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[Alur]

Not just overwatch, HotS was dead long before.

Define "dead". Dead as in HOTS esports looks to be thrashing after taking a mortal wound these last few weeks? Yes.

But dead as a game long before? You do realize the rate they are hiring, right? Expanding, not contracting. They have no shortage of people giving them money or people regularly playing. It's just not the ones that people on GAF or reddit care about.

It's no Overwatch in terms of instant potatoes playerbase, but "dead" is some real hyperbole. It's not even dying. It has been a lean few weeks with the impending arrival of new systems killing the desire for most to play + Overwatch releasing, but you said "long before". I don't quite follow that.

But that doesn't mean they won't be able to make some money off the esport scene (craze), just that they'll be another "me too" that doesn't end up lasting.

Isn't it a little early to say they will be a "me too" as well, though? The only thing we know for sure are that the game is massively popular. We know that from sales, we know that Twitter, we know that from reddit, and we know that from Twitch. It's everywhere.

Where it goes from there is up in the air, but it's hard for me to see something occurring for it to be what we all (in this thread anyway) originally opined - only as successful or maybe less so than HOTS. They'll have to royally screw the pooch to not be better than HOTS at this point at the very least. They don't have to get to LCS/International/whatever the fuck they do in CSGO levels to be a successful esport that can sustain a top 8 in each region instead of just a top 2-4 like HOTS did.

 

[Ketch]

Isn't it a little early to say they will be a "me too" as well, though? The only thing we know for sure are that the game is massively popular. We know that from sales, we know that Twitter, we know that from reddit, and we know that from Twitch. It's everywhere.

No, I really don't think it's too early to say that overwatch isn't going to be the next big esport. Massively popular first person shooters come out all of the time, lots of them try to be a big esports thing, none of them ever are. Overwatch as an esport is much much much more likely to reside in the call of duty, battlefield, halo levels of esport popularity, which like you said doesn't mean it'll be unsuccessful, but in my opinion definitely is just another "me too" esport. Either way, not a lot of people are talkin about that call of duty esports scene you know what I mean?

Technically, anything could happen, the odds are just really against it.

 

[Alur]

Massively popular FPS do come out all the time. Most of them are iterated yearly, though, or nearly that often. That's not exactly the same thing and definitely doesn't capture the same kind of lightning this game has. Most of those you mentioned are like the next Madden game coming out. It's a big deal for those into it, but not at the same level this game has reached.

I agree the odds are stacked against them for that to happen. And we don't even know if they (A) want that and (B) are capable of providing support at the level of Riot or whoever in order to make it happen. But they've got an easy path to more success and exposure than they ever had with HOTS esports (outside of Dorm, which we can assume they will consider replicating with Overwatch), so the circumstance is ideal for them to make some kind of noise if they are into it and quicker to respond and implement for OW than they were for HOTS.

 

[brickwalker0]

i think one of the biggest boons for overwatch to become an esport is being a new ip in a land of sequels. people crave new experiences now more than ever so being able to establish it as an esport before any sequels should give it a lot of attention.

also, HotS being dead, lol. people really dont get that the crowd this game attracts arent the super hardcore people you see in Dota 2 or League threads. there is such a thing as the unvocal majority.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Khaldor is doing his whacky tournament right now

https://www.twitch.tv/khaldor

Within a series, Bo5s, when a hero gets banned he's banned for the whole series.

 

[kirblar]

Within a series, Bo5s, when a hero gets banned he's banned for the whole series.

If we had way more healers this would be amazing to try in a real tournament.

 

[protonium]

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[Alur]

Who likes fun, though? brb gonna go farm bot for 20 mins /s

 

[protonium]

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[brickwalker0]

alur doesnt know how to last hit, just auto attacks everything

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Also thought I'd be posting it here, Khaldor has a patreon. He rarely advertises it.

https://www.patreon.com/Khaldor

 

[brickwalker0]

Also thought I'd be posting it here, Khaldor has a patreon. He rarely advertises it.

https://www.patreon.com/Khaldor

might be the first time i participate in a patreon/kickstarter type thing. he seems like a genuinely good guy.

 

[Alur]

alur doesnt know how to last hit, just auto attacks everything

LOL, sadly this is about the gat damn truth. What I've played of League and Vainglory has resigned me to support or jungle. I'm sure it's a thing you get with practice, but I can't be arsed to do it. I just wanna kill stuff m8

Also thought I'd be posting it here, Khaldor has a patreon. He rarely advertises it.

https://www.patreon.com/Khaldor

This is awesome Familie. I didn't know he had one TBH. I'm kind of ashamed he does all this and he is getting $214 a month considering some of these people's patreons I've seen (like the Into the Nexus one, for example). If I'm not mistaken ITN dudes are at like $500+ per episode, and that's weekly.

 

[protonium]

.

 

[scoobs]

What gives these guys a bigger cut, Twitch sub or Patreon? I don't know what the split is for either. I wouldn't mind subbing to Khaldor, Trik and Grubby. I don't sub/donate to anyone at the moment.

I would certainly hope Khaldor gets more than $200 a month from subs and donations from Twitch. I dunno how he supports himself if he doesn't. His youtube channel does okay but it can't be pulling in a ton of money. Each sub on Twitch is worth about $3 to the streamer, so I'd guess he's got like 300 subs, or about $900/month from streaming.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

This is awesome Familie. I didn't know he had one TBH. I'm kind of ashamed he does all this and he is getting $214 a month considering some of these people's patreons I've seen (like the Into the Nexus one, for example). If I'm not mistaken ITN dudes are at like $500+ per episode, and that's weekly.

Most of his income comes from donations far as I can tell, every couple months people rally together collecting donations and then surprising him with 1 to 3k in the span of a day or so.
He really doesn't advertise his patreon much, it's on his Twitch page if you scroll down which no one ever does, so I'm not surprised it's that low.

What gives these guys a bigger cut, Twitch sub or Patreon? I don't know what the split is for either. I wouldn't mind subbing to Khaldor, Trik and Grubby. I don't sub/donate to anyone at the moment.

Donations and or Patreon IIRC, Subs twitch takes half or so but higher sub counts help in their own way. Basically everything is fine.
I'm only subbing/patreon now because I had to cut all my US subscription services after Netflix cracked down on VPN services so I got a little budget free.

 

[Milly79]

Famalie may your Netflix rip

 

[kirblar]

K1Pro is sticking in.

So Dunk's the last question mark.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Famalie may your Netflix rip

We didn't take Netflix serious when they said they were coming after us. They were!

Spoiler

Piracy is free though and dubs suck donkey balls.

 

[Milly79]

I wish dunk, k1 and caff would stick together, but obv not happening

 

[Alur]

I truly don't think they should, at least not all three...but I guess it could happen. Something was off in the leadership of that group for them to all turn in their GAF (in this case that = give a fuck) cards at once and no one really tried to right the ship. It can't all be blamed on Fan leaving/Arthelon pickup. The chemistry and want to just died from arrogance or boredom or something.

In an ideal world I would like to see Zuna leading Caff and Dunk with Mac and Fan as the flex since C9 never had a true shotcaller. That'd be a hell of a team. They'd have the clout and the skills to keep him in check when he goes yolo. But for them to join NVT I would think they'd have to drop Zuna and Kenma both. And we don't truly know how well or not they could coexist with Fan.

For me, though, speaking realistically, this C9 implosion sounds like the best thing to happen to Tempo Storm since before Funyungate.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Sold1er didn't even announce he retired did he?

Personally think it's better they split and push some top 8 teams over the edge.

 

[Alur]

Zoia said he retired IIRC, but So1dier never said that. I'm surprised he hasn't already popped back up.

I honestly don't know the financial situations of any teams, but I'm assuming that unless they form their own team they won't join one without a good sponsor. I hope GFE is unwilling to mess with their chemistry. They continue to make strides. Other than Tempo, what NA team has money to pay for these dudes (assuming that will be a sticking point)?

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

That probably depends more on what other prospects they have. If they managed their income they should still have more than enough to go a couple months on peanuts. If they succeed on a new team so will their value go up again. Which brings me to the next point aside from caff how highly are dunk and k1pro even valued atm?

With idream back to school we could be seeing him in the next HoTD, if there'll be one.

 

[Zackat]

I have seemingly missed a lot of news. So is the sky falling right now? Right before everything we have been asking for in ranked mode is finally released and we get some real competition for ranks?

I mean the pro scene, not the game. This game will be fine.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

The calls of doom might have been a good thing it brought forth strong voices.

It boils down to Zoia was unhappy, Jake pretty much got pushed out by competition, C9 called it quits and so did some Chinese and Korean teams. So far it looks like people picked up the slack.

Also MVP is tired but they wanna continue just gonna troll with role assignment and shit.
MVP also bought a 2nd team with some of the TNL guys.
China formed a superteam


In general OW stole any thunder hots had left.

 

[kirblar]

IIRC, So1dier was just focusing more on school.

 

[Celegus]

Spoiler

Everything's gonna be fine. Honestly gonna miss Zoia more than anything else though.

 

[brian!]

nvt owner sees c9 departing as a way to open up space for more orgs which is an interesting take. a splitting of c9 to other orgs doesnt necessarily mean an upgrade for ppl who get those players tho

this stuff only makes heroes more interesting to me, opposite of death knell

even korean teams splitting means na has a higher chance of winning intl -> actually worth watching

zoia putting the onus on the community to further hots esports longevity feels off base to me, to me it has more to do w/ orgs being given the understanding that blizz will keep putting down cash $ and more of it

 

[sobaka770]

1. Overwatch can easily be an esport. The whole game is based on competitive team-fighting, it's polished to do just that and nothing else. There's no stupid CoD unlockable weapons/progression system, no map packs to split the base. It's an alternative to "realism" of CS which emphasises teamplay and it works. Overwatch has a much better personal skill vs teamwork balance than HotS, which makes it more fun to watch since people can make plays, but teamwork is still key. If anything I hope HotS designers are looking hard at how to make ults gamechanging and exciting. (tbh, the latest hero releases do show that Blizzard wants more personal skill, but they need to rework or nerf the old "easy" one into oblivion then)

The replaybility is limitless and, unlike HotS, this game doesn't even need more heroes to remain highly competitive. Blizzard needs simply to get the league and seasons going, polish observer UI and make its own tournament scene.

2. HotS is probably still a huge money machine for Blizzard. I don't think that Twitch viewership is directly correlated to the number of players it has since it's much more casual, but those skins and heroes at that price must rake in some serious cash. At this point, if Blizzard can afford putting up the same sum of money for its tourneys each year (or develop a crowdfunging system "soon"), the esports scene will live on. HotS has the same viewership as Smite anyway, people do turn in for big tournaments.

The problem is once again the fact that smaller streamers have barely an ability to showcase their skill. That's where the viewership hurts the most. I mean it's nice to watch Grubby play and he controls heroes very well but still he rarely carries games. That's disheartening.

3. Personal grievance: this game seriously needs a safe leaver option when teammates go AFK/become AI. Losting 100 points when two people disconnected at the start is NOT COOL.

4. Blizzard needs to show HotS more support, get the engineers on that SC2 engine, surely more can be done about the stutter and jank. Maybe someone with more software knowledge can tell if it's even possible to shift from the single-core structure of the game, it's just not working well for MOBA. I log in DotA2 - it's smooth and it's a much older game. I know there's visual discrepancy etc etc, but it's worth it. I mean I have the game running way above 60 FPS with GSync and still moving camera feels off.

 

[brian!]

if call of duty can consistently be #1 on twitch w/ it's tournaments I don't really see how overwatch can be out of consideration

also surefour is already a better personality than most heroes streamers

gonna take back the whole blizz putting down money -> successful esports, it'll draw orgs and players but nothing can really replace the organic feeling of being invested in the ppl that play and heroes needs new ppl to foster that feeling, the existing players and personalities are nice and all but probably not even close to good enough

heroes needs more https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQUtoC0-3T4, like "remember that time x happened" moments

 

[Alur]

heroes needs more https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQUtoC0-3T4, like "remember that time x happened" moments

That clip had everything. Insane plays...and then another counter play.

 

[Milly79]

How did abathur get favorite hero in that census? The fuck.

 

[protonium]

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[protonium]

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[protonium]

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[Familienoberhauptvogel]

If we weren't about to get unranked drafting I'd spam Dustin till they implemented a rule that'd make Chromie not go up against tracer. Fuck that matchup.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

That's some dope shit they're doing for this event

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5NnCnYnz4Y&feature=youtu.be

Beyond the Nexus regional recaps and team introductions, etc.

Buechter influence? I sometimes wonder if me being fat makes my fat shaming less bad or worse.

 

[brian!]

cool show, they should stream it!

Totally had no idea there was a week of games coming up

 

[Alur]

Buechter influence? I sometimes wonder if me being fat makes my fat shaming less bad or worse.

Worse. And Mac has always been a little chubby. Looks the same as ever to me.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Ha! You're gonna love this Alur

Worse. And Mac has always been a little chubby. Looks the same as ever to me.

good to know but this is past being a little chubby and that's not even fat shaming.

 

[Alur]

I dunno man. I get your point, but that's just chubby to me. He's not Zuna/Kenma levels. That is fat in my book. I mean if we're comparing him to like Glaurung, yeah, he's fat. But if we're comparing him to normal everyday people, he's just a little fatter than your average dude IMO.

LOL I can't believe we are even discussing this. /shame

EDIT: And yeah, da fuq with the Li Ming. They've lost most games he's played Li Ming IIRC. I guess they forgot about Illidino, Abathur, etc.

 

[protonium]

.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

Lol Brain Power actually took back Cattle but he's replacing Cauthonluck and Srey will stay on as tank.
Cauthon was versatile, he was never particularly standout but you could tell he played every hero very well.

Roster change for Brain Power
It sucks to write this but it needs to be. Today myself, iakona and Glaurung decided to replace Cauthon with cattle. Srey will remain on tank and cattle will take over as secondary ranged/flex role. We three made the decision as we've played with Cauthon for around 5 or 6 months on COGnitive/BP.

Whether this will be the right move or not for us as a team, we have two months or so to work on it before fall regionals. It's a really important season because of Blizzcon and being at Blizzcon is super important. cattle brings a solid melee hero pool as flex and while he is not as good at ranged as Cauthon we do have two months to help him.

Cauthon is a great player and me and him have been playing together for over a year. For a little bit we played together on Evil Geniuses and then again when we formed Murloc Geniuses, which became Zeveron (and back to MG again later). When MG died he helped set up the roster for COGnitive and brought me with him over. Especially landing her Ult has become so much easier.

It's not easy to make this kind of decision especially with someone I consider a good friend. It really sucks but objectively we have to try and do what is best for the team to push us past being just a top 3/top 4 team in NA. I'll miss playing with him and hope he joins a new team so we can hang out at the upcoming regionals.

Also there's a new Carbot with Sylvanas. Whom I've played today after a long while and actually made me realize how much I'd improved. She was the first hero I bought but as a newb I played her rather poorly, I finally was able to properly use her ult.

Cattle will be replacing me as ranged on Brain Power effective now. Though we've been a consistent threat, there's been something of a desperation for the team to determine what exactly was preventing us from getting past that 3rd place barrier and it appears the fingers are pointed my way for the moment.

Cattle is a talented player, and I understand the team's reasoning that he might be able to excel at the role given enough time to switch over. It seems like quite a gamble, but as I too understand the frustration with being so close but coming up short time after time... the feeling that something needs to change can be overwhelming.

Big thanks to Srey for stepping up last minute and helping us put together a strong showing under very difficult circumstances in the regional, he was not a part of this decision so please continue to support him on the team as he did a great job during the short time we played together.

I'll be continuing to train and further expand my hero pool. I didn't feel that the areas where BP was coming up short were in the team's ranged play, but I certainly didn't play perfectly and have a lot of aspects I can look to improve in my game. This was very sudden news for me to hear tonight so I have no specifics on where I'll be playing, but thanks to everyone who supported me over the long history of MG and Cog/BP for the last year, I had a great time and really enjoyed all the tense, exciting sets from the last regional and hope to bring more of the same in the future.

 

[Alur]

The throats they are cut lately, boys.

I wouldn't have taken Cattle back based on principle alone. I don't blame him a bit for jumping to C9. In the moment, that seemed to be the smartest move to get ahead. But I'm sure the behind the scenes stuff they all had heard was already pointing towards this conclusion for C9, so it was a bit foolhardy as well.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

I like Equinox response in the reddit thread, it's rather blunt

Don't think this roster change will be effective, playing against brain power for awhile their weakness hasn't and never will be ranged. they had 2 of the best ranged players in NA on their team. Most people watching them knows their weakness is poor teamfighting, rotations, or getting caught too much. I don't think that will be fixed considering it was the same issue when cattle was on the team.
Either way, I respect the teams decision and maybe it'll go well I just think this was one of the more poor roster changes a team has done in awhile.

Can't totally agree, their teamfighting was somewhat of a mixed bag. Though I find it funny that the guys and gal pretty much felt the same as fans did.

They had a killer roster, they should have performed better.

 

[Milly79]

Lol what a roster swap

 

[Alur]

Equinox got dat salt going.

"Poor teamfighting" and "getting caught" are the equivalent of "I'm not saying any names but *cough*Glau*cough*" lol.

I wish they had some kind of epiphany and put it together. Would love to see them and GFE and NVT battle for top two. Legitimately battle, not steal a game here or there battle.

Also, was thinking earlier today...it was literally ~4 months ago that TSM was attempting to sign Bob Ross Fan Club. Other than numbers slagging a bit and complaints about production/delays, is there a legit reason we go from the biggest esports org in NA wanting in to the biggest one in the NA scene leaving and the sky falling? Obviously we know why C9 pulled the rug out, or at least the performance side of it. Would love to know how much of it was financial for Jack and co too, though.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

It's OW's fault they just acquired a team, cuts had to be made.

 

[Alur]

But C9 joined Overwatch in February though. They've been dominating NA in that for a bit now.