So apparently my last article generated quite a bit of feedback, both private and public, ranging from people I'd never heard of to a member of joinDotA. Most of it was interesting, if a bit depressing, however there was one comment that really, really bugged me:
"Why would you want the DotA 2 Community to become the Starcraft 2 community?"
The intent of this comment is quite different from the reality, and I'll be dealing the former first. What they were implying was that, sort of like the fighting game community, the DotA community is much more 'raw' than most online gaming communities. Quite simply what this means is that the community is giving itself a free pass to be more liberal with their usage of words, unlike the much more sanitized and civilized Starcraft community. Said commentor wishes to carry on this way and exclude anyone who is uncomfortable with the language and attitude espoused by the community, with their main fear being that their words are censored or subjected to much closer scrutiny than they normally are on the internet.
However, the reality of it is much less benign. Largely due to KeSPA helping to legitimize and popularize e-Sports in South Korea, allowing companies to pump money into the game, Starcraft achieved the status of a national sport (factors such as the recession, ease of play, balance and gameplay helped to make the game popular and to ease the process of legitimization). Going on from this, Starcraft had the backing of powerhouses like Samsung, South Korea Telecom, WEMADE Entertainment, two television channels and three major tournaments, the best players were on the status of well-loved celebrities and won enormous amounts of money. Even though the match-fixing scandal did shake the community to its core, it persisted and survived, at least until Starcraft 2.
On the release of this game, the non-Korena community began to integrate, with tournaments such as GSL (based in Korea but with dedicated English casters and foreign players), IPL, MLG, Dreamhack and TSL, allowing players from all over the world to enter and have a chance at winning vast amounts of money, barcrafts (an event where people go to a bar and watch Starcraft tournaments) are going strong and finally there are a vast amount of celebrities, commentators, teachers in the community, and Starcraft media to consume. If you'd like another comparison, League of Legends, a game that is the same genre at DotA and HoN enjoys a massive level of popularity, has high paying tournaments at Dreamhack and MLG, is making inroads in Korea and has an increasing amount of commentators, streamers and celebrities, and unlike Starcraft, this game was built up from nothing.
The idea of DotA 2 having any of this, would be, quite simply, fantastic, and thinking about it, there are only two reasons DotA and DotA 2 have not been receiving the backing of companies and the community thus far. Firstly is the current state of the games and the barriers to entry, DotA was a custom map for Warcraft 3's expansion, adding two barriers to entry almost instantly, and DotA 2 is still in a beta, greatly limiting the influx of new players. Heroes of Newerth had a barrier to entry as well, the initial price, something that League of Legends lacked. Secondly, rather regrettably is the community, Starcraft is largely policed by itself outside of tournament games, though at tournament games, there are officials, rules and rulings (though thankfully, or not, depending on your viewpoint, these are more lax than KeSPA's are), and players and commentators are generally civil outside of trash talking and ceremonies, and if they aren't, the community and tournament organizers react, and they react hard.
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Case Study #1: Orb
Orb was picked up by Evil Geniuses (now referred to as EG), a team who are seen as the 'bad boys' of Starcraft 2 and DotA 2 (not so much fighting games though) so that he could commentate some games for them. At some point prior to being asked by EG, he said some racist stuff in a private game, while he was inebriated and angry and later made an apology, he still made the statements, and EG wasted absolutely no time in dismissing him from their team.
Orb's racist statements in game: http://imgur.com/a/aYs3n
Alex Garfield, the CEO of Evil Geniuses makes an absolutely fantastic statement on it here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=319018
Case study #2: Destiny
Destiny is famous for being at one point a semi-decent American Zerg with good Infestor play, and using bigoted terms a whole bunch.
I could go on about this for ages but I'm going to let two pictures, a caption, and a line of text speak for themselves.
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| Destiny's reply to Alex Garfield's post |
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| All I've learned from this is that emailing sponsors is a good idea. |
Case Study #3: Naniwa
This one is actually interesting because no one was technically in the wrong (though Nestea was completely in the right), it was just an unfortunate clash of gaming culture and values between Koreans and non-Koreans.
At the Blizzard Cup in 2011, Naniwa and Nestea were both in the same group. However, due to both of them going 0-3 in the group, they were joint last and their game would have no bearing in anything outside in one of them finishing 4th and one of them finishing 5th, they would not be able to qualify for the next round short of two of the top three being struck by lightning.
Realizing just how unlikely lightning strikes would be, and hence just how pointless the game would be; Naniwa proceeded to send his six starting Probes to Nestea's base (a move that would only succeed if the enemy player was doing a very, very, very specific opening), take his hands off the keyboard and then typed "gg" as soon as the Probes inevitably died. Quite a lot of players and people on the internet condemned Naniwa for a lack of professionalism, and for not wanting to give the audience a good match, most of this was based on the idea of etiquette that exists in Starcraft. On the other side, Naniwa's actions were defended due to just how little bearing the match had on anything at all, and that Naniwa was just giving it the respect it deserved.
GOM ruled in favour of the former, Naniwa lost out on a guaranteed spot in the GSL reserved for foreigners. Quantic, his team, retain him and support him, though they do apologize for his conduct.
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On the other hand, League of Legends has the Tribunal and an active moderation community, which helps everyone who uses the game outside of tournament play to essentially police the community. Since what I don't know about the higher levels of League of Legends can fill a warehouse, I asked noted up and commentator Studio what he knew about it.
Chucat: Are there any instances in LoL of high level players being either bigoted and getting shut down for it?
Chucat: Like Destiny I guess.
Studio: Dyrus said rape once and apologized.
That was pretty much the worst and only instance, though I did get told the community can still be hostile.
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| This article was low on pictures so I googled Californian Dog and this came up. |
But I'm digressing, the only major difference between DotA 2 upon release and assuming a robust tutorial and being free to play, Starcraft 2 and League of Legends, ignoring the quality of the game (and Starcraft 2's entry fee, which is a non-factor at this point), will be the community. In order to achieve the status of a 'legitimate e-Sport', the community would have to be changed to be more palatable and accommodating, legitimizing it properly to outsiders, investors and the public in general. Quite clearly, it has to be changed, so now we have to look at how.
How can the DotA community be changed?
1) From the top down
The top down implies that high-level players, namely those in professional teams, commentators, and Valve themselves work to improve the community. Valve, because they have made the game, are able to directly and actively work on improving the community, commentators and players are able to passively and indirectly improve the community.
- Direct improvement.
I've already touched on in an earlier article how newbies and leavers can be dealt with, through tutorials and minor punishments (respectively), however, I barely touched on ragers, quite simply suggesting they get punished and that would be that. However, I think I should go over the specifics now.
a) Moderation
DotA 2 already has a robust and simple to use report system, at least once you know how. However, there are some problems. Knowing how to use it at first is a bit counter-intuitive and there is little to no feedback on if your report actually did anything at all. The solutions to this are quite simple: Send an email or steam notification to any player that reports someone and has it yield results, make sure to also include the name of the offending player and the exact details of how they broke the rules. Additionally, more staff could be hired so that reports can be processed faster and people will be more confident in the system.
b) Filters
I'm not a fan of this because of the potential for abuse and how people are liable to attempt to be zany and hilarious and attempt to circumvent any sort of filter by using words like "sniggers" and "naggers". While it would be useful for children and people who don't want to be exposed to language at all, it won't serve to improve the community on its own.
c) Guidance
While I'm not quite advocating Valve directly sitting down and engaging every person one on one and giving them sensitivity and political correctness training (though I would be completely for that), I just mean general things like the notice already given at the start of a game that players can and should be reported for being unpleasant, as well as Valve frequently making it known that they are ready, willing, and have already banned people for these things. However, I am against the idea of incentives being given for being a nice person, since such a thing could quite simply function as just that, a temporary incentive, where people act nice for just long enough to get their goodie bag and then instantly go back to their old, unpleasant ways.
- Passively
This one is a bit more tricky, but it largely hinges on the fact that the commentators and players in the game set a positive example, and then it slowly but surely begins to trickle down to lower level players. The prime example of this is in Starcraft: Brood War and is the general concept of "manner". High level players, especially those shown at tournament play were generally quiet in games (though this was a KeSPA enforced rule to prevent mindgames being employed by players) except for usage of the terms "glhf", which means "good luck have fun" and "gg", which means "good game" and is said by the losing player as a way to admit defeat. This eventually became common in even basic ladder games, in Starcraft and Warcraft 3, and the omission of saying "gg", or saying it to a losing opponent before they say it is seen as something extremely bad mannered and rude.
Outside of the game though, anything goes, especially with the concept of ceremonies and celebrations that winning players tend to carry out, as well as methods they employ to humiliate their opponents, though it needs to be heavily stressed that these are in good spirits and are not meant to hurt or offend anyone at all.
In the case of commentators, their role is much more simple but powerful, they are the main voices of the community and any trends or ideas they put forward will generally be latched onto and accepted by the community. While this can be a force for good, such as in the case of the GSL commentator Nicolas "Tasteless" Plott managing to partially succeed in taking back the word "nerd" and making it a compliment. It also can serve to cause problems if they engage in behaviour that isn't as socially acceptable, such as Destiny's usage of racial slurs, and several commentators using sexually charged terms such as "rape".
All in all, I suppose I'm suggesting that high level players and commentators need to quite simply watch themselves and their usage of language in order to provide a good influence to players and put on a good face for sponsors and the general public. While I do have the basic faith in humanity that such a thing can be done, a KeSPA like organization could always be formed in order to properly police the community.
2) From the bottom up
This is the other way in which the community can be changed, with players seeking to better the community and players and commentators as a whole. If you agree with the idea of being 'politically correct' then just stop reading, this isn't for you and you'll already know the gist of this, if you're not sure what to do, just follow these simple instructions:
a) Act nice to people (I'm not going to explain why I'm just going to hope you have a shred of empathy in your body), if you wish to criticise their play, use constructive criticism, tell them why what they are doing is not the correct way to do things, make sure to cite guides, sources and present your case convincingly. If you cannot do this, then just bite your tongue and deal with it. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by bringing their race, gender, orientation or anything else into it. A newbie can always improve, someone who leaves the community due to disgust isn't going to come back.
b) If another player is being offensive to you or anyone else in a way that suggests discrimination, just tell them that their words are being offensive and see if they apologize. If they don't, report them, ignore them and carry on playing. Don't let them get you down while you're doing an activity that is meant to be fun, and just be confident that Valve will deal with it.
c) If a commentator or a player in a professional team says words that you are offended by, don't hesitate to let the team or organization as a whole, or if the case is extremely severe, their sponsors, know what happened. Large companies as a whole are concerned about their self-image and the people representing them, especially those they invest money in, and if they reflect unfavourably on them, they will let them know.
d) Again, just be a nice person, more people will want to play with you and your games will be a lot more fun!
