Last Wednesday, we took a break from gaming errr from studies and went to Putrajaya for the International Fireworks Competition. It turns out to be such a massive event where about 100,000 people came. Below are some of the pics I took from the event. Mind you, my camera is a normal zoom camera, not a D-SLR.

Things are getting hot for the GGC Malaysia tourney. Before this, it was stated that CT`G lost to SMGP. After a recheck, the admins decided that CT`G won. So what happened actually ? Sadly, one CT`G member kept disconnected from the game and the match had to be reloaded from a save point. This means that, there is no replay to watch and by this, no correct assumptions can be made.

One of the CT`G members, Achilles- (ex-Wizz), commented on the issue when the admins decided to give SMGP the upper hand. He said,

" Hey, I really dun understand the match between CT`G and SMGP which we have won n send the ss (screen-shot) to the admins. 1st of all, they refuse to play on our host n keep insisting that their line is better so we played on it (SMGP's host) and they got their 1st pick which they wanted it, so we gave them watever they wan =/. We eventually played 2 games, where the first game is in da afternoon, because of the lag issue, we stop playing and postponed it to night due to the lag issue (2nd game). So, we played it at night but they wanted a re-draft (repick heroes) and we have no idea so we said ok. How wonderful is this =/ . But when 1 of our member dc-ed (disconnected), we request for a load n they insisted after 15 mins, no more loading game, cuz they already load the game before n they dunwan (dont want) to load again, so we become fed up wif the lag issue and the superb attitude and sportsmanship of the opponent, we decided to cont (continue) the game and I microed (controlled) 2 heroes which is mine n the leaver's hero. It was a close match which we won by breaking the throne but somehow, they accused us of pooling =/ and they got the win. Is there any proof or evidence of us pooling ? I really hope that the admins will look into the matter n give us a good reply. Thx. "

SMGP also gave their own view of the game. Their leader, imbaimba, wrote this,

" First, we felt delay for 3 sec n super lag when CT`G hosted the game. So we suggested our guy to host it when the void (Wizz's Faceless Void) dc-ed. He only got BattleFury, Mask of Madness, Power Thread but when they push for the 1st time, he (Faceless Void) suddenly got an EagleHorn and later, he got Butterfly + Mkb (Monkey King Bar) towards the end of the game while the Silencer item was halted (didn't buy any more items). We suspect that they bought item(s) for the leaver so we tell Ns-Hon our assumption the next day. The result was out and our team won. The winner must save the replay to Ns-Hon rite ? If u guys probably win tis match, how could the result showed that we won? ? U think Ns-hon blinkness ? (blind ? blindness ?). Anyway, we are willing to have a rematch but I suggest that Ns Hon to become the observer. Thx. "

Later on, the admins decided for the last time and gave CT`G the win. This is what imbaimba wrote about it,

" I respect the moderator decision(s). They just got the screen shot but no replay. So, we have no evidence that CT`G was pooling (1-2 players chip in to buy an item for 1 hero). By the rules, we admit defeat. Now, we just need to win Team Aeon. Thats all. Settled. "

Achilles- responded with,

" Good luck in your upcoming match then (with a smile) "

From my view, this type of problems is unavoidable. This is one of the few problems you can encounter during an online match especially for a tourney. If void really had more items since the disconnection, then it is considered pumping or pooling because from what I understand, you cant transfer gold or items. But in this case, the original controller had dc-ed. If in a public game, its normal to take the items from a dc-ed hero but giving it items can be considered pumping. Anyway, this is just my view and it is just an assumption from team SMGP that team CT`G pumped the void. In this case, both teams cant be blame and the win should go to Ct`G who had the screenshot of the game. What SMGP and the other teams can do in this type of situation is to make a screen shot of your assumptions. If you said that a hero got pumped or something, take a screenshot of that hero and it's pumper (the one who pumped him) but the best way to avoid this is to have a neutral host or observers to spectate the game. Anyway, good luck to SMGP and the rest of the teams for the remaining matches.

So far, the event has reached the third day but not all the matches have been played by the respective teams. Below are the result from playday1 till playday3.

Playday1

For Group A, Cybertime G won against KMX while ATTP won againts N|B4 in Group B. The infamous W4SI on the other hand managed to defeat NSP in Group C and KS defeated PLAB in Group D.

For Group E onwards, only 3 matches were played and 2 of it is in Group E. 7-Zai won against RAGE and ABC defeated -[V]- while in Group F, MILK lost against MBJB.

Playday2

For Group A to Group D, only 1 match were played and it is between KMX and SMGP where KMX lost again. So far, KMX lost 2 matches already and their chance to qualify for the next stage is low.

4 matches were played where the 2 matches comes from Group E, 1 from Group F and the last 1 from Group G. ABC won again and this time, their opponent is 7-Zai while RAGE on the other hand, lose again with the team ABC defeated at playday1, -[V]-. RAGE shares the same fate with KMX where their hope for qualifying is low. In Group F, T-A defeated MILK and eD won against [W.A.R] in group G.

Playday3

In Group A, suprisingly, CT`G lose to SMGP. By winning, SMGP is at 1st place for Group A. In Group B, ATTP defeated R|P and they also top their group with 2 wins. The Johor SMM state champion, KS, also are doing well. They defeated SMKHC.DT and are sitting comfortably at 1st place with 2 wins.

For Group E, ABC wrap it up by winning against RAGE and with 3 wins and 0 losses, they are qualified for the next round. -[V]- finishes second by defeating 7-Zai and they will also proceed to the next round. For Group G, only 1 match were played that is eD against ReV. eD managed to add their tally to 2 wins while in Group H, the first match for it were played and the teams were Xero and Ga which Xero won.

That concludes the updates for playday1 to playday3 with some matches still not yet played. I hope the teams will sort their time and play their remaining games because everyday is a play day. This means that they have matches almost everyday. This will cause a lot of problems if a lot of matches still not yet played. By the way, if the replays are out, I will upload it. For more info, go to the official thread here.

Just came back from a trip with my family. Its been quite a hectic trip from Tuesday till Sunday. Anyway, there is a Dota All-Stars online tournament goin on with about 32 teams involved for those who still don't know about it. They are using the GGClient as a platform for them to connect to each other and play their matches. If you are clueless about this whole GGC thingy, you can read all about it here. This tournament was created and organized by my fren, Iblis and another fella that goes by the nick Ns-Hon. So far, the tourney are doing well and the first playday has started already. Iblis is quite well known in the online dota community here in Malaysia. So this first event by him could become successful easily judging by the participations from top team such as Ct`G, REV, W4SI, NSP, KS and -[V]- and also, 32 slots allocated for the tourney has been filled up. Could this be the MYM Prime replacement for us Malaysian ? Time will tell.

The prize for teh event is;
1st place : 2 months Premium Membership & 30,000 EXP
2nd place : 1 months Premium Membership & 20,000 EXP
3rd place : 10,000 EXP

The playday for the event starts on Saturday 19th August till Saturday 25th August. As a friend and supporter of the local gaming community, Eyes of a Gamer will closely follow this tournament by posting the updates, replays, matches and everything related to it. Alternatively, you can visit the GGC Malaysia Dota Tournament thread here. Stay tuned guys !

It's been a week since the WCG 2007 ACG event where Cybertime RoA placed 2nd in the Dota All-Stars tournament. I have managed to catch one of their members, Kindaichi, for an online interview (through Lowyat.net). Because of work at the office and some other stuffs, I didnt manage to interview him earlier. Nonetheless, below is teh interview with Kindachi.

First of all congratulations to Roa for the 2nd place in WCG 2007 Asian Championship.
Thanks.

" Cybertime RoA, 2nd in Asia at WCG 2007 ACG "

Can you introduce to us about you and Roa ? How it all started ?
Po, Gin, Kindaichi and Doidoi got to know each other as we used to hang around Cybertime setapak. We played lan game quite often all the time. Next, Cybertime was forming teams and we are invited to be their gamers. I think most of the people know we did have teams such as Cybertime 1 and Cybertime 2 formerly. And then one time there was even Cybertime 3 where Chilam was in. After that, due to some personal circumstances, some of the members from both teams were not able to continue to be gamers and from there, the current Cybertime team was formed. The members were Chilam, Po, Gin, Kindaichi and Doidoi. Later, paulyan joined and team Cybertime became a team of 6. We are really happy to have such a great team. Without anyone of us, we could not have gone this far.

The matches are really tough, and it's unlucky that RoA lost to WE. What do you think about the final?
Refer to the question "From your opinion, whats the reason that RoA lost to WE ? Wrong draft ? Bad Strategy ? WE is better or just plain unlucky ?"

" The finals between China (WE) and Malaysia (Cybertime RoA) "

In the tournament, Bristleback are said to be the most imba (imbalance) hero. Any team that picked BB will win. What do you think about that?
I could not say teams taking BB will 100% win, but i could say the opponents would certainly have a hard time dealing with BB. Banning this hero would make DotA matches much more interesting.

" Focusing on the game "

" Cybertime RoA during the final match at WCG 2007 ACG "

From your opinion, whats the reason that RoA lost to WE ? Wrong draft ? Bad Strategy ? WE is better or just plain unlucky ?
Bad drafting was the main reason. We should have first picked BB. And they were good as well. Teamwork and personal skills were superb. Too bad we did not perform our best in the final. Our bad and we could blame no one but ourselves.

Besides China (WE), which country that you think had given Malaysia (RoA) a hard time ?
We faced Thailand, Australia, New Zealand and Philippines before we met China in the final. I supposed Team Flow from Philippines was the toughest team among the teams we have played.

" Cybertime RoA on the left, WE in the middle, and Flow on the right "

Looking back to the days and life at Wcg 2007 Asian Championship, is there anything memorable about the event?
Well, the event was definitely an unforgettable experience for us. And we have to say we were experiencing many things for the first time in Singapore. Carrying a Malaysian flag and being interviewed, one by one introducing us on the stage, feeling like stars among ourselves, and much more.

" The crowd that was there watching the final match "

Now the tournament is over, whats the next event RoA will focus on ?
Of course the SMM grand final.

Which team is the biggest threat for RoA currently here in Malaysia that can upset you/RoA in the next coming tournament ?
All teams in Malaysia are equally good now. They frequently train and put a great eye on the SMM grand final. There are no specific teams I could mention because any teams could have upset us anytime and we would not look down on any teams in Malaysia.

I would like to say thanx to you and RoA for putting some time aside for this interview.
No problem.

Any last shout outs ?
No thanks.

Thanx again to Kindaichi for being such a sport and spending a bit of his time to do this interview. Anyway, I wish good luck to RoA for the coming tourneys especially the "SMM Grand Finale".

Source (image) : Chapree da Grande (Multiplay@LYN), and Marcus Soh (GXL League)

Currently, the state qualifier for this event has completed. Now, the only thing left is the grand finals which will be announced later. Below are the results for each state and also the recent qualifier at Melaka. Replays will be uploaded later.

For Johor, the 1st place goes to Ks1 while the 2nd place goes to Webster. 3rd and 4th place is taken by Auto-Eternal and MBJB.

The 1st place for N.Sembilan is won by the recently popular, W4si while the 2nd, 3rd and 4th place goes to mKvL, Autosurf Fun and RevG.

For KL, its none other than the 2nd team in Asia, Cybertime RoA, who are at the 1st place. The rest are Cybertime 'G, Epic and Enet.eDts for 2nd, 3rd and 4th place.

Des Gaming, which is famous for its counter-strike team, FMJ, now has a dota team and suprisingly, they got the 1st place for the East Cost. This must be one of the teams to watch out for the finals. 2nd place goes to Tbun 2 and 4th place goes to Pro Extreme. The recent Batu Pahat, Johor Resurgence's winner, DNA-SKz placed 3rd.

IMAX conquered the Perak qualifier and got 1st place there. DNA fall short behind at 2nd place. The 3rd place goes to Soul and the 4th place goes to W4si's brother, W4si 2.

For Penang, Two teams from Ice managed to get the 2nd and 4th place that is team Ice 'PIA and team Ice 'Stim. The first place goes to the powerhouse clan, FTZ-EXC while the 3rd place goest to MINC.

At Selangor, Cybertime RoA younger brother, Cybertime managed to get 1st place. 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place goes to Blitzone-1, sT, and CA.

NsP dominated the Sabah qualifier with the 1st place goes to Freedom-NsP and the 4th place goes to NsP-Alpha. EcT_Ace and Rip - SynMo both is at the middle of them at the 2nd and 3rd place respectively.

The recent qualifier at Melaka saw a quite a number of teams from Sino but only 1 got through that is Sino.Mng at third place. Teams that are quite strong in this qualifier is Surfzone which got 1st place and INC nicely sitting at the 2nd place. The 4th place goes to Team X.

Congratulations to the teams that qualify and good luck for the grand finals. A lot of the powerhouse clan in Malaysia make it and quite a number of clans that are quite new make an impact at the qualifiers. How will they fare at the grand finals ? Stay tuned. For more info about SMM Grand National Dota Tournament, click here.

Source : Gamma2k (Lowyat.Net), SMM

Yesterday, a qualifier was held at FMJ SS2 (formerly known as Clutch Gamers). This is the first of a few qualifiers that will be held around Malaysia and the first place of each qualifier will get seeded into the final 8 in WCG 2007 Malaysia Championship! The second and third place will not leave empty handed. They will receive prizes sponsored by the folks behind WCG.

I guess this is the chance for any counter-strike team in Malaysia to shine and excel because the registration fees has been waived. This is good news to some of the teams. You wont be forking extra money just to try your luck on qualifying for the final 8 and if you lose, you can still try again later at the final national qualifier.

Currently, the confirmed venue for the qualifier is;

11th August 2007 at FMJ, SS2 Petaling Jaya (FMJ won)
19th August 2007 at Winter Night, Taman Chi Liung, Klang
20th August 2007 at EXC Internet Cafe, Pudu
25 Aug 2007 at Tbun Cybercafe, Nilai
26 Aug 2007 at Tbun Cybercafe, Wangsa Maju

Regarding yesterday's event, the final match between FMJ and Hybrid was quite intense. FMJ was leading with 14-1 for the first half of the map (de_dust2). On the second half, Hybrid tried to bounce back and they managed to perform well but FMJ, champions of WCG for more than 3 times, show why they are still worthy for the title this year. They managed to clinch another 2 rounds to make the final score, 2-13 resulting to FMJ 16 - 14 Hybrid. It was a really close match. This should be a wake up call for FMJ if they are trying to win the title again this year. A lot of teams from Malaysia, especially Hybrid, are qualified enough to take down FMJ and this qualifier, Hybrid has proven why they are still among the feared teams in Malaysia. Even without hix (he went to the newly reformed, FMJ), they still managed to get 2nd and they lost the final match with only 1 round (if the score is 1-14 for the 2nd half, it will become a draw thus, they lost just by 1 round). The next qualifier will be at Winter Night, Klang. I would like to wish Hybrid and other teams joining the qualifier good luck and have fun and to FMJ, congratulations on winning the qualifier.

Source : nles (Lowyat.Net)

Well, did Malaysia proved anything at the WCG 2007 Asian Championship ? Not quite good but we did a big impact for the dota scene. Our representative, Cybertime RoA managed to qualify for the final stage (they win all the games in the grouping stage) and they managed to get 2nd ! Getting 2nd here means that Malaysia is no 2 in Asia (for the time being). Well its quite sad that they lost to China (for the final) but hey, the China's team (World Elite, WE) was among the best clan for Warcraft 3 and one of their top players, Sky, played for their dota team. They are a fully sponsored team (a lot of sponsors) and they have their own training ground, blazing fast connection, a manager and yes, a salary so that they can just concentrate on what they do best, play games.

" Team Malaysia, Cybertime RoA grab the 2nd spot for Dota All-Stars "

The lost was not a big one. According to some of the spectators, RoA put up a big fight but eventually lost due to WE's BristleBack (BB). I cant talk more because I haven't watch the replay but BB is too imba if it were used by the right team.

" The first place goes to World Elite (WE) "

For the first final round, the quarter, WE defeated the famed Micronology (who beated Zenith to represent Singapore) to advance to the semi-final while RoA crushed New Zealand's M.C.C to advance. The other remaining teams were XDT from Korea against NG.LF from Thailand which NG.LF won and XCN from Indonesia vs Philippines's Flow where Flow managed to defeat XCN (XCN in Indonesia is actually like Zenith in Singapore, strong and hardly defeatable). It a suprise Flow managed to beat them but like I said, nothing can be analysed till the replays are out. For the semi, RoA is up against Flow and they won while WE defeated Ng.LF. The third place for dota goes to Flow.


For Warcraft III, the 1st spot was taken by none other than Soju, a pro gamer from Korea. He is quite known in the international scene and I guess there is no suprise that he won it.


During the event, there is also another event called the GXL Season 1 Finals where some Malaysians took part also. Some of them are Chapree (Need For Speed), ct-serry (Warcraft III) and Hybrid (Counter-Strike). Chapree managed to get third for Need For Speed. Congrats to him !

" This is Chapree @ CELGames "

Soju who won the Warcraft 3 tournament, got interviewed by Wind from wNv-Gaming. The most interesting part that I want to share here is this:

" Soju, from Korea "

" Now that you won AWCG, what do you plan to do with your prize money ?
Like most other professional gamers, I'll give all of the prize money to my parents "

He love his parent I tell you. In Malaysia, I dont think the gamers who won any tourney will give it to their parents. I think it is because of the prize money is not as much as WCG's or maybe, its just me :P !

Again, I would like to say congratulations to Cybertime RoA for getting 2nd place and Chapree for placing third in those events. To the others, there are still more to come and WCG Malaysia is just around the corner. Good luck, play smart.

Pictures are stolen from DotaSG, wNv-Gaming, and Asian Cyber Games.
Some of the replays for WCG 2007 ACG can be downloaded here.

Quickie: Dota 6.46 is out. Get it here.

Dota players has grown to quite a number here in Malaysia and the rest of the world. It is easy to play for a newbie and it gets interesting once you have mastered it and it will become much more intense when it comes to tournaments. In Malaysia, Dota dominated the local gaming scene and almost all cyber cafes in Malaysia have the mod dota in their computers with about 60-80% of their customers are playing it. Tournaments for Dota are held almost every month. There are a lot of reasons for this Dota phenomenon but I should talk about it next time. As usual, the downside of this is that other games such as Counter-Strike, Warcraft and Starcraft are getting less and less popular and thus some of their community began to flame (criticize) Dota. This can be accepted because in Malaysia, the gaming community is still not that large and when about 60-80% of them are already on Dota, the chances of the other games to reach a competitive level will be quite hard (Counter-Strike, Warcraft, Fifa etc etc) especially when the only tournaments held is for Dota. Of course there will be a lot of complaint among the gamers and eventually this leads to the flaming of Dota. As a fellow gamer, especially for Dota, I will hereby state some defensive statements to some of the bad remarks thrown by the others. Im not a fanboy or anything but I think it is an injustice to hate Dota just because it is popular. There are other ways to promote the games that you play. Take a look at Counter-Strike. Last time it was the most famous game in Malaysia and for your information, it is a MOD also, just like Dota. Counter-Strike also changed the gameplay of Half-Life like Dota changed the gameplay of Warcraft.

" In Counter-Strike, its all about timing, aiming and instinct and not forgetting, strategy ! "

Lets start with “Dota are for noobs who dont know how to micro-manage (control a lot of creeps/heroes/units) thus they cant play Warcraft and opt to play the more easy and almost no usage of micro-manage, Dota” and “Dota are for noobs because it is an easy game where you control only 1 unit”. Eventhough im not a fanboy but this really sound harsh to me as a gamer who plays Dota a lot. I don't think this type of remark is logical at all. It is just plain flame. For starters, not all who play Dota are interested in Warcraft-type of game (rts = real time strategy). So when they play Dota, does that mean that they tried to play Warcraft and suck at it ? Even if its true, who cares ? Not all gamers can play an rts-type game and be pro at it. Thats why there is a lot of genre like example fps (first-person shooter, Counter-Strike) and sport (Fifa). Dota is theoretically not a pure rts-type of gameplay anymore. You dont need to build buildings for units to spawn or balance ur supply of food for ur base but you do need to farm for gold. In Dota, you just control 1 hero and you can see that it is similar to Counter-Strike where you control just 1 unit. So in Dota, ofcourse the skill micro-manage dont apply but you need a quick response and be alert because each of the characters in Dota have their own abilities (up to four per char) for you to use depending on the situation (same like Counter-Strike where you need to practice your aiming and also your alertness and instinct is very important). So dont ever compare Dota and Warcraft in terms of gameplay. Never heard people comparing Counter-Strike and Half-Life. Heck, people praise the makers of Counter-Strike.

" You need to micro-manage ur heroes and units well in Warcraft to be able to win matches "

Next is “Dota has a boring type of gameplay, imbalance heroes and spells”. Ok, if they found that Dota is boring then what I can say here is that Dota is not their cup of tea. Hey, I do like Counter-Strike and Warcraft but I play Dota more often because people around me play Dota and I can play it comfortly at my home while Counter-Strike is quite hard to play at home (it is a very obvious reason here in Malaysia). For Warcraft, I admit, rts is not my cup of tea no matter how much I like it. For me, Dota is an interesting game overall. There are a lot of things u can do with it. For example, there are a lot of items and each of the items have its own properties, quite a number of heroes to choose with their own abilities and also, for teamplay, there are a lot of combos to use and timing it with the right skills, spells and abilities is important to perfectly execute a combo and you say this is easy and not challenging ? Its almost the same as those pushes and rushes in Counter-Strike. About the imba thingy, well not all game started perfect, heck even Starcraft and Warcraft have patches until today to fix the imba issue. Have you not heard of the imba mass human tower for Warcraft ??

" Teamwork, timing and combo is the main important thing in a Dota match "

Last but not least, “I bet you all that those 'dotards' (Dota fanboy) for sure don't know a thing about the original game, Warcraft and heck I dont think they play through all the campaign in it”. Ok, now all who play Counter-Strike, can you raise up your hand if you play the original Half-Life through its story and mission. Huh ? Only a few ? Nuff said.


Before I end this, I just want to state that I am not a fanboy of Dota nor I hate Warcraft and the other games. Its just that I feel its unfair to diss dota just because its gaining more popularity than the other games (especially in Malaysia). There are a lot of ways you can do to gain the popularity of the games you play. Take a look at Need For Speed and Fifa. The gamers who play it in Malaysia found ways to gain players hence making it a popular game. Slowly but surely, you can see the Counter-Strike scene in Malaysia is building up again with a lot of new clans popping up. For Fifa, there is an online league created by these gamers to play against each other and recently, there is this tournament called 'CelGames' where games like Fifa and Need for Speed is involved (the other games involved is Battlefield 2142 and Command and Conquer III) and mind you, there is no Dota and I dont see any Dota players complaining about it and to think of it, even in WCG (World Cyber Games), they dont have Dota except for the mini-event, Asian Cyber Games. If a pro Warcraft player in Malaysia, for example, paulyan, can play Dota (with team RoA and they will represent Malaysia for the upcoming Asian Cyber Games this weekend at Singapore) and doesnt have a problem with it, I dont see why we still need to flame Dota anymore.

If you are an active dota player in Malaysia & Singapore especially online, you must have played or saw the nick 'kukujiao'. Personally, I dont know who is this guy but damn, he is really pro using the sentinel hero, Shaman. Above is a video uploaded by him on youtube. Enjoy.