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While in Norway, stuck inside due to continuous falling snow, I flicked through an array of satellite TV channels. Having gone through the mix of usual (Discovery) and unusual (live ice hockey!) I stumbled on an esports channel.
I’ve watched plenty of esports before, but have stuck with what I know, which is basically down to FPS including CS:GO, TF2, Quake, and Rocket League.
This Norwegian channel was live broadcasting Heroes of the Storm Global Championship (HGC), featuring the world of Blizzard in a MOBA. Blizzard, thankfully, have a lot of nods to their old Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo series here, so I could get into the game easily. Or so I thought.
I didn’t really have any idea what was going on and even now, a month later, it’s hard. Besides the old red vs blue, screens get very busy during battles, and commentators are often more about the entire match-up and draft dynamic as opposed to what’s happening on screen that second or what should be happening.
And it was harder to explain what the excellent commentators were suddenly yelling about, what objectives were unfolding, and what jargon was being thrown around (“ETC to mid, will they use moshpit with sanctification still on cooldown?”) to the others watching TV with me at the time.
I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was.
Some 15 years since playing early Defense of the Ancients on Warcraft III, things are complicated. Obviously, League of Legends and DotA2 are the biggest and baddest MOBAs on the planet. But it’s always harder to pick up new franchises, whereas the Blizzard universe is your bread and butter as a slightly older gamer.
Since that evening watching HoTS, I’ve joined the battle for the Nexus and played around 100 games.
And, I’ll have you know, I’ve just been a confused noob for only most of the time.
I read the patch notes. I’ve caught up on the most recent HGC Eastern clash and watched MVPBlack win that final. (I’m already saddened that one of the great supports in Merryday is going back to University.) I’ve watched Grubby on Twitch. I’m in subreddits.
I still don’t really have any idea, but I am hooked.
I’m not the first to write that MOBAs are hard to understand, and I won’t be the last. That’s the great challenge of esports games that aren’t first-person shooters or sports games that are hugely more understandable.
Part of the struggle for anyone not intimately familiar is mixing in player names (which aren’t normal names, but their gamer handles) as well as hero names, plus names for every major heroic ability, plus the secondary objectives of maps and bosses. Oh, and also the regular rule changes (buffs and nerfs) when winrates start to exceed the norm, which makes the scene constantly evolving.
All of this is normal enough but good luck keeping up. So why get so involved?
It’s all part of the satisfaction of watching elite-level games with that broader understanding of what’s happening. Appreciating how well the teams and individuals are actually playing really comes from playing yourself, and seeing what you can apply to your own game.
Whether it’s team fight coordination, team compositions, overarching strategy, or just how often the players are managing to cheat certain death/eviscerate opponents, the meta detail flows continuously.
That’s the same as normal sport too – one man’s Formula One cars going around and around is another man’s timing screens, pit stops and tyre strategy breakdowns, experimental front-wing end plates, and hundredths of a second.
It reminds me of turning one page too far in the sports section in the Sydney Morning Herald and seeing the daily Bridge column, surely read by tens of people.
Here’s a typical Bridge problem:
West leads the ❤️ 5: four – eight – ace and South returns the ♣️ 7: three (reverse count) – king – ace. How would you continue as East?
Learning things is hard, and confusing at first.
And that’s exactly what grips about esports and MOBAs in particular. You’ll probably be awful and have no idea, but for a larger and larger percentage of people, getting just a taste of that challenge is creating new gamers and fans.