Trixi: “I became a DotA beast!”

As we know Fnatic.MSI is partialy the old DotA clan STB. Why did you decide to join HoN and leave DotA behind? Was you joining the army the main reason for such change?

When you play dota on and off for as long as I have you just kind of get bored. Sure, every new version made people play differently at first, but in the end it was still the same game. But to be honest, the final nail in the coffin wasn’t really HoN, it was Wrath of The Lich King.
Me and my butt buddies (rexi & co) started playing that, but I got bored really fast due to the lack of content. After that, if I recall correctly, I started playing dota a bit again but it was just to pass some time before I had to leave to the army. As military service is “mandatory” (civil service takes twice as long) here in Finland there was no other choice really.
Luckily, we got home almost every weekend so it wasn’t such a bad thing and I was able to play HoN, which Rexi & co had found quite interesting. After I got out we made a clan called T1 and started playing clan matches and that’s how it all began.

How does the military service in Finland look like?

Well basically you go there and you have to do meaningless stuff. You have to be there six, nine or twelve months depending on what you want to do there/what you’re “forced” to do there. If you’re just a random private like I was then that’s only 6 months of useless training. You get home almost every weekend unless you have so called “camps” that everyone hates and you can practically be two weeks in a row in a forest sleeping in tents, guarding stuff from imaginary enemies etc. (I was in Lapland for two weeks and damn was it cold). The only positive thing in the whole place is that you get to meet new people and get new friends.

How did you and Rexi actually met? Is it just a coincidence that your nicknames are similar?

It’s partly coincidence. Rexi’s nick comes way back from his counter-strike times when I didn’t even know him yet. There he was called s3x_r3x (he actually has a cs-team T-shirt with that nick on it ) or something similarly stupid and later changed it to Rexi when he grew up. My nick has a small story behind it, too. When I started to play more and more DotA games in WC3 b.net I changed my nick to Dotatrix (pretty ingenious eh?) but when I started to use IRC and hanged around in ventrilo with other Finns they would just call me “Trixi”.
That’s because Finns like to put “i” in the end of words to make them sound more Finnish! How we met though, meh can’t really remember when it happened the first time around. But we used to play in the same Finnish DotA pickup channel and they had this ventrilo gang that was like really fearsome and they actually hated me and said I played bad etc. :’(. I never personally thought that I sucked! (like nobody does) and I blamed my downcomings on the computer I played with.
After I got a better computer, everything changed. I became a DotA beast! I was so good that one of the guys from the fearsome ventrilo gang wanted me to come to play with him and that’s where I really met Rexi and started to talk with him etc.

So if you have a good PC you can become a DotA / HoN pro? Or is there something else as well?

If it was that easy then everyone with a superb computer would be a pro. That’s not likely the case. My computer was really, and I mean _REALLY_ bad. I had constant 10-20 fps and when there were big ulties going off from sand king/jakiro etc. I couldn’t do anything for about 10 seconds. So like in every game if you have the right tools (whether it’s the racket/stick/computer) of course they help, but they can’t really make you pro instantly. Becoming good at something takes a lot of practice and that should be pretty obvious.

How would you describe your game style. Who do you like to play, and who in your team picks the worst-to-play heroes every match?

I actually like to play really aggressive and take risks that might backfire at times. But when you manage to pull off a a kill or two and escape with barely any life the feeling is awesome and it can actually give you and your team a huge morale boost. The heroes I like to play depends on the day and what I feel like playing. There are heroes like valkyrie, engi, puppet, polly, pebbles etc. that I feel like playing any given time though. I guess the worst-to-play heroes go to Ducktr or Steelrasp nowadays since Rotterdam has had huge connection issues and we haven’t really played with him that much lately.
But from time to time someone might get a strange caprice and say that they’d actually like to play, say, Glacius. So even supporters aren’t always the “worst-to-play”.

You qualified for the GR tournament and were 3rd in the ladder. Were those 8 weeks hard for you?

I wouldn’t say it was actually that hard for us. We knew who we could beat if we just played our own game and knew who we’d have a tough time against. We actually missed the first week of the GR tournament so I think it was pretty nice that we actually placed 3rd. I remember one week though when I hadn’t slept at all for like 24 hours since I was trying to fix my sleep rhytmn and had to play a bunch of GR games. That was pain and I actually took small naps in-between games .

You were seeded 3rd and your first opponent is YUP. What is your attitude towards this game?

To be honest, I don’t know much about YUP and don’t know what to expect. But we’re looking forward to playing them and hopefully advancing forward and winning the tournament in the end.

Was any team that qualified a surprise for you? Were you expecting all of them to get into the invitational round?

I was expecting most of the teams to get to the invitational but there are clans like PhB that would’ve definately had the chance but just didn’t start playing the tournaments earlier. But I guess that’s something to be expected when you hold an 8-week tournament like this one. Some teams might disband in that time and new ones are created.

You were always in the shadow of Team 5 and LOADED. Is it your time to shine now?

We’re trying to get better and better all the time and improve our game to eventually beat everyone, but lately we’ve undergone some line-up changes so our teamplay isn´t really up to par with LOADED in my opinion. But that’s something that a lot of practice can change and we’ll definately get our revenge sooner or later since they just beat us in the GR invitational tournament.

New patch means changes. How do you feel about them? Is it more interesting to play? Is the game more balanced?

I always like new patches since it spices up the game a bit and new heroes become viable. New patches tend to create a lot of flavour of the month heroes that aren’t picked that much later on. But for instance the pollywog buff was pretty nice since rhasta was one of my favourite heroes in dota and now polly is pretty close to what rhasta was.

Neva HoN I tournament is about to start. Are you ready for it?

We had a bit trouble scrimming for like 1½ weeks since people had stuff to do, but now we’re trying to catch up and train as hard as possible for the tournament. We’ve had some roster changes too lately since Rotterdam isn’t really able to play at the moment so we also need to focus a lot on our team game a lot. All in all, I think we’ll be able to pull of victories against anyone if we just play our best.

Some of the teams that are participating aren’t currently the most famous ones. Should invitational tournaments have simple guide-lines to pick up the best teams or can it be just random so that anybody can join?

It’s up to the tournament organizers to decide what kind of tournament they want to do. As this tournament has a bunch of qualifiers I think it’s not a bad idea to have lesser-known teams to participate in them, since, who knows, some of them might actually surprise and pull off a victory against a known team and thus create more competition. The teams they chose for the Neva tournament aren’t really that random in the end seeing as there’s most of the known teams in the first qualifier.

The open beta has started. If you are playing public games, is there anything that changed?

I haven’t played a single public game after open beta started so hard to say anything about them. :d

New hero is out. Have you played him? What are your thoughts?

I have only played him in the practice mode so I can’t really say that much. But I think that it could be a bit too strong at this point but we’ll see later how it turns out.

Thanks for answering my questions. Any last words?

Shoutout to the whole HoN community, honcast for doing such an amazing job on casting competitive games and all the organisations that support HoN and e-sports in general. I’d also like to thank fnaticMSI for giving us this opportunity and their sponsors MSI, Steelseries, Bigfoot networks, UGAME and Slappa. Cheers!

Next interview tomorrow!

As I found job IRL I don’t have enough time to write useless entries. I’ll be focusing only on interesting stuff from now on such as 4th interview. My guest is Kalle Saarinen from Finland aka Trixi. Top player, and a member of fnatic.MSI.

The interview will be issued tomorrow around 4PM GMT+1.

Kaution: “We got extremely lucky”

Hi Mark. Before we start talking about HoN, can you tell me where exactly are you from? I am asking because I’ve seen some comments that people can’t understand you even though you are from England.

I am in fact from England, Manchester to be precise – If people can’t understand me, its most likely because I mumble or speak to fast for people to understand. Casting is something I am constantly trying to improve and will make sure to try and better myself.

How did you make your way into shoutcasting and why Honcast, and not GR?

I did in fact do a few casts with Gamereplays at the start, then I got involved with Honcast through HunteR_ and continued to work with them. I will do casts for anyone if they ask me, I volunteer and I’m more than happy to do casting for anyone.

Is there still something missing in the HoN shoutcasts nowadays? Is there anything you want to be improved?

I can only really say from my point of view, I want to try and improve with every cast, but its tough casting during the early hours of the morning being somewhat tired and coming across as that, with little emotion. So if I cast personally I’d like to try and do it earlier when I’m more alert.

Talking about GR, you lately qualified for the invitational part, and will have a chance to fight for $1000 with your team (uQ). How hard was it for you to qualify?

Extremely tough if you consider the first few weeks of the tournament, going out in the 1st round on a few occassions to teams that I would consider weaker than ourselves. Bad day at the office overall a few weeks running. We were extremely lucky and infact very thankful that MSI knocked out PhB as it made sure they wouldnt have enough points to pip us to the 8th spot. Coupled with the fact Qs did not compete in the last tournament meant we were extremely lucky to get the spot.

uQ wasn’t really an outstanding team until Week 7 when you destroyed everybody and took your first victory in GR Qualifications tournament, but then a week after you lost in the 2nd round. How do you feel about the invitational part? Are you able to step up?

We are a team with potential, we are still trying to improve and are practicing on almost a daily basis and trying out new things, as well as working on the weaker aspects of our game. I would like to point out though, we did play against POL in the 2nd round – I’m not so sure whats up with the seeding in the respect as POL are a very good team and can be considered much like ourselves by not being consistant enough. We were completely outplayed by them and its something that angered us all – we did however notice what was wrong and we are going to try make sure the mistakes that did happen don’t happen again.

Was there any specific team that you weren’t expecting to qualify?

I don’t think we were really expecting to qualify, as I said we got extremely lucky, everyone else was quite standard I think.

How much HoN did change after the new patch came out? Is it more competitive? More interesting to cast?

Certainly more interesting to cast, less and less teams are adopting the turtlefest strat.

Pollywog Priest is being played much more often now. Do you see that as good or bad? What are the heroes that we will most likely meet more often in competitive games?

I think that’s good, but I’d like to see a slight decrease in his awesomeness. I can’t really predict what we will see more of but it seems that Engineer is higher up on teams lists as a pick. Could be a flavour of the month thing but it could also be that teams are realising his potential and overall usefulness.

Unique Esports is a very interesting name. What makes your team so “unique”?

Heh, weird question. I guess you could say that the Unique team has been around for a long long time now and has steadily improving over that course of time. We have a decent atmosphere on ventrilo and we have one of the best team leaders around in Hibob.

There is another big tournament coming up; Neva HoN I. Are you planing to participate?

I would imagine so, I think we are one of the very few teams that managed to participate in every tournament going.

Over $5000 is the biggest prize pool so far, but there are very few tournaments. If you could choose between much more tournaments with smaller prizes or just few big ones with fairly nice amount of money, which would you prefer?

Tough question, because I’d honestly like to see somewhere in the middle. If I had to decide I would like to see more tournaments with smaller prizes. This is because I feel its very hard to get competitive games at the moment. Perhaps with the Team MatchMaking system we could see the tournaments switch to the less often/bigger prize pool as it will be easyier to find games.

So what would be the ideal tournament for you?

I like the best of three games, I think it proves which is the best team overall. So I really like the invitational. However it does suck if you get knocked out in first round <smile>

Thanks for the interview. Now you have a free spot for advertisement.

Obviously shout outs to our sponsors, Antec, Panther, Bigfoot and Redux.

Big thanks to kirbyruled for proofreading this interview!

It’s a plane, it’s a car, NO it’s my 3rd guest!

Finally after a pretty long break I’m back with my third guest. He is a shoutcaster for honcast, and makes really nice team with BreakyCPK. He also plays for the uQ who qualified for the Invitational round of GR tournament. Ladies and gentlemen give it up for…

Mark “Kaution” Dennett

The interview will be issued tomorrow around 2 PM GMT +1. More interviews coming soon!

Trust me, it’s not an eSport

Yesterday while following honcast I’ve had that interesting discussion about HoN being an eSport game. To tell you the truth I have my personal view on this matter, and it’s not really in favor of HoN. Let me explain to you why.

First of all, I am a big hater of DotA and its community. The game itself isn’t that bad if you want it to be a casual add-on to Warcraft 3, but when somebody tells me that it requires so much skill, and if my thoughts differ from that person’s I am a retard with no life who should die now. The word that I want to point out is “casual.” This game was meant to be casual not competitive, and even though it turned out to be quite an interesting product it’s still not an eSport game.

Good eSport game requires well-planned spectator mode so that it’s easy to follow the game, but that’s not everything. Spectators have to understand what’s going on in-game, and if you want to follow DotA or HoN game and you are not familiar with them you will fail, as when a bigger team fight will begin and 100 ultis and different skills will be used, average guy who just wants to know what’s going on will have no idea. You can explain to him that it’s just Demented Shaman with his cloud, and SoulStealer, but how the hell can he tell you the difference when he has no idea which character is one of them?

We also have the “noob unfriendliness,” but also player unfriendliness in general. When you join the game you just meet with people who want to bash you so hard, and simply release their stress by making you miserable. Like I’ve mentioned in one of my earlier columns, this game is not for people, but for those who can cope with all that frustration and anger shown so many times by different pub players. The only thing that still makes HoN better than DotA at this point is that there is not much bashing on the forums, but don’t worry! Open beta is on it’s way, and few thousand more players also known as kids will come and ruin everything.

Last but not least, game to be an eSport one need to be professional. HoN by all meaning is professional at least when we talk about the game itself. S2 games did a great job to bring people game worth playing, but at the same time also as mentioned before it’s the community who is not helping. What do I mean by professionalism? For example Insani_Rabi… I know it’s an old case, and most of the people support him, but that’s a great example of what should not happen during shoutcast even if it’s one of the team that acts stupid. Also the way “eSport media” are covering the tournaments right now. It’s just bad, and really needs to be upgraded soon.

The only thing that speaks in favor of HoN becoming an eSport game is that more and more companies are interested in it, like Nova Digital with $5000 prize for the winner. If IT brands are interested in the game, and gaming itself means that the game still has a chance, but unfortunately for now it’s only USA. We have to wait and  see if Europe will be so hyped about the title as well.

This is my view on the topic. Obviously it’s not me to decide if it’s an eSport game or not. I just feel sad that back in the days games chosen as eSport platforms were really good, and now we have jokes like Guitar Hero, WoW or DotA. Maybe competitive but definitely not eSport.

BreakyCPK: “You are really putting me on the spot…”

Probably all people who will read this interview will know you for shoutcasting top matches in HoN. We also know that before doing shoutcast you were writing articles. Yet, we still don’t know the story behind you dropping writing and going into shoutcasting. Who or what made you to start doing shoutcasts?

I did start off just doing article writing for competitive eSports for several different games, however I didn’t get into shoutcasting until about 6 months ago or so.  It was actually just a matter of me always being interested to try it out but not knowing where to start, however after going to school for radio broadcasting and sportscasting it motivated me to at least try it for practice.  And sure enough, I was actually better at it than even I expected and I kept with it and now I am where I am.

Currently we can hear your voice mostly during matches covered by honcast. How did you get into honcast crew, and who are you working with?

Well, I have to give a big thanks to Jeff Hunter for getting me involved with honcast.  I actually was just doing my own streams on a random livestream where I would be lucky to get 20 viewers or so, however I wanted to expand.  So I went around to different league/tournament sites and asked if they wouldn’t mind if I casted their matches.  When I went to honleague, Jeff heard some of my work and he already had an idea for getting such a website started where eSports coverage would be number 1.  And he chose to go with me into it and with hard work from both of us it has become what it is today, and more to come!

Most people including myself have no idea who actually is behind honcast. Can you tell us something more about eSport Media Inc.? Who creates it, what are the goals of the company?

Esports Media Inc. was actually just founded very recently and honcast is its first addition for covering competitive eSports.  Both are run under the same management, but the goal of Esports Media Inc. is to overall expand into many other competitive games and become the number one covering site for all competitive esports, not just HoN.  So you can expect some expansions in the future and I myself might look to go into other games as well, but for now it is all about honcast.

Are there any specific titles you are currently following? Maybe Starcraft 2?

Starcraft 2 is one that we will most likely be picking up and even I will attempt to shoutcast it as well, although I still have a lot to learn about it.  We will also look to expand into the first person shooter scene, not sure exactly what game yet, but we will be for sure.  Can’t really say to much else on this because I do not want to make any promises that I cannot keep, but def expect a lot more to come.

You study sport shoutcasting.I guess one thing they try to make you remember is that being a shoutcaster requires you to be as unbiased as possible. Do you feel that HoN shoutcasting is going into right direction?

Like you mentioned, I have been studying sportscasting and that was a big thing that we learned was not to be a “homer”, which is not being biased.  There are some teams that I personally do like better than others sure, and same thing for players but I do my very best to not show that during casts.  I believe I accomplish this well and it has never really been an issue brought up in the past and I don’t expect it to be.  As far as shoutcasting heading in the right direction, of course it is and we will continue to head in that direction!

Was there a match that made you super excited or was worth remembering?

I have done over 100+ HoN competitive matches easy, so to really pick one that stands out would be very very difficult.  But I guess if I had to choose one, there was a game recently between BTN and 5 for the ESL Finals and the ending was one of the most entertaining finishes I have ever seen.  Not only was it a big upset, but it ended in a Annihilation by FreshFriFly playing Corrupted Disciple, the link is HERE

If there was an opportunity for you to cast the clash of the titans game with current top 10 players, who would it be?

Oh man, you are really putting me on the spot here, heh.  To be honest, its hard to give a list of 10 players, but I will give you a couple that stand out in my mind for sure from all of the casting I have done.  [LOAD]chu`, [5]tabako, [5]AngryTestie, [BTN]FreshFriFly, [BTN]kay, [uQ]Kaution, [MSI]Rexi.  I mean, these are the ones that have stood out for sure, and of course I am missing some but ya, you get the idea.

Few days ago, on forums.hon.com there was this topic about Insane_Rabi and his “original” way of doing voice commentary. Do you feel like shoutcasting should go this way or maybe stick to more professional approach?

First off let me say Insane_Rabbi is very respected by myself and honcast in terms of his shoutcasting ability and information about the game, thus why we have even brought him on to honcast for some help casting.  What he said about HAU and what not was in a “rage” manner sure and he has stated that he apologizes for the way he said it, but the point was very valid.  To have this in shoutcasting, I do not think it is worth it as for me personally I do go with a much more passive approach which has clearly been stated over time because that is what I have been taught and I feel its more professional.  You can expect to never see that type of harsh criticism on honcast shoutcasts, but perhaps I personally could be a little more aggressive when it comes to responding how players/teams are going about things.

What I lately found really funny is the topic in C&C Chat on forums.hon.com, “The breakycpk BINGO.” The thing about is that it’s so accurate. Are you going to prepare some new phrases for the upcoming shoutcasts so people can add some new stuff there?

When I first saw that post made, it was hilarious going through it and realizing some of the phrases I do say a lot.  Now it just seems like its getting to the point where no matter what I say it will be added to that list, haha.  But ya, I appreciate the following I have and all the fans that have come from the situation I am in and I laugh along with others when it comes to things like this.  As for creating new phrases, I am always looking to add words and what not to my vocabulary but I do not go out of my way to really make sure, I kind of just go with the flow and what comes out does!

We know which heroes are underrated in your opinion, but we have no idea which heroes breaky likes the most. Do you have any specific character you like to follow or play with?

Personally, I have always found myself playing a support role in no matter what game I ever play.  Such as WoW, I have all 4 80s of every healer in the game, haha.  And there is no difference when it comes to HoN, I love to play Accursed and Demented Shaman and same thing goes for watching them play.  I really think a lot of the support players/roles are very underrated when it comes to spectators, and I try my best to point them out when I am casting games.

Talking about heroes, HoN is very similar to DotA as we all know. What made you to actually be the part of competitive HoN scene instead of focusing on dota?

I was never a follower of competitive DotA although I did play it on and off with a bunch of friends.  However, there was a friend of mine that told me about a new game that was exactly like DotA but just much better graphics and what not, so I got a beta key from him and gave it a shot.  And the rest is pretty much history, not only did it become a game that I started to play on and off, but it actually became my main game to focus on because I just love the potential it has to be an eSport especially with the history DotA had.  I have always been a fan of just competitive eSports in general and I felt like if I could get involved in a very new game still in beta that had a lot of potential to be one of those, then it would be the best situation for me as well.  And well, so far it has been and I plan that to continue to be the case.

What should the HoN community work on?  What is the community currently missing?

The HoN community just needs more players, simple as that.  We already have a large amount of player base, but the game is still in beta and the potential player base is still yet to come.  As far as what the community currently misses, it is the lack of a solid league in my opinion.  There needs to be a competitive league for both top tier teams and others and until that comes out I personally will not be 100% excited about the competitive community.

Do you feel like HoN has bright future ahead of it? Can this game be top eSport platform in USA or in the world?

Yes, simply put yes.  Heroes of Newerth is being modeled after one of the most successful eSport games ever in DotA, but upgraded and better.  Like, there is no reason for it not to be successful and everything is point in a positive direction for the game.  The fact that there has already been so much success in terms of tournaments and what not, is just proof of this.  If this game fails, then competitive eSports has lost my respect because this game truly is perfect for the situation.

Lately, we had an opportunity to see big changes on the scene with a few teams emerging. Which one of these teams you feel have the biggest chance to shine in the nearest future?

There have been many more teams emerging lately and obviously this is very good news for the community.  The team that I really think does have the most potential to really shine in the future though would have to be ButtonBashers and for very good reason.  Just watching them play and seeing how far they have come in such a short time really proves that they do have what it takes to be on top and I really look forward on seeing them.  There are also several other teams out there such as Fnatic.MSI and Q-Squad who have a lot of potential themselves too.

That’s about it. Thank you for the interview, and obviously now it’s your turn to make some shoutouts.

I appreciate it, this was a very interesting interview and I always look to help the community in any way I can.  I would like to give shoutouts to the honcast staff of course and all the hard work everyone has done to get where we are today.  Keep tuning into honcast, we still have many new things to introduce!

So Pro is recruting!

So Pro has a clan. If you have no tag and want to support this website or simply are looking for fun in-game, apply!

APPLY HERE