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PimpmuckL on his career, Layerth, TI predictions and more

DreXxiN 2018-06-14 05:39:57
Article written by KarY on an older version of Esports Heaven _________ They are invisible people supporting the visible. They are an amazing bunch of hard workers whom most people don’t notice but who perform incredibly important tasks. They are one of those many who’ve chosen to work from the shadows without expecting any recognition in return. They serve as the backbone in any institution and without them, life simply isn’t that easy. Today, we interview one such personality amongst many in our beloved game - Dota 2. He has contributed to the game in more ways than one can imagine. Not only is he considered an amazing observer who nearly never misses a single piece of action going on in a game at any moment, he is also someone that has pushed the limits of in-game production to a very high level. Ladies and Gentlemen, he is none other than Jonathan ‘PimpmuckL” Liebig – one of the most humble human beings we’ve ever come across and also the one who has introduced us to Layerth - an amazing visual concept that has us all awestruck. ___ Hello Jonathan. I've already given a brief introduction on you to our readers; however, it'd be wonderful if they hear it from the man himself. Kindly do the honors :). Hello! I'm Jonathan, my friends call me JJ and most of you know me for observing Dota 2 tournaments. Then I also founded layerth to push in-game production to the next level, do broadcasts and production consulting and work for moonduck when the time permits it. How did your game alias "pimpmuckL" come into existence? I used to watch a bunch of "Pimp My Ride" on MTV when I was a teenager. And since “school English” doesn't exactly cover that vocabulary, I always thought "pimping" something meant enhancing. The muckl part comes from the animated German TV show for kids called "Pumuckl". That was a kobold who would go invisible, troll people (in a nice way) and was all around just a great dude. So I mashed those two together, thinking Pimpmuckl could mean enhanced Pumuckl. That’s an interesting way to go about it. Anyway, you're a jack of all trades when it comes to Dota 2. Casting, observing, developing content - you've done it all. Tell us about your humble beginnings in this industry. I used to cast with Lily on DotaTalkTV. We covered a lot of SEA Dota and the dynamic of me producing and observing was a great learning experience. Then I transitioned into casting, mainly on hitbox.tv, but after a while there, Greg "WhatIsHipTV" Laird hit men up to do production and observing for Dota Pit Season 3. This was my breakout season so to speak: I made instant replays happen, I made highlights happen. Wrote some tools to show ultimates being used, made match tickers and hacked the game so I could zoom out more. Looking back, this was crazy; I didn't even have a strong PC. Maybe a 1000€ machine? And there were all these features that cost multiple tens of thousands of dollars in a production setting. Anyway, after that I've talked to several people and right after the moonduck idea was born, I've been brought onto the project and had the chance to produce and direct Captain's Draft 3.0 in Phoenix, AZ. You started off with Moonduck as an observer and garnered a very enthusiastic fanbase in return. Tell us more about the transition from casting games to being an observer at a major studio. Going from casting to producing and observing was very natural to me. I understood that I wasn't exactly the best at casting. But in my niche, the one-man-power-house-production-and-observing, I could make a difference and the excellent feedback felt incredible to me. It took Greg to believe in me, but the payoff was immense. Even to this day, Dota Pit S3 was the best produced online tournament we ever had in Dota. What makes one a good observer or a god-like observer like you (as per our beloved Reddit community)? I study a lot about teams and players. Some players are really active on a certain hero, some others are less active on the map but shine in other aspects. Understanding which player/hero is active and is relevant at which point in the game is important for the storyline. Then there's the obvious thing where I used 5 extra observing machines (if production sets those up for me) where I can follow each player of one team. The chance of catching all kills is much better this way than simply guessing based on the mini-map and the top bar HP. The only downside is the immense stress and fatigue it creates. Watching 6 screens all the time is not easy.

PimpmuckL's workstation

An observer has to put in long hours. especially during premium tournaments. There have been cases where a tournament has hired only one or maybe two people in that role. Does it take toll on your mental and physical health? If yes, how and what advice would you lend so as to avoid such health implications? Yes of course, especially in a "perfect" setup with 6 observer machines. For me, I simply take really good care of myself; I drink hardly any alcohol or stay up late at events. Even something like energy drinks are either reserved for the final day or for times I feel like I absolutely need it. And drinking a lot of water helps as well - basically the same what a sports coach would tell you. Earlier, there used to be large disparity in terms of payments made to observers as compared to their peers in different roles. Does a similar situation still exist? What can be done to improve this? Please shed some light on this topic. I still get paid less than on-camera talent even though I work more hours. Improving this isn't easy: A good observer is invisible to most users and in traditional sports, this role doesn't exist. So, there is no precedence here I could leverage. A lot of tournament organisers now hire me not only for observing but also broadcast/production help and/or consulting. So, I provide a full package instead of "only" observing and as such, my rates have improved considerably. Moving on, at present you officially work for moonduck studios. Is your role the same as before or have you flexed your muscles a bit? Coming into moonduck I used to mostly produce online tournaments. In moonduck, I used this experience to also produce Captain's Draft 3.0 and later produced the whole group stage of Captain's Draft 4.0 and helped out with both GESC tournaments. That brings me to my next inquiry - the Layerth. Kindly tell the community in detail what is it about. Layerth is a novel graphics system that dynamically generates graphics based on ingame data. For example: We track an incredible amount of metrics and data about every hero. As such, we can generate a heatmap to show where a certain player was active and got kills or even got killed. We have all this data that's interesting in the game and sometimes commentators talk about it, but now, finally, we have a way to show this to the viewer. Working with bukka on one of the Elimination Modes meant that we quickly discovered our joint vision for visualizing data and as such we made a company, layerth, and showed that off first at Manila Masters. We pushed a lot on increasing our features and have a very ambitious set of features planned in the future. Then, there's something entirely new we've built and used at GESC: A novel graphics playout system called Polar, that, instead of utilizing broadcast software such as Xpression, we created the graphics entirely on our own stack. This way we offered a full package, from graphics to in-game production, to tournament organisers for a very compelling price and received excellent feedback. That’s pretty impressive, at least to me. Anyway, let’s move on to the TI8 qualifier hub. Share your immediate thought that came to mind when the panel was first announced. Well truth be told, I knew about the hub since a while, but I always love when everyone comes together for a hub. Hubs are always this crazy 24/7 thing and I can't wait for all the Dota action! You're also a part of the hub, however, you'll be working from Netherlands besides Sheever, ODPixel and Fogged. Did they strong arm you into moving to Netherlands for this qualifier?? Tell us the truth, nothing but the truth! They abducted me in Birmingham and told me I would only get free if I agreed to the EU Hub! They showed me a VOD of my missed kills on loop until I broke. A******s. No, but honestly, we talked about it and since we're really good friends we figured it'd be not only a great time, but viewers would love it as well. I’m sure everybody will have a great time. Give us a glimpse into what you'll be bringing to the TI8 hub in terms of content. I don't want to rule out everything so far, but with how crazy the schedule looks, I would be surprised if we can do a ton of great content. One thing that I can guarantee is a small PC building piece: We just got a bunch of parts for Sheever's new PC and we might make a small livestream to build it to get everyone in the mood for the insanity that is the hub. The million-dollar question - are you going to TI8 in person?? I would love to. It's been a dream of mine since years, but at this point I just can't get my hopes up anymore. My best wishes are with you on this. I really do hope Valve invites you to TI8. That being said, this might be the most important question in this interview. Name your favourite host, caster and panellist, and why? Impossible to answer, I'm afraid, at least in the host role. For casters/analysts, I just absolutely love Trent. His chemistry with Zyori is unmatched, but even with anyone else, he always knows exactly what analysis is relevant. Frankly speaking, we've seen a lot of tournaments this DPC season that in turn led to a chaotic schedule for players and casters alike. Tell us briefly on how the first dpc season felt like as a professional and as an audience? I can mostly echo the sentiment of TobiWan here: From someone who mostly looks at this season from all perspectives of the ecosystem, I'm glad that Valve stopped overpaying players and instead is focusing more on the whole scene. There needs to be breathing room between DPC tournaments and with less DPC events, the whole idea that everyone HAS to be part of DPC is finally gone. Instead, we get a total of 10 tournaments that are nicely spaced out through the year and have plenty of space in-between. Speaking of which, the new DPC season has been announced and the number of tournaments has halved, literally. Name three things that you loved the most in the new season. 1. More space for non-DPC events means potentially more events that are profitable. 2. More budget freed up for tournament organisers means that more tournament organisers will have money they can budget into production. 3. Well produced tournaments are amazing and help with competition.  According to you, which changes could Valve had further implemented that they haven't at present? I can't really say too much here, as it is too early to properly judge the new rules, but I would love to see offline qualifiers for the next TI. I’m certain everyone would love to see offline qualifiers. We are almost done with the interview. Which team will take home the aegis of the champions this International? Why? Team Liquid. Why? Have you seen them play? Haha point noted. Well Jonathan thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to interview you. Anything you'd like to say to our readers? Love how much support you guys give me and how excited you are about layerth features and good observing! Thank you!
If you enjoyed this feature, follow the author on Twitter at @Karyb4u. Follow PimmuckL on Twitter at @JJLiebig. Images courtesy of PimpmuckL's Twitter.
 

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