Dota 2: The International 3

Let's just start out by saying.. holee moley!!

G'wan, take a look.. ah you will now won't ye?

http://www.dota2.com/international/home/overview/

For me.. well, I'm impressed. The only other tournaments that I have watched have been Starcraft 2 ones and somehow they didn't seem to be so.. well, huge.

Valve has done a good job I think! The hall looks pretty darn cool and so does the booths the players sit in! The picture below was taken by someone on the DotA 2 team and looks pretty.

All this aside, I was watching the tournament at home. In the luxury of my own little space.. and by all accounts, so were around 1 million other people.

That's right, 1 million peak concurrent viewers.. I had heard quite a few numbers thrown around yesterday for peak concurrent viewers but this is the highest.. and well, I'm astounded. I was shocked by the Starcraft 2 viewer figures when I first started watching but this is on a whole other level.

It really does help that you can watch the tournament games on twitch.tv and in the game client itself!!!!

Then let's talk about the production; there was a small issue in the first match where one of the casters mic's was acting up.. and that was it.. that was the single problem I encountered during the first day of the main event.

Then, this morning while waiting for the games to start again.. the news broke that MLG have, for the moment dropped Starcraft 2 from their Columbus line-up... the current speculation is that it's being replaced.. most likely with World of Tanks.. since they already have League of Legends as their main show.. I think, anyway and I'm not so sure that Riot(who makes League) would take too kindly to DotA 2 being added in to the same show.

For the moment all we can do is sit and wonder.. after all, there still is WCS(The Blizzard run World Championship Series) running along and still pulling in around the same amount of viewer numbers.. though that is a lot smaller than that of The International. But then, the International is a annual event.

It helps that they aren't really in direct competition with each other.. unless you consider this weekend.. where all the WCS finals are on the same weekend as the International.. which I'm not even gonna go into...

Time to get some food, then watch a whole load of DotA 2!

If you've enjoyed reading this, then follow me on Bloglovin and on Twitter @McKnublet - You can also watch me playing games on Twitch.tv and even see some highlights at my YouTube - Click me and subscribe!

Ciao for now!

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Crazy days..

following the Steam Summer Sale!

Oh hello and welcome back fair traveller! Or y'know, you! Sat there in your pj's.. or you even, sat there looking at me when you should be working..

So, I've been pretty absent from Blogger.. as you can tell from the lack of updates.. I have however been quite busy playing games and attempting to produce content for my Twitch.tv and YouTube channels! Another reason that I've not been here, is that I've just got back from a lovely birthday holiday.. my lovely lady took me to Prague for 5 days and it was absolutely fantastic! So.. fingers crossed I will be keeping you updated on here in writing .. and in video on the Twitch/YouTube front about what's going on!

Anyway! Since I talked about the Steam Summer sale in my last post, I wanted to update! I think I managed to survive the rest of the Steam Sale with little to no damage to my Wallet.. I think I ended up buying .. well maybe a couple of games that I never would have without the sale being on!

I bought, or rather.. I left my other half with my steam account and some cash loaded into it... and she bought the following!

RAGE
This is a first-person shooter set in the future - pretty fun game and got a meta score of 79/100. If you've not heard of it or played it, you should give it a go! I'm not usually someone for shooters, but I found it quite good fun!

Borderlands
I don't have much to say about Borderlands really, I'm pretty darn sure you've heard of it! OH! Actually, I freaked out when I heard the title song and I played it on repeat for days for some reason! Anyway, another first-person shooter pretty cartoon-y and fun.

and an awesome little game called

DLC Quest

Whelp, I have even less to say about this.. so I'll just leave this here for you.. a little taster, so to speak!

She did pretty darned well I think! I've enjoyed playing all three of these games .. and I would never have bought them.. maybe I should leave her in charge of my steam wallet more often.. I almost just said wallet then.. but that would never happen. I may be slow, but I'm not stupid.


Anyhoo! Apart from playing those games I've been playing DotA 2 and Diablo 3 much more than I have been playing anything else! Really chomping those levels up on my Barbarian! As you might be able to tell if you had looked over and subscribed to my YouTube and Twitch channels.. when I said it earlier ... ahem..

Right.. with that, I think it's time to bid you all farewell for now!

If you like/subscribe to my channels.. I may give you a present!


Ciao for now!

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Steam Summer Sale and Streaming games

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Well hello there!

First up, it's the start of the Steam Summer Getaway Sale! The first sale I saw on Steam was last Christmas and saw me buy around four games and that was only because I caught it halfway through! Still more than I've ever bought it one go! You can find more information on the sale here! Though it's currently experiencing some heavy load right now so tends to time-out!

Today's deals are as follows and are available for the next 20 hours:

Bioshock - Infinite -50% (€24.99)

Defiance -66% (€10.19)

Hotline Miami -75% (€2.12)

Call of Juarez - Gunslinger -33% (€10.04)

Don't Starve -40% (€8.39)

Left4Dead 2 -75% (€4.99)

Endless Space - Emperor Edition -60% (€10.19)

Scribblenauts - Unlimited -75% (€4.74)

Antichamber -66% (€6.45)

Toki Tori 2+ -34% (€9.23)

That's enough of that for now! I might carry on posting up the days deals, if you're interested that is! I have also heard that Green Man Gaming also has Bioshock Infinite up for half price.. but you can also use their -20% off digital games code for it too!  (GMG20-F202F-UI40F if you're interested!)

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So, as you know I started streaming my random playing of video games. It's quite enjoyable! Well, it means I get to play games more often than I was. I'm mostly playing Starcraft 2, DotA 2 and Diablo 3. Though I have streamed X-COM: Enemy Unknown and my first ever attempt at playing the first Bioshock!

Setting up the stream was quite easy, once I kinda knew what all the things meant.. though it looked intimidating to me when I first glanced at it. With a bit of digging and trial and error I found that the program I wanted to use was the one I mentioned in my earlier post, Open Broadcaster Software... after I had already purchased a personal license for X-Split. Major d'oh moment.

I had set up an account on twitch.tv years ago when I tried to stream with my old PC.. and failed terribly, due to it's horrid specs and my absolutely lame internet connection. I think I already gave the link to the post on Team Liquid that gives a pretty darn good explanation on how to set up the broadcaster software and link it to your Twitch account. If not, let me know and I'll dig it out for ya'll!

Or maybe I will do a detailed post on setting up each of the accounts, who knows! If people want it then I'll do it!

Something that I found really cool, is that Twitch allows you to link your YouTube account to it, to allow you to upload footage directly from Twitch to YouTube.. and it's pretty fast! Though, I think there is something up with the YouTubes at the moment and it's not been letting me upload stuff since last night! :'(

I've not really been streaming one game in particular, I guess that's the character hopper in me taking over.. you know, when you make a character on a game, in my case it was World of Warcraft and being unable to stick with it for any length of time.. I've been hopping between SC2, DotA 2 and D3 regularly and not really sticking to one.. which I think I need to do in order to get really good and build a base of viewers or something?

Oh, I also managed to build up the courage to beat off my ladder anxiety and complete the placement matches on the US servers and placed .. silver. Not too bad.. though my intention was to lose the placement matches and then work my way up from the bottom.. but that message got lost somewhere between my brain and my hands.. and I won a couple of the games. Anyway! Here is one of my ladder games for your viewing pleasure!

Recently my Starcraft streaming efforts have been going towards completing the campaign achievements, it's been really fun so far but I can tell it's going to get annoying!

Anyway, that's me done for now!

Ciao for now buddies!

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What up?!

Howdy doody!

Been a wee while since I took some time to write one of these here blog buddies!

So let's have a brief catch up. I had been living in the UK and working for a games company there, now however my other half and I have moved back to Ireland.. I'm currently unemployed and claiming back the money I put into the Irish system during the four years that I was employed here previously!

On the plus side; since we moved back and I got my lovely new PC all set up and we got some slightly better internets..

See! A little bit of an improvement.. and so I've been able to start doing something that I wanted to do for ages! Stream. Yes, that's right! You can watch me play games! How awesome am I, playing games so that you may watch?!

The program I'm currently using to capture the games is called Open Broadcaster Software or Obs. It's relatively easy to set up.. especially if you follow this handy guide there on TeamLiquid. You basically play your game, the program captures it then sends it to a website(Twitch.tv is the one I am on) and then that let's other people watch it!

So what does that mean for my Blog? Well, nothing reaaaally though it should mean that I may start posting more regularly now that I am spending more time at the computer(though most of that will be spent playing games).

I'm also taking a web design course online that also covers blogging and how to make them look nice and shiny. Hopefully you will get to see some changes go on here as I progress through it!

Oh yeah, I did have something else I wanted to say!

[DISCLAIMER] I'm aware that this is old news, but I only just found out about it but you'll have to let me ramble before I get to the point.

With that said, let's go on a fantasy trip! You buy a computer, you then have to pay a monthly fee to connect to the internet, you then also have to pay a monthly fee for say a Netflix account... but then you must also pay google a monthly fee in order to use Chrome to watch movies... in our world that sounds crazy right? And yet.. read on, dear friend..

So let's put this in real terms, what I'm really getting at is X-Box Live Gold. You pay for the console, you then pay a monthly fee for an internet connection, you also then pay a monthly fee for say a Netflix account.. and then you must also pay microsoft a monthly fee .. for what I'm not sure.. but I know that it's brilliant on their part.

I had no idea this kind of skullduggery was going on! Why exactly do you have to pay twice to be able to access things you pay for on something you have already paid for?!

You can follow and watch my live stream at McKnublet or even subscribe and watch some random clips of videos on my YouTube channel. I generally announce on my Facebook and Twitter pages when I'm streaming live. Whoa, linkfest! Sorry!

Anyway, ciao for now! Expect another update in a couple of days! I have a lot I want to talk about - my streaming fun, my Starcraft, Diablo and DotA 2 progression.. and also games I've not yet discussed!

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Steam Market Place, Mike and Dota 2

Hi again!!

I told you I would be back soon! Not a lot has happened in the past couple of days. Though I did discover a couple of things!

Firstly, I found that a good friend of mine has been secretly(perhaps not so secretly) reviewing games on one of the most fabulous forums available: YouTube! You should check out FairlyAngryMike. Links will be provided at the bottom of this post.

Apart from that, I made one other monumental discovery!! Steam market place.. a place where you can sell items that you get in either Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2, both of which are available on Steam.. Team Fortress 2 is free to play as is Dota 2(if you get invited), otherwise you can pay for "early access" as the game hasn't technically been released as of yet.

Unfortunately it appears that once you have sold something for cash(note moat things on there are up for the insane price of £0.02), you can't withdraw the money from your steam wallet. If I'm wrong, please do feel free to correct me!! Their handy FAQ can be found here

But hey ho! Back to what I was meant to offer some chatter about! I was invited to play Dota 2 by a friend(thanks Andy!), which meant expanding my field of gaming vision quite exponentially by setting up a steam account.. thankfully its quite straight forwards. So I claimed my "beta" key and installed the game, which took much longer than I'm willing to admit - due to the shabby internet connection we are currently forced to accept in this house :sadface.

I went in having no previous experience of actually playing a Moba, I had seen the UI and knew that you pick a hero out of the multitude of available ones.. and that it was equal teams and that as you kill stuff(enemy heros and things called creeps) you get experience and gold which is spent on buying items to upgrade your hero and his or her abilities.

There are a couple of different game modes to try out, the main one I have played is the best for learners to try out really! It's called a Co-op Bot game, which means you will be teamed with other players against a team of AI controlled opponents.

Another mode is simply you and 4 others Vs 5 other players online.. there is a lot of chatter about how abrasive the community can be should you make a schoolboy error, thankfully I haven't witnessed this. The game can be immensely fun, or incredibly annoying depending on how your team plays and communicates!

I would wholeheartedly recommend that you give it a go, if this type of game interests you at all! If you don't have access, tweet me expressing your interest in getting a key @McKnublet!

That's it for now I think, I might do another one later going into a bit more detail about my favourite Dota 2 Heroes since I didn't really go into too much detail about the game itself in this post!

All that's left is to say, follow @FairlyAngryMike on twitter and check out his YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/FairlyAngryMike for game reviews or you can check out his blog in my Blog List on the right hand side of the page!

Ciao for now!

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