Mo' Russian

[The Wykydtron]

Y'know I thought that all the DOTA players must be throwing all the Russian hate out of proportion and were just being racist.

Then I played DOTA 2. Yeah... Is it still racist if the hate is legitimately justified? Like I have nothing against Russia as a country but gosh Russians in DOTA...

 

[The Wooster]

Hey, so remember that comic project Cory and I were working on? Well the first issue is currently available as part of the Bum Rush Comics lineup. It's called Bad Dad and it's an action comedy about a recently-paroled supervillain and his superhero daughter. The first issue will cost you two bucks, but you can also get it in a five dollar anthology that collects the three other comics in the Bum Rush lineup.

Bought it. Read it. Love it. Want more. Please provide at earliest convenience.

Thanks a lot. There'll be a new issue every month.

 

[Stomperchomper]

Interestingly, I haven't gotten matched with any Russians in a while. Lots of Spanish speakers though, which leaves me in pretty much the same situation.

 

[Goliath100]

Well, Kasparov may not be aware of The New Chess [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/loadingreadyrun/8733-The-New-Chess].

This has inspired me to make Escapist Chess.
First: make your move like this:
"e4"
Than say something relevant about the actual subject. Post, and then report your opponent's last comment for low content. First to be mated or loss a comment loses

 

[Yossarian1507]

I like how that one guy in the back doesn't move or say anything.

Just another player archetype; the guy who seems like he's blocked his whole team and is playing a single-player game.

I thought that was the AFKer.

As a LoL EUNE player, I have no problem with Russians, because most of them migrated to their own server. The players I do have a problem with are other Poles (I'm a Pole myself, and I'm ashamed of 99% of my countrymen behavior in this game. It's simply atrocious), and Greeks. My God, the Greeks in LoL. First, their foreign language is even more irritating than others thanks to their alphabet I can't decipher. Second, if they do try to speak English, it's going to be something along the lines of "omg noob, bg, i afk", and last but not least - from my observations, they are the worst nation skillwise on the server. I'm playing for almost a year now, and I'm yet to see anyone with a Greek nickname and a positive score.

 

[mindfaQ]

I don't have a Russian trauma as many people seem to have, although I've played a lot of Dota 2 already. Hmm.
Anyway, Kasparov is right by saying that elegant game design like Chess and Go will not disappear. But the forms in which it is delivered change as well (real boards with different figure styles, chess video games, gaming over the net), if we wanna draw an analogy to the graphics of games.

I btw don't think that there are no video games that will not played in hundreds of years. Graphics or input devices might change over the years, but it is likely that there will still be games like Bejeweled and Tetris.
How will competitive video games fare... I don't know. Depends on the following of people and we can only really estimate it once an eSport grows to a level where parents actually introduce their kids to the game and this will take years and a long life time of the same game principle. In the end we already have reoccurring themes, like RTS, Arena Shooter, ARTS, Racing Games, Shmups, Fighting Games, ...... which are the same in their quintessence (most of the time ^^). It is not a huge step to just keeping the gameplay of one "proven to be great" game and just keep up to date with the tech environment. It is happening with Fifa since 1993 (although I don't like the marketing strategy behind it), it is happening with Dota since 2005 (or earlier, if you want to count the Guinsoo era, although it was a lot less thought through then), ... .

 

[quarrelsome]

To be fair to the ruskis that is actually a terrible opening move in Chess. AFAIK there are no official openings that begin with moving the King's bishop pawn forward two places. If you follow that opening up with moving the King's knight's pawn forward 1 space then you open yourself up to a two move mate.
Also The board is wrong. The white square should be on the right, therefore the king should be where the queen is. In that case the opening then becomes the Queens bishop pawn and is therefore the English opening which is much more decent.

Sorry to be "that guy" but people that are into chess get a touch irked when its constantly mis-represented .

 

[Smertnik]

It's very hard to prevent a generalisation of an entire race/country/culture when there are very few examples to dissuade it.

There're plenty of examples, you just don't notice them because they either speak English like everyone else or stay silent and just play well. Just like the Dota community in general doesn't consist entirely of the rudest scum of the Earth as many people claim, you simply notice and remember them way easier than "normal" people, even if you only meet one every other match.

 

[JaceArveduin]

It is hard for you to avoid Russians in Dota? For Russians that hate playing with other swearing idiots from the same country it is even harder. I sometimes play on US East - yes, 160 ping, but at least I am the only Russian.

No sir, you are not. Trust me. I play on US east and every game someone is yelling at me in either Spanish or Russian. Wouldn't mind all that much if they weren't dicks but then again that's pretty much dota and online games in general

Pfft, you racist pig, it's not Spanish, it's Portuguese! Get it right!

*doesn't play DOTA 2*

 

[Vigormortis]

I'm not racist, but...
Russians are the single most obnoxious demographic in online games I have ever encountered....

Then you've cleared never played Left 4 Dead 2 with nothing but French Canadians...

I kid! I kid![footnote]Not really.[/footnote]

 

[IamQ]

The one thing that does make me go a bit :I is the hammer and sickle hat, but I doubt that most westerners have an accurate depiction of a modern Russian, who isn't a communist (and most of them never where, people hated it with a passion because of how it exploited citizens).

Lol @ the babushka in the back though.

I think they know that. They probably just used it as something generic to show that he's russian, just like the guy in the tracksuit.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Wait, since when is there a large percentage of Russian players on North American servers for games? I've run into Brazillians more times than I can count, but no Russians. Is this Russian thing new, unique to DotA, or have I just been lucky enough to avoid that particular language barrier with my team mates? Granted, I haven't been doing much online gaming in the last few months. But that's a few months compared to 12 or 13 years of regular online gaming.

Edit: Or wait,are Grey and Cory in North America? Are the Russians the Brazilians of Europe or something?

 

[RandV80]

I get the impression that people often use the term 'like chess' in a similar way that older people will refer to all video games as 'Nintendo', like for example in certain sports you'll sometimes here the phrase 'the coaches are playing a chess match' or something like that. Which I hope is the case here people are talking about here, because I felt this way towards Starcraft 2 so never mind MOBA games, but to actually make a direct comparison is kind of insulting to chess.

Basically what it comes down to is that chess is essentially pure strategy. The game itself is so simply that a 5 (or younger) year old can learn it, yet the strategy is so complex that you can spend a life time and never master it. While competitive games like Starcraft are termed 'real time strategy' I find the 'strategy' use can often be pretty light, at least in comparison to chess. Now stay with me here for a second, I don't mean to belittle Starcraft, it's just as a video game there's so much going on. You have you're macro play, which is essentially textbook knowledge and practice through repetition, and micro play, which is more skill/precision & twitch reflexes. If you're say a tier higher in these two aspects than you're opponent, then it doesn't matter they're a 12 year old kid or a legitimate chess grandmaster 9 times out of 10 (or whatever) you're going to win. Strategy of course does come into play when you have two equal players in this regard, which you will at the pro league level, but still I consider the level of strategy to be more on par with poker. So I basically see pro Starcraft players as a combination of Tetris masters and poker all stars, but not chess grand masters. I can't really comment on MOBA players here because I've barely played them, and my bias leans towards the negative side, but I'd think they're on a lesser scale than the Starcraft pro's.

But regardless I'm just ranting here because this has been a pet peeve of mine for a while, it's not that series that I can't love the comic here!

 

[Lawnmooer]

I'm really confused about this whole "Russians" thing...

Why are there so many Russian/Eastern European pro Dota 2 players, yet the majority of Russians/Eastern European players I encounter are just god awful?

The lack of communication doesn't really bother me (Positioning, pings, drawings and the chat wheel are more than enough to be able to determine various intents and such) - It's the constant feeding, the worst item/skill builds and the annoying "Auto-attacking the creep waves constantly" during the laning phase that really get on my nerves...

While it's not a Russian only thing, the majority of people that are like this that I encounter are Russian...

Also, don't Russians have their own servers? Do they really need to connect into the European ones?

 

[Shjade]

Y'know I thought that all the DOTA players must be throwing all the Russian hate out of proportion and were just being racist.

Then I played DOTA 2. Yeah... Is it still racist if the hate is legitimately justified? Like I have nothing against Russia as a country but gosh Russians in DOTA...

It's the same as the stereotypes around Brazilians in LoL: exaggerated by generic dislike.

You run into jerks who speak English and you can separate them out as individuals ("That guy who kept saying he was lagging," "that guy who kept raging at our mid," "that guy who blamed every death on Chen not saving him," etc.). You run into jerks who speak languages you don't understand and they're not individuals, they're all lumped together as the same vague entity in your head. Every player who says something Russian is just filed under "all Russians" and the hate starts, regardless of whether the player particularly deserves the level of vitriol directed at them for being Russian.

If you'd like to test this, try copy/pasting some Russian phrases into all chat for a few games in Dota 2 and observe how differently you're treated by players on either/both teams compared to when you communicate in English, regardless of the fact that you're likely to play roughly as well as you normally do.

tl;dr - The hate isn't justified. Russians in DOTA 2 are no worse than everyone in DOTA 2. It's at least 95% dicks regardless of nationality.

 

[vdrandom]

Are the Russians the Brazilians of Europe or something?

We are, apparently.

As funny as it is, nobody seems to mention that much like the UK is not the only English speaking country in the world, a lot of Ex-USSR (CIS, Baltic and Ukraine these days) are also Russian speaking, at least up to some degree. Hell, most of Na`Vi team (they're quite famous, look them up) are Russian speaking, but are not from Russia (three from Ukraine and one from Estonia). Not to mention that it may be very difficult to tell some slavic languages from Russian if you didn't have enough experience with any of them. I've actually seen people reacting to ?Russians? who's been talking Ukrainian all the game.

Also what makes you think that jerks that know your language are more capable in terms of communication and less abrasive than those who don't? Or do people enjoy being insulted in their own language more?

And what makes you think that those who are capable won't find a way to communicate? Pings and chatwheel are still there, and people actually use them.

PS. So, unlike a lot of people in dota community I would really not like to see any region locking taking place since I enjoy playing with my European friends.

EDIT:

Also, don't Russians have their own servers? Do they really need to connect into the European ones?

I hate to disappoint, but in my opinion it's obvious: most of them are stupid enough to just check all servers on the list while others are just there to troll.

 

[hickwarrior]

PS. So, unlike a lot of people in dota community I would really not like to see any region locking taking place since I enjoy playing with my European friends.

And this is the problem I have with playing DOTA 2 pub style. It just doesn't work, it's nowhere near as fun, and I turn into 'that' guy. I think it's the jerk. Regardless, it's freaking stupid how pubs can't try to enjoy themselves every once in a while... To me, it's so much toxic sludge, until someone I can rely on plays the bleeding game. And even then, I can throw rage fits at times...

And russians? Well, people who speak a language I do not understand in a game where communication is key, is going to make me dread a match. Although I'm not playing so...

 

[Boris Goodenough]

Also what makes you think that jerks that know your language are more capable in terms of communication and less abrasive than those who don't? Or do people enjoy being insulted in their own language more?

Well insults don't work so well if you can't understand them

PS. So, unlike a lot of people in dota community I would really not like to see any region locking taking place since I enjoy playing with my European friends.

I think people are generalising, but generalising always happens for a reason...
EDIT:

I hate to disappoint, but in my opinion it's obvious: most of them are stupid enough to just check all servers on the list while others are just there to troll.

I think there is another reason that I haven't quite figured out yet it, otherwise there would be a hell of a lot trolls from Russia.

 

[vdrandom]

I think there is another reason that I haven't quite figured out yet it, otherwise there would be a hell of a lot trolls from Russia.

Believe me, stupidity is the reason enough. Also, it is believed that the more servers you check on the list, the sooner matchmaking will find you the game.