Dota2 hits ‘celebrity’ status in China — singers, athletes play, millionaires throw parties

Like back when SC2 fans were excited over an NBA player ‘came out’ and said he enjoyed playing SC2, in Asia Dota2 is gradually hitting a sort of celebrity status as well. Except, well, the big names are a bit bigger in terms of following. Read on to find out more.

And of course, there was the iG party thrown by iG’s rich owners, which attracted rich and powerful people from all over: http://dota2.sgamer.com/albums/201209/7804_318406.html —- http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/zp215/billionaire_owner_of_ig_throws_party_in/

Original: http://dota2.sgamer.com//news/201208/146823.html

A year ago, it was reported that mega-famous Chinese pop star JJ Lin (has 15 million followers on weibo, household name in Asia), and fellow singer Cao Ge had revealed on their Weibo accounts that they enjoy passing time by playing Dota and Starcraft 2, for a time piquing the interest and excitement of many Chinese fans. Now, Dota’s successor Dota2 approaches open beta, the question becomes whether or not these stars will move on to the embrace of Dota2?

Reality is just so, as in [late August] JJ Lin posted a picture to his weibo, with the invitation “Fellow otaku [nerd/recluse], let’s play!”, with the image clearly being a screenshot of Dota2 featuring Templar Assassin, Juggernaut, and Luna.

Commentator Haitao then quipped, “Please add me, I’ll buy the chick, sentries, and gem, I’ll give you the lane, creeps, and kills!!”. And following that, famous international snooker player Ding Junhui replied, “I’ve got it downloaded too, after training when I get home, I’ll otaku [nerd/recluse it up] too!”

It would seem that the magic of Dota2 isn’t limited to only us normal gamers, these superstars have also been wrapped in! In some match in the future, it could be one of them you’re playing with~

Original: http://dota2.sgamer.com/news/201209/147103.html

Now Dota2’s popularity is growing immensely, with stars and famous people from all over joining the ranks, using Dota2 as their relaxation in their off time. Bigshots from all sides are paying attention to Dota2, clearly it is a game of wide appeal. Not only do normal fans love it, the rich and powerful and famous are asking for invites too! After TI2, especially, the whole world has been taken by another wave of invite begging. Recently, a certain Beijing Guoan (Beijing’s top tier professional football/soccer team) player asking for invites further proved all of this!

iG releases a ‘commemorative’ highlights video of their TI2 victory

Yeah, this is a bit of fluff. But maybe it’s a bit of interesting, useful, fluffy fluff. Because when even Dotacinema’s TI2 highlights fail to have anything of iG’s, maybe this can fill some of the void. Anyway, this is from iG’s official Youku account. Ignoring the cheesy music and effects, it’s a decent few minutes showing some of iG’s big plays from the Grand Finals of TI2.

The new week will bring more translations – Sgamer’s TI2 player evaluations, and more!

Original: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNDQ4MTg2MjUy.html

Translated transcript (nothing special here):

September 3 2012, Seattle, USA – We stepped onto the grand stage carrying the hopes of our countrymen – Fight! For the glory of victory – Applause, the highest praise for Chinese e-sports – Let the 5-star flag fly high and bear witness to an unforgettable night!

Victory, the only belief – Pride and glory of the nation – An unforgettable night in Seattle – That moment when dreams became reality – A never say die mentality – Bringing cheers and applause to China – We are the most hard-working dreamers – Our name is iG

Sgamer TI2 player evaluations: #2 position

Here we’ve got Sgamer’s evaluations of the top CHINESE performers from the #2 position on teams at TI2. Positions 3, 4, 5 to come in the coming days, and the 1 position is currently available here.

(note: I neglected to add that this is focused on Chinese players, hence an overall lack of any foreign players making the list)

Original: http://dota2.sgamer.com/news/201209/147056_3.html

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Sgamer TI2 player evaluations: Carry position

Note that this is actually an ‘editor’s choice’ from Sgamer, using an original forum post made by a forum regular. Nonetheless, the actual forum post has had a lot of attention, and it is the post that Sgamer chose to put on their front page for rankings of CHINESE TI2 performances. This first installment is a lengthy evaluation of CHINESE carries at TI2, with other positions to come in the next few days.

(note: I neglected to add that this is focused on Chinese players, hence an overall lack of any foreign players making the list)

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Reflections of an old-school Dota pro: from 500 yuan to 1000000 dollars

Written by Quanquanquan, former Nebula member (team from early Chinese Dota), this is an amazing introspective, insightful, and emotional piece from an insider who watched and participated as Chinese Dota went from nothing to the world-beating juggernaut that it is today. It’s long but absolutely worth the read, so click through! Hope you enjoy, I did.

Original: http://dota.sgamer.com/201209/news-detail-148764.html

After seeing the images of iG celebrating their win, seeing DK’s pain after losing, something in my heart stirred, reminding me of the days when the flame of my youth fueled a passion for Dota — that Dota that we all loved!

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Chinese site 17173 ranks the best players at TI2

Two large Chinese gaming sites, 17173 and SGamer, have put up summaries of Chinese fan analysis of the top players in their respective positions at The International 2. This is the 17173 version, I skipped a bit in the middle where it was joke rankings for random stuff. Sgamer’s version is very different and will be coming later.

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After making national TV, Dota 2 and iG make it onto China’s biggest sports newspaper as well!

Note: Check it out! Includes brief comments by Zhou and YYF on Chinese Dota’s place in the world, etc.

Original: http://dota2.replays.net/page/20120905/1725081.html

iG winning The International 2 has stirred quite a bit of excitement in the international eSports scene, and after they made it onto CCTV, now China’s biggest sports paper, TITAN DAILY has coverage of them too.

Translation of article: Beijing time September 3 2012, 11:30AM, at Seattle’s Benaroya Hall the second iteration of the Dota2 International competition’s Grand Finals began: Ukraine’s Team NaVi versus China’s Team iG. Over the next three hours of fierce fighting, iG defeated NaVi by a score of 3 to 1 to win the championship, and a record-breaking 1 million US dollars grand prize.

In 2011, the first Dota2 International had already set the record for prize money. Last year, NaVi won the championship, and Chinese team EHOME sadly placed second.

This year, of 16 of the world’s top Dota2 teams, 5 hailed from China, and over 7 days of competition a Chinese team successfully took the top place, with all 5 Chinese teams making it into the top 8, thus defending China’s glory and honor in this competition.

IG’s star player Zhou had this to say: “In Dota, China is best in the world, and Dota2 is merely an upgrade of Dota, so we face our matches with only one idea, that is to defend China’s reputation and place at the top of the world.”

Over the course of the competition, as long as a match was a non-Chinese team versus a Chinese team, the crowd in Benaroya Hall would gravitate towards automatically supporting the non-Chinese team. “Competing in foreign countries, I feel like we’re playing against the world, the good thing is that we were successful!” another of iG’s stars, YYF, described.

Electronic sports in China has more than ten years of history and development now, and Dota is currently China’s most popular game as well as the game in which Chinese players are strongest. In addition, there is Starcraft, Warcraft, Counterstrike, and FIFA, etc.

Chinese forumers appreciate NaVi

Original: http://tieba.baidu.com/p/1837743738

Title: Not much else to say, congratulations to NaVi for breaking the Chinese surround and winning 2nd place!

Super_Star_佑: Everyone should use a peaceful attitude in looking at this… NaVi’s team execution and overall skill are very strong… 2009 (Chinese commentator) also says, NaVi is a very strong team… they showed that, beating DK, iG, and broke LGD’s undefeated streak. Even though in the end they lost to iG for the championship, they are a team that has earned respect…

粑神: It was not easy [for NaVi, but they did well]

Super_Star_佑: Without NaVi, it would have only been Chinese teams fighting each other. Without NaVi, there would have only been Morphling, Anti-mage, Sylla, Naga Siren. Without NaVi, there would have been no Juggernaut heroics. Without NaVi, there would have been no real excitement in seeing a Chinese team win it all. NaVi, because of you, TI2 is more exciting.

_13eam: Yes, only playing against non-Chinese teams brings out the emotion

euro武生: NaVi showed to us all that this game has no unbeatable hero combos

yamadeh123: Without NaVi I wouldn’t be this excited right now

GsNm_11yue: Indeed I’ve come to respect NaVi. But NaVi fanboys not so much

卡尔不可以: I support NaVi, looking forward to next year’s International

大神爱抗米: NaVi really is fucking good. Pretty much beat every team once. Without them I’d probably have watched ping pong (this is a joke referring to how Chinese always dominate international ping pong tournaments)

ruzishehao3: Though I’m an iG fan, this time I have truly become a fan of NaVi.

花园のTrunks: Yeah, what you said makes sense. Even though I was rooting for iG to destroy NaVi, I can’t help but admit that NaVi is very strong, and all the top teams from Europe and America bring an added amount of magic and excitement to the Dota scene.

我要顺利pass: Feels like if it were Chinese teams fighting for the championship, I could’ve just slept through and checked the result in the morning and be ok with it

nengnengge: NaVi really figured out the Chinese Naga plus Tide system

水穗心岚: I support Chinese teams, but I’m also thankful for the non-Chinese teams.

ehome820357: NaVi is so unpredictable and enigmatic, if they’re still here next year, they’ll be amongst the favorites as well

雷克萨的荣耀: Every time I see Light bro (LightofHeaven) I always think he’s so great! By the time he was world famous I hadn’t even started playing Dota. If we say 820 was China’s first all-around player able to play any role, I think in the same way we can say LightofHeaven is the first Dota player that was recognized around the world. From when Chinese Dota was nothing in the world, to Chinese Dota standing on top of the world, LightofHeaven has always stood against our Chinese teams, from VP, Rush_3D, M5, DTS, to NaVi now.
After seeing iG win, while I was celebrating I also remembered to thank LightofHeaven for his participation in another legendary tournament, I salute your life of Dota!

After TI2, Chinese teams to skip WCG Asian Championships (Asian Cyber Games)

Original: http://dota2.replays.net/page/20120905/1724784.html

WCG Asia, also known as the Asian Cyber Games (ACG), is one of the longest-standing and older high level Asian Dota competitions. From last year, the competition switched focus to Dota2, where EHOME represented China and ultimately lost in Kuala Lumpur.

This year’s ACG has set their main event as Dota2 (other events are Tekken 6 and FIFA), and will run from Sept 7 to 9. But because of Chinese teams all having just gotten back from Seattle, they are still resting. Plus the Chinese ACG partner Neotv didn’t hold any preliminaries, and the result is that China will not be sending any representative team to the ACG for Dota. So, the ACG Dota competition will have no Chinese presence, and the original 8-team tournament is a 7-team event this year.

(editorial) After iG’s win — “All those years, the championship I wanted, it was this one”

Note: This is a pretty powerful piece written by a Gamefy (Chinese gaming TV) reporter named Ling Zhihao. It describes the dreams of a generation of young Chinese gamers being fulfilled in seeing iG win…

Original: http://www.gamefy.cn/topic/dota2_120830/view.php?id=24774

BBC and DC (Chinese commentators), their hoarse voices floating about my ears, 5 golden stars on a red background, the Chinese flag dancing in the air in front of me, brought me back to images of Sky (major Chinese Warcraft 3 player) winning the WCG championship on stage years ago.

That thing we call a dream, it always takes flight quietly at some point in the past. Years ago, those kids staying up late secretly watching their heroes winning on stage, now they’re grown and standing on the stage themselves victorious, leaving their own names on the walls of eSports history.

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