NetEase beat Tencent? At first glance, this may sound like a bizarre thing to do.
However, this did happen at the final of the TI (The Internet) Invitational tournament that ended yesterday.
The first Internet Invitational Tournament, planned by the well-known DOTA2 anchor Zard Zheng Xiang, attracted many well-known Internet manufacturers to gather in the live broadcast room after the heavy 996 because of the same love for games. In the interview of the team members after winning the championship, in addition to the joy of winning the championship, it is more of a heartache in the process.
"I'm a programmer, working overtime, thank you Xiang Ge for this game, let me come back to play DOTA." I have no regrets about this account. ”
"It's really not easy, there are people working overtime every night, and we don't have to start until ten o'clock every night for the training game."
There are no huge bonuses, no professional guidance, and even the training time has to be squeezed out by yourself. It is such a competition initiated from the people and warmly responded to by the people, which rushed to the Weibo hot search on the night of the championship, so that the "dead game" became the focus of the game circle and the e-sports circle again after the "mammoth".
Dota 101? Little TI!
The cause of this competition is the TI10 that ended in October, and with the "why not ban mammoth" on the hot search, the chinese team LGD's defeat in the final has brought painful memories to all players and spectators. The last time the Chinese team won the championship was five years ago, the Wings of TI6.
Since then, the loss of the tournament every year has made more and more players choose to leave Dota 2 because of disappointment. After TI10, the domestic DOTA2 community is even worse, and most of the players are "like dead hearts". In order to regain players' confidence, Zard plans to plan an event similar to the talent show "Creation 101", Dota 101, looking for novice dota2 players to relive the joy of DOTA2 as a game.
In the beginning, this was just a game streamer who wanted the whole program effect when it was live. Mainly for low-score passers-by and novice players, but with the influence of dota2 head anchors, coupled with the increasing attention of "Dota 101" in the DOTA2 community, attracted a Tencent programmer with an ID of "Wency". She told Zard that there are many "turret" players within Tencent and has also held internal competitions. And this wave directly blew up the Dota2 players of other Internet companies lurking in YY. This became the opportunity for the birth of the "DOTA2 Internet Employee Cup".
Under the name of "Play Terrier", there is no ambiguity in the competition
If TI's so-called "knife circle Spring Festival Gala" only plays with stems and frolicks, then it will not have the attention of today's circle breaking, but as a farce, it disappears into the other program effects of the anchor. What makes people remember and recognize it is that the players don't just treat it as entertainment, they prepare as seriously as a real professional player treats TI.
Under the call of Zard, the "DOTA2 Internet Employee Cup" was officially established. Major Internet manufacturers and enterprises have joined in, and the addition of international enterprises Microsoft has upgraded the competition to the "International Invitational Tournament". In the end, the "DOTA2 Internet Employee Cup" finalized a total of 16 participating teams.
The first wave of competition between the participating teams is not in the game, but how to name the team and make the corresponding logo.
From the above list of participants, you may be able to see that this game is full of jokes, self-deprecation and playfulness, which is also one of the reasons for the popularity of this competition, the Internet companies that usually show people with strictness have joked under the taboos of their employees, and the serious image is deconstructed here, forming a novel sense of contrast.
For example, the first Little Penguin team is Tencent's representative team. This is the most normal team name. The second Alibaba's Little Fu Leopard Team is from Alibaba's boss Ma Yun's famous speech: "996 is a blessing." "Jiaxin Candy" is the fan name of Jiaran, a member of ByteDance's hottest virtual girl group A-soul, and the origin of today's famous sick terrier.
There are also more interesting and more testing terriers of Internet surfing level: NetEase's black dolphin team, NetEase in addition to Internet companies, there are also investment pig factories; Mihayou's beggar team, from a famous meme:
Because the character movements of the memes resemble Chinese characters. The "Kikuuchi" team from Huawei is because Huawei's brand logo is like Chrysanthemum, known as Chrysanthemum. What's more fun is that the five players of the Kiouchi team changed their game nicknames to XX chickens such as Liangfa Chicken and Miscellaneous Chickens, which together are five chickens, which means that Huawei's 5G cause is invincible. It has both playfulness and metaphor.
The members of these 16 teams are from Tencent, NetEase, Ali, Byte, Xiaomi, JD.com, Meituan, Station B, Perfect, Douyu, Baidu, Microsoft, Kuaishou, Huawei, Mihayou, and Lilith, which are 16 Internet companies, so they are named "DOTA2 Internet Employee Cup" The Internet, which is the same as the ABBR of the DOTA2 International Invitational "TI".
The 16 Internet manufacturers are mostly competitors with each other, so there are also many "grievances". From the beginning of the exhibition match, there has been a battle between Baidu and ByteDance's Internet giant "BAT" in B, and the players on both sides played "Let's see who is real B" on the public screen before the game; in addition, there are kuaishou and ByteDance, Ali and JD.com and other competitive derbys.
After the first round of group competition, Tencent's "Little Penguins" team successfully attracted the attention of the audience, and they became the favorites to win the championship with the highest average ranking score, and they also lived up to expectations all the way to the final.
NetEase's black dolphin team went all the way out of the loser group and defeated the DODO team of Perfect World in the loser group final. NetEase did not forget to taunt when winning, and played "DOTA2 Orthodox in NetEase" on the public screen. Derived from the dispute between Warcraft and Perfect World's Dota 2, which is operated by NetEase.
On the final stage, from the loser group all the way out of the "one wear five" black dolphin team, reproduced the script of TI10, realized the upset of the big hit Tencent "Little Penguin", defeated Tencent 3-0, and won the first TI championship!
Looking back at this game, whether it is the purpose of holding the game, or the team names and team logos of each family before the game, it seems that most of them are jokes or even jokes. But as the schedule became more and more intense, the game also changed from pure entertainment to competition. Before the finals, the no. 1 player of the black dolphin team sent such a circle of friends: "After getting up today, I will play the best dota in my life."
Before this competition, it is difficult for you to imagine that a group of Internet employees who are usually 996 and call themselves "social animals" and "code farmers" are actually willing to pay their precious and little spare time off work to treat a competition with no bonuses, no prizes, pure non-governmental organizations, and even stay up late for training and review. What sustains them to do something that has nothing to do with their profession? Thinking about it, it is nothing more than two words: love.
Who didn't love it initially because of the game itself?
epilogue
After reviewing the ins and outs of the entire tournament, let's return to the headline: Why did this folk contest become a carnival for all Dota players?
The first is the effect of the program that began with playing the terrier, many Employees of the Internet factory have competed, in the play of the terrier and self-deprecation, the serious and serious image of the big factory is structured one by one, which is the beginning of attracting most passers-by, but this is definitely not where the players are moved by this.
As mentioned above, this game of no fame and fortune just returns to the original intention of the game, or the original intention of the game - because of love. This makes every game they play very pure. Moreover, the contrast is the DOTA 2 event that has been criticized for a long time, plagued by diseases, and even the final is suspected of being a fake match.
As at the moment of victory, the black dolphin team members said: "The code farmer work is too busy, every day to get home at 10 o'clock to start training, there may be no people", work is work, DOTA is life, every team member's love to generate electricity, so that this game seems to be incomparably pure.
In the final interview of the loser group, the head of the DOTA2 project led by Zheng Xiang said: "We come from different companies and have different positions. But we all have the same identity, which is dota 2 players. We will work more sincerely with all players in the community to continue the beautiful story of DOTA. ”