Gaming
We talk to legendary observer PimpmuckL about the hard life of watching a lot of Dota.
As Purist Thunderwrath, the Omniknight, will tell you, it’s hard being omniscient. Being all-seeing can take its toll on the Dota 2 observer, which is why there are few among us up to the task. One who has undertaken the role is Jonathan 'PimpmuckL' Liebig, fantasy wizard sport cameraman extraordinaire.
As well as studying Computer Science in his native Germany, PimpmuckL is on a mission to improve the standards of in-game observing. He casted last month’s epic ESL One Frankfurt LAN and became the observer of preference for BTS, DotaPit and the fans too, with some cheeky shoutouts to Twitch chat in games. We found out how he got started, how many hours you need to become a master and what it takes to become the viewers’ eyes in the skies of Dota 2.
How did you get started in observing?
Liebig: Back in the day after The International 2, when I got more into watching Dota, I noticed DotaTalkTV, a stream covering a lot of SEA Dota. The stream was pretty bad quality video-wise, to put it mildly, and I shot the caster, Lily, a message that I wouldn't mind helping out with doing the streaming part and having Lily only worry about casting. She later hit me up on the offer when her PC started to blue-screen from time to time and I then did observing and production for her for a couple hundred SEA games.
What skills does an observer need?
A lot of decision making as observer comes down to understanding the current state of the game. For example, in a trilane versus trilane match-up, showing this lane is incredibly important. If the aggro tri gets shut down, the team will have a huge disadvantage, so focusing on it is the priority in this example.
A lot of this comes down to game sense and experience. I watched close to 10,000 hours of Dota back when TI2 really got me hooked, and that helps a lot to understand the game and show the viewer the most important things in the game.
However, I also do a lot of prep work before LANs to get a good idea where important things might happen. If, for example, S4's Storm goes against SumaiL's QoP, then I have to constantly keep an eye on the midlane because those two tend to play rather aggressive against each other.
How do you keep in sync with what the casters are saying to make sure what’s on screen is what they’re hearing?
This is one of the hardest parts about doing very long events, actually. You have to listen to the casters, follow their train of thoughts and show things relevant to the discussion. Once again, having a good understanding of the game, the meta and the teams is crucial to think quickly and show relevant information to give casters a hand and to strengthen their points.
What do you do if they’ve missed something you notice?
It depends on the caster. Some casters don't like an observer who "helps" them so I tone it down a lot and just play the silent role while others, especially some analytical casters, enjoy some input.
From my experience, the most seamless viewing experience is when the casters use mainly my camera. If they want to check something specific, they can do that on their own PCs to keep the flow of the conversation going.
What has been your favourite tournament to work on?
Well I've only done ESL Frankfurt and TI5 qualifiers as offline events so far, and out of those two it has been the Frankfurt event. I could feel the viewers roar from under the arena where my PC was when KuroKy unleashed fireworks. That was a crazy experience.
Do you prefer being removed from the crowds with the production crew or in there with them?
I think a really loud crowd might be too distracting and being close to the production guys has a definitive advantage. I can usually hear the crowd because I hear the sound mix of the stream, so that's enough to get a good feel of the audience.
It's really important to keep focused at all time, especially when there is tons of action happening on a specific lane – it's crucial to keep focusing on the minimap every other second, which is my personal frequency. Solo kills in those situations are incredibly important for the state of the game, but are already hard to catch. The crowd would definitely make that part a tad harder.
So it’s pretty intense stuff? Sounds almost as if you’ve been playing.
Absolutely. I was analysing the games I observed for ESL, and that was one of my main issues for the semi-finals. I was really scared to mess up, so I didn't really get much sleep the night before and that took a giant toll on me. In those series I sometimes didn't really listen to the casters well enough to show points in advance, so then there was SumaiL's QoP solo killing anyone around the map.
