Real Talkin Ep 3 Monday before GSL Qualifiers

Hey guys, just letting you all know swindle contacted me the other day and we will be doing another episode of Real Talkin on Monday before the Garena Star League qualifiers take off. Be sure to join us and leave any questions you'd like answered in the comments section!

Cheers :]

Honcast Podcast: The Best 1.5 Hours of Sleep You'll Ever Get

If there is one thing I miss most about Honcast, it's being on the podcast. And I don't want this to come across as arrogance, but man... the podcast sucks now that I'm not on it. Now with Tralf gone, I fear it will be even worse. Tralf didn't mind giving his real opinion on matters, but now with him gone we have:

Breaky - The host of the show. Breaky is fine in the podcast, he has a good grasp about what is going on. He brings up topics and isn't afraid to play devils advocate from time to time. He also doesn't dodge serious questions.

Milkfat - S2's Director of eSports. Milkfat is a good source of knowledge as far as what is going on with HoN Tour and other eSports stuff at S2. The problem is he doesn't really ever offer any opinions or insight on topics.

Beefpotpie - The new xanderK of the podcast. It's a 50/50 shot at whether or not whatever Beef says will make sense. On the positive side, Beef knows more about what actually happened the previous week in HoN Tour/Sound Blaster Heroes League than everyone else on the podcast combined.

Emperor - The newest guy to the podcast. I can't really say anything negative about him except that thus far he hasn't really shown much personality. But he's also new to what he's been doing as a caster recently so I'll chalk this up to nerves/not knowing the limits for the time being.


Where is the attitude?! Frankly, I blame it mostly on the fact that Honcast is looking for a permanent co-caster for Breaky and I'm pretty sure both Emperor and Beef are interested. This means they aren't going to be stepping out and calling people shitcans anytime soon, if at all. I'm not saying it has to be like that, or that people need to be bad mannered. I'm saying someone there needs to bring the real talk. The obvious "solution" is for me to start my own podcast since Swindlemelonzz apparently doesn't have time to keep doing Real Talkin, but the truth is I'm way too lazy. Unfortunately, I don't know if or when this trend of sleepy podcasts is gonna end, but I hope it does.

[OTP]Znoowy Real Talks Why Tralf Left OTP

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?482858-One-Trick-Pony-The-Story

Basically, Znoowy lays it all out on the table from the side of One Trick Pony. They key points he makes are:

1. Tralf began practicing/scrimming with OTP but they had poor performances even against mediocre teams.

2. Tralf practiced and played tournament matches (GSL with oo7 for instance) with other teams while he was supposed to be with OTP. This made OTP feel uncomfortable with him.

3. Tralf "apologized" to OTP and they got ready for Cycle 6.

4. OTP gets crushed by Mistral 2-0 leading to Tralf leaving the clan and Skype without even letting OTP know.

5. Tralf agrees to play for OTP to try and keep them from dropping to Gold, but only after the community begins to trash talk him.

6. OTP beats Clan Milk 2-1 in the Losers Bracket, but is forced to forfeit Losers Bracket Round 2 to QsQ because they aren't comfortable playing with Tralfamadore and can't add a member to their roster during a cycle.

7. Znoowy posts on the forums stating that OTP's future is uncertain and that they will take this week to figure out if they want to continue on as a team.

Any More Posts About Tralf And He's Getting His Own Blog...

Man, its hard to write about a topic that, for once, Leyst has let linger for more than 2 posts. Even the first sentences of this article eluded me for a good five minutes. I guess the best thing to do here is to get into the nitty gritty, down to brass tacks, straight to business. So here we go again...

Well, I can't say that I'm surprised. Hell, anyone reading this blog probably isn't very surprised either. Tralfamadore is in the public eye once again, this being my 3rd post about him in the month of February alone (any more and I might have to start a blog just for him!) The reason he is the talk of the town once more is due to the drama surrounding his recent departure(??) from One Trick Pony (OTP) after just one HoN Tour match.

Tralf played vs Mistral Gaming in HoN Tour Diamond division for OTP and ended up getting crushed 2-0. This lead to Tralf quitting the team in between the Winner Bracket and Loser Bracket, which basically forced OTP down to Gold. After the public backlash, Tralfamadore agreed to play the losers bracket match vs Clan Milk (CM) however he refused to log into voice chat and played pretty sloppily in game one, going for early Alchemist Bones into Helm of the Black Legion then finished off with a Genjuro. 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. Game 3, Tralf played Silhouette and dominated but so did the rest of OTP.

Forums have exploded with flame against Tralf in this thread. There are a few posts there that try to offer explanations and mitigation for how he behaved, but the majority is against him/his actions. I will pull a few out that stuck out to me.

I loved the beginning of this post. I think the analogy is so spot on. Unfortunately the post ends up feeling completely disingenuous after the first paragraph, like a father who wasn't part of their child's life trying to offer up some personal advice. Oh well, good analogy.

Innerspike posted this. Probably the best post in the actual thread.

None of this post makes any sense, or adds any value to the forum post, but I added it because it shows how completely asinine some people are, posting just to post. By the way, GanbaruJapan is probably the single dumbest poster in any thread he posts in, including this one. Just putting that out there.

Tralfamadore??????????????

As everyone already knows, Tralfamadore has left S2 Games of his own accord to support his girlfriend's decision to accept a job in Vancouver, BC, CA. Preceding this announcment, we talked a bit about Tralfamadore scrimming under the name "StarStuffing" with OTP. Since then it seems like some things may have changed. While this post is mostly speculative, I have had competitors and people who claim to be close to Tralfamadore bring up some information.

This thread from the forums shines light on the clan We Are Spies (oo7) adding a "surprise 7th" to the roster. This person is listed as a T9oly. A forum goer decided to look into the post history of this account and found some interesting things.

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/search.php?searchid=686446

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?362979-HON-All-Star-Team&p=14609260&highlight=#post14609260

Places Tralf on his All Star Team roster after his performance at Dreamhack Winter 2011

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?369977-Tralfs-stream-should-be-on-this-list&p=14680354&highlight=#post14680354

Asks for Tralf to be placed on the list of streamers

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?411917-How-and-why-YOU-should-support-the-competitive-HoN-scene!&p=15054109&highlight=#post15054109

T9Oly calls S2 Games a "complete joke of a company" who "failed to pay out a $100 prize from King of the Hill." This was 3 days after Tralf posted his goodbye post on Reddit back in April.

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?427287-tdM-worst-competitive-team&p=15141464&highlight=#post15141464

This post calls out all of tdM "except Tralf" for doing poorly in performances. The main culprit being Diablo 3. The post directly criticizes Moonmeander for feeding and questions why Bkid should be drafting over Tralf

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?428060-DreamHoN-Scrimmage-Updates-and-Expectations&p=15146535&highlight=#post15146535

Nothing interesting, just a report of the bootcamps of teams. Information leads one to believe it's coming from someone who is on site for the bootcamps.

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?433433-Dream-Team&p=15186370&highlight=#post15186370

The entire "new" tdM (coL) roster (tralf, franzzii, hax, bkid, moon)

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?435661-New-tdM-gt-new-Fnatic&p=15199403&highlight=#post15199403

Meh, just a post about tdM beating fnatic in a scrim

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?435661-New-tdM-gt-new-Fnatic&p=15199712&highlight=#post15199712

Same thread but this time calls out Zfreek for his poor performances at Dreamhack Summer 2012

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?437587-TDM-vs-Fntc-scrim-moon-s-stream&p=15215101&highlight=#post15215101

The thread is about how tdM loses to fnatic in a scrim, and T9Oly defends tdM by saying "This is exactly what I knew would happen. When Tralf was still in tdM - they scrimmed Fntc and beat them, and then it was "well they never play Hon and had a ringer!!". Now, it's "HAHA you lost and they don't even play HoN!" Retarded fanboys."

http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/showthread.php?481736-oo7-new-5th-may-make-them-a-darkhorse-in-the-GSL!&p=15569531&viewfull=1#post15569531

This is a post from Tralf explaining that the person in question is actually his former roommate and he used the account to sign up for oo7 because he wasn't sure which team he was going to play for. Tralf, on T9Oly, played for oo7 during the SB Qualifiers while still on OTP's roster as StarStuffing. In fact, up until a couple days ago, both T9Oly and StarStuffing were on HoN Tour rosters at the same time.Now, from these threads we can devise one of two things:

1. This person is actually Tralf. Talking about himself in the 3rd person and bashing on other competitors and  his own teammates of the time.

or

2. This person is Tralf's biggest fanboi and former roommate.

Neither would actually surprise me.

Also, the reason Leyst locked the thread was because it was "really insensitive towards Tralf considering what happened to him just recently." Can anyone explain what happened to Tralf that posting about him possibly fluffing himself is "really insensitive?"

I dunno, the whole thing is funny to me. What do you guys think?

Ken "xanderK" Smith Released from S2: An Introspective Reasoning

This is the third draft I've written about this topic, and the one I chose to release. Why? Because I believe that whatever I write is going to come across as either being butt hurt, or vengeful. And while I love to get gossip out there, whatever I write is going to based off of my experiences with S2 Games, and that makes it hard for me to be objective. While I like to get gossip out, I don't like to just smear people for no reason. I look at personal experience, at facts given to me. I may just be some washed up nobody, but I still have respect for myself and for proper journalism. Hongossip has had renewed life and interest for me over the past week, and I'm happy to be writing again.

So let's get down to it.

The truth of the matter is, Ken is a great guy. I've known him just as long as I have known Breaky, and as far as community servants go, I can't think of anyone more passionate about Heroes of Newerth. In fact, aside from Breaky, I can't think of anyone who did as much for Heroes of Newerth both on and off the radar as Ken. For that, his release from the company is definitely a travesty. It's hard to see someone who was as public as a figure as Ken was removed from his position. Once again, the reason we're getting is "S2 is moving in a different direction" but that's just the easy way of saying, "We think we found someone who can do what you're doing better." And you know what..

They are probably right. But before you guys all call me an asshole, let me fully explain.

I love Ken and value his friendship, but honestly, he probably wasn't everything S2 needed as a Community Manager; just like I obviously wasn't everything they needed as a Director of eSports. At the time, I focused so much of my efforts on stabilizing the competitive community and making sure that the competitors knew I was approachable, that I lost the big picture and the ability to be an actual Director or Manager. I think Ken was like this as well. I've known him long enough to say that Ken always had his heart in the right place, but not always his head, just like me. On the flip side of that though, you begin to wonder about why so many roles that lack definition have such high turnover. Ken and I weren't the first people in our roles at the company, for instance; we replaced others.

The roles for our positions were never really defined. I was never sat down in a performance review type of setting with goals and outlines dictated to me by a superior, they simply let me work on whatever it was I wanted to work on. It makes it hard for an employee to understand what the employer wants when the employer seemingly doesn't either understand or know exactly what they want. Now, I can't speak for Ken in this subject because I've been gone for nearly 5 months now; but I remember going to work without knowing exactly what was in store for me. This was compounded by the fact that, like Ken, I reported to a myriad of people and had my hat in so many different rings I hardly knew who was in charge of me and which items took priority. To be short, and blunt: there was a failure in the chain of command at S2 Games when I was there. One that, I truly believe, has been corrected. And this is why Ken met his end with the Company.

I believe that S2 Games is finally looking at the big picture, and I believe that AceJR's achievements will surpass xanderK's as a Community Manager;  just as I think Milkfat's achievements will surpass mine as a Director of eSports. Not because these people are more passionate about the growth of S2 Games or HoN, but because these employees have seen their predecessors' faults. This is the time for S2 Games to prove it's moved on from being "just an indie company." If these community servants fail, it will be because S2 Games failed them.

HoN Tour Season 2 Speculation

Woah woah woah, calm down Phil. Talking about Season 2 already? Season 1 hasn't even finished. Yea, it might be a little early to call anything out, but with Milkfat and co already confirming there will be a Season 2, I figured I'd get a little bit of a jump on things. I haven't seen any information about Season 2, so if anyone has anything please post in the comments.

So, I want to first talk about what I proposed for the future when I was working at the office. Not for Season 2, but for the future of HoN Tour.

HoN Tour World Tour

The idea behind the World Tour was to get involved with each of the regions, and pitch HoN Tour to them. So LA, CIS, and SEA would each run their own version of HoN Tour. Either using the same format as INT or using their own method, whatever they wanted to do. Then you would take the Top 4 teams from each region and make a huge 16 team tournament where each region threw in money, say $250,000 for a grand total of $1,000,000. Like DOTA 2's International, only without the biased invites.

What else could HoN/S2 do?

Well, look at what is currently in the works. You got the Garena Star League and now CIS has announced show matches between CIS and EU INT teams. What this says to me is that the partners are getting more invested in promoting their eSports alongside the NA/EU client. Maybe the Star League will be the beginning of a series of LAN arrangements? Similar to what League of Legends has been doing by having a series of LANs at upcoming venues. S2 recently announced with the departure of Tralfamadore that they are looking for a new co-caster that there are plans to attend events like PAX East, PAX Prime and others. There are MANY video game conventions that are held throughout the year where tournaments are possible. HoN has had events at Quakecon, GamesCOM, PAX, DreamHack and then add in things like the Insomnia Series in the UK and the Thailand Game Show, Brazilian Game show etc. There could be something like an 8 stop LAN Tour. Sounds expensive, so if this were the case, S2 would almost HAVE to partner with at least Garena, if not other organizations. Hell, maybe this will be the year we see HoN @ MLG? Who knows.

What about you guys? What kinds of format changes would you like to see if any?