Dota 2 has been the talk of the vast majority of dota community for months, and the anticipation to see the suitor of the current warcraft 3 custom map DotA finally reached its peak last week when Valve held their own tournament at Gamescom 2011, Cologne, Germany, dubbed "The Internationals" where Dota2 made its debut to the public. The tournament which grants a massive 1 million dollar to the winner, featured 16 well known international Dota1 teams to battle over 5 days (August 17th -21st).
The tournament, which used group stage format before proceeding to playoff in double elimination format, concluded last Sunday which saw Ukrainian powerhouse and one of the tournament's favorite, Navi clinched the top spot, beating the unexpected Chinese team EHOME in the best-of-5 grand final.
Tournament info:
Final standings:
I was very unfortunate not being able to fully follow the tournament due to work, though I still managed to get the update every now and then, as well as watching Video on Demands (VODs) of a few interesting games. To be honest it was not the tournament that I was looking forward to. But rather, like many others, it was the very dota2 itself. After months and months of waiting, we finally got to see what Dota2 looked like, what the heroes, items, icons looked like.
My impression toward Dota2 after watching The Internationals is rather mixed. The overall graphic is actually nice, because of the cel-shading touch to the 3d environment which made it easy to my eyes. The way the map layout (Neutral creep position, juke spots etc) looked almost exactly like in Dota1 made it even better. But there are also many things about the graphic/design that I do not like. The UI (User Interface) is way too bland and boring, with some space wasted between the hero avatar and the minimap/inventory (like HoN). The dots on minimap is kinda too small and hard to see, and that's a problem to a person like me. I also wish the color scheme of sentinel (now the radiant) and scourge (now the dire) is modified because at the moment I have difficulty differentiating sentinel and scourge's creeps -_-
Some of the hero models were nice (Doom and Nightstalker got my award for best models), but some others were terrible. Storm Spirit is too small, and I REALLY want a Panda model : ( Earthshaker now looked like a chimpanzee running around with a totem. Mirana's "dog" is awfully designed, while Antimage need his head changed, or at least made him blindfolded. It's definitely going to take time to get accustomed to these new model, and over time we might forgot the fact that Rhasta and Dazzle were trolls. The courier model kinda looked retarded, but I somehow like it : ) There are also various effects/icons (eg Radiance aura, ES ulti, Nevermore's Raze etc) that I think need to be changed, and I definitely hope the full (?) version of Dota2 which is likely to be released next year to be slightly different than what we saw at Gamescom. The image of all currently available heroes and items can be viewed at this website. You can also comment about their models, and who knows, someday the critics might reach to Valve so that they changed/modify the models that the community think didn't suit the hero.
As for in-game feature, there's some adjustments, but one thing I like is the stats/graph that show the difference in gold earned by both team, which give a mild indication of which team had the advantage at that point of time.
The Internationals
As I previously said, I didn't pay much attention to the significance of winning or losing the tournament, because the game itself is still in beta phase with over half of Dota1 heroes unavailable, which means some of the current metagame featuring the mainstream picks (eg Omniknights, Broodmother, Invoker and Batrider) can't be used at its fullest. But that being said, I still enjoyed the tournament, because the tournament still produced some interesting games. And the fact that everyone's favorite shoutcaster TobiwanKenobi was there to shoutcast for Dota2 made VoD viewing much more fun. Gosugamers user vertigo compiled the VoD links to some of the best moments/matches of the tournament in this thread, so check it out.
One game that particularly amazed me is NaVi vs EHOME final game 2, which many others also voted as the best game of the tournament. This game has everything Dota2 can offer (it also has Pudge getting picked!), and it was evenly matched, going back and forth with both teams exchanging kills in each team clashes, and it's hard to tell which team is going to win until the last moment. NaVi always has 2 or 3 kills advantage throughout the game, but EHOME had significant gold and roshan advantage midway through the game. The game also had some of the best moments in the tournament, coming from Puppey's Chen - amazing micro to use dominated screep to block the enemies and save himself from being killed, then on many occasions later, he saved his allies by teleporting them back to base with Test of Faith. Totally amazing stuff pulled by Puppey.
Now that The Internationals is over, we're back to Dota1, and I can't wait for ESWC, WDC and our own's SMM : )
The tournament, which used group stage format before proceeding to playoff in double elimination format, concluded last Sunday which saw Ukrainian powerhouse and one of the tournament's favorite, Navi clinched the top spot, beating the unexpected Chinese team EHOME in the best-of-5 grand final.
Tournament info:
- Dota2: The Internationals (participated teams, bracket, VODs etc)
- Gosugamers: Photo
- Gosugamers: post-tournament picks/bans statistic
Final standings:
1. NaVi ($1,000,000)
2. EHOME ($250,000)
3. Scythe.sg ($150,000)
4. MYM ($80,000)
5. Moscow5 ($35,000)
6. iG ($35,000)
7. OK.Nirvana.int ($25,000)
8. MiTH-Trust ($25,000)
..................
I was very unfortunate not being able to fully follow the tournament due to work, though I still managed to get the update every now and then, as well as watching Video on Demands (VODs) of a few interesting games. To be honest it was not the tournament that I was looking forward to. But rather, like many others, it was the very dota2 itself. After months and months of waiting, we finally got to see what Dota2 looked like, what the heroes, items, icons looked like.
My impression toward Dota2 after watching The Internationals is rather mixed. The overall graphic is actually nice, because of the cel-shading touch to the 3d environment which made it easy to my eyes. The way the map layout (Neutral creep position, juke spots etc) looked almost exactly like in Dota1 made it even better. But there are also many things about the graphic/design that I do not like. The UI (User Interface) is way too bland and boring, with some space wasted between the hero avatar and the minimap/inventory (like HoN). The dots on minimap is kinda too small and hard to see, and that's a problem to a person like me. I also wish the color scheme of sentinel (now the radiant) and scourge (now the dire) is modified because at the moment I have difficulty differentiating sentinel and scourge's creeps -_-
A typical Dota2 screen: main game (left) and picking phase (right)
Some of the hero models were nice (Doom and Nightstalker got my award for best models), but some others were terrible. Storm Spirit is too small, and I REALLY want a Panda model : ( Earthshaker now looked like a chimpanzee running around with a totem. Mirana's "dog" is awfully designed, while Antimage need his head changed, or at least made him blindfolded. It's definitely going to take time to get accustomed to these new model, and over time we might forgot the fact that Rhasta and Dazzle were trolls. The courier model kinda looked retarded, but I somehow like it : ) There are also various effects/icons (eg Radiance aura, ES ulti, Nevermore's Raze etc) that I think need to be changed, and I definitely hope the full (?) version of Dota2 which is likely to be released next year to be slightly different than what we saw at Gamescom. The image of all currently available heroes and items can be viewed at this website. You can also comment about their models, and who knows, someday the critics might reach to Valve so that they changed/modify the models that the community think didn't suit the hero.
graph for difference in gold earned
As for in-game feature, there's some adjustments, but one thing I like is the stats/graph that show the difference in gold earned by both team, which give a mild indication of which team had the advantage at that point of time.
....................
The Internationals
As I previously said, I didn't pay much attention to the significance of winning or losing the tournament, because the game itself is still in beta phase with over half of Dota1 heroes unavailable, which means some of the current metagame featuring the mainstream picks (eg Omniknights, Broodmother, Invoker and Batrider) can't be used at its fullest. But that being said, I still enjoyed the tournament, because the tournament still produced some interesting games. And the fact that everyone's favorite shoutcaster TobiwanKenobi was there to shoutcast for Dota2 made VoD viewing much more fun. Gosugamers user vertigo compiled the VoD links to some of the best moments/matches of the tournament in this thread, so check it out.
One game that particularly amazed me is NaVi vs EHOME final game 2, which many others also voted as the best game of the tournament. This game has everything Dota2 can offer (it also has Pudge getting picked!), and it was evenly matched, going back and forth with both teams exchanging kills in each team clashes, and it's hard to tell which team is going to win until the last moment. NaVi always has 2 or 3 kills advantage throughout the game, but EHOME had significant gold and roshan advantage midway through the game. The game also had some of the best moments in the tournament, coming from Puppey's Chen - amazing micro to use dominated screep to block the enemies and save himself from being killed, then on many occasions later, he saved his allies by teleporting them back to base with Test of Faith. Totally amazing stuff pulled by Puppey.
Now that The Internationals is over, we're back to Dota1, and I can't wait for ESWC, WDC and our own's SMM : )
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