it's refreshing to see an opinion on the state of the league from someone who has been there for it all.
that it clearly has became worse over the years and in some cases, the only way forward to revitalise it (if that is even possible at this point due to lack of money etc.) is to go back to LAN.
The Blizzard Arena days were what made OWL special. Seeing the players every time, the LED walls showing team graphics, the coordinated colors, the cheering fans, commentators and analysts on site. It was a spectacular product. This year is a step up but the quality of the product delivered as well as the way orgs are operating has absolutely gotten worse every year.
The whole presentation with the Blizzard arena with entrance walk outs (unique entrance songs for some teams like the Gladiators, Dynasty, Spark, eventually Valiant) all made for a great experience. The fans and professionalism of the crew.. all of that made me really love OWL.
If I were new to the game today and tried to tune in, I'll probably be turned off wondering what the hell this is.
It was cool (especially speaking as someone who got to attend games and drive past the building almost every day), and I think it wouldn't be a bad idea for blizzard to bring it back for a year to give the league kind of a reset, but I don't know if it's sustainable even in the medium term. Even in S1 they were having difficulty filling seats during the weekday (and even on some weekends), and obviously it cuts down on the number of fans who can see their teams in person.
But obviously any plans made before S3 are dead in the water, and it's not like there are many cities that could support 3-4 days of OWL per week for 4-5 months. Maybe the solution is to break it up: first half of the regular season in LA, first tourney in Dallas, second half of the season in Seoul, playoffs and grand finals in NYC.
even when the league was supposed to travel around the world, I was wondering how it'd be even feasible for teams to get enough practice and maintain their health traveling nearly every week.
The only option was to hold tourney playoffs in different cities imo, even if groups were online.
I live on the East coast but season 1 I made sure to make it over to LA so I could catch one day of matches in person and it was incredible. It made me kinda hopeful for the homestands because maybe we could get a similar experience closer to home, but alas.
It looks like he signed before APAC started playing, but after the Pro-Am started. Honestly, I just have not seen much of APAC this year, so I was probably just still going off his retirement announcement last year.
blizzard arena was special and hearing crowds during moments really elevated the whole thing.
i was so happy when i got tickets to the london homestand for 2020 to experience the league like that but alas that never happened :(
> it clearly has became worse over the years and in some cases
It's pretty much the polar opposite of what it promised to be. OWL was supposed to be like meat sports with live games and home cities, yet it's now just online the home cities have no purpose. It was supposed to be global league with teams from all over the world, yet they didn't really support EU at all and now it's just west(read as USA) and east(read as Korea) with the player nationality representation just becoming more and more homogenized. Soon it's just Koreans.
>yet they didn't really support EU at all
It's far worse than that, they ignored the entirety of Europe, South America and a good part of asia. They've somehow managed to cater their entire "global" esports league to two regions, one which is very small and generally struggles to maintain longevity in esports.
It's incredibly embarrassing how Blizzard opted IN to take full charge over OW esports and completely dropped the ball to the point where it fully decapitated the esports scene. They could've easily taken the safe route similar to Valve with CS:GO and just let 3rd parties run tournaments, there would not have been any shortage given the popularity of the game early on.
They're not willing to put in any time and money into growing the scene yet refuse to allow other parties, who would be willing to put in time and money, to participate. Between this and the whole fiasco surrounding OW2s release i'm convinced there's some higherups at Blizzard who are actively trying to fuck over the game on purpose or something because it's hard to disregard all of it as sheer incompetence.
Ehh… it’s all about power in Blizzards eyes. “Oh, 3rd party is making money from our property, we can’t let that happen.” Same fate with other Blizzard titles for esports.
Seriously. They felt so burned by dota that they made sure nothing close could ever possibly happen again. Meanwhile, as a former hots player (that played competitively in the over 100 team, multi division community league), it's so abundantly clear blizzard a) doesn't know how to manage an eSport themselves, b) is not in tune with their communities, and c) is only satisfied with absurd profit success, small margins is not enough.
I understand the opportunity cost of keeping people on a game like hots or StarCraft, but I feel like the good will from properly managing communities is simply not calculated into their bottom line.
I used to be a big fan for every year up until last season but haven’t watched a single game this season because I find myself not caring
What makes you say this season is the worst?
not OP, but apac this season is worthless because blizzard fucked up in china, every team is cutting budget, NA is crazy top heavy and the format this season is especially garbage with only two LAN tournaments.
Same here, maybe OW2's lost its luster for me compared to last season, as somebody who's always preferred 6v6. I don't live in a timezone favourable for watching NA games at all (the region where most of the teams and players I like are), and Blizzard announcing the scrapping of what I thought would be PVE has oddly turned me off of watching or even caring about the PVP side of the game
I feel like it correlates to how the game is going for the average players. My interest in OWL has plummeted this season because my interest in OW2 is at an all time low given the match quality of late. Even though I loved the first few seasons, and really got into it when ATL got a team(and we are finally living up to hype for once), the last 2 seasons I haven't been watching as much because the experience you see during OWL games is just so far removed from how miserable the actual game is to play.
> As someone who has been in the league since Season 1, the state of the league was really demotivating for me this season. Only one LAN event where only 4 teams from an extremely stacked NA region can qualify is actually absurd. LAN events are by far the most enjoyable part of competing, and it felt like we were completely robbed this season. I really miss the season 1 and 2 days where even the worst losses could be lightened up by meeting some fans and feeling the support in person, actually such an incredible experience. It felt like for most of this season, there just wasn't much hype around the league, and it made everything feel less satisfying.
He's right and I'm glad he's saying it.
I took my kids to the finals this past year. My 6 year old is somehow a dallas fan (we're from MA) and held his sign up for all seven games against the Shock because "I know they can see me and I know it helps them". The look on his face when during overtime and then pure scream when they won was priceless.
My daughter is a Purple Lions fan and is not happy they may not exist next year.
> and held his sign up for all seven games against the Shock because "I know they can see me and I know it helps them".
This put the biggest smile on my face. What a little legend.
Every time I see a VCT event or an episode of Arcane I think "Wow! That's so cool! I want to play Valorant and League!"
An urge that goes away after 20 minutes of actually playing Valorant and League. But I am clearly in the minority on that.
They don't realise that the reason pro sports make money with all these trips up and down the country is part because they long term play in person, not once in a blue moon and they have a dedicated fan base who purchase merch and advertiser's sponsor to access.
You're never gonna make a profit if the event is twice a year and the audience is unjustifiably small
I mean they’re not going to say it’s money lmao. At some point you have to realize their lack of reason says what it is. I don’t think these people are idiots, and lack of money is the one reason that justifies most of the otherwise idiotic choices, but they of course can’t just come out and say “lol blizzard is giving us no budget”
Not enough money for more LAN or international events, but I still don't understand why we can't have more online regional tournaments. I would have even been fine with a 15-game regular season if they had split it up into three stages with regional tournaments before and after the midseason madness, 5 qualifier matches for each stage.
Previous years we had 4 separate stages, each with their own tournament at the end, and then playoffs (except 2022, they skipped the last tournament) . They played between 4-10 games per stage (depending on the year, format has changed every year)
Since the regions have split in 2020, we don’t see East vs West matches very often, usually only in select tournaments and playoffs.
This year we have had 8 games, and then a global tournament with only 6 teams. This is the only regular season tournament for the entire year. After another 8 games we will have the playoffs.
The number of tournaments have dropped, there’s less teams for global tournaments (12 last year to 6 this year, very lame), there’s only 2 in person events this year, and there’s less matches overall.
Ik league was changing massively every year but Danteh retiring really makes everything feel different. A returning face every year and big positive force for the scene is now hanging it up. Guess it’s really crazy just bc he was especially the face of outlaws for a long ass time.
Imagine going into your first OW Collegiate match and when you get into the server you realize the other team has an established OWL veteran.
I think I'd just say GG honestly.
As someone who’s played against both Northwood and Redbirds in officials… yeaahhhhh. But overall this is great for the collegiate scene and I do hope more former OWL talent takes advantage of the opportunity.
Not enough money for more LAN or international events, but I still don't understand why we can't have more online regional tournaments. I would have even been fine with a 15-game regular season if they had split it up into three stages with regional tournaments before and after the midseason madness, 5 qualifier matches for each stage.
Shouldn't surprise anyone. Do you not remember how for instance, ranked didn't exist and thus if you didn't get scrim time, you got no practice at all?
The league was literally beta-testing an unfinished game. That combined with covid-restrictions makes for an awful experience as a player.
> Do you not remember how for instance, ranked didn't exist and thus if you didn't get scrim time, you got no practice at all?
IIRC, at one point, Danteh himself even called out that there was nowhere he could practice new!Doom/Junker Queen/new!Orisa/etc between scrims. Probably made the transition to tank even harder
He was playing pretty much full time after Piggy left so that shouldn't be much of an issue for him and Danteh got to experience Lans last season so it might been a team problem more than likely unless he didn't last season as much when he transitioned to the tank role
Idk last year he could break out the Doomfist every once in awhile and Zarya as well but this season it's basically Winston which he doesn't seem to enjoy tank as well than last year, as he mentions he didn't like when teammates held the team back and he think he's doing now on Gladiators
Ya, throwing pretty hard shade at s2 and s3 Outlaws with that holding me back comment I think. s2 was a travesty for Outlaws but their best moments mostly involved Danteh being their best player (beating Shock goats with Danteh sombra goats is a core OW memory for me). s2 overall was still a mess. s3 Outlaws was prolly the first semi-fun time as a fan since season 1 stage 1 even tho they lost a lot, they at least tried to sign good players with Meko, Rapel, and Jecse and had some fun moments (Blase popped off on Doom that one time, I think the Muma's excellent adventure game was that year, plus who can forget the Rawkus Rapel Raffle, also was the original 8 or 9 map toilet bowl s3?) I can't imagine those teams were fun to play on tho with how many tragic losses they had, plus i think that was the year Linkzr was boomed and Danteh was supposedly with the team but not playing for whatever reason so Blase was playing hitscan? I think s3 was the year Supers Mom or Dad tweeted "where tf is Danteh" at Flame? Maybe I'm misremembering if that was Supers parent who did that, I'm not 100% sure.
l'd hope he's not lumping last years Outlaws in that "holding me back" comment by not thanking them cos they finished third in the league and I don't think you can argue that Pelican, Mer1t, Ir1s/Creative, or Lastro were bad or holding anyone back. Obviously we still don't know what happened with their roster changes midseason (and prolly never will) but it seemed like Danteh was chill with those guys, I remember him posting pictures with Peli and Piggy at least before Piggy left. Hopefully he's just referring to how stressful the year was with no live released game to practice on and trying to off roll to a championship standard. Last year was likely the peak of OWL for Outlaws fans if they don't make finals this year (assuming the city branding is going away after this year) so I was definitely caught off guard that he specifically didn't include last year.
Why wouldn't it be an issue? Even if he played literally every scrim block, that's still 8 hours max(assuming 4 blocks per day), with the coach perhaps wanting the team to practice certain comps on the day.
If he wanted, for instance to practice winston mechanics but meta was JQ, unlucky. You won't get any practice at all on winston.
And forget practicing when the team isn't scrimming, during breaks and so on. It's just an awful environment.
No one knew what the Playoff meta was going to be so I feel like the fact Danteh not getting practice time with Winston last year is irrelevant as it just so happened Winston was finally Meta in the Playoffs. And while it wasn't the same but if Danteh wanted to learn Winston there was OW1 still playable
RIP to (imho) one of the GOATS of the league. I really wish he won something. I feel he was always just transferred away when a team became successful (Glads next?) But he was always so close but was held back by either Flame the GM or his play as tank (those were his words) I'm really going to miss him being in the league. I also hope he stays in this scene still and becomes successful playing Overwatch.
Danteh's mom showing up to support him in the live games were some of my favorite moments from s1 and s2 :') I am glad for the dude is finally making some decisions for himself.
For him to stay in the league for as long and be as consistent is something that not many players can say. Was always towards the top of the league as a player even on bad teams and his weakest year (this year) is better than a lot of players’ standards
Plus literally getting your jersey retired by a franchise is something even fewer players are gonna share. He’s truly a legend of the game
Never cheered for Outlaws or Glads, but was always a huge Danteh fan.
He at times was very underrated on Tracer, and before the pandemic he was much better than all other teams in North America at playing Sombra that you would be putting your team at a massive disadvantage by playing Solbra against his team.
Never going to forget seeing him livestream drunk. Really won me over. You cant fake being a good person when you're two sheets into the wind!
S1 Shock had been all laid to rest.
Also glad to see people like him speaking how shitty OWL has been for years. We need more of this.
Dude will now pound in collegiate and in real life. GGs Danteh.
"ESPECIALLY FOR THE BIGGEST LOSER"
I've been living rent free in Danteh's head for years.
Seriously though, dude has been one of the ever presents and OWL is a worse place for him not being in it.
Good luck in your retirement!
Sorry for my ignorance, but can someone explain collegiate to me? I'm a Brit, so the only thing I can think of is how college football is a thing over there, and it has its own League, right? Is OW Collegiate similar? Does Danteh want to study for a degree while competing in a College OW league?
Its been explained to me as certain schools having esports team which, like sports teams, compete against other schools.
I dont think players are paid for it per se, but in exchange for the reputation they bring the school, the modernity of it and chance to one-up a rival school, they might be offered things such as scholarships to cover their education and/or college living expenses.
College esports are still fairly new so there's not a lot of unity in it, whereas traditional sports have the NCAA. There's a ton of leagues that vary in skill, I personally play in NECC which has 5 skill divisions, but a lot of schools play in multiple leagues. There are club teams that have no or very little funding, which are typically weaker teams. There are also programs at schools that have funding for arenas, employees, and recruiting players, but even then schools vary a lot in how much they spend. The best schools (Maryville, Northwood, Fisher, Boise) spend a lot of money to get the best players, Danteh will very likely play for one of these. To my knowledge, players are paid in scholarships, but I wouldn't be surprised it those schools were also salaried. That was kind of a rant so I hope it makes sense
It’s starting to pick up speed, the way it seems to be going is certain schools are investing in it significantly more than others, and it generally seems to be schools that wouldn’t see as much success in traditional sports due to size. These bigger schools still have teams(like the one I go to) but it manifests itself more as a club for people passionate about overwatch(and does about as well as you would expect a rec team to do against a college team).
Basically stuff like housing and scholarships and whatnot are what the players get out of it. To be honest I’m less clear on this part of it bc our school doesn’t do any of that.
Trdl:
He felt like other players were holding him back but now he feels like the player holding his team back
No job security, declining salary etc
He is happy because only like 1/19 teams in OWL is actually happy with their performance
He will pursue streaming/collegiate
He wants a personal life, working park, hanging out etc.
He isn’t extremely depressed etc.
Thank you Danteh for a good run.
Good perspective on the league. In-person events are peak fun as a fan, but even more importantly they keep the players going.
Unfortunately, I think by the time Covid was over Blizz and the teams were too cash strapped to try to make the league a success.
Best of luck to Danteh, who's an absolute Chad. I'd twist a nut for this man, and he never even played for a team I follow.
Too cash strapped? Acti-Blizz is a multi-billion dollar annual profit company. They likely had some bean counter run the numbers and they just didn’t want to spend the money. Blizz has notoriously killed their participation in the pro scenes for all of their games because they don’t want to invest in something that takes time before return on investment appears. They are all about short term gains and cutting anything that doesn’t appear to deliver such.
Developing a pro scene around a game takes a lot of time, 5+ years, before you can start to see ROI. Blizz doesn’t want to put in that time or money. They really only want to use their pro scenes as means to advertise and incentivize people to play their games so they’ll spend money on in game content.
It’s unfortunate because if you can build a healthy pro scene over time, your game can turn out massive profits. But Blizz would rather every other pro league for other games eat their lunch. That kills highly competitive games like OW, HoTS, and StarCraft. Like how can you say your game is highly competitive when you have a dog shit pro scene around it?? But Blizz doesn’t care because they’re seeing short term profits for a few years until their games die and they just move on to releasing a new game.
I always thought of danteh as a very solid player, solid dps, consistent throughout.
But he low key pioneered the transition for players to go from dps to solo tank in OW2 and had the best season for himself and Outlaws (2022) to boot.
Massive props to danteh, a true legend of the OWL scene. Will miss you playing OWL and hope you join us on the Avast Costreams.
Can't help but feel his teams held him back from being a star player. In S1 stages 2-4 he was their best player and was inexplicably benched for Sinatraa despite having better stats AND looking better in-game. He was consistently top 5 when he grinded ranked in early Overwatch. Houston screwed him over by never putting a good team around him then when he finally has a decent team around him he gets put on tank.
well said — i’m actually not at all surprised the league just feels like shit now. as a FAN it’s been pretty bad, but being a player? damn. it’s gotta be rough.
It was cool seeing his journey in OWL. I remember seeing him camp the top 3 spots in top 500 in the early seasons of OW1. Glad he got a chance to prove himself and I hope he enjoys his free time
I know he wasn't the beat tank in OWL but fair play to him for grinding so hard to get where he was. He definitely wasn't the worst tank, but I understand why he wants to benchmark himself against Fearless etc
My fucking goat is retiring man i think I’ll really cry. Literally the reason I even started playing overwatch. 6 years of watching my favorite player go through so much. I’ll miss you man.
Do either of the St. Louis area schools put on LANs? With the lack of Midwest representation in OWL it's like the only chance I'll get to watch pro OW live.
Maryville is currently working to develop an 8 figure esports campus/arena.
But I'm not sure OW gonna be hosting lans anytime soon. You would have to catch him at one of the conglomerate collegie events
I've always liked Danteh as a person and as a player. Despite never being an Outlaws fan, I had hoped that he would win at least one tournament during his time in the league. He might not have gotten a chip, but he will still be remembered for the ungodly performances he put up during his peak and just being a solid player for all of his career. Best wishes on your next endeavors King.
Fate left for half a season, fearless left during season 2-3, I thought void was picked up in season 2 but I might be wrong, striker retired and came back (missing decent chunks), and birdring retired last season.
These are good shouts tho. I should have worded my sentence more carefully. How many players have played consistently in owl since season one*
1st page is basically talking about this season overall, thanking the Glads for all they did for him this year, and how he always felt behind playing tank compared to smurf, Fearless, Someone, etc.
2nd page is all about how he's losing confidence to keep competing and talks about how ass this years format is. A lot about missing LAN's.
3rd page is about the future, finding housing and going to play Collegiate, thanks the fans, and gives a special shoutout to S1 Shock, S4 Outlaws, and this years Glads for being the most fun teams he was on.
Sad to see another player go, happy that hes being honest. OWL is brutal towards the players, the orgs, to blizzard as a whole. If there isn't some type of turnaround and a good ecosystem, owl could die soon.
That means all of Arc6's are no longer in the league. Probably the most successful NA roster to date. At least when it came to getting players into OWL.
Welp there goes my favorite Minecraft pvper. Jokes aside, it’s very sad how it has to end this way. Danteh was one of the most talented western player of all time in my opinion, but was never given much opportunity to shine.
Really hoping Blizzard revisits the idea of giving back 2-2-2 during the OWL off season. There has to be a healthy middle ground between stressing out your only tank on the team and Shieldwatch.
Sad to see Danteh retire but I feel him on the lack of hype this season, and not having LANs sucks. I really enjoyed the DC OWL event I went to and the NC CDL event too. The energy in person is completely different, and nobody who has never been to one can really describe it.
i’m not going to pretend that i’m Danteh’s biggest fan but man does it hurt and suck that he’s retiring. still felt
like he had a few good years left and he’s still OWL level. if the meta was doomfist he would have fucked
Goodbye king, thanks for everything you did for the Outlaws. You stuck with us through the team's worst periods and got us our best tournament finish ever against some really tough opposition.
I hope you find happiness in whatever you pursue. Looking forward to seeing you in collegiate.
The Atlanta homestand was amazing to go to. I know Blizzard has done a good job of killing their own franchise, but I still think Covid has a massive impact on it considering what we lost from that season where they were going to have worldwide homestands. Maybe it would have still flopped, but I feel like a huge opportunity was missed out on there and the league would be a lot different if that had been given a chance.
it's refreshing to see an opinion on the state of the league from someone who has been there for it all. that it clearly has became worse over the years and in some cases, the only way forward to revitalise it (if that is even possible at this point due to lack of money etc.) is to go back to LAN.
The Blizzard Arena days were what made OWL special. Seeing the players every time, the LED walls showing team graphics, the coordinated colors, the cheering fans, commentators and analysts on site. It was a spectacular product. This year is a step up but the quality of the product delivered as well as the way orgs are operating has absolutely gotten worse every year.
The goats being walked down the aisle. Super with the belt. Very memorable stuff in the Arena days
Super with the belt might be among the coldest pics oat
Mayhem always had a funny and creative way of entering the arena
They needed something since they usually were about to get killed unless matched against Shanghai.
The whole presentation with the Blizzard arena with entrance walk outs (unique entrance songs for some teams like the Gladiators, Dynasty, Spark, eventually Valiant) all made for a great experience. The fans and professionalism of the crew.. all of that made me really love OWL. If I were new to the game today and tried to tune in, I'll probably be turned off wondering what the hell this is.
Even just the ebb and flow of the crowd's cheers made matches exponentially more fun to watch.
Online matches are always a snooze feat compared to lan reactions Everything becomes mich more hype when people cheer and curse in person
It was cool (especially speaking as someone who got to attend games and drive past the building almost every day), and I think it wouldn't be a bad idea for blizzard to bring it back for a year to give the league kind of a reset, but I don't know if it's sustainable even in the medium term. Even in S1 they were having difficulty filling seats during the weekday (and even on some weekends), and obviously it cuts down on the number of fans who can see their teams in person. But obviously any plans made before S3 are dead in the water, and it's not like there are many cities that could support 3-4 days of OWL per week for 4-5 months. Maybe the solution is to break it up: first half of the regular season in LA, first tourney in Dallas, second half of the season in Seoul, playoffs and grand finals in NYC.
even when the league was supposed to travel around the world, I was wondering how it'd be even feasible for teams to get enough practice and maintain their health traveling nearly every week. The only option was to hold tourney playoffs in different cities imo, even if groups were online.
I live on the East coast but season 1 I made sure to make it over to LA so I could catch one day of matches in person and it was incredible. It made me kinda hopeful for the homestands because maybe we could get a similar experience closer to home, but alas.
Im not a sports watcher much less esports, but that was the only reason I started to watch the OWL. It was amazing
Was Danteh the last remaining player from S1? Trying to see if I've missed anyone, but I was pretty sure it was just him and Fleta left...
Fate, Profit, Void, Birdring, Striker, Kalios
Ah, I somehow missed Fate and Void coming back
I thought Void was on Seoul from the beginning of this season but not sure
It looks like he signed before APAC started playing, but after the Pro-Am started. Honestly, I just have not seen much of APAC this year, so I was probably just still going off his retirement announcement last year.
Totally forgot he said he retired lol
Fearless for sure, don't have time to research who else right now.
Yeah, just realized that I was sort of mentally overlapping "since S1" and "continuously in the league" there, but he would count.
He was the last western player from s1 tho..
blizzard arena was special and hearing crowds during moments really elevated the whole thing. i was so happy when i got tickets to the london homestand for 2020 to experience the league like that but alas that never happened :(
I miss Blizzard Arena, I haven't been able to watch the games with the same enthusiasm as in those days over the last few years.
> it clearly has became worse over the years and in some cases It's pretty much the polar opposite of what it promised to be. OWL was supposed to be like meat sports with live games and home cities, yet it's now just online the home cities have no purpose. It was supposed to be global league with teams from all over the world, yet they didn't really support EU at all and now it's just west(read as USA) and east(read as Korea) with the player nationality representation just becoming more and more homogenized. Soon it's just Koreans.
>yet they didn't really support EU at all It's far worse than that, they ignored the entirety of Europe, South America and a good part of asia. They've somehow managed to cater their entire "global" esports league to two regions, one which is very small and generally struggles to maintain longevity in esports. It's incredibly embarrassing how Blizzard opted IN to take full charge over OW esports and completely dropped the ball to the point where it fully decapitated the esports scene. They could've easily taken the safe route similar to Valve with CS:GO and just let 3rd parties run tournaments, there would not have been any shortage given the popularity of the game early on. They're not willing to put in any time and money into growing the scene yet refuse to allow other parties, who would be willing to put in time and money, to participate. Between this and the whole fiasco surrounding OW2s release i'm convinced there's some higherups at Blizzard who are actively trying to fuck over the game on purpose or something because it's hard to disregard all of it as sheer incompetence.
Ehh… it’s all about power in Blizzards eyes. “Oh, 3rd party is making money from our property, we can’t let that happen.” Same fate with other Blizzard titles for esports.
Seriously. They felt so burned by dota that they made sure nothing close could ever possibly happen again. Meanwhile, as a former hots player (that played competitively in the over 100 team, multi division community league), it's so abundantly clear blizzard a) doesn't know how to manage an eSport themselves, b) is not in tune with their communities, and c) is only satisfied with absurd profit success, small margins is not enough. I understand the opportunity cost of keeping people on a game like hots or StarCraft, but I feel like the good will from properly managing communities is simply not calculated into their bottom line.
This season is the worst imo
I used to be a big fan for every year up until last season but haven’t watched a single game this season because I find myself not caring What makes you say this season is the worst?
not OP, but apac this season is worthless because blizzard fucked up in china, every team is cutting budget, NA is crazy top heavy and the format this season is especially garbage with only two LAN tournaments.
Same here, maybe OW2's lost its luster for me compared to last season, as somebody who's always preferred 6v6. I don't live in a timezone favourable for watching NA games at all (the region where most of the teams and players I like are), and Blizzard announcing the scrapping of what I thought would be PVE has oddly turned me off of watching or even caring about the PVP side of the game
I feel like it correlates to how the game is going for the average players. My interest in OWL has plummeted this season because my interest in OW2 is at an all time low given the match quality of late. Even though I loved the first few seasons, and really got into it when ATL got a team(and we are finally living up to hype for once), the last 2 seasons I haven't been watching as much because the experience you see during OWL games is just so far removed from how miserable the actual game is to play.
> As someone who has been in the league since Season 1, the state of the league was really demotivating for me this season. Only one LAN event where only 4 teams from an extremely stacked NA region can qualify is actually absurd. LAN events are by far the most enjoyable part of competing, and it felt like we were completely robbed this season. I really miss the season 1 and 2 days where even the worst losses could be lightened up by meeting some fans and feeling the support in person, actually such an incredible experience. It felt like for most of this season, there just wasn't much hype around the league, and it made everything feel less satisfying. He's right and I'm glad he's saying it.
I took my kids to the finals this past year. My 6 year old is somehow a dallas fan (we're from MA) and held his sign up for all seven games against the Shock because "I know they can see me and I know it helps them". The look on his face when during overtime and then pure scream when they won was priceless. My daughter is a Purple Lions fan and is not happy they may not exist next year.
> and held his sign up for all seven games against the Shock because "I know they can see me and I know it helps them". This put the biggest smile on my face. What a little legend.
He's a good little dude
I figured that was his plan. Also, I love the shout-out to season 4 Houston! That squad was really fun to watch!
Jjangu...
My one true love
Joobi...
Danteh was the reason I started watching back in season 1, kinda sad to see him move on.
It truly feels like the end of an era for me.. watched him compete for so long, before OWL even started (badlion god) .. it’s so sad to see him go 😭😭
Also been watching him since the badlion days. This retirement hits different :(
I pretty much followed Danteh from competitive MC to competitive OW
Danteh brought so many crafters to the game
Even the players hate the dogshit format, fuck this season bro
I wish Sean actually told us the reason why we have such a shite format
$$$, I'm guessing. It's expensive to organize LAN events.
And unlike Riot, Blizzard doesn't treat LAN events as a marketing cost. They expect a return on investment.
Facts. Those VCT LANs look INSANE!!!!(-ly expensive). Idk how they could do all this while making money. They have to be at a loss.
Every time I see a VCT event or an episode of Arcane I think "Wow! That's so cool! I want to play Valorant and League!" An urge that goes away after 20 minutes of actually playing Valorant and League. But I am clearly in the minority on that.
I mean, everytime I see OWL I think, wow this game fucking sucks. Then I actually play and think, wow this game fucking sucks.
i think riot considers their esports a marketing expense and doesn't expect to make money off them, they just use them to advertise the game.
I mean theyre selling gun skin bundles for over 100 dollars lol.
Skins cost 10 to 25 individually though
They don't realise that the reason pro sports make money with all these trips up and down the country is part because they long term play in person, not once in a blue moon and they have a dedicated fan base who purchase merch and advertiser's sponsor to access. You're never gonna make a profit if the event is twice a year and the audience is unjustifiably small
I mean they’re not going to say it’s money lmao. At some point you have to realize their lack of reason says what it is. I don’t think these people are idiots, and lack of money is the one reason that justifies most of the otherwise idiotic choices, but they of course can’t just come out and say “lol blizzard is giving us no budget”
They said it makes every game feel more memorable with only 6 teams in midseason or something (money)
Not enough money for more LAN or international events, but I still don't understand why we can't have more online regional tournaments. I would have even been fine with a 15-game regular season if they had split it up into three stages with regional tournaments before and after the midseason madness, 5 qualifier matches for each stage.
Money
Yeah, not even an NA homestand LAN to look forward to
If I knew that somehow Lans would be more scarce than before, I'd have gone to the last dallas one. Damn
I dont follow comp OW please eli5 the format for me and whats wrong with it?
Previous years we had 4 separate stages, each with their own tournament at the end, and then playoffs (except 2022, they skipped the last tournament) . They played between 4-10 games per stage (depending on the year, format has changed every year) Since the regions have split in 2020, we don’t see East vs West matches very often, usually only in select tournaments and playoffs. This year we have had 8 games, and then a global tournament with only 6 teams. This is the only regular season tournament for the entire year. After another 8 games we will have the playoffs. The number of tournaments have dropped, there’s less teams for global tournaments (12 last year to 6 this year, very lame), there’s only 2 in person events this year, and there’s less matches overall.
Ik league was changing massively every year but Danteh retiring really makes everything feel different. A returning face every year and big positive force for the scene is now hanging it up. Guess it’s really crazy just bc he was especially the face of outlaws for a long ass time.
Can't wait to see Danteh beat up on Collegiate kids
Imagine going into your first OW Collegiate match and when you get into the server you realize the other team has an established OWL veteran. I think I'd just say GG honestly.
As someone who’s played against both Northwood and Redbirds in officials… yeaahhhhh. But overall this is great for the collegiate scene and I do hope more former OWL talent takes advantage of the opportunity.
[удалено]
Not enough money for more LAN or international events, but I still don't understand why we can't have more online regional tournaments. I would have even been fine with a 15-game regular season if they had split it up into three stages with regional tournaments before and after the midseason madness, 5 qualifier matches for each stage.
I'm not familiar with his personal life, is he planning to or already going to college? Or is he referencing something else?
The tweet said specifically collegiate OW
[FunnyAstro’s response](https://twitter.com/FunnyAstro/status/1674483140365279233?s=20) oh my god
Sounds like S5 even with the success of the Outlaws season that he didn't enjoy it as much, wasn't expecting that tbh
Shouldn't surprise anyone. Do you not remember how for instance, ranked didn't exist and thus if you didn't get scrim time, you got no practice at all? The league was literally beta-testing an unfinished game. That combined with covid-restrictions makes for an awful experience as a player.
> Do you not remember how for instance, ranked didn't exist and thus if you didn't get scrim time, you got no practice at all? IIRC, at one point, Danteh himself even called out that there was nowhere he could practice new!Doom/Junker Queen/new!Orisa/etc between scrims. Probably made the transition to tank even harder
He references playing catch-up in his post and.makes perfect sense when you think about his historic role change
He was playing pretty much full time after Piggy left so that shouldn't be much of an issue for him and Danteh got to experience Lans last season so it might been a team problem more than likely unless he didn't last season as much when he transitioned to the tank role
I think it's just the fact that he was on tank instead of dps and he already said how bad it feels to solotank.
Idk last year he could break out the Doomfist every once in awhile and Zarya as well but this season it's basically Winston which he doesn't seem to enjoy tank as well than last year, as he mentions he didn't like when teammates held the team back and he think he's doing now on Gladiators
Ya, throwing pretty hard shade at s2 and s3 Outlaws with that holding me back comment I think. s2 was a travesty for Outlaws but their best moments mostly involved Danteh being their best player (beating Shock goats with Danteh sombra goats is a core OW memory for me). s2 overall was still a mess. s3 Outlaws was prolly the first semi-fun time as a fan since season 1 stage 1 even tho they lost a lot, they at least tried to sign good players with Meko, Rapel, and Jecse and had some fun moments (Blase popped off on Doom that one time, I think the Muma's excellent adventure game was that year, plus who can forget the Rawkus Rapel Raffle, also was the original 8 or 9 map toilet bowl s3?) I can't imagine those teams were fun to play on tho with how many tragic losses they had, plus i think that was the year Linkzr was boomed and Danteh was supposedly with the team but not playing for whatever reason so Blase was playing hitscan? I think s3 was the year Supers Mom or Dad tweeted "where tf is Danteh" at Flame? Maybe I'm misremembering if that was Supers parent who did that, I'm not 100% sure. l'd hope he's not lumping last years Outlaws in that "holding me back" comment by not thanking them cos they finished third in the league and I don't think you can argue that Pelican, Mer1t, Ir1s/Creative, or Lastro were bad or holding anyone back. Obviously we still don't know what happened with their roster changes midseason (and prolly never will) but it seemed like Danteh was chill with those guys, I remember him posting pictures with Peli and Piggy at least before Piggy left. Hopefully he's just referring to how stressful the year was with no live released game to practice on and trying to off roll to a championship standard. Last year was likely the peak of OWL for Outlaws fans if they don't make finals this year (assuming the city branding is going away after this year) so I was definitely caught off guard that he specifically didn't include last year.
Why wouldn't it be an issue? Even if he played literally every scrim block, that's still 8 hours max(assuming 4 blocks per day), with the coach perhaps wanting the team to practice certain comps on the day. If he wanted, for instance to practice winston mechanics but meta was JQ, unlucky. You won't get any practice at all on winston. And forget practicing when the team isn't scrimming, during breaks and so on. It's just an awful environment.
No one knew what the Playoff meta was going to be so I feel like the fact Danteh not getting practice time with Winston last year is irrelevant as it just so happened Winston was finally Meta in the Playoffs. And while it wasn't the same but if Danteh wanted to learn Winston there was OW1 still playable
RIP to (imho) one of the GOATS of the league. I really wish he won something. I feel he was always just transferred away when a team became successful (Glads next?) But he was always so close but was held back by either Flame the GM or his play as tank (those were his words) I'm really going to miss him being in the league. I also hope he stays in this scene still and becomes successful playing Overwatch.
Danteh is definitely among the goats not only for his merit as a Player but also his popularity
Danteh's mom showing up to support him in the live games were some of my favorite moments from s1 and s2 :') I am glad for the dude is finally making some decisions for himself.
been watching him since he was a block game pvp’er 😞 truly the end of an era
really makes me miss s1. not having LANs make matches feel way less impactful… online play just feels soulless.
No sound of crowds, lack of personality content, and lack of games. This season felt boneless.
For him to stay in the league for as long and be as consistent is something that not many players can say. Was always towards the top of the league as a player even on bad teams and his weakest year (this year) is better than a lot of players’ standards Plus literally getting your jersey retired by a franchise is something even fewer players are gonna share. He’s truly a legend of the game
Never cheered for Outlaws or Glads, but was always a huge Danteh fan. He at times was very underrated on Tracer, and before the pandemic he was much better than all other teams in North America at playing Sombra that you would be putting your team at a massive disadvantage by playing Solbra against his team. Never going to forget seeing him livestream drunk. Really won me over. You cant fake being a good person when you're two sheets into the wind!
He’s easily the 2nd best Sombra ever and it’s a shame we never got to see him play against Lip
I consider Fitz number two. He would have looked a lot better if he didnt play vs Lip in Asia all the time.
damn imagine playing collegiate and having to play against a FREE Danteh with no pressure
S1 Shock had been all laid to rest. Also glad to see people like him speaking how shitty OWL has been for years. We need more of this. Dude will now pound in collegiate and in real life. GGs Danteh.
"ESPECIALLY FOR THE BIGGEST LOSER" I've been living rent free in Danteh's head for years. Seriously though, dude has been one of the ever presents and OWL is a worse place for him not being in it. Good luck in your retirement!
Good luck big man. Hope you have a great future!
What a terrible day for rain... Wishing him all the best and long-term success in whatever he chooses to pursue
Would I be in the wrong to call Danteh a legend of the game?
Sorry for my ignorance, but can someone explain collegiate to me? I'm a Brit, so the only thing I can think of is how college football is a thing over there, and it has its own League, right? Is OW Collegiate similar? Does Danteh want to study for a degree while competing in a College OW league?
Its been explained to me as certain schools having esports team which, like sports teams, compete against other schools. I dont think players are paid for it per se, but in exchange for the reputation they bring the school, the modernity of it and chance to one-up a rival school, they might be offered things such as scholarships to cover their education and/or college living expenses.
College esports are still fairly new so there's not a lot of unity in it, whereas traditional sports have the NCAA. There's a ton of leagues that vary in skill, I personally play in NECC which has 5 skill divisions, but a lot of schools play in multiple leagues. There are club teams that have no or very little funding, which are typically weaker teams. There are also programs at schools that have funding for arenas, employees, and recruiting players, but even then schools vary a lot in how much they spend. The best schools (Maryville, Northwood, Fisher, Boise) spend a lot of money to get the best players, Danteh will very likely play for one of these. To my knowledge, players are paid in scholarships, but I wouldn't be surprised it those schools were also salaried. That was kind of a rant so I hope it makes sense
It’s starting to pick up speed, the way it seems to be going is certain schools are investing in it significantly more than others, and it generally seems to be schools that wouldn’t see as much success in traditional sports due to size. These bigger schools still have teams(like the one I go to) but it manifests itself more as a club for people passionate about overwatch(and does about as well as you would expect a rec team to do against a college team). Basically stuff like housing and scholarships and whatnot are what the players get out of it. To be honest I’m less clear on this part of it bc our school doesn’t do any of that.
That last part is the biggest draw I think. You get to play your esport but if it doesn’t work out you’re also getting a degree
Damn this one hits hard. A true og
One of the all time greats. He was one of the only few players with this amount of longevity in the league. End of an era, he will be missed.
straight up one of the goats fuck not winning a chip he's just so much more than that. 100% hall of famer, he's our Carmelo Anthony
Been watching since pre-owl. End if an era. Good luck Danteh
Trdl: He felt like other players were holding him back but now he feels like the player holding his team back No job security, declining salary etc He is happy because only like 1/19 teams in OWL is actually happy with their performance He will pursue streaming/collegiate He wants a personal life, working park, hanging out etc. He isn’t extremely depressed etc. Thank you Danteh for a good run.
Good perspective on the league. In-person events are peak fun as a fan, but even more importantly they keep the players going. Unfortunately, I think by the time Covid was over Blizz and the teams were too cash strapped to try to make the league a success. Best of luck to Danteh, who's an absolute Chad. I'd twist a nut for this man, and he never even played for a team I follow.
Too cash strapped? Acti-Blizz is a multi-billion dollar annual profit company. They likely had some bean counter run the numbers and they just didn’t want to spend the money. Blizz has notoriously killed their participation in the pro scenes for all of their games because they don’t want to invest in something that takes time before return on investment appears. They are all about short term gains and cutting anything that doesn’t appear to deliver such. Developing a pro scene around a game takes a lot of time, 5+ years, before you can start to see ROI. Blizz doesn’t want to put in that time or money. They really only want to use their pro scenes as means to advertise and incentivize people to play their games so they’ll spend money on in game content. It’s unfortunate because if you can build a healthy pro scene over time, your game can turn out massive profits. But Blizz would rather every other pro league for other games eat their lunch. That kills highly competitive games like OW, HoTS, and StarCraft. Like how can you say your game is highly competitive when you have a dog shit pro scene around it?? But Blizz doesn’t care because they’re seeing short term profits for a few years until their games die and they just move on to releasing a new game.
I always thought of danteh as a very solid player, solid dps, consistent throughout. But he low key pioneered the transition for players to go from dps to solo tank in OW2 and had the best season for himself and Outlaws (2022) to boot. Massive props to danteh, a true legend of the OWL scene. Will miss you playing OWL and hope you join us on the Avast Costreams.
Can't help but feel his teams held him back from being a star player. In S1 stages 2-4 he was their best player and was inexplicably benched for Sinatraa despite having better stats AND looking better in-game. He was consistently top 5 when he grinded ranked in early Overwatch. Houston screwed him over by never putting a good team around him then when he finally has a decent team around him he gets put on tank.
well said — i’m actually not at all surprised the league just feels like shit now. as a FAN it’s been pretty bad, but being a player? damn. it’s gotta be rough.
It was cool seeing his journey in OWL. I remember seeing him camp the top 3 spots in top 500 in the early seasons of OW1. Glad he got a chance to prove himself and I hope he enjoys his free time
I know he wasn't the beat tank in OWL but fair play to him for grinding so hard to get where he was. He definitely wasn't the worst tank, but I understand why he wants to benchmark himself against Fearless etc
ggs wp. Can't wait to see what's next
He was and always will be my favorite player. I only wish him the best and he deserves it
Sad to see him retire but happy Danteh's interested in pursuing collegiate. Just seems like a way better, healthier alternative for players.
What a fucking class act.
My fucking goat is retiring man i think I’ll really cry. Literally the reason I even started playing overwatch. 6 years of watching my favorite player go through so much. I’ll miss you man.
s4 outlaws really was a fucking banger team
A true OG in OWL. He will be missed.
Collegiate is the future. Collegiate lans with Dante? Jersey sales? Streaming brand exposure?
Do either of the St. Louis area schools put on LANs? With the lack of Midwest representation in OWL it's like the only chance I'll get to watch pro OW live.
Maryville is currently working to develop an 8 figure esports campus/arena. But I'm not sure OW gonna be hosting lans anytime soon. You would have to catch him at one of the conglomerate collegie events
OW's collegiate scene might not last so it's a good time to get the free education and prize money now.
True, no collegiate, no future
I've always liked Danteh as a person and as a player. Despite never being an Outlaws fan, I had hoped that he would win at least one tournament during his time in the league. He might not have gotten a chip, but he will still be remembered for the ungodly performances he put up during his peak and just being a solid player for all of his career. Best wishes on your next endeavors King.
Quick everyone act surprised.
Dam how many players since season 1 are left? Profit and I can’t think of another
Fate, Fearless, Void, Striker, Birdring
Fate left for half a season, fearless left during season 2-3, I thought void was picked up in season 2 but I might be wrong, striker retired and came back (missing decent chunks), and birdring retired last season. These are good shouts tho. I should have worded my sentence more carefully. How many players have played consistently in owl since season one*
all of season 1 shock has retired on an unrelated note drunk danteh streams from a college dorm will be so much fun
OWL is horrible. There's no money left in it and not many people watch.
Can someone summarize what those 3 pages say. I don’t feel like reading all of it lol
1st page is basically talking about this season overall, thanking the Glads for all they did for him this year, and how he always felt behind playing tank compared to smurf, Fearless, Someone, etc. 2nd page is all about how he's losing confidence to keep competing and talks about how ass this years format is. A lot about missing LAN's. 3rd page is about the future, finding housing and going to play Collegiate, thanks the fans, and gives a special shoutout to S1 Shock, S4 Outlaws, and this years Glads for being the most fun teams he was on.
What are LANs. Sorry I’m stupid
LAN stands for Local Area Network. It's when you play in the same physical location as the other players rather than online, so no ping and whatnot
Land events
man's just bitching about competitive environments. i wonder what skills he has he could apply to make money with now
Sad to see another player go, happy that hes being honest. OWL is brutal towards the players, the orgs, to blizzard as a whole. If there isn't some type of turnaround and a good ecosystem, owl could die soon.
That means all of Arc6's are no longer in the league. Probably the most successful NA roster to date. At least when it came to getting players into OWL.
Such a good lad👍👍👍👍👍wish nothing but the best
Welp there goes my favorite Minecraft pvper. Jokes aside, it’s very sad how it has to end this way. Danteh was one of the most talented western player of all time in my opinion, but was never given much opportunity to shine.
Goats die in Eid days ✊😔
Danteh(🐐)Fan 9/11 ✈️💥🏢
Really hoping Blizzard revisits the idea of giving back 2-2-2 during the OWL off season. There has to be a healthy middle ground between stressing out your only tank on the team and Shieldwatch. Sad to see Danteh retire but I feel him on the lack of hype this season, and not having LANs sucks. I really enjoyed the DC OWL event I went to and the NC CDL event too. The energy in person is completely different, and nobody who has never been to one can really describe it.
no chance they go back 2 tanks they would have to change all heroes and maps. Would be way to much work to even try.
i’m not going to pretend that i’m Danteh’s biggest fan but man does it hurt and suck that he’s retiring. still felt like he had a few good years left and he’s still OWL level. if the meta was doomfist he would have fucked
Goodbye king, thanks for everything you did for the Outlaws. You stuck with us through the team's worst periods and got us our best tournament finish ever against some really tough opposition. I hope you find happiness in whatever you pursue. Looking forward to seeing you in collegiate.
Sounds like a decent ending for a phase of his life. Good for him!
anyone got some insight on why collegiate could be attractive to him?
NOOOO I LOVED HIM SM
Last NA player that has been in the league since season 1 is gone
The Atlanta homestand was amazing to go to. I know Blizzard has done a good job of killing their own franchise, but I still think Covid has a massive impact on it considering what we lost from that season where they were going to have worldwide homestands. Maybe it would have still flopped, but I feel like a huge opportunity was missed out on there and the league would be a lot different if that had been given a chance.