breaky continues to be as energetic as always and actually seems to be genuinely having a good time casting these games. I feel bad for Breaky because when we used to do shit like Dreamhack Summer 2010, DYA and Dreamhack Summer 2011 we had the time of our lives sitting there with a webcam and casting off two laptops, and he was so obviously frustrated at the technical difficulties his production team caused him once again. I thought the games themselves were extremely entertaining and even the games with few hero kills were intense all throughout. I bet the will to win is palpable in that Suite from the teams who are there, especially Stay Green who are on their way to winning the first ever Triple Crown in HoN (GSL, HoN Tour Finals, Dreamhack Summer 2013) and shattering any questions on whether or not they are the undisputed world champions of Heroes of Newerth.
I'm looking forward to Day Two.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Is Stay Green better than Fnatic?
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