I think the biggest benefit of inhouses is getting the new guys mixed in with the more experienced players. When I first started, laning against shane or gambit was probably the best thing for me, since they punished me brutally for every mistake I made. When it comes to randomizing teams, I think those of us that have been around a bit need to look at the teams and make sure that they're somewhat balanced. Having 4 new guys against say, Suicide, Bear, and Walmart, isn't exactly fair.

I think just having 3 lobbies, 2 for learning/goofing off games and one for more "competitive" CM games might be best since everyone wins.

I've been thinking a bit while at work (my job just gets more and more boring by the day) and think that it might be a good idea to have a "mod" in each of the lobbies. A "mod" doesn't necessarily have to be a good player, just someone who has been in the community for a while, i.e. myself, bear, gambit, essem, shane, ranshin, binary, etc, who just kind of knows everyone. That way, when teams are radomed, they can make sure that's it not too stacked to one side. I also think reserving one or 2 lobbies for "competitive play" might be a good idea, rather than the other suggestion I made before. "Competitive play" would be more of a comfort setting. You're expected to know what you're doing for the most part. Obviously still rage free, but these games would be more focused on , well, being competitive over learning.

I think rating system can become a bit elitist and might make newer players shy away from the group. I was thinking that the best way to possibly enact this though, might be to have people rate themselves. I think most of us can be pretty honest with ourselves. For example, I'd probably put myself at like a 2 (not using essem's scale) out of 5. I know what I'm doing with most hereoes,m and am pretty good with 5 or 6. I know where good ward spots, how to build a decent amount of heroes, but still have a lot to work on. We could have everyone just put a number in front or at the end of their name in mumble and could build teams lioke that. I still don't think it's a particularly good idea, but it could work.
I'm not sure what the best solutiuon is.

I think we should do another inhouse like this Thursday and just kinda test a few of the ideas presented today. Maybe spend the first couple of hours using a ton of different lobbies, another couple with "mods," and others with a "rating system."

Also, essem, you're the most polite rager I know Are you just annoyed we beat you

I don't think so, but I hope they do with the patch this week!

I agree with the mod not being a part of the match. the past few sundays we've had 35+ people hanging around palying matches, so I don't think filling matches is a problem.

The only problem with a rating system is it's so hero dependent. For example, a good support player has completely different criteria than a good carry/semi carry/ganker, etc. If we kept it pretty general, kind of, how do you see yourself in relation to other doobs? Like Shane, gambit, yourself, being 5s, suicide, bear, walmart being 4s, etc.

Question, can we round our ratings to the nearest thousandth decimal point? I don't want to create confusion.

Not going to quote the wall of text.

This sounds like the perfect product of the brainstorming session.

With regards to the points about helping this take off:

1. We should all be plugging the group on r/dota2. Whenever people are asking for advice, help, rage free, etc, one or more of us should be in there giving advice and plugging the group. It might also be a good idea that whenever someone plugs the site (esp. on reddit) that we post here and have a few people go up-vote the comment so it's one of the first few. As for other sites, we should have the url in any signatures we have on dota2 forums.

2. You're completely correct on the start times. A few family members and friends of mine own restaurants. They don't take reservations for any time, they take reservations for specific seatings. One suggestion might be to adopt this idea. Something along the lines of first game starts at 4:00 PM EST/3:00 PM CST, second game at 4:15, third at 4:30. Have the first game be the AP game. The mid-high tier players can jump into channels and help out with starting items, skill builds, team comp, etc. then go on to start their own games.

3. Refs/Officers. This is kind of a must have. I was in Shane's channel when he had the rager in there. It sucked since there was really nothing that could be done about it and the guy ended up abandoning the game after raging at some of the new guys that were playing.

If anything, having some kind of identifier in Mumble to indicate "Go to these guys with questions" is necessary.

Personally, I'm looking forward to spending some time in AP/SD!

Just my thoughts.

It makes sense that people may not have gotten as much as they could have out of it. That's mostly on those of us who have been around for a bit.

Some of us have been playing together for the better part of a year so might screw around too much or just not help out since we know each other's strengths and weaknesses pretty well. I agree that AP is probably the best mode for a total newbie to play since it let's them play whatever they want. I do think that it might be a good idea to have 1 or 2 of the better players (i.e. not me) in their respective lobbies helping out with team comp and maybe starting items, potential item progression. Guides are great, but having someone help out in the beginning of a game is pretty helpful.

Something else I was thinking of might be to do a "showcase" game every week. What I was thinking is a note could be sent to 10 people, skills ranging from awesome to totally new (maybe 2 experienced player with 3 new) and having LoveisDead or someone else cast the game and post it on Reddit and joinDota the next day. It would be pretty fun to have Shane and Gambit each leading a team with say Suicide and Bear as #2s. It would be a good way to get new guys into CM and get more exposure for the group.

It can be done from a replay, but I was thinking more of a live thing. CM is short for Captain's Mode, AP is All Pick, AR is All Random, RD is Random Draft and SD is Single Draft.

Random draft is when the pool of heroes is cut down to only 20 and both teams must pick from there, one or 2 at a time.

Single draft is when each player has only 3 heroes to choose from, randomly selected by the game.

To be fair, this actually would be pretty fun. The day before inhouses we could set 5-10 secret awards, all of varying ridiculousness. Some ideas:

Manliest Player of the Match (if you pick Axe you should win)
Made Shane Yell "Save Meh!" the Most
Fled the Most when Gambit was Pushing
Supporter Who Bought Wards All Game
Invoker: Master of 3 Spells

It could be really funny.

I'm easy. Mumble or Team Speak works for me. Also happy to contribute to costs.

Another good point. It might be a good idea to have people who have been around a while in the channel 15-20 minutes before we start so Alverez/Binary/someone can assign who is going to be "staffing" each channel.

Awww this is adorable. You guys should open beers at the same time and code together. Then share stories about lost loves. Maybe trade some pictures. Nothing too weird.

Sign me up buttercup. Either match works.

OoOoO, look at essem. Mr. I Can Play with the Guest Another Time.

This is a picture of essem on his high horse. *MOVED*

Fixed

*MOVED*

Random question, who's casting?

I'm sure we played before, probably a while ago, but heyo!



This...I think there are some other Canadians who might have something to say about it...

I know the real reason essem might not be able to cast and why he hasn't responded to Shane or I:

*MOVED*

You just watched one of the best parts of season 1/2 of the Inbetweeners.

Also, any chance of maybe reopening the logo discussion? Especially since that's not the gem of true sight icon anymore?

One more thing, just a suggestion, TI2's color scheme was pretty good. The light blues/blacks/grays all looked pretty cool. Might be a good idea for a forum theme. Most colors would also match these.

Welcome dude! Were you the guy from the reddit post this morning?