In Part One of the interview, hyhy talks about preparing his team for "The International" and the team's mindset during Gamescom 2011 and how it affected their performance. In Part Two however, he talks about Dota 2 in general and how it's different from Dota All Stars and whether he feels Dota 2 will be able to pick up from games like the League of Legends.
Could you share some lessons you learned from your experience in Germany for teams in Singapore and around the world to improve their game?
-For teams that really want to improve, they should watch replays and see how teams win. Actually, they should watch replays and see how their own team loses. Most important is to figure out the key to drafting. Drafting is not as simple as it seems to be. There’s actually a lot of things you can do to secure the picks you want. Beyond simply banning a hero, you have to think of the hero alternatives so that if it’s banned, you still have a hero to fall back upon. It’s a lot of preparation. We spent up to five hours after every tournament day just to sit and discuss drafting.
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Every single team at the competition felt the same. Na`Vi was on a different level.”-I think all of us felt the same. Every single team at the competition felt the same. Na`Vi was on a different level. I believe they were like this because they had a full month to train as a team, I believe on LAN. Their teamwork actually says a lot about them, they’re very good as a team. It seems like they’ve already discovered the top picks of the current game. As we all know, Dota is actually a draft game. They’ve actually mastered the draft, they’ve got the best picks for the game, and they basically crushed every single team. Even the Chinese, who were known for their skills and team play, they couldn’t fight against the draft. So, as I said, Na`Vi is on a very different level from the rest of the teams.
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Actually, this isn’t my biggest win.”-Actually, this isn’t my biggest win. Yes, the prize money is the biggest, but this wasn’t my biggest win. In 2008, my team, Zenith, went to ESWC and we won gold. That was the same year that ESWC went bankrupt and we actually got nothing out of it. I was wondering why the hell this happened to me. ESWC has been running for 20 years and the year we won, this happened. It was very disappointing. So I guess this (placing third at Gamescom) was good for me.
How similar do you find Dota 2 as compared with Dota Allstars?
-Dota 2 is completely like Dota, but also different in certain ways. The heroes look completely different, they reworked the graphics, the game itself is on a different engine, it’s no longer on Warcraft. Players will actually take a bit of time getting used to the interface. The mouse scroll, the map scroll, everything is different from Warcraft III. Even the fog of war is different. We took a full week to get used to it. We’re still getting confused with the hot keys and all that, they’re all different.
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From where I’m seeing, LoL provides me better prospects.”-I will go to where my prospects are better. Right now, from where I’m seeing, LoL provides me better prospects. There is a good team for me to join, and there is a good pool of players. As for Dota, in Singapore it’s very saturated, it’s very limited and most of the players in my generation are all moving on to National Service. Dota is going to be a problem for me if I want to break into the international scene.
You can read the full interview from the links below.
Links
nogamenotalk - Part One
nogamenotalk - Part Two
