Triforce! - Triforce! #50: The Road to TI7

Episode Date: August 9, 2017

Triforce! Episode 50! Pyrion is in Seattle for the 2017 Dota Internationals and having the time of his life while Lewis and Sips are miserable!   Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome back to the Triforce podcast. God, it's been a long time, hasn't it? Well, anyway, we're finally here recording again and we have Flax in Seattle. What's up? On a remote. Yeah, you sound different.

His mic is different. Yeah. He's using a laptop. I bought a new laptop for the trip. Oh, shit. Did you get a gaming laptop? It's a big old Alienware laptop, dude. It's fucking huge.

You got an Alienware? I did. Yeah, I did. Fuck me. Jesus. That's pretty good, actually. It's pretty good. Well, you're there for what? Two weeks?

Yeah, two weeks. And also, like, we went on holiday last week. I. That's pretty good. Actually. It's pretty good. Well, you're there for what? Two weeks? Yeah. Two weeks. And also like we went on holiday last week. I was in France on holiday all week. So I wanted to take a laptop away with me there. And I did. So I thought, well,

I'm getting three weeks out of it already. And I've got one of those vibe things. And the problem is I have to lug my computer all the way downstairs. Every time I want to use the damn thing. And my kids are like, can we play on the virtual reality? I was like, like no daddy doesn't want to move his computer so this thing will run it nice so um yeah so i think that's good i can just pop this on a good a good dad solution it's an investment exactly solves a lot of problems so are you wearing your trademark um

bathrobe no no no i got your chest No? Because we've all seen the vlog. It was trending on YouTube. I know. Your first CI P-flex in the morning. When I did it, it was like number 15 on trending. Yeah, it was nuts. On the whole of YouTube P-flex. You're a big star now. No, no, no, no. It's true. How does it feel? What's changed in your life since you've become such a big star? Bitches. I've been a lot of bitches. A lot more bitches. Oh, no. Don't let it go to your head.

Or anywhere else, for that matter. They're all over me as we speak. Wow. So are you recording this? How did you record that vlog? Because the audio on that vlog was really nice. That's just on my phone. On your phone?

Yeah, it's just the Galaxy S6. Man, phones are crazy these days. They're meant for that kind of shit, right? It's insane. That whole vlog was just your phone propped up on a pillow or something. Yeah, literally. I just rested on the edge of the sofa against the wall, click record, and that's that.

Damn, son. It's not bad, is it? You might as well record on your phone. It's probably better than this quality. Jesus. I know. So, yeah, Seattle, man. What's it like? Give us the rundown. Is there, like, so yeah, Seattle, man, what's it like?

Give us the rundown. Is there like a buzz in the air? Excitement around TI? Yeah. I mean, you know, this is my fifth TI, which is kind of insane.

I didn't expect it to come to five of them. I didn't expect it to go to one of them. We've all watched the vlog, PFLAGS. If you haven't watched it, guys, like it was like a little mini podcast. Yeah.

You don't need to fill me in on the same old stuff. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I want new, I want new original. Have have you recorded more vlogs are you going to do more of them yeah one went up to about 10 minutes ago so oh no well at the time we're recording this that's all right so yeah i mean that one is kind of low-key i talk about my sleep my night terrors i talk about them quite extensively in that uh and why i never share a hotel room at events and stuff uh so yeah i mean seattle's great it's super hot this week it's like 30 35 degrees or something nuts fuck um yeah it's like beautiful weather i went out and ordered a walk i went out for a walk this morning got fucking rained on the whole way to the office my umbrella blew inside out and then

i went out for lunch and i got fucking soaked i'm sorry yeah it wasn't my fault it's winter has started over here already when you get back like oh man it's pretty bad well i mean before seattle i went to we went to france we went to um the vondie which is sort of not too far down uh it's on the left hand side it's near non the left hand side of france yeah on the left hand bit and it's kind of it's near non the left-hand side of france yeah on the left-hand bit and it's kind of it's beautiful forested area lots of farmland as well and i've got to tell you guys about this thing called puy de fou that we went to oh man yeah puy de fou means in french basically basically a puy is a well and fou means madness so it's kind of like well of madness that's what i thought it was and i said to my french neighbor is does it mean well of madness? He goes, no, not really. I was like,

it's one of those things where the words are right, but it doesn't actually translate to that. So it's just, I don't know what it translates to, but it's bonkers. It's a theme park, but there are no rides. There's no roller coasters or anything like that. What you do is you queue up to go to these sort of shows, like a sort of short play, but with a combination of, there's like some magic trick kind of stuff going on. There's like drama and singing sometimes and music and a lot of stuff with animals. It's just bonkers. It's absolutely bonkers. I've never seen anything like it. It was incredibly popular. It was so jammed when we were there. And there was this thing called something like loiseau de fantom something like that okay yeah

okay so you're quiet yeah um the ghost penis that's what it means the penis of the ghost obviously and it's like a bird show and you sit down in this little sort of amphitheater it's like a small theater there was maybe 800 people there in a circle these women come out beautiful french women in these amazing gowns and everything and they're delivering this sort of very dramatic um i don't know what the hell they were saying but there's something about birds obviously and it's kind of medieval and they're talking and then suddenly an owl like a beautiful big owl flies from one side of the theater to the other this is all open air and zooms really close down to the crowd lands on his perch and turns around and she talks about some other stuff and then another owl comes out so then there's

like five owls flying around the auditorium we were like wow this is beautiful right um but you know so far so good and then the biggest owl i've ever seen in my life comes out of this other nook and sort of zooms down across the audience and perches on like her arms a man dressed up as an owl it's not it's an actual owl dude like i was looking for special effects this was a real owl and then these guys came up and they do all this falconry and the falcons are flying like three feet over your head like you can feel the wind from their wings as they go over you sometimes the birds go a little low and like brush into you do they do they ever accidentally poop on anyone no i was waiting for

that are they trained to like hold in their poops i think they just use corks they make stuff a cork up there tiny al cork tiny cork yeah i mean i didn't see anyone get pooped on but there were these eagles like they eventually bring out these eagles and eagles are flying really low what the fuck always going on is this the dream that you had i don't fucking know how is this like constantly one-upping itself what's next pterodactyls just just you wait this eagle it kind of got confused and it landed on this dude in the audience like on his head like that scene in the simpsons where the bird is on crusty's head there's an eagle on this guy's head he's just sort of trying to stay as still as he can and

the eagle's kind of moving around and looking a bit confused and the falconer is waving me at it to get it but they have huge talons like how is he not dead he was fine like he was just he was just chilling so the eagle the eagle goes off and then and then i'm thinking right i mean where where do they go from here right and then suddenly vultures these vultures come out and they are huge these things my god their wingspan is huge and they're flying like a foot above the heads but like they fly so close. At one point, this giant vulture flies in between me and my mum, right? Who was sat on this sort of bench seat. Between us, like the feathers are like whacking you in the head and everything.

I was like, this is unbelievable. And then all the birds disappear. And you're like, wow, God, that was unbelievable. And then the woman, the main woman in the show, she rides up this pole. She's sort of holding it with her arm. It looks like she's levitating. My youngest daughter was losing her mind. She thought she was seeing someone fly she hadn't seen that old magic trick you know she was like she's flying she's flying she's like going no

and then she gets to the top of the pole it's like 20 feet in the air and she waves her arm says something in french and every single bird that's been in the show to that point shoots from behind her they all come flying forward in like this sort of battle of britain style display i was i just couldn't believe it everyone's in tears we're all under we just can't believe what we're seeing there's birds everywhere everywhere you look there's birds like storks and cranes and and ravens and owls and eagles and vultures it was mind-blowing absolutely mind blowing and now it's just like that it's stuff like that there was like a gladiatorial battle with lions and tigers running around and stuff it was like what am i seeing it was crazy so what i so you tweeted about this you were like before you went remember you sent out a tweet and

you're like anyone know anything about this like is it any good or whatever and like when i saw that tweet and i saw that you were going i i was jealous because I've known about Puy de Fou for some time and I've always wanted to go. And I always keep trying to convince my wife to go and stuff. And we almost went a couple of times and we didn't. Right. And then I totally forgot about it after we had kids and stuff because that's – Of course. Yeah, yeah.

You just forget your ambitions and stuff after you have kids and uh and then um and then when i saw that i was like oh shit yeah point of like i i really want to go like i heard some good things about it i had like we got because we were in like saint malo or something and there was like brochures for it there right you know like they advertise it everywhere sort of thing but it's not like that far away, right? It's just like up sort of Normandy sort of way, right? No, no, no. It's not far from Nantes. So it's basically, I mean, Nantes, we were only there for a few hours.

Nantes is gorgeous. Like I really want to go back and see it. Yeah, Nantes is like what? Like north of Rennes, right? I'm not sure. Is it like up that? I mean, there's La Rochelle. Or is it Paris?

Is it north of Paris? I can't remember. It's not north of Paris. It's quite near the coast. So it's like there's La Rochelle on the coast, and then northwest of that a bit is north. It's not far. Okay. All right.

So if you get a chance to go to that part of France, the Vendée is gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous. I mean, we went to this place called the Venice Faire, so it's like green Venice, and it's a series of swamps in the the woodland of the vondie and they've dug these canals so that when the it's it's not the that's not swamp like the one that smiegel uh you know draws uh frodo and and and bill and what's his name sam into it's like it's a nice right so there's like cows and and it's beautiful trees and everything like this and um

it's it's gorgeous i'm trying to picture a nice swamp like i think i've been wrecked by all the stereotypes of a bad swamp you know i mean in any video i'm thinking like swamps in the witcher and like yeah the warcraft and they're they're the worst swamps ever yeah people like you got to go to the swamp be like this is gonna suck like it's gonna be a small there's nothing worse but these are like nice swamps and there's like farming and stuff well there was so the wet swamp is where they store the water to supply the dry swamp during the the summer and if it rains heavily then the dry swamp doesn't get flooded because they put the water in the wet swamp there's like locks and things like that it's very clever it's like it's like really really old it's

like hundreds and hundreds of years old so you can hire these guys called um pigui which is like they're named after this big stick that they have it's like a big stick a slightly bendy stick and they push it down into the water until it bends like a bow and then they just hold it and it's sort of as it straightens out again it pushes the boat along the canal so it's like you get this beautiful silent journey through this stunning woodland there's like animals around and it's just this very very deeply relaxing and there's no mosquitoes and we said to the guy it's a swamp how come there's no mosquitoes. And we said to the guy, it's a swamp. How come there's no mosquitoes? He said, well, there are so many

dragonflies here. Because there's dragonflies everywhere. Just like thousands of dragonflies. Their larvae eat mosquito larvae. So the mosquitoes, anytime there's any mosquitoes, they get eaten. Like when they're babies. So very few of them survive. So there's no big mosquito population. Yeah, but there's big fucking dragonflies. But're awesome they're beautiful they didn't bite you i know

but like what's to stop the dragonflies getting out of control huh yeah what is them birds the birds spiders what eats the birds and then what's going to eat those birds foxes the bigger birds right and then the and then who's going to eat all those foxes after they've gotten all fat off the birds? What do you think's in the restaurants at Puy de Feu? Puy de Feu is all fox and bird food. It's all fox food, yeah. That's the thing.

You can stay at Puy de Feu in like a castle. There's a hotel like in a castle. The restaurants were really good there because it's French. So it's like the food is really good. And we went to this place called Relais de Post relais de poste and it's like a not medieval it's like a sort of i guess like 16th 17th century dining experience so they bring you like a slab of bread and a really good sort of pate and then they bring you like a delicious cassoulet which is like one of my favorite french dishes like a big stew with like sausages and duck in it and everything

it's really oh it's delicious and a jug of wine and everything and they sing all these traditional french songs and everything it was just it was fucking great it was absolutely great the only problem is the french can't queue and there's a lot of queuing going on at puy de feu yeah okay yeah and they cannot do it i don't understand the logic the the leaps of, the mental just leaps that they have to make. We're in the queue. Hold on, dude. Let me just tell you this because I've got to get this off my chest. We're in the queue for half an hour. There's like hundreds of people queuing up to get into this thing. And this lad and his family, he's like, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me. And everyone's letting him pass because they think he just works there or whatever. Excuse me,

excuse me, excuse me. And he just pushes him pass because they think he just works there or whatever. Excuse me, excuse me, excuse me. Excuse me, excuse me. And he just pushes past everyone to the front and just stands there. He just wanted to be at the front. So he just excused me his way through the queue. And I thought, what the fuck is that? And I say very loudly,

what does this lad think he's doing? Just push, there's no one going to say anything. And there was like one other English couple in the queue and they were like laughing. They were like, I just can't believe what we're seeing. The two English families were just like, well, what the hell is going on? Society's crumbling. All the French guys were just ignoring.

They didn't give a shit. It's like, how could you not care? This guy's just making a mockery of your time, people. I was furious. Man, people do not like the queue in this day and age, though. That's the thing. Everybody's so used to getting things instantly. Netflix.

Yeah, no one has to wait. You don't have to wait for 8 o'clock for your favorite TV to show up anymore. Nobody wants to wait for shit anymore. You just, you know, come back and then it's on demand. I mean, if you're in the States or in the UK, people will still queue. Like, people understand. If there's a line, you're at the back of it. You ever get, like, those loud sires in a queue

as well like it's the worst fucking thing that's ever happened to them jesus christ can queue i think we give americans bitch it but they're pretty they're pretty cute they get it yeah yeah like if you've been in a queue in america and someone jumps you'll get someone going but i could understand the french not giving a shit the italians yeah they don't as well just the chinese the chinese the italians the spanish they don't keep the germans will keep it's all honestly i don't know what it is the french just in england queues just spontaneously form for no reason yeah people just join them but nobody knows like where to stand though like that like like a queue in britain i find is always like sideways and not

like long ways you know what i mean like everybody just stands at the front like in in a ball sort of thing and like it doesn't make any sense like no no most of the way you're queuing homie there's always someone who's been in that queue before and they always know where the queue is supposed to go and so therefore the queue does tend to naturally form up i've found in places that i've queued at regularly i don't know we're good at queuing i'm fucking i i i you know there's you just walk along the street and there'll be a queue and people will join it and they'll be like oh i pride myself on on my queuing and the queuing of my people like our nation we're good at it and i think in a way it shows a respect shows a respect for your

fellows so two things about what you were saying one man it sounded great right and two i'm i'm surprised i'd never heard of it because it's like i've just i was looking up what you're saying and it's like the second biggest tourist attraction in in france behind disneyland that's a huge thing like when i was looking at it i was like oh this is just like medieval times but like on a bigger scale yeah yeah it's a really cool thing jousting and you eat chicken and stuff and it's like wow it looks it looks great and you know maybe listening to you made me want to travel more and be like oh you know just get in a car drive around go to poids de feu go to all these other cool places in france i've never been to you know that'll be that'll be that'll be fucking great and i think i ought to do it really and also it reminded me of um the game that me and uh sips played in

crusader kings so me and sips did a little bit of crusader kings 2 um and spoilers nonce which is where point of foo is they were a bit they were a bit too strong for me to deal with so i've got like a little bit of a grudge against actually dynasty like cucked died like he's just done that was it full full dynasty cucked yeah hopefully yeah hopefully that'll be out by the time this is out but yeah oh my god it's not really an interesting game yeah it was interesting it wasn't very long was it since geez we weren't very good either but um we might give it another go uh well speak for yourself i mean so so you've got your fancy laptop right yeah have you got what what did you have you got any games on it did you get any like movies on it what did you watch on the plane did you were you able to use it on the plane you got

dad games on that don't you powerful gaming laptop and let me guess civil war generals and shit like that how do you know i've literally got that on here i know i've got i've got um i got uh let me see what i've got installed let's have a look i've got battle brothers you know how i know flex because you see me playing it no because because my life adventure is very similar to yours that's why i've got ftl i've got north guard Ultimate General Civil War, and of course Dota. Yeah. Yeah, Northguard is interesting. I've been playing that a bit.

It feels a bit like an RTS, whereas I expected it to be more like a sort of city, but like banished or something like that. But it's really not. It's quick. It's over quick, isn't it? Lewis played it a bit last time. It's obviously meant to be multiplayer.

It's obviously meant to be multiplayer,'s obviously meant to be multiplayer but i'm just playing against the ai and i'm like damn just when i think i've got my food situation sorted everyone's unhappy or when i think i've got my happiness situation sorted we haven't got any wood and so i'm like it's a constant balancing act and then i just think why don't i just make a shitload of units and go and beat up this other guy and i do that and then i'm sort of like well they're still miles ahead of me i'm like a fame or whatever or a jarl and they're like they're building the forge of open the sword i'm like shit i just suck at this game so i gave up yeah it takes i mean it takes a little while to get used to it all this stuff it's cool though when i was in bristol last me and me and lewis played it a couple of times didn't we you guys were

streaming it and then we had a couple of games after. I enjoyed it. I thought it was pretty fun. It's okay. I'd like to play it multiplayer. Sorry I shifted onto game chat, but no, I'm interested.

I'm just interested. So you took the kids to the theme park, did you? How were they? Did they enjoy it? They loved it. You took Mummy Flax as well? Yeah,

Big Mama Flax came and my sister and her boyfriend came along. Dan, there was like a whole crowd of you. Yeah, it was like seven of us. It was a big old family. Did you go specifically to go to Puy de Fou or were you going to the area anyway? No, I mean, we were going. Mrs. F booked it.

She's very good at this kind of stuff. She's like, I want to go to France. I found a nice place. Let's go. I was like, cool. Sounds good. We went to see a friend of ours and she said, oh, you're going to the Vendee. You should go to Puy de Fou.

And I said, what the hell is that? She struggled to explain what it really was because she was like i don't know i've never seen it it's a theme park yeah but it's not it's a theme park with no rides like that's the thing you expect there to be roller coasters and stuff like in the uk i think they would have that they would have some shows but you'd have rides and shit as well i think there's a carousel but that's's it. Like it's literally just shows. And there is the nighttime show, incredible. Like that's why I wanted to stay over, but we didn't get to see it.

It's like this ridiculous evening show, like lights and fireworks and dancing and music and everything like that. And that was the original Puy de Fou, was this show. And they've expanded it from there. So they've got like a thing with the Knights of the Round Table. They had a Roman gladiator battle right and the guys come out it's the gauls versus

the romans whole stadium like a football side stadium like for a small club thousands of people are all cheering and these guys come out and they're riding the the the chariots you know with four horses like the roman chariot and we think they're just going to do a nice little slow procession around the arena they were fucking going for it and there's sparks flying off the wheels and the carts fall apart and it's like it's it's incredible it's incredible it really is we need to stop talking about this it's just mad it sounds it sounds like they've like started invading nearby like towns and hamlets it's really what's going on you believe it yeah it's incredible and then when they have lions and tigers running around and then out of nowhere a fucking hyena just runs across the entire thing

there's a hyena i was like what what is happening like it's just constantly trumping it the vikings display have all right just to give you an idea of how bonkers it is it's it's there's quite a lot of religious iconography and sort of symbolism in it because the guy who owns beauty food is deeply religious so there's some religious stuff in it that's kind of unnecessarily over the top. So at one point, the Pope comes out of the water in the Viking show and brings Christianity to the pagan Vikings or something like we couldn't really follow the show. But then he's walking along in his gown, like you see the guy dressed as the Pope, he's walking along, they sort of extend the gown a bit, it looks a bit bigger. And suddenly, the big drops to the ground like obi-wan in star

wars and he's gone and you're like where the hell did the pope go like it just disappeared and then a huge fight breaks out and there's a fireball so so big that you could we were we're sitting in the audience and the fireball like you could feel the heat of it on your face it was like a nuclear war it was insane i was just like what is happening it was crazy it's just crazy that's nuts there's a guy getting chased by like 20 wild boar just runs across the front There's like wild boar chasing a dude. They set fire to a guy on a horse He's on the back of a horse and they set fire to the dude and the horse and it just rides on I was like what this is just too much to see. So honestly, it was just unbelievable. You gotta see it

That's we only saw four shows. So honestly, it was just unbelievable. You've got to see it. That's nuts. And we only saw four shows. There's like 12 or 15 shows or something. We only had time to fit in four. So you could definitely make it like a two or three day trip. It was incredible. Wow, that feels like a lot. I mean, sitting through shows, that is like, I mean, we did that when we went to Vegas, you know,

Jumbo Sips, we went to like two or three shows when we were out there. Yeah, we did, yeah. It was a little bit like going to the movies in a sense because you were sat down a lot you were like i don't think we should have gone to too many shows though as many sorry i think like i think i would have been happy just have got have gone to like that the cirque de soleil one or or some or or one of the other ones i guess but like yeah you know what i mean I mean? It felt like we went to too many shows. Yeah, if I wanted to stay inside and watch amazing things, I'd do what I normally do every day, play video games and watch movies.

Strip down in front of the mirror, yeah. I find it a little bit just kind of, I don't know, that's the feeling I got a little bit with Vegas because there was a little bit too much focus on shows. But then again, like Disneyland, it's a little bit too much focus on queuing, isn't it? You know, especially if you go at any time that is a vaguely sunny day,

it's going to be like just absolutely heaving with people. Hey, listen, on the topic of Disneyland, they might be having a Disneyland in London in london by 2021 did you hear about this yeah it's likely to be in kent okay the garden of england that's not london by the way there's a big big well it's kind of close though right it is kent is beautiful i love kent okay so anyway big there's a big site there that that they're working on putting in a Hollywood-themed attraction. There's no official news on it yet. And the estimated cost is going to be like $2 billion to make this place.

Yeah, yeah. And people are pretty sure it's going to be like something to do with Disney, but also maybe something to do with Paramount Pictures as well. So I don't know. So you might not need to go all the way to france next time you want to go to the theme park baby that's right you just go to kent i mean i i can imagine well imagine them being a disneyland in kent there's loads of space the transport links are pretty good like you can get in and out of london real easy and do you know what i think do you remember on one of the older podcasts i was talking about was it margate i think i was saying that margate could really be a great place and come up a lot

disneyland in kent margate's on the way up baby that's gonna be people go stay in margate so they can go to disneyland they should think about it margate get on it yeah it used to be a bit of a place didn't it but it's kind of yeah it yeah isn't it like flipping the the like the dodgy constituency the the ukip supporters down in margate wasn't that their one of their than it that's oh that's than it that's different okay but isn't that in kent as well yeah yeah it is yeah yeah it could be yeah okay well wait i take it back margatians i'm sorry sorry. But honestly, I mean, Kent is a jewel. It's a jewel. It's ripe for the plucking.

Beautiful countryside. So many good beaches. And weather's not bad because it's on the eastern side instead of the west. So it really should be something. There's going to be a water park there as well. That's almost confirmed. So there's going to be a big water park. A water park in England.

Yeah. What's wrong with that? What, you think we're gonna have water lewis we've got a lot of water yeah no one wants to go outside in a swimming costume clean water as well it's freezing you know even in midsummer oh it's look it's supposed to be summer now i'm so disappointed with the english summer everyone in the office is a little bit like oh thank god it's over i'm glad it's miserable and wet again you know it's too hot it's too hot dunkers like this man it was too fucking hot oh like it can't be i'm just not born for this place that's the problem it's like either like dreary and wet or just too hot like what there's somewhere in between there that would be just perfectly fine but like can't seem to get it for some reason the british attitude to summer sums up the british mentality entirely

because when summer's on we moan it's too hot when it's not hot enough we moan about the fact where's summer and you know what i saw a thing on twitter the other day where somebody linked all the daily mail headlines that were saying open borders are a disgrace, Britain's just wide open, foreigners, foreigners, foreigners. And then in the same paper, they had another headline bemoaning the state of the borders, that it was too hard for Brits to get into countries abroad and that the borders were taking too long. And it's like, well, what do they want? They want open borders, they want closed borders. It's the same with the summer. It's too hot, it's too cold. They never have. We just want to moan. Just want to moan, yeah. Just want to moan, yeah. Just want to have a They want closed borders. It's the same with the summer. It's too hot. It's too cold. They never have. We just want to moan.

Just want to moan. Yeah. Just want to moan. Yeah. Just want to have a, have a moan. Yeah. Why not?

Oh my God. So, um, you, you, you being looked after, you feeling like you feeling that sort of erosion of being on the road? No,

you know, when you're in, no, not at all. You're not missing your own like food and bed yet. Have you not worried about like, you haven't got any clean clothes left? Like, no, three days, dude. Yeah. But you went sort of straight from france didn't you really or did you yeah come back for a day it was such a chill holiday and it was so relaxing

and so nice that i kind of i was so recharged and i haven't done anything for a week like i hadn't done any work and thought that so i was kind of you know i was revitalized and then uh you know got here valve always looks after you really well and they, you know, I was revitalized. And then, you know, got here. Valve always looks after you really well. And they, you know, the food is nice. Seattle's got amazing clam chowder. Clam chowder is like one of my favorite things. So you come here, get clam chowder. There's loads of places to eat.

It's America. There's lots of, you know, it's easy to get food. And there's lots of bars. The weather is beautiful. And all my friends on the Dota scene are here. So almost all of them anyway. It's great. Like, it's just great. I love it. We just, I just watch Dota scene are here. So almost all of them anyway. It's great.

It's just great. I love it. I just watch Dota for two weeks. We do funny content. I'm working with two of my good friends. So it's fantastic. I'm loving it. What is it?

The 3rd of August? I've got another week and a half to go. TI hasn't even really started yet. The group stage is not really the start of TI. So I mean, I know they've got all kinds of cool stuff planned for the main event. I'm just loving it. I'm absolutely loving it. I'm really buzzing at the moment. I'm very happy. So no, I'm not feeling wiped out at all.

I'm very happy. Well, good for you, Flax. But we're over here miserable, like just doing the same shit. Well, we're heading off. Slugging through the same old goddamn shit all the time. In like a week or so, I'm heading off to Gamescom and that was where they i think i was there at gamescom when they did the first ti there i think the first

ti was at gamescom yeah i think that sounds about right and that was when i was there and it was like i'd played a bit of dota but i didn't really know it very well and so yeah i watched a little bit of it then but i didn't really think it very well. And so, yeah, I watched a little bit of it then, but I didn't really think much of it. And then obviously it dropped out of Dota for a few years and then came back when you sort of played me. When I played Dota, it was almost like I play in the game and I was like, why have I ever played any other game in my life? You know, this game is like the only one I need.

You know, why do I waste my time with all this other crap? This is the one I want to get good at. I need to, you know, this is enough of a game for me it's complex enough it's got enough in it like you know blah blah blah blah all my friends play it blah blah there's always people to play with but you know coming away from it is almost like it's like being with an abusive ex a little bit it's like you see the world again and you're like oh my god what was i thinking i was stuck in this addiction of vortex of nightmare it was like when i quit wow or or you know any game really that these games are very they get their hooks into you that's the thing like i i'm you know the thing about think about a book or something or a movie

is that it ends whereas these games are designed nowadays to never end and they put you in this sort of purgatory world of never getting out of it i don't know but i guess other things in life are like that too you know like i met this one of my friends um sister oh yeah completely into cycling um and she is just obsessed with spike cycling to the point that it consumes her life so she was coming down um and and um visiting and they left like she left a bunch of stuff at my house just for it was like it was like she was coming down to do cycling but also to to pop around and and use me as like a stopping ground on the fucking way to her next you know trip to right she wanted to go through the longest railway tunnel or whatever

in England which is outside Bath somewhere on the cycling you know she was just mad about it and obsessed and you know completely blinded to everything else just addicted to it I guess so it is possible I guess to do that with things that aren't gaming I guess anything could be addictive if you

if it's got the right hooks maybe yeah look at drugs and alcohol. I mean, that's nothing to do with gaming. Although, you know, you could do them while you're gaming quite easily as well. That's a good point, Sims. Yeah, I didn't think of those, actually. No, yeah. It's amazing that other things are addictive besides just gaming.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think I was more addicted to the social aspects of it though, right? That's the pull with a lot of games though. Wow was the same. After a couple of years, I don't think Wow was a groundbreaking game anymore, but you stuck around to hang out with your guild and stuff, didn't you? The pull with Wow, I think, is that you don't want to let your other guild mates down you know it's like we need you for raiding at like this time so you know you you're supposed to be there and if you miss out they'll get a replacement in or whatever and

then you might not be able to hang out with your friends anymore kind of thing yeah it's a little bit i don't know like it's a bit like scary isn't it like It's a bit of dread, I think, that it evokes in you if you miss out or don't appear. You feel like you'll let other people down. Everyone else is in the same boat. They're all feeling that they'll let everyone down. Yeah, who wants to be a letdown?

So they all stick around in these games for ages and ages and do the same old thing night after night. But they enjoy that social aspect. It's like going to the pub and drinking. That's how I sort night. But they enjoy that social aspect. It's like going to the pub and drinking. That's always how I sort of thought of it, like that social aspect. You hang out with this group of guys that you get on with.

You know, you're still playing Dota with Munt and Plague and all these people, Pflax, who you've played Dota for years and years with every evening. And it's very comfortable. It's very cozy. Like, it doesn't have to be anything more than that. I love it. I don't think it's unhealthy. it's very comfortable it's very cozy like it doesn't have to be anything more than that um i love it i mean i just think it's unhealthy i love i love the game i think that it's one of those things if you get into something i mean yeah like i remember when you were both of you guys used to play a lot of dota but you guys i mean like i've always been

obsessing about one thing at a time like i was football manager i played a ridiculous amount of that oh yeah played a ridiculous amount of that 10 000 hours insane per football manager game it's ridiculous and i mean i i will find a game and i'll just i'll just play that but for for such a long time for such a long time i mean like you know older sibs when civ 4 i god knows how many hours i put into civ Civ IV. I loved it. And I used to just play it all the time. And it's the same with Dota. Like, I'm just into it.

Until something else comes along that I like in the same way, I'll play other things, but I'll always be playing this the most. So I guess it's kind of, I don't know if that means that Dota is my life's passion, or if it's just there are certain games that appeal to me. It's normally games that I don't find easy to win, which I feel have loads of hidden depths that I have yet to notice. High skill caps and interesting builds

and cool stuff you can do. And I don't know. It always feels like the games I've been into have been like that. Games that are too casual, I could never really dedicate the time to. That's it, really. It needs the depth. Like, I see people on, you know, Battle Brothers, to go back to that's it really it needs the depth like I see people on

you know battle brothers to go back to that there's not much to it like there's really not much to it it's like a real bare bones of the game and I know that the guys who made it were like it's finished we're not doing any more no DLC we won't be releasing mods this is all it's ever going to be and a lot of people were very disappointed they were like I've got 500 hours in this game there needs to be more and I'm like 500 hours of battle brothers like jesus what are you thinking there's nowhere near 500 hours of content in that it's crazy or people who just play the witcher 3 endlessly like i'm gonna complete it with a so-and-so build and i'm gonna complete it with a so-and-so but i'm like dude there's other games like there's just there's not enough to these games that you could just play that game

for 10 000 hours i don't know though there's something to be said for just liking to be in a game though if you really like the setting and like just being in the game and the way that the game like uh like the character moves around and stuff like that like i don't know i i get it like i i get that people could play that much witcher skyrim or like fallout or whatever because they just like the setting and they like to be immersed in that setting like maybe i think that's got to be it yeah they just love the aesthetic of it almost but yeah i feel like it is still essentially the same game like each time you play it there might be some slight differences but you know the areas you're going to go through and all the rest of it i mean in eve it's like completely open world

with football manager it can be different every time, like every single time. Civ was the same, like different map, it's going to be different every time. I mean, that was for me one of the failings of Civ V is that it didn't give you enough choice. There were like certain paths you had to go down, although that's improved with all the mods and stuff like that. But with Battle Brothers, it's just grinding.

Like you just grind. That's it. You grind fights, enough of your guys make it that they get incrementally better repeat. And apparently that's enough for some fights enough of your guys make it that they get Incrementally better repeat and apparently that's enough for some people about 500 hours into the game with doter Every game is different combination of heroes and items and the way the game goes. They're all different I like that I want each time I play it the framework to be the same but the experience to be completely different and that's why I've never Understood why someone can play a single-player game for thousands of hours because it's just to be the same every time it's like it's it's going to be i mean not a single

player game obviously but i mean like a structured game like witcher that has a narrative and a flow uh i didn't get it i mean wow i got it you know you played with friends you had to get certain items yes there were quests but they would keep adding new stuff on the end so it never finished um i don't know i know games that end i don't see how you can play them through multiple, multiple. Well, you say that, but I,

I played mass effect to single player all the way to the end. And as soon as I got to the end, I restarted and played it again all the way through. That's crazy. And I, again, I just really, really liked the game.

I really liked just like being in, in the world of the game and stuff it was a great game yeah i wanted to take some different choices i wanted to like piss a couple of people off that i i didn't like near the end of the game and stuff like that so i went through it again played it again and um enjoyed it just as much second time around that's the first time i've ever done that in any right but have you done it 50 done it 50 times? No. But there are people out there that have. Yeah. There are definitely people that are like,

I'm going to do another Mass Effect 2 playthrough, and they'll just play through it, and they know every nook and cranny and every secret, and they know the optimal this, that, and the other. I mean, that's why when you see people that do speed runs in games and stuff, they've played that one game, but generally most of those games have not much depth. It's a simple

path you just have to be as optimal as possible that's what they're into how optimal can i be in completing this quest or this level it's crazy i it's the complete opposite the way i play so i mean yeah let's go back to like dota right so one thing i i sort of always was a little bit surprised about with dota was how the people who play it it tends to lead to a very specific kind of personality type who plays this game right and i guess that's why no teams can basically stay together for any period of time they just every single international i've seen that there's no way to follow a team like no one sticks to a team at least like when it when it was like you know but not not using football as a particularly good example because people do transfer around and

stuff but at least certain sort of key people i don't know i feel like i feel like every international it seems like i'm looking at a team and it's like i don't recognize any of the names from this team but but the people who all used to be in this team are now spread out wildly across dota it's yeah like it's so weird is it why is that pflex that people cannot possibly play in the same fucking team for more than a year i don't think they're i don't think they're designed like it's i don't think it's like that though i don't think it's meant to be like that i think it is meant to be a bit like football people get transferred around or whatever and move around try different teams you know like well here's the thing they brought in this this roster lock system so because what was happening was

teams were swapping so much that it was you were losing any kind of cohesion like it was literally like teams were like we lost this game get this guy out we'll get someone else and it basically meant that teams never had to get along with each other because it didn't work out you just get kicked they get someone else in no problem and there's no there's no transfer fees run for like that on the whole so you just swapped right people just left and it was it was crazy so they brought in the roster lock system so that there was some kind of consistency quite a few of the teams have been fairly consistent um they'll bring in a couple of people but you know there's a lot of names that have been sticking around like puppy's been on secret forever pile i die's been on secret forever

eg have been pretty stable. But to give an example, to clarify what Lewis, not to clarify, but to back it up, the two grand finalists from last year, those two teams, DC, that DC, is no longer that DC. The DC that's here now is a completely different team of five players. The guys that were in that DC... Completely different five. Completely different five. Because the team that was DC that finished runner up

last year left DC and were a planet odd and failed to qualify for this TI failed to qualify didn't qualify wins

so it's the same five players no no no it's a completely different five and that team is disbanded the same five left and failed to qualify yeah

so the five players that finished second in the last TI there was a slight rejigging. I think Moo left and joined, I think, Complexity. But basically, that team that finished second, it would be like whichever team's finished second in the Premier League last year,

just selling everybody and buying an entirely new team. It's crazy, right? So that DC left Digital Chaos, that organization, formed a team called Planet Odd, failed to qualify. The new DC to qualify. The new DC did qualify. They're doing okay. Wings, who were the winners of TI6,

amazing team, blew everybody away. Like everybody thought this team is going to dominate Dota. They didn't make it to TI7. They had problems with the organizations in China, the esports organizations in China. They weren't allowed to compete anymore. Team is dead. So it's like, what is happening?

It's insane. It's absolutely nuts. The grand finalists on the runner-up last year are not at ti7 so there's no defending champion not even the team the team doesn't even exist it's bonkers i mean this is what i'm talking about i mean how could you have like how could you follow a sport and kind of root for a team or when the hoodie that you buy from that team is you know fucking irrelevant within weeks it feels like it is a bit weird and i know that hotbed who's i don't know maybe people might have heard of it is it because of the p is it because of the players no it's not it's i mean it's the nature of esports is that the teams are very transitory right because there's because of the limitations of things like transfer fees if you think about football the reason the player signs a five-year contract and ends up there is because a team would have to pay a fortune to get him to come to another

club and the other team isn't going to sell and all the rest of it in esports i think the contracts are a lot shorter um and essentially if it's not working out it's a five-person team there's no substitute that you can bring in if he falls out with his teammates they all hate him he hates them you're better off getting rid of them and so you know they tend to fall out and and i don't trust him anymore that he's lost the faith of the team so the captain's gone or the two of the teammates leave or they want to go to try something else and everything like that so one of the things that happens at ti is a lot of people spend their time figuring out what are we going to do after ti like we're obviously not going to win this one it hasn't gone well it got knocked out we finished eight so they start finding out which players are unhappy on their teams and seeing if they can build a new roster or a new

team post ti there's like the post ti reshuffle where all the teams break up and this guy goes here so what the fans do is they're interested in certain players like people are an artesi fan or they're an envy fan or they're a burning fan yeah they're not a fan of a team as much which is weird because ken was saying the thing is this is hotbed the thing with teams in traditional sports like baseball or american football or football or whatever is that those teams are like 100 years old yeah your dad supported in his dad supported and so you support it so it's different you have an attachment to the team because it has a geographical location that's it yeah there's they're based around a city so like so people

support a team is going to be from a city so liverpool you're from liverpool you're a liverpool or an everton fan that's it so or port vale i guess but it's like these are the teams that you support because you were born there and they represent well they used to you know they don't really anymore your sort of region so i think in dota if you're a chinese fan of dota you'll be a fan of chinese teams if you're an na fan you'll be a fan of na teams that's as close as it gets so it's more global and player based rather than city based but um some teams like if a team does really well like eg is like a dynasty team like everybody knows eg og is the same people do support those teams because of what they've done in the past even if the player roster changes people are seriously attached to og now og who had a green logo their logo was just a green hexagon with og written in the middle they

they are now sponsored by red bull so they've changed to a blue logo with the red bull logo and they're red og red bull or og you know og wins so the thing people call them yeah but um it used to be bleed green or dream green was like the slogan but they're not green anymore because green is the color of monster energy drink which is obviously a rival of red bull so if you're an og fan and you've got all the green gear and everything now they're blue so what are you gonna do yeah i mean it's kind of like like like north american sports i remember like when i was a kid, like baseball, okay? The Toronto Blue Jays.

Yeah. They used to play in a stadium called the Sky Dome. It was called the Sky Dome back in the 80s and the 90s or whatever. And it was like this really nice stadium that was like right next to the CN Tower or like the base of the CN Tower and stuff. And it was, you know, it was like iconic, right? Like, oh, we're at the Sky Dome today, ladies and gentlemen, for the Jays game and stuff and it was you know it was like like iconic right like y'all we're at the skydome today ladies and gentlemen for the big for the jays game and stuff and then uh but but the stadium was bought by a telecoms company called rogers okay like the like such a rogers like just call

your fucking company brian or something like you know so anyway so of course they can't just keep it called the skydome for whatever reason so now it's called the rogers center and it just doesn't have the same ring to it or anything right like it you know the skydome like that sounds awesome yeah the rogers center that sounds like a fucking community center and like you know slough or something yeah i hate the renaming of football stadiums i mean yeah ballmouth used to play in dean court now it's you know it's something else bolton used to play in the baseball ground now it's like the reebok and it's just yeah it sucked all the joy and i guess like you know you don't you don't normally get in like established sports

you know like again baseball for, you wouldn't have a logo that had another corporate logo in it. Like that just seems to be something that doesn't happen. But with like eSports, it's still not super duper established and it is going to stray away from the traditional sports stuff as well. Like it has to, it's just completely different. I'm not sure I'm okay though, like watching a professional dota game where all the players have got red bull in their name which i assume they have right but does they they're called like red red bull owie five million or whatever and stuff yeah no i don't think so because they're just og the team name is still og right so yeah yeah they're og but but

red the red bull logo is in there yeah but it doesn't actually say red bull like in their in their name anywhere that used to irritate me when like players would have that though they'd have their sponsorship in their actual player name and that was like yeah anyway like one more question before we have to like finish off this i was interested in just finding out so to what extent is there like a influx of new like people into the scene like or is it a fairly established sort of is there a fairly small level of people at the very very top do you mean in terms of players well the thing about hearthstone for example is that hearthstone is a okay it's not as high a skill cap as dotota i think like a lot of people can it's a little bit look people at the top of hearthstone are very good at hearthstone right but right you get this

because of the way it's done through all you have to do is qualify legend a certain amount of seasons go to a certain amount of events blah blah it's not actually that if you're really good and you're a really new guy it's easy to get sort of discovered i guess like to what extent does that happen with like a really good dota player who's actually like high the thing is if you imagine the the mmr is being like a pyramid right and the closer to the top of the pyramid you get so the more the higher your mmr the fewer and fewer players you're playing with and against because when you're queuing solo at like seven and a half 8k mmr which is really high like there are lots of the pros are like in that bracket the very top pros are like 9 and 10k that's like the mid players the absolute bees knees players they will queue into other pros all the time and if you talk to

the pros and the analysts who are really really good they'll say they'll be talking to the pros and say oh do you remember that pub we played the other day because they'll queue into each other and they'll all see each other in these games all the time. Now, if you're really, really, really good at Dota and you grind solo queue all the time, you will be playing in these games with and against pros and they will see you and they will say, holy shit, this guy's really good. And they'll invite you to play some scrims with them and stuff like that. And if you pass the pass muster, you're on a team. I mean mean there's lots of players that have done that lots and lots of players have done that's the discovery for dota players is all done by the players there's not some scout that has to go out there the players

just solo queue pub games they play against a guy who's really good they're like holy shit this guy is amazing but maybe he's only good on like one hero which does happen some some people will grind a single like hero that's really good in that patch get really high on the mark of course when they play in a screen people just ban that hero and then they look like asses and they're like okay i actually can't play any other heroes very well and they so it does happen that would be me well like i would never get to the high mmrs in the first place but if i ever did off some fluke or whatever they'd be like oh they ban which doctor guys I would be the asshole

that looks like an asshole for not knowing how to play the rest of the game. Like, only one thing repeatedly. Oh, that's great. That's a really positive little thing to end on. I think we have to end, because you have to go, right? You've got like four minutes to get to your appointment. Yeah, we've written a script for a bit that we're doing today, and I've got to go

and run over it. So, yeah. Alright, well thanks for joining us, PFlex um yeah pleasure as always a pleasure as always thanks to everyone who's listened to the triforce podcast this week bit of a weird one i think but um try for us on the road yeah so well we gotta do it though it's been a while since we had another one so it's be great to chat and catch up i'm following ti with great interest and uh your vlog so yeah i'll try and give you guys a shout out i will try i've got a lot of people requesting shout outs but you guys deserve one more than much that's oh thanks man thanks i love you say hi say hi to day nine for me we'll do i'm a big fan of his i can't wait yeah okay bye cheers bye goodbye everybody bye