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argggh101

Dominating Posts: 161 Joined: 13 Jun 2008 6169 gold

Site suggestions

Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 6:17 am

I don't need guides but I read them because new players are better off learning from something else and also because I care about the community no matter how many trashtalkers/retards DotA has. I think new players are good and that's why I want to improve where I can. But this site also seems to be littered with random guides that fell through the net. In addition the forums are full of retarded threads that either go over mechanics which are either useless, covered in the library or people want to ask "HOW TO BEAT LUNA MOONFANG I BOUGHT 2 BASHERS AND HE PICKED LICH BLA BLA BLA". It kinda pisses me off that people entertain or bump such shit threads repeating what the previous guys said 20 times over.

So here's a bunch of things that this site could improve upon. You can implement one suggestion or more partially, I don't care about the number as long as some improvement is made even minimally because I know you guys have lives.

Guide review system
This was covered in the other thread. But i think it would be good if you lowered the standard of "perceived quality" of the guides that go through. Yes, i said LOWERED. Here's my reasoning:

1)Moderators sometimes may miss something or remain biased about an issue that some players might think is good or bad. Take shazams BH guide for example. It is irrelevant that the guide is geared towards 5v5 arem games because there is a demographic for players who prefer that. But look at the starting build, vlads and ptreads and yasha, He spend something like 6k gold on something that provides nothing towards survivability and gives crap offensive for what it's worth. No comments on the later sections as it is okay and some parts are quite good I think.

2)Shorter guides are not bad. Screenies are good, but there are 2 demographics your guides can appeal to which are either total newbies who have never seen what a storm bolt looks like and people who know the game but have yet to discover a different side to it. Most people do not need a ss of someone throwing a hammer at the other guy. And oftentimes, players are best left to their own devices because it is detrimental to ingrain a "bible" mindset where they have to go by what someone else said. An example is NozG's guide to lich and treant on DA or JustinKong's guides(the Competitive Forum Leader). Their guides are really short. In fact, their strategy section for each phase is like 4 lines. But both players outlined the most important and only the most important justifications or strategy so the player does not need to sift through 2000 pages of text to actually know what was needed.

3) Replay based guides. Pictures are worth a thousand words. Replays are worth a million. New guides should either have a replay of themselves or someone else playing the hero with said build or a high level replay they based it off of. This casts off doubts about the build and often the author's credibility because it was shown to work in an actual game.

4) Extra forum section for hero guide review thread where only mods,VIP or people above a certain post count can review a guide. They write what they think about the build, what needs to improved and whether the guide should stay. Naturally if the guide is killed, the thread is killed.

So you don't sit around trying to approve the guide and it gets removed if it's bad. If you don't let more guides come through, you have only one opinion of the hero and it could be wrong/one-sided/incomplete.

General strategy section
Keep the library for mechanics questions but general strategy should be included in your strats on front page. Why? Forums are sometimes not accessible to newer players as navigation intimidates people and they don't look in the library and start posting lalalala in the gd or heroes subforums. Hero strategies is not whole of DotA. It is the heart of DotA but you only learn the build and what to kill. No one teaches you counters, real strategies or how to actually play the game which is where you get that stupid 1v1 tunnel vision mentality. This is often forgotten and gives something more to talk about.

Warnings
Make a new announcement about this and warn users who make retarded threads. Like how DA doesn't entertain 1v1 threads in their strategy section. Also pointless threads about how something is really gay like "lina is gay cos she kills me one spell". If there was no point to the thread lock it after a day because people feel inclined to be "pro" and give "educated responses" or talk down the guy and then it never dies down and it gets bumped over threads that actually generate good thinking. Last category of thread are those that ask "what item go this hero". It is okay to ask what is viable.

Replay of the week/month
As said before replays are a great way to learn how to play when you get stuck on how to improve your own. Doesn't even have to be big, make a minor announcement like game of the month. List a voted user submitted replay, tourney replay in the pro section, and a highest level replay from somewhere else. That way, people can get a taste of a different perspective and actually learn how DotA is. This also clears the mindset of some people who go OMG TOTALNEWBIE ART OF MINDGAMES PRO PRO GUY ON YOUTUBE, when half that stuff isn't even doable in a proper game or is 1/1000.

Caspian mechanics blogs get more exposure
Is interesting and might answer some people's questions.

Possible FAQ
WTF, THIS IS TOO MUCH
Implement it partially and minor parts where you see fit. I didn't say go do all that in one go. And if you asked me to find some stuff to help out I actually might.

WTF? DotA is meant to be a fun game not some elitist thing so why would you do this?
DotA is a team game and if you think it's elitist too bad. Some people actually care about player quality. Sure it's meant to be enjoyed, but who will be enjoying it when you get owned because you couldn't stfu and listen to better players

How will we distinguish this from DA or DP?
Naturally the guide quality and quantity and systems. Caters to different geographic population.

What do you hope to see from this?
More varied guides. Actual threads that spark constructive discussion. Take these for examples:
Do you think that lina is viable without blink dagger even without healers? If not state what items do you think she can use and lane placement, position in teamfight.
What lineup do you think meepo is good and which hero do you think works well with his net spam for crowd control?
etc etc

It's not repetitive and breaks the monotony.

It doesn't have to be serious, it doesn't need to be for clan wars or ih. Just keep it meaningful.

What can I do to help even if this is not implemented?
Keep writing your strategies, keep making meaningful topics.

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Orochi

Yamata No Orochi
Executor Posts: 1656 Joined: 01 May 2006 23905 gold

Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 9:11 am

The main difference between DA/DP and DS is that we don't harbor their elitism. Quoted from teh prince's blog:

Quote:
here I return to the true spirit of entertainment.

As for your suggestions, they are almost exactly what I want DS to be in the near future. I'll relay these to the big cheese.
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