it is stupid to make hc5 if viewers know all the players :D
agreee, but it is not all about all players,if you know lets say 12-13 players its enough. and even more if they are in semis or top8105 from 60k is not too many.
This is because (as @doacid has pointed out several times) AoEZone is the only place where conversations that lead to "drama" don't tend to result in one side getting quickly silenced by the moderators of the forum. That is not preferable: such moderation is heavy-handed and often very unfair because it is influenced by the personal biases of the moderators themselves. It is the central point of the community and the only place where the community can be itself so it is natural there will be drama because drama is inevitable in a community as long-lived as this one. Not constructively resolving drama when it pops up, along the lines of what @Pc23 said, is the real problem. It does no one any good to act like AoEZone is somehow at fault for these imperfections.This is a shame that this place is often the hub of the dramaqueens and the whiners of Age of Empires. The community on average is more mature and more helpful than most videogames, but for some reason this central place of the community seems to be the gatherpoint of everyone who does not match this description.
I would have also preferred that the people who download recs, search tournament accounts on aoe2.net or try to track who is in Twitch chat used another platform, because I stated multiple times I did not want to deviate from the viewer's experience and I'd only use T90's stream/vods/videos. Notably during the finals, some people were very definitive in their wrong assumption that Admiral was Viper based on the fact he wasn't watching the stream while Jordan was (as if Viper isn't exactly the kind of guy who logs out of his account during Hidden Cup anyway). I'm especially glad you were all wrong.
I reacted in the heat of the moment yesterday with short posts, but I knew I wanted to do a closure post deserving of these last days.
To me, the hidden aspect of the Hidden Cup has also often been discouraging. In Hidden Cup 2, I actually waited for the event to be over to have the names, and watched the VODs. In Hidden Cup 3, I tried playing the guessing game and actually had 12 correct, but I sometimes felt frustrated because too many of my guesses were random throwaway names. I knew I wanted to do thing more seriously this time and I also knew I'd have a lot of free time this entire week, so everything was well and I was ready to do detective work.
I knew this was probably the best place to gather insights from the players and the very dedicated members of the community who probably had the most knowledge on players. To be fair, I expected a bit more help at the start of the thread, and I ended up doing 16 profiles mostly alone. But once the event started, I was overwhelmed by the amount of people showing up and the quality of the discussions.
This became a place to live react on certain things, and a perfect hub to share guesses. Some things were just intuition for me like ACCM being Warwolf (just a feeling I had during his Arabia and Cross game based on his unit control) and the fact everyone seemed to agree gave me certainty and helped me a lot. Some things were a mystery for me (like Villese being Pope) although I think I would have ended up deducing it based on draft after the first 8 sets, but the certainty of someone like @Jeowaypoint definitely carried me there (although not thank you, because I spent 2 extra hours confirming that Admiral is Jordan simply because you were absolutely certain he wasn't, even if I knew it from that Cross game against ACCM).
I ended up investing an absurd amount of time in that guessing competition, but this was honestly time well-spent. My 14/16 is barely better than last year's 12/16, but it felt a lot more informed. As I said, I had at least 10 with relative certainty purely from their first draft and first Arabia game, while a lot of my guesses of last year were by default. In the end, I should have listened to people like @diguoshidai who had the perfect explanations on why dogao was Bela. The fact T90 barely showed Nicov's Dark Age in the qualifiers and that the few times he did it did not match Little John's costed me the 16/16: I should have trusted the many people who told me it was his exact Dark Age on ladder.
Regarding aoezone, I share the feeling of many people here, including the big names of the community who showed up at some point. This is a shame that this place is often the hub of the dramaqueens and the whiners of Age of Empires. The community on average is more mature and more helpful than most videogames, but for some reason this central place of the community seems to be the gatherpoint of everyone who does not match this description. A few people came here on the thread in a pretty disrespectful tone, but I really enjoyed the general tone of the discussions. And if I myself was a bit rude with someone who had a guess I felt did not make sense, I'm very sorry. I was usually tired and also doing multiple things at once. I usually tried writing "I think this cannot be X because Y" but I might have thrown a few "this is nonsensical" over these last 50 pages. Overall, I say it once again: this was overwhelmingly positive and enjoyable. This is proof that we create the community we want and we just have to be positive on aoezone to bring more positive people in. This place deserves to be much better than it often is.
I would have also preferred that the people who download recs, search tournament accounts on aoe2.net or try to track who is in Twitch chat used another platform, because I stated multiple times I did not want to deviate from the viewer's experience and I'd only use T90's stream/vods/videos. Notably during the finals, some people were very definitive in their wrong assumption that Admiral was Viper based on the fact he wasn't watching the stream while Jordan was (as if Viper isn't exactly the kind of guy who logs out of his account during Hidden Cup anyway). I'm especially glad you were all wrong.
The fact a few pro players including the Hidden Cup winner showed up warmed my heart. It's awesome to know the many people who enjoyed the thread included some big names. And obviously a special thanks to @T90Official for Hidden Cup, but also for showing up here with his kind words.
Cheers to all <3
Thank you so much for starting the fire!
This thread has increased my enjoyment of the tournament tenfold and indeed was one of the most enjoyable threads to read in a long time.
However, I vehemently disagree with your assessment of AoEZone as a "toxic" place or drama prone place.
I know this is a popular notion with a lot of people, but I think this is the result of folks getting used to their safe spaces (their favorite streamer`s chat; discord; social media bubbles; etc.) and a general unwillingness to have their positions challenged.
I`m absolutely certain this place is not more toxic than Reddit or any other public forum, it`s just that in this forum unpopular opinions get as much exposure as popular ones. And that`s a good thing in my opinion.
During Trump`s presidency, I made it a habit of reading Breitbart news everyday.
And guess what, if you read past the aggressive tone of some posts and go direct to the substance, you will often find some very well-argued positions and some very well taken points.
At the end of the day, I still disagreed with 99% of what was written there, but it made me think harder about my positions and why I defend them.
The same thing can be true for people who disagree with you on AoEZone and sometimes use a harsher tone.
It all comes down to how open are you to have your positions challenged and how open are you to the fact that you might not be right about everything.
This thread was amazing. Although I only participated myself during the last day I did read it all. Thank you for your work!I reacted in the heat of the moment yesterday with short posts, but I knew I wanted to do a closure post deserving of these last days.
To me, the hidden aspect of the Hidden Cup has also often been discouraging. In Hidden Cup 2, I actually waited for the event to be over to have the names, and watched the VODs. In Hidden Cup 3, I tried playing the guessing game and actually had 12 correct, but I sometimes felt frustrated because too many of my guesses were random throwaway names. I knew I wanted to do thing more seriously this time and I also knew I'd have a lot of free time this entire week, so everything was well and I was ready to do detective work.
I knew this was probably the best place to gather insights from the players and the very dedicated members of the community who probably had the most knowledge on players. To be fair, I expected a bit more help at the start of the thread, and I ended up doing 16 profiles mostly alone. But once the event started, I was overwhelmed by the amount of people showing up and the quality of the discussions.
This became a place to live react on certain things, and a perfect hub to share guesses. Some things were just intuition for me like ACCM being Warwolf (just a feeling I had during his Arabia and Cross game based on his unit control) and the fact everyone seemed to agree gave me certainty and helped me a lot. Some things were a mystery for me (like Villese being Pope) although I think I would have ended up deducing it based on draft after the first 8 sets, but the certainty of someone like @Jeowaypoint definitely carried me there (although not thank you, because I spent 2 extra hours confirming that Admiral is Jordan simply because you were absolutely certain he wasn't, even if I knew it from that Cross game against ACCM).
I ended up investing an absurd amount of time in that guessing competition, but this was honestly time well-spent. My 14/16 is barely better than last year's 12/16, but it felt a lot more informed. As I said, I had at least 10 with relative certainty purely from their first draft and first Arabia game, while a lot of my guesses of last year were by default. In the end, I should have listened to people like @diguoshidai who had the perfect explanations on why dogao was Bela. The fact T90 barely showed Nicov's Dark Age in the qualifiers and that the few times he did it did not match Little John's costed me the 16/16: I should have trusted the many people who told me it was his exact Dark Age on ladder.
Regarding aoezone, I share the feeling of many people here, including the big names of the community who showed up at some point. This is a shame that this place is often the hub of the dramaqueens and the whiners of Age of Empires. The community on average is more mature and more helpful than most videogames, but for some reason this central place of the community seems to be the gatherpoint of everyone who does not match this description. A few people came here on the thread in a pretty disrespectful tone, but I really enjoyed the general tone of the discussions. And if I myself was a bit rude with someone who had a guess I felt did not make sense, I'm very sorry. I was usually tired and also doing multiple things at once. I usually tried writing "I think this cannot be X because Y" but I might have thrown a few "this is nonsensical" over these last 50 pages. Overall, I say it once again: this was overwhelmingly positive and enjoyable. This is proof that we create the community we want and we just have to be positive on aoezone to bring more positive people in. This place deserves to be much better than it often is.
I would have also preferred that the people who download recs, search tournament accounts on aoe2.net or try to track who is in Twitch chat used another platform, because I stated multiple times I did not want to deviate from the viewer's experience and I'd only use T90's stream/vods/videos. Notably during the finals, some people were very definitive in their wrong assumption that Admiral was Viper based on the fact he wasn't watching the stream while Jordan was (as if Viper isn't exactly the kind of guy who logs out of his account during Hidden Cup anyway). I'm especially glad you were all wrong.
The fact a few pro players including the Hidden Cup winner showed up warmed my heart. It's awesome to know the many people who enjoyed the thread included some big names. And obviously a special thanks to @T90Official for Hidden Cup, but also for showing up here with his kind words.
Cheers to all <3
Thank you @DaisyChain! The two of us got a bit short with each other at one point, but I'm glad we quickly moved past that. Sorry for calling you a **** lol. This was a fun thread!I reacted in the heat of the moment yesterday with short posts, but I knew I wanted to do a closure post deserving of these last days.
To me, the hidden aspect of the Hidden Cup has also often been discouraging. In Hidden Cup 2, I actually waited for the event to be over to have the names, and watched the VODs. In Hidden Cup 3, I tried playing the guessing game and actually had 12 correct, but I sometimes felt frustrated because too many of my guesses were random throwaway names. I knew I wanted to do thing more seriously this time and I also knew I'd have a lot of free time this entire week, so everything was well and I was ready to do detective work.
I knew this was probably the best place to gather insights from the players and the very dedicated members of the community who probably had the most knowledge on players. To be fair, I expected a bit more help at the start of the thread, and I ended up doing 16 profiles mostly alone. But once the event started, I was overwhelmed by the amount of people showing up and the quality of the discussions.
This became a place to live react on certain things, and a perfect hub to share guesses. Some things were just intuition for me like ACCM being Warwolf (just a feeling I had during his Arabia and Cross game based on his unit control) and the fact everyone seemed to agree gave me certainty and helped me a lot. Some things were a mystery for me (like Villese being Pope) although I think I would have ended up deducing it based on draft after the first 8 sets, but the certainty of someone like @Jeowaypoint definitely carried me there (although not thank you, because I spent 2 extra hours confirming that Admiral is Jordan simply because you were absolutely certain he wasn't, even if I knew it from that Cross game against ACCM).
I ended up investing an absurd amount of time in that guessing competition, but this was honestly time well-spent. My 14/16 is barely better than last year's 12/16, but it felt a lot more informed. As I said, I had at least 10 with relative certainty purely from their first draft and first Arabia game, while a lot of my guesses of last year were by default. In the end, I should have listened to people like @diguoshidai who had the perfect explanations on why dogao was Bela. The fact T90 barely showed Nicov's Dark Age in the qualifiers and that the few times he did it did not match Little John's costed me the 16/16: I should have trusted the many people who told me it was his exact Dark Age on ladder.
Regarding aoezone, I share the feeling of many people here, including the big names of the community who showed up at some point. This is a shame that this place is often the hub of the dramaqueens and the whiners of Age of Empires. The community on average is more mature and more helpful than most videogames, but for some reason this central place of the community seems to be the gatherpoint of everyone who does not match this description. A few people came here on the thread in a pretty disrespectful tone, but I really enjoyed the general tone of the discussions. And if I myself was a bit rude with someone who had a guess I felt did not make sense, I'm very sorry. I was usually tired and also doing multiple things at once. I usually tried writing "I think this cannot be X because Y" but I might have thrown a few "this is nonsensical" over these last 50 pages. Overall, I say it once again: this was overwhelmingly positive and enjoyable. This is proof that we create the community we want and we just have to be positive on aoezone to bring more positive people in. This place deserves to be much better than it often is.
I would have also preferred that the people who download recs, search tournament accounts on aoe2.net or try to track who is in Twitch chat used another platform, because I stated multiple times I did not want to deviate from the viewer's experience and I'd only use T90's stream/vods/videos. Notably during the finals, some people were very definitive in their wrong assumption that Admiral was Viper based on the fact he wasn't watching the stream while Jordan was (as if Viper isn't exactly the kind of guy who logs out of his account during Hidden Cup anyway). I'm especially glad you were all wrong.
The fact a few pro players including the Hidden Cup winner showed up warmed my heart. It's awesome to know the many people who enjoyed the thread included some big names. And obviously a special thanks to @T90Official for Hidden Cup, but also for showing up here with his kind words.
Cheers to all <3
Well he was first to reach 2.6k on ladder and just clapped (presumably) Liereyy, so it seems to work out for him!
Really¿ 11"He has the ability to make any game boring" used to be said about Mbl but is now accurate about Hera. Hopefully Viper wins tomorrow.
This thread was great, especially for the reason Niman said: I got to pretend to my casual AoE friends I knew all of this stuff about the players so I could identify them at a glanceIt's also nice to talk to your friends who don't know about this thread and pretending you found out all of this info by yourself 11
@MaSmOrRa There was less challenge come later stages, and I quickly realized that whatever the case, Jordan is playing good enough to fool me. The series vs Yo made me again rest merrily on my choice. Admiral even exhibited non-Jordan eapm graphs (aoe2insights) and peaks in several (almost all) games, exceeding TheViper(!)... like I did not expect Jordan to get 120-peaks and sustained 100 eapm I associate only with viper+tempos, when most recs it is almost Villese-like (slow but accurate and unaggressive army usage, little micro) 40-50 average and mere 60peaks.