Cosntellation: Lets start with, Can you tell me a little about yourself for anyone who might not know you?(gaming and dota History)

RepairKit: I started playing DotA a long time ago, when it was still called DotA Allstars. If I can recall correctly, I played as of v6.42, mainly with the AI to begin with, sometime around 2007 or 2008? But before this, I often played a lot of Warcraft III. I got interested in the World Editor to begin with. I then found DotA, and was interested it in as a map. I guess I just started playing it a lot afterwards.

Whilst I was a regular player of DotA, I did also do a lot of Warcraft III modding and whatnot, so I guess this explains why I’m rather well-versed in general mechanics and animation visuals.

Cosntellation: what got you interested in the world editor?

RepairKit: Probably since I had a thing for editors. I played around with Age of Empires 1 and 2 editors as well as Warcraft 2’s editor. I never produced anything decent, since I was like… 9-11 at the time? So naturally I was interested for the wc3 world editor. Although playing the maps in the Scenario folders (Sheep dodging map, WarChasers, etc.) also got me interested in editing maps

Cosntellation: would you approve of or suggest to someone interested hiveworkshop’s warc3 programming classes??

RepairKit: Nope. Magtheridon and nestharus didn’t do a good job of the JASS class there.

RepairKit: I’d rather just make them learn wc3 editor differentl, first by playing around with it and sticking with the trigger editor GUI.

RepairKit: Do you refer to ‘programming’ to encompass wc3 modding OR purely programming?

Cosntellation: well to mod correctly you have to have some idea what you can do… for example with rpg maker you can do alot but if you know art you can do more with the ruby language that you need to do programming with

RepairKit: You don’t need to know programming strictly in like learning the syntax of JASS (the coding language used in modding wc3), but knowing the algorithms yes.

RepairKit: There aren’t any real wc3 modding classes…

RepairKit: It’s more so trial and error.

RepairKit: Reading tutorials

RepairKit: Getting experience and feedback

RepairKit: Although I would recommend visiting THW (The Hive Workshop). It’s basically the biggest wc3 modding site for English currently.

Cosntellation: Your leaked heroes map led to a lot of speculation, what led you to those events

Cosntellation: ?

RepairKit: I was browsing through the unit data for some reason (either looking up to confirm something, or as part of me making a spell and wanting to look up a value) and then I noticed a hero name that wasn’t in the map.

RepairKit: So I decided to do some more digging through the data, and noticed there was a few heroes that weren’t published but were, for the most part, completed with their spells done. The spells just had no tooltips.

Cosntellation: Lets get down to business, What heroes do you consider to be needing of a serious change?

RepairKit: Drow Ranger – Frost Arrows, Silence, Trueshot Aura and stats. Pretty boring.

Phantom Assassin – Relatively luck dependant with Blur and Coup de Grace.

Phantom Lancer – Simple nuke, wind walk, spell resist ulti and just a bunch of illusions. Kind of boring.

Cosntellation: if you changed phantom assassins blur and coup what would you change it with?

RepairKit: I dunno. Something more interesting / usable? Where’s this interview leading?

Cosntellation: I do it half by spur of the moment / half pre scripted questions

Cosntellation: just general information about your ideas about what needs modding and how to mod stuff like that

Cosntellation: everyone so far has given  different answers to each question so there is no right answer

RepairKit: Well, I’m only really interested with spell animations when it comes to DotA. I’d have to put more thought into actually suggesting what to change one spell into

RepairKit: If you were to remake Blur and Coup de Grace, you’d be restricted to making it align with Dagger and Phantom Strike

RepairKit: I’d prefer to remake the entire hero… essentially removal of one hero and introduction of another, haha.

Cosntellation: sounds alot like captain planet if you’ve read my dota blog lately

RepairKit: I’ll check it now :3

Cosntellation: its under tinker’s journal

Cosntellation: Next question I guess, you said you would have to align with dagger and phantom strike can you elaborate?

RepairKit: Synergy.

RepairKit: Spell cohesion.

Cosntellation: can you give an example of each?

RepairKit: synergy – windwalk + jinada

RepairKit: although my definitions of them may be wrong lolol

RepairKit: the bonus backstab damage is multiplied

RepairKit: they both work to produce a result you cannot get without both of them

RepairKit: the extra EXTRA damage

RepairKit: as for cohesion, hmm

RepairKit: it’d probs be something centrally relating back to the hero

RepairKit: or something like that

RepairKit: hmm

Cosntellation: like overall theme?

RepairKit: i guess

RepairKit: warden = adept (or was it cunning?) hero

RepairKit: shadow strike, blink, fan of knives, avatar of vengeance

RepairKit: she’s assassin

RepairKit: anti-hero

RepairKit: blink – shadow strike – fan of knives complement that role

Cosntellation: o I didn’t know that I always thought warden was like a cop incharge of dungeons

RepairKit: or is the role as a result of her abilities? i dunno.

RepairKit: well, yes, that is true. but if you look at it from gameplay perspective

RepairKit: she’s an assassinator

RepairKit: well assassin

RepairKit: LOL

RepairKit: assasinator? what am i thinking.

Cosntellation: ic

RepairKit: also ursa

RepairKit: fury swipes + overpower

RepairKit: if you get rid of one, you don’t get burst damage

RepairKit: (as fast

RepairKit: )

Cosntellation: certainly all heroes don’t have synergy though

Cosntellation: atleast in dota

RepairKit: i suppose synergy isn’t a strict requirement

RepairKit: and thus the question: what does a hero truly need?

Cosntellation: haha

RepairKit: well i suppose something that makes use of dagger for PA

RepairKit: while her target is under effects of dagger’s slow, she deals more damage? i dunno

RepairKit: it’d be more assassin like

RepairKit: but then she sucks without 2-4x crit

RepairKit: i don’t balance things lol

RepairKit: / plot such concepts for the reason that i don’t figure out good ideas haha

Cosntellation: alot of your suggestions seem like joke suggestions such as the pikachu one

RepairKit: they were

RepairKit: O-o

Cosntellation: despite this I think the community looks up to you…I think when I asked one forum member for an interview they said… why not interview sven or RepairKit they seem like better candidates

RepairKit: mainly because my visual suggestions + i can wc3 mod

RepairKit: and have made people testmaps

Cosntellation: tell me about that what are some of the test maps you have made and how would someone go about getting a test map made for them?

RepairKit: just hero testmaps

RepairKit: Turning their suggestion into a Warcraft III map file?

Cosntellation: yea

RepairKit: That’s literally it.

RepairKit: Coding it.

RepairKit: doing all those other wc3 stuffs

Cosntellation: ic

Cosntellation: what are some of the things you do before turning a suggestion into a hard coded map?

RepairKit: verify codeability

RepairKit: if it is, see whether there will any limitations  still

RepairKit: or whether it’ll be too troublesome to do

Cosntellation: When you review a suggestion what are some of the thoughts that run through your mind?

RepairKit: depends on type of suggestion

RepairKit: visuals:

RepairKit: – icons: whether they fit in the with the rest of the icons

RepairKit: – animations: whether imported effects are used, does it look good, can it be improved

RepairKit: – models: is it imported

RepairKit: remakes/tweaks to heroes:

RepairKit: – common sense, whether IceFrog would ever implement it

RepairKit: others (modes, runes, non-hero/items)

RepairKit: – common sense, whether it’d ever get implemented based on IceFrog being IceFrog O-o

Cosntellation: I’m not sure if I can determine what icefrog thinks, he implemented spell steal, and a dagon remake with nulls. While using nulls or spell steal were thought of as not being worthy enough to be implemented. The only common thread I have linked to dota implementation is some relation to realife usually greek mythology and puck or rubick being from real life sources

RepairKit: Puck was a hero contest winner

RepairKit: Community-made

Cosntellation: I no that but its also a artist in american history

RepairKit: -shrugs-

RepairKit: IceFrog is random

Cosntellation: =\

RepairKit: Bloodstone suicide.

Cosntellation: bloodstone suicide?

RepairKit: Does IceFrog want to suicide ? :3

RepairKit: suicide part of bloodstone in 6.78 was random

RepairKit: and unexpected

Cosntellation: O i c

Cosntellation: lets move on to some non warcraft 3 questions

Cosntellation: what sort of music do you listen to?

Cosntellation: (if you dont mind)

RepairKit: Uh, let’s just stick with wc3/dota-related

RepairKit: Wasn’t this interview for suggestions?

Cosntellation: yea but I usually go to stuff like music and tv shows you like to give you some substance but if you dont want to thats ok

Cosntellation: then go back to suggestions

Cosntellation: In your dota suggestions and reviews what do you do to stay on track?

RepairKit: What do you mean ‘stack on track’?

RepairKit: stay*

Cosntellation: haha got this before might be an american thing…. anyway like stay dedicated make sure you’re doing your best did all your research don’t move on to something else after you have started your first project

RepairKit: Well, my suggestions don’t require much continued effort from me.

RepairKit: As for reviews, I don’t :3

RepairKit: I don’t review much these days o_o

RepairKit: / only comment on the most obvious stupid suggestions

RepairKit: As for testmaps, well, I like getting things done . . . I dunno o_o

Cosntellation: I see

Cosntellation: what hero model would you change in dota 2?

RepairKit: puck

RepairKit: bloodseeker

RepairKit: potm

RepairKit: probably future terrorblade

RepairKit: faerie dragon doesn’t have that majestic fairy look anymore D:

RepairKit: looks like a flying frog

RepairKit: bloodseeker, although does look more like he’d seek blood, i prefer shaman

RepairKit: potm isn’t even night elf

RepairKit: screw copyright 😀

Cosntellation: ic ic

Cosntellation: If you were speaking to a new suggestor what advice would you give to them?

RepairKit: suggestor of what specifically?

Cosntellation: well what you use to review

RepairKit: read the rules

RepairKit: if it’s dota 2 suggestion, go to dota2.dev.com (or was it dev.dota2.com)

Cosntellation: the latter

RepairKit: use common sense, is this suggestion going to be implemented?

RepairKit: would people approve of it?

RepairKit: don’t get your hopes down if your thing isn’t implemented in next version – because not many other suggestions are

RepairKit: readable OP or else gtfo with wall of texts with no headings

RepairKit: signpost walls of text or something

Cosntellation: We haven’t covered this yet, but what are your general ideas on Hon and Lol?

RepairKit: HoN = DotA 1 that went a different way

RepairKit: LoL = DotA 1 that went a SIGNIFICANTLY different way

RepairKit: HoN didn’t diverge too much, but it decided to deviate away from those ‘wc3 limitations’ that Valve wants to keep still

RepairKit: as part of ‘balance’

RepairKit: or something

RepairKit: idk

RepairKit: played both

RepairKit: HoN = graphic overkill

RepairKit: LoL = graphic style too kidd-ish for me

RepairKit: champions are meh

RepairKit: idk, i’m dota-biased

Cosntellation: lol yea alot of people do its a great game

Cosntellation: Last question, Other game companies take ideas from other games and apply it to their own do you think thats a good idea for dota developers?

RepairKit: yes

RepairKit: but

RepairKit: care should be taken to not take one idea that is so associated with that game

RepairKit: and put it into theirs

RepairKit: but some ideas are good, and are worth taking from other games

Cosntellation: kind of like how natural selection to has strategy in their fps

Cosntellation: for not taking

Cosntellation: Well its been alot of questions, lets end with a thank you for letting me interview you.

RepairKit: You’re welcome!