Tips to Do a DotA Commentary

If you think you are just watching too much DotA commentary and are bored/sick/tired of the commentator's accent and what so ever, you can easily make you own DotA commentary and upload onto YouTube or other video sharing websites. It is very easy and you should believe me.

This page will teach you how to DIY a DotA commentary video with much ease.

To summarize everything in short. There are few steps to do this.

1. Search for good DotA replays

2. Analyse the replay

3. Recording

4. Editing

5. Rendering

6. Uploading

Search for good DotA replays

It is very very important to search good DotA replay. If the replay do not have exciting gank fight/team fight/turning points, then do not bother about them any more. Normally what I will do is to look through what competitions are going on currently (ADC, WCG, et), usually the highly competitive competition do have a lot of good replays which are freely distributed.

Analyse the replay

Before doing the actual recording, I think it is necessary to know when is the first blood/team fights/gankings/. It is really bad to miss the first blood. It is not necessary to watch the whole replay but knowing when to switch the screen is important. If you are missing a lot of kills, your viewers will not be so happy about it. A good software to use here is the DotA Replay Manager which pretty much save you the time to watch the whole replay. Just google it, then you can easily find it online.

Recording

Recording is the most important part. There are several software (e.g. ViewletCam

Camtasia Studio, Fraps) online allowing to record your screen. The one that I am using is Fraps. It does not matter which software you use, they all have good avi file output. I recommend to set the fps to 15 or 20 with half size. From my personal experience, 15 fps (half size) will output a 4GB file everything 20mins. I suggest you to get at least 20GB just for the recording part because Fraps really output good quality file which is freaking huge. 15 fps (full size) will out a 4GB file every 10mins or less. If you are using this setting, then get at least 50GB free disk space I think.

Commenting

Before doing the recording, it is necessary to do a research on the both teams especially which player is in which role. During the commentary, there isn't a fix way to comment. There are few tips here. Always comment on the following things, line-ups, creeps kills(carry), item build, skill casting sequence, fog dodging, warding and much more to find out yourself.

Editing/Rendering

It is a painful process for me especially the rendering part which usually takes up to half of hours. There is a lot of video editing software out there as well, some are free and some needs to be purchased. I will just name a few you want to try out. Microsoft Movie Editor, Sony Vegas, Adobe Pr, Adobe After Effect. Some compressing software to test out with, WinAVI Video Converter, Easy RealMedia Tools Sorenson Squeeze（VP6, FFmpeg. You can find respective tutorials of different video editing software and manual for compressing software online so I will not be talking on how to use them. One important thing I must say is that try to do a balancing between the quality and file size.

Uploading

There are tons of free video sharing websites online. Youtube is one of the more popular ones but not the only one. I suggest you to try out different sharing website before fixing into one.

How To Become A Mafia Wars Don Through Deceit, Treachery & Guile

Mafia Wars is a popular Facebook game that is quite different from some of the site's other popular games like FarmVille, FishVille and Restaurant City. If you're reserving your free time for something darker and more adult, then this criminally-oriented game is the perfect alternative to the more ''cartoony'' games that seem to be the dominant social networking diversions these days. With such soft competition, it should be no surprise that this game that is focused on violence and treachery took home last year's People's Voice Webby award in the online games category. Tens of millions of avid online mobsters join the Wars every day, so there's no question about the quality and appeal of this game. The real question is: are you cutthroat enough to come out on top?

What Is Mafia Wars?

The title of the game really tells you all you need to know about its core objective - a video game alternative to TV's famous series, The Sopranos. Your goal is to start from the bottom of the mafia heap and build up yourself and your family until you're prepared to take on other tasks and battle other families. In the beginning, it's just you, and you'll have to choose your player type (Maniac, Mogul or Fearless) and work your strengths and weaknesses to your best advantage, all the while recruiting and hiring new members for your criminal family.

OK, So Tell Me How To Win?

Because Mafia Wars' designers - Zynga - are constantly updating the game, there's really no "forever" way to win. By earning more money, completing more tasks and increasing the size and strength of your mafia family, you can gain access to new cities and characters and grind your way up through the levels, leaving behind a trail of fear and destruction. Zynga is expected to offer two new temporary settings this year - Las Vegas and Paris - which means plenty of new challenges for ambitious players.

Where Can I Play Mafia Wars?

There are solo versions of the Mafia Wars game, but it's no doubt most popular in the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) form that's offered on social networking sites like MySpace and FaceBook. It's safe to assume that if the site you're using is free, then playing Mafia Wars will be too. But it's important to know that some phone applications for the game may have tech charges attached so be certain to check before playing so that you won't receive a nasty surprise.

Why Would I Want To Be A Vicious, Blood-Thirsty Criminal?

Mafia Wars is a cool game, and by cool we mean you don't have to be embarrassed when you tell people you play it. Most guys wouldn't admit that they were interested in games like Restaurant City where menus and restaurant design are primary. But you can tell all the guys on the team that you are a rough, tough mafia player and know that they will be impressed.