Luminous: 'I enjoy casting a lot and I hope I can continue it.'

Hi Luminous, Happy Chinese New Year and Valentines day, Gong xi fa cai/Gong hei fa choi. How’s your Chinese New Year and your Valentines day so far, spending it alone? The holidays have been good to me so far. In this Valentines I have come to the realization that maybe Crystal Maiden isn't as desirable as she has perceived to me. I am now more incline to favor her big bosomed sister Recently, You cast the most prestigious Dota 2 event of 2012, The International 2 and you were even chosen alongside with LD to cast the Grand Finals. Can you please share your experience with us? Casting at TI2 was one of the most enjoyable casting experience I've had in my casting career thus far. There's something special in live casting that no other form of casting can replace. Working with the Valve guys have been awesome as well. We didn't have to focus on managing the players, or worry whether the stream is crashing - all we had to do is focus on casting. I believe this type of environment brings the best out of a caster. Aside from how Valve handled the very end of the tournament, I am extremely satisfied with how the event turned out.

Are there any thoughts or suggestions on how Valve could improve the tournament? Perhaps extending the event for one more day might have been for the best, both for the players as well as the staff involved. The day started early (around 6am) and ended very late (past midnight). The Valve guys and the guys from the front desk have been visibly exhausted by the end of the event, and I am sure the players themselves wouldn't minded a more relaxed schedule. However, I am not sure whether the venue could've been rented for an extra day.

Lumi casting TI2 with LD Moving on, ever since TI2 you have "disappeared" from the scene in the sense of not live casting tournament games etc. could you tell us what happened to you? Despite my continous activity on my Youtube channel, yes, I have not done much live casting after TI2. It's a combination of not having any tournaments for me to cast, my school schedule, as well as the odd hours that I've been requested to cast in (2-4am my time). My schedule to do live cast is fairly open, though that may or may not change in the near future. Aside from yourself, the DWS, Dota Weekly Show, seemed to have disappeared from the scene, could you share with us your plans on DWS and why have you discontinued it? DWS being discontinued is mostly due to my own lack of interest in creating it. I feel that there are similar content now in the scene to replace the weekly dota news update for the viewers, though I miss doing various mechanics / game tips segments for DWS. I don't think I'll bring back DWS, at least not in its original form. I am currently more focused on doing replay casts, as well as working on hero guides. Lets move on with your casting career, how did you start commentating Dota? Have you commentated on any other Esports title prior to this? In the summer of 2009, I was fairly inspired by watching a lot of SC Broodwars cast on youtube, and wanted to do some casting of my own. At the time, I was involved with Dota and Pokemon, and eventually I decided to cast Dota since it seemed more fun. I had zero knowledge of the competitive scene, but I decided to pick up the mic anyways. The rest just snowballed from there. A common thing around youtube channels as well as commentating are criticisms to which your fellow commentator Tobi is taking a lot of flak about. Can you share with us your opinions and thoughts about this, as well as how are you dealing with it especially when you first started commentating? I feel having a 'thick skin' is something that a caster needs to have. No matter who the caster is, he or she will have haters. I personally have known many promising casters that couldn't deal with the haters and eventually gave up on casting. My attitude towards haters is more or less a mild disinterest - I don't really care what the haters say about me, in fact, if they care enough to hate on me, I have gotten their attention! I try to only focus on the constructive criticisms that viewers leave for me, and improve my casting step by step. I think having haters is a necessary part of being a caster, it's something that I've learned to deal with.

Moving on, a running joke on your channel is whenever you upload a video, people tend to prioritize watching your videos over their studies, their sleep etc. Can you share with us your thoughts about this? Haha! I am not sure if it is a running joke, since most viewers that I've talked to told me that they have definitely used my video to procrastinate on their school work or even sleep. Since I am studying to be a teacher, I would say "do your homework first, and then surf Youtube" - but we know what's really gonna happen. Viewers that find enjoyment from my commentaries are what motivates me to cast more, and that's more valuable than any award or paycheck.

Luminous in TI2. Photosource: Teamliquid wiki As your future plan is to be a teacher, will you continue your casting career after successfully being a teacher? If so, will you tell your students to follow your current viewer's footsteps? I'll definitely make sure my students turn in their work on time, and pay attention in class... as to how they want to spend their free time, it's up to them ;). As for my studies, I plan to finish my Masters in Education first and see how things go. I enjoy casting a lot and hope I can continue doing Dota related content, though it's currently not financially stable for me to keep on casting.

You used to co-cast with LD a lot when he first started his casting career, and you have shown a lot of synergy especially in TI2, will we see more of you guys together in the near future? Also, how do you feel about him starting a BeyondTheSummit Studio in Los Angeles alongside GoDZ? I am extremely happy to see that LD and Godz is moving to LA, as well as their successes so far with BTS. Especially in LD's case, it shows that with some luck and a lot of hard work, a caster can climb very quickly and garner the support of the Dota community. In terms of LD and I casting together, that will be up to BTS as a whole. I imagine that we'll be casting some tournaments together in the future, though nothing is ironed out at the moment.

Is there a chance we might see you joining BeyondTheSummit in the near future? BTS is LD and Godz at the core, though that might change in the future. I will more than likely join in as a co-caster, but that's all I can say for now. Moving on, DotaCommentaries has always been a great place to search for VODs and casters, are there any plans for more casters and contents to come? DC is definitely a shadow of its former glory, so to speak. Only Bballin and myself has been actively doing commentaries, and these have been mostly replay cast. ScreenGuardGuy, which is our newest member of the casting team, is primarily casting Dota1 replays at the moment. We do plan to increase activity on the site, though I can say it has not been a primary focus on my part. With that said, we might be casting a tournament or two in the future, so keep an eye out for that. You’ve been an old school Dota player -- with the marketing strategy that Valve has approached and the gameplay updates, how do you feel Valve has made the game into? On the most part, I am in support of Valve's direction in marketing the game. With that said, I do have several individual complains about how things are currently being done. First, compared to the old days of replays, tournament replays now takes a large amount of money to keep up. I understand that the money are going to the tournaments and thus are indirectly helping out (some of) the players, but these hurt the viewers that want to download the replay for a closer inspection of their favorite teams or pro players. I don't understand why tournament tickets don't become free two or three weeks after the conclusion of the tournament, so that video makers, casters or players can download and use the replays. Secondly, I wish Valve can impliment better incentives for playing more games of Dota2. League of Legend keeps players playing to earn champions and summoner skills, and though I am not suggesting that Dota2 needs to do this, I believe Dota2 needs more than just a crappy level up system that awards a random cosmetic item. I play a lot of Dota2, and I want to be 'rewarded' for doing so, whether if it is cosmetic items, more game mode/options, etc etc. In this particular area, I feel that there's a lot Valve can learn from other companies in terms of marketing and/or keeping their player base growing. Lastly, a personal complaint is that Valve is taking a fairly long time to deliver us the game that we love. Where is the Coach-system that Valve promise? Why is the Learn tab so unuseful in terms of explaining what spells do and how they interact with each other? I could go on and list more, but at the end of the day, I understand that Valve is slowly working on these issues. Having a better game at the end of the day is worth the wait, though I (and many other) hope the game will be fully 'released' before the world ends - whenever it ends next according to the mayan calender. Speaking about DotaTV, how do you feel Valve can improve it in a caster's perspective or in general for spectators especially users who are new to the game/want to try it out? I feel that having a caster's voice/point of view stored in a replay is a neat idea, though Valve hasn't been too helpful in providing supports to the casters in actually utilizing this feature. Casters are supposed to 'figure it out' themselves, which at times lead to various technical difficulties and resulting in lack of audio qualities that tournament ticket holders have paid for. Since individuals are paying Valve and the tournament organizers for tickets, I believe Valve has the responsibility in putting out tutorials/guides to the casters and streamers in fully utilizing DotaTV, as well as having higher standards in quality control. As I mentioned earlier about my experiences in casting TI2, casters will provide a lot better commentary when they don't need to worry about all the technical issues involved with a broadcast. In terms of the actual replay/live viewing system, I've been wanting a 'full screen' mode for a long time now. Something that can stripe away all of the UI and let the screen see as much as it can see... I am sure that it can make a teamfight look less confusing and way more glorious. Zooming features (letting viewers/caster set a comfortable level of zome) throughout the game would be cool as well. Lastly, the replays are still buggy! Why is Spirit Bear called Alpha Wolf and Spiderites called Roshan? As you have mentioned earlier, Valve should implement a better way for players to stay hooked to Dota 2 such as the level system, comparing to the game in its genre, how do you feel Dota 2 as an E-sports in the near future? As well as how do you think Valve can improve the game by making it better and more user-friendly? I personally believe that the best way to promote a game like Dota2 is through creating a competitve environment. As much as The International is a great promotional tool for Dota2, I believe it creatives negative consequences for the competitive scene. Next to The International, no other tournament even comes close to mattering, in both the financial or the pride department. As a result, professional teams take breaks or don't practice as rigorious as they can. However, by having more frequent tournaments that matters more (in prize money and recognition), higher tiered pro teams have something to fight for, and lower tiered / amateur teams still have a place to compete. Now, I am not saying that this is up to Valve to fix. Since the game is still technically in Beta, many sponsors / tournament organizors are hestitant to pick up Dota2, especially as a direct competitor to LoL. With that said, I believe Dota2 can only be a successful ESport if the tournament scene is strong and robust, and the teams are practicing frequently. The game itself is progressing splendily. There are lots of bugs and such, but I feel that Valve is doing a fine job patching things up as they are introducing new contents. Dota2 is a very difficult game, so I imagine better implementations of guides and tutorials will be the best way to increase its user-friendliness.

Recently, instead of new contents, IceFrog tends to release more balance patches instead. And however he/she/it opts for a buff the weaker heroes than nerfing the "OP" heroes, can you share with us your thoughts about these? I am a big fan of the recent approach in balancing. I think viewers enjoy seeing new strategies and new heroes being used, and by buffing the lower half of the hero pool, these heroes and strategies will become more mainstream. I believe that Dota2 picks will always be trend based, but by buffing weaker heroes, we move closer and closer to a state where teams can comfortably step out of these trends and try different heroes/strategies. Even within the same patch, we see teams adapting and changing. Heroes that were popular one month ago are no longer first pick/first ban, since teams have learned to deal with these heroes. Three or four years ago we saw less than 20 heroes in the competitive pool, and in today's metagame, more than half of the heroes are playable. I feel that this is partly resulted from the way that Ice Frog is balancing, as well as teams are getting better and better. On behalf of GosuGamers and the Dota community, I would like to thank you for the interview and best of luck in your studies. Do you have any shoutouts? Shoutout to the fans for the constant support, as well as all the staff members of DotaCommentaries and Valve. Special shoutout goes to FluffnStuff and EternalEnvy for teaching me lots of Dota recently.

Luminous in social media