30 Minutes

Spending time on /r/Dota2 means that you'll inevitably come across "simple suggestions" to make the game better. A lot of them are great ideas, and I'd love to see them in the game, but it really blows my mind when people say things like, "It's such a small thing, it would take like 5 minutes to fix it, why can't they fix it now?" I was probably in this camp as a beginner programmer, but now that I have a few years under my belt, my first reaction is that nothing is as simple as it sounds.

Disclaimer: I've never worked on a game outside of uni projects!

In this case, the "simple suggestion" was that the icon displaying who is using the courier updates when someone issues manual commands, not just for the automated ones.

Valve, please show us who us using the courier

People feeding the courier need to be identified and reported. Can't successfully do it if we can't see who is controlling courier.

So the user requirement is a couple of sentences. Seems like a reasonable request - leading the courier to its death means that the team must go without one for 3 minutes (and the other team gets bonus gold), which is time wasted going back to the fountain to get items. The current state is the courier only displays who is using it for the automated bring me my items command, and not, iirc, when you send it to the secret shop, or control it manually (although this is sometimes a bit broken).

Starting my timer now!

So based on the requirement, what the user wants is the icon to update when people control the courier manually. So if someone used the "bring my items to me" command on the courier, but someone else selected it mid-path and sent it to the secret shop instead, the icon would have to be updated with the player who issued that command. That's fairly straightforward.

GIVEN Player X issues a command to the courier
WHEN Player Y issues a command to the courier
THEN Override Player X's command with Player Y's
AND Change the courier usage icon to Player Y's character

But what about some of the edge cases?

What if Player Y's command is the automated "bring my items to me" command, but then the player dies while the courier is en route to them? The courier currently heads home in this case, and the display changes to nobody using it.

Not a game-breaking "exploit", but someone could theoretically go behind enemy lines, use the command to bring the courier to them while nobody is paying attention, die, and have the courier die, too. Should the courier icon have retained the icon of the previous user? Or is it just obvious in this case what happened?

What does the icon show when the courier is dead? At the moment, it's just a dead icon and the time remaining until it respawns.

Should it retain the icon of the last player to control it? What if that was the person who was trying to save it? That might cause some unwarranted blame. But OK, let's add that, too.

It's 5 minutes in, I haven't written a single line of code, and already we have some scope creep - we now have to modify the dead courier panel. Never done any serious UI programming, so I have no idea how easy/hard it'd be to add the hero portrait somewhere, maybe squish the numbers a little and make the dead courier icon smaller. Whatever ends up happening, there will be some small discussion over what's best.

Imaginary 10 minutes in now. Let's write some unit tests. Don't want our new code to break the existing stuff! Plus, this is another chance to come up with more edge cases. I tend to be fairly slow while writing unit tests, I find sometimes that half my day is gone and I've only written tests. :S But like I said, I'm slow. This imaginary person is a super gun dev, and can copy existing tests and modify for their own purposes. So let's say 10 minutes. 

Then comes writing the actual code. I can't possibly guess the structure of the Dota 2 code, but perhaps you'd have to parts of code that control controlling the courier so they trigger the update icon function. You'd also have to write some new code to control the icon for the dead courier panel. You're probably well past the 30 minute mark by now. And you know what, it's not even the end!

Next, the code will go to the testers. They perform some dark rituals and look for defects in the code you've written, but also to make sure that the thing that you wrote does what it's supposed to do.. Their job is to break it in any way possible, because every bug they find now is one less bug that gets complained about on the forums a day after the code goes live. They're going to do more than take a cursory look over to make sure everything is OK (I hope). They are tasked with breaking things, and they're pretty good at it! It may not be that this feature added a bug on its own, but this feature in combination with the other things going in this patch might have caused a problem. So it'll get chucked back into development to try and work out what the cause is. Once it's fixed, it goes back for another round of testing.

The testers give their all clear, then it's scheduled into a patch, and goes live once that patch is released. This is usually over a period of days, so if you manage to do it in half an hour, grats to you! But chances are, you overlooked something, and you'll be back fixing it up pretty quickly.

I'm not saying this process is 100% guaranteed to remove all bugs, but the more bugs you ship in your code, the lower the confidence people have in your final product. It's maybe OK in the alpha or beta stage, but in stuff that's live, it really doesn't look good - especially if those bugs are game breaking. Then you might get called in over the weekend and get told, "gg volvo can't do anything right".

Post-Christmas Party

I did end up going to the work Christmas party, and despite the fact that my boss wasn't there to see, I stayed for a massive 2.5 hours! That's 1 hour longer than my boss thought I'd stay, and half an hour longer than Grad Daniel thought I'd stay. But it didn't end there. We decided to go to Costco afterwards to try and find a PS4 for Intern Daniel, but it was a failure, as there were no PS4s in stock. However, I did get to play a poor duet on the keyboard with Grad Paul which he failed after playing 3 notes. I actually had a really good time, although the fact that I had a cider and a Guinness may have contributed to my positive memory of the evening.

In response to my last post, Super Chris said:

I think the reason people might get a bit peeved about turning up for an hour then taking off is that, if you do this consistently, then it kinda sends a message that the only reason you're going is to keep up appearances instead of genuinely wanting to be there. Or it could be that the people telling you this are just dicks.

I can definitely understand the reasoning behind that. I guess I always just thought they'd prefer that I "kept up appearances" than not showing up at all, but maybe that's not true. Although it wasn't my intention, leaving early probably gives the impression that I don't like that person, or I am not enjoying the event. That's my main motivation for trying to get myself to stay longer. I need to focus more on the fact that I'm there to enjoy the company of the people around me, and the activity isn't the main focus. So that's why, once again, my new year's resolution is to try and say no to less things.

On a more positive note, I feel like I am moving into the next stage in my life. I've mostly moved on from the university mindset, and my friendship group has really changed since then. It's almost like this is the end of a season of a TV show, and now the cast is changing to keep the show "fresh" and to replace the people who have moved on to bigger and better things.

(Warning, these are links to TV Tropes!)

The Cynic is definintely J. Of all the people I know, he makes me feel the most like a wide-eyed idealist, but at the same time, he is such a strong programmer that I find myself emulating him a lot.

Love Interest has definitely not changed, and is still MrMan5.5.

Ensemble Darkhorse is Grad Paul, who upgraded from Token Minority (is it mean of me to think of him that way?) and I find his Deadpan Snarker attitude suits my sense of humour so well. That and that fact that we seem to have some sort of unofficial Settlers of Catan alliance going on means that he's always fun to have around at work.

The Confidant goes to Albert, which is strange, because when we first became friends, I thought he was really one-dimensional. But it turns out that he just wasn't really used to talking to people about things that were really important to him. I think over the year, we've both opened up a lot, and even though he doesn't play Dota, it feels like he understands a lot of what's going on in my life. Plus, he has been a huge motivator for me to lose weight. He has been on his own fitness spree, and any time I feel like reverting back to my old ways, he is always there to push me to keep going.

Grad Daniel is the other half of my Adventure Duo. I think when it comes to work related things, I am more the main hero and he is the lancer, but when it comes to social related things, he is the main hero and I'm the lancer. We both like to comfort each other in our social awkwardness, but we've gotten a lot better since the start of the 2013. He also likes to push me into going to work events, which will help me keep my resolution this year.

¡Three Amigos! is either Olek/MrMan5.5, or Char/Julian. When it comes to MMOs, MrMan5.5 and I are a Battle Couple, with Olek rounding out the party. In strategy games, it's more Char and Julian.

I kinda feel like Sharon and Graham got Put on a Bus this year, but maybe that's my fault for not keeping in contact as much. Hopefully The Bus Comes Back this year. :)

Hmm, that's not very many people, actually. Well, here's to 2014 and meeting new people!

Meeting, Bloody Meeting

I've never been a very outgoing person. I'm not the stereotypical awkward nerd (although at times, you probably would think that I was), but I still find myself crossing the road to avoid having to talk to someone. But it's not really about disliking other people, sometimes it's because I feel like I am putting them in an awkward situation - especially at work.

At work, I play this "game" where I have to tell myself someone's name when I see them. Through the social committee, I've met a lot of people and I try to remember as many as I can because I think that's good customer service (even though my job isn't really a customer service job, I think a part of maintaining a good reputation at work is to treat people well). I've found that in quite a few situations, the person that I'm talking to doesn't remember me even though I remember them from one of the committee events. So I feel bad putting them into the awkward situation of having to pretend that they know who I am even though it's pretty clear that they don't.

Now that I've left the committee, I don't feel obligated to hang around at the social events. I do show up, but I'll only hang around for an hour or so, and then go home. I thought that was OK, because at least I was making an effort, but a couple of people on my team have mentioned it like a bad thing, so I guess it's not as acceptable as I thought - especially considering one of those people is my boss.

To be honest, I don't really understand why it's such a big deal. How can my early departure effect their enjoyment of the event? It's not like they have to leave when I leave, they are completely welcome to stay, and usually do, so what's so bad about me leaving?

This is a problem because our work Christmas party is coming up, and I had planned to just show up and leave after an hour. Grad Daniel said that I should stay and leave after two hours, just to prove my boss wrong, so that is the goal that I'm setting myself. It's not really work-only though, as people outside of work have said similar things. So I've been trying to make an effort at other events. Plus, one of my work-related goals is to get better at networking, so mastering the art of meeting new people and making small talk can't hurt, right?

I went to MB's 30th birthday party, and I found I enjoyed myself there despite the fact that I only knew the host and his partner (though I think I left after a couple of hours... progress!). I also went to X's Melb dinner and..... made a really bad mistake as apparently I had met someone there twice before this dinner, and forgotten him last time and this time. So much for my "game"! But at the dinner, I lasted 3 hours. :D

Still, I am making it my early New Year's resolution to try to be more social and meet new people - though I think I will limit myself to at most one thing per week, as I don't think I'm ready for that much social interaction yet.

Selling Yourself Short

This whole lying thing seems to have opened a can of worms. In response to gwon's comment:

"But anyway, how do people get away with it? If you are found out you lose people’s trust and it won’t get you the promotion or you may even get fired. And how can you not get found out when everyone you work with knows? Can you really get ahead by lying?"

I think this is where the skill in lying would have to come in. You would have to pick things that aren't easily verifiable to lie about, and come up with a convincing story. Plus, you would have to count on dupes like me, who care more about getting the work done, than playing the whole political game. Plus, in a fairly large organisation, like the one that I work in, you can generally count on the segregated nature of the teams. The person that I mentioned is pretty much a laughing stock in my old team. Whenever his name is mentioned, people groan and ask what stupid thing he has done now. Some people have gone so far as to block him on our internal IM system. In his new team, which rarely interacts with my old team, it sounds like he is well-loved. The thing he took credit for, was something for my old team. When he moved teams, he told them about his wonderful work, and they didn't bother to fact-check it - and why would they? People trust each other.

" If you change your personality, you will naturally learn to lie. Would you change your personality to get ahead? Are you willing to sacrifice your integrity?"

Back in vanilla WoW, discipline priests were generally rubbish compared to holy, but I was so determined to play a discipline priest, even though it wasn't the best. Raids were 40 people back then, so it really didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. I did the same thing in Cataclysm, despite how hard it was to do heroic dungeons. I was even kicked from a dungeon once, because I just couldn't sustain healing for long enough to kill the boss.

After that happened, I was too afraid to do another heroic. I queued for some of the easier ones, but avoided the one that I was kicked from and all the ones after it, like the plague. I read some forum posts on how to improve, and the general consensus was switch to holy. Even Meshu told me the same thing. But I refused. I had hit a brick wall. On one hand, I was proud of myself, for sticking to my guns and staying discipline despite how hard it was. On the other hand, I had limited myself from a majority of the end game. I couldn't bring myself to queue knowing that I'd be letting 4 other people down. But I kept thinking, this is so unfair - why can't I play the spec that I want and do things that everyone else can do?

It was actually DotA, or rather HoN which is what I was playing at the time, which made me realise that in a group, each person has a specific role. To do the best that you can do as a group, you need to fulfill the role that you agreed to play by choosing your hero. I remember when I used to get angry at the carry heroes who would yell at me to buy wards or upgrade the courier when I had no gold. I felt that if they wanted the wards, they could buy them themselves. (While I still think that if your support is doing so poorly that they can't afford wards, you should buy them, instead of getting ganked constantly and blaming the lack of vision, but that is another story.)

In short, I wasn't playing optimally. By choosing to do what I wanted, despite the huge amount of evidence showing that it wasn't the best, I was also letting 4 other people down. Sure, if I had the skill to make up for the sub-optimal spec, then it would have been fine, but I didn't, and I knew that, which is why I was so afraid to queue for the more difficult heroics. I do sometimes play silly builds in DotA, but for me, that's more of a training exercise than a conscious decision to prove a point. I wasn't gaining anything.

To answer the question, whether I would change my personality to get ahead, I honestly don't know. I do know that I'm not the person that I was last year - I go to the gym, I do yoga, I actually feel confident enough in my skills to argue with J about Java related stuff. I'm not even sure that I'm the same person I was two months ago. Personality theory is a bit undecided on whether people have a permanent personality anyway. And adaptation is always good. I know that I am dodging the question, and the fundamental question is, do I really want to go back on something that I value so highly? I don't, I really don't - which is probably why I am struggling with the whole thing. But I like to think that I am pretty rational, and it's hard to deny the evidence in support of lying to get ahead.

I seem to have picked up yet another mentor, and her advice is that I need to sell myself more. That doesn't necessarily entail lying about things in a manipulative way, but it does mean framing my achievements in a more positive light. She has worked with some very senior people, and she said that those that get ahead are those that put themselves out there. So maybe it's not about becoming a good liar, but becoming a good salesperson. I guess I will put the lying thing aside for now, and focus more on selling myself.

The Dark Path

Anyone who has known me for more than a few minutes probably knows that I have a huge stick up my ass about lying. That doesn't mean I'm some shining paragon of purity who has never lied in her life, but for the most part, I will generally avoid lying.

That being said, so many people have mentioned to me that I really need to get over myself. Lying is a natural part of life, and if I want to get anywhere, I need to learn to lie - everyone else does it, so it's really just leveling the playing field. So I said that at a friend's housewarming, I would practice, and pretend to be someone completely different to get better at lying. Seeing as most of the people there wouldn't know anything about me, it would be a good opportunity. But now that I've thought about it a bit more, it seems like a really stupid thing to do. What if I meet someone that I really like, and would like to become friends with? I'd either have to continue to be that fake person, or tell them the truth, and then their first impression of me would be that I'm a liar.

This has happened before. In first year, I joined a club and met some new people. A few of them played WoW, two were Alliance on Blackrock, and the other was Horde. The two Alliance players had never seen the Horde player in game, because this was back when there was no armory, and guilds were massive, so you could easily get away with claiming to be in a guild that you weren't. Also before realID, so they couldn't check if he was online. Anyway, so when I mentioned that I was Horde on Blackrock, the Alliance guys asked me to go and find their Horde friend. I thought nothing of it, and I agreed. So I asked to add the Horde guy to my friends list, and that's when he told me he wasn't Horde on Blackrock - he didn't even play the game! He told me not to tell the other guys, and I did it, but I always thought it was strange.

What did he gain from lying about playing a game that he didn't actually play? I guess maybe he would fit in a bit better with everyone else, but I got the impression that they already respected him a lot, so I didn't think that was the reason. Besides, he told them he was on the other faction, so it's not like they could play together. It was difficult enough hanging out with MrMan4 and we wanted to spend time together in game despite being opposite factions. Talking is limited to emotes (although I think back when 2-Alliance-1-Horde Hunt was going on, you could use /me [message] to actually talk to people, not sure if it was patched out before or after the series of events, but it was definitely in Vanilla WoW, so MrMan4 and I had no chance of talking in game).

Eventually, I asked Horde Guy why he did it, and he did it as a joke. I still find that explanation unsatisfactory, but maybe I just didn't get the punchline. It seems like a lot of effort to go through for so little gain. He'd have to research what all the fights are like, and the mechanics of his class in order to be able to hold a decent conversation about the game. How do you convince someone that your guild has cleared Molten Core if you've never even seen the place, much less participated in the fights?

Once I found out about the lie, I had a very hard time trusting him. We'd known each other for maybe a couple of weeks, and the first thing about him was this huge lie. This huge, confusing lie. We've known each other for years now, the stage where you'd expect to the trust level to be around 90%+, but I find that every now and again I have to stop myself and rethink whether he's lying to me.

When I meet new people, my default position is to trust them. Sure, if they're trying to tell me that they have a fool-proof plan to make millions, all they need is my credit card number and expiry, alarm bells will start ringing, but I think they are innocent until proven guilty. I'd like to think that people who meet me have the same expectation of me - that I'm trustworthy until proven otherwise. So I just want to repay that trust in me by not lying to people. I hate the thought that I could be someone else's Horde Guy, and that they feel like they can't always believe the things that I'm saying.

That's why I think learning to lie well is a dark path, it leads to people questioning your claims and your motives. But someone at work who I despise and think is incompetent got promoted recently. He has no problems with playing dirty. When I called him out on the fact that some of the stuff he said he did, he didn't actually do, he just shrugged it off and said that's how the game is played. During my performance review, one of the pieces of feedback someone said was, "It's was a pleasure to work with Anna... she has no hidden agenda. It is refreshing to have someone who says what they think." I actually thought it was a compliment, and I have a lot of respect for the guy who said it, but maybe he was subtly telling me to change. I mean, the fact that he finds it refreshing means that it's not the norm.

"...[he] was a brave man, honest and loyal … but quite a hopeless player.” He brought the seed to his mouth with the knife. “In King’s Landing, there are two sorts of people. The players and the pieces.”
Martin, George R. R. (2012-03-15). A Game of Thrones: The Story Continues: The complete 5 books (A Song of Ice and Fire) (Kindle Locations 44250-44252). HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle Edition. 

Mulanna

To say that I generally struggle to talk to the other females in the office is a bit of an understatement. When I first joined my team, I was invited to a "girl's lunch" where the topics ranged from weddings, to reality TV to children. I found myself unable to contribute very much to the conversation, and when I did say something, I felt a bit like I was being given the polite version of a confused stare. Given that I'm usually the only female developer in the room, I wonder if they're afraid that I'm going to start spouting 1s and 0s at them.

Now that my gym going efforts are starting to pay off, I've discovered the magic topic that I can associate with the other females in the office - fitness and weight loss. Though I'm not really interested in the crazy diets that some of the people in my office are into, I now know enough about the gym and food to be able to carry a decent conversation with people. I like knowing that I don't have to pretend to be interested in my phone when in a lift with someone I know.

Lately, a lot of people have been commenting on my appearance. At first, I just attributed it to the girly circle jerk that happens:

Female A: Oh, wow, I love your jacket!
Female B: Thanks! I really like the colour of your skirt, where did you get it?
Female A: I got it online, I'm a bit worried about the size though, it's a bit smaller than I thought it would be. Need to lose some weight so that I don't have to suck my stomach in whenever I wear it.
Female B: No way, you're so skinny, it really looks good on you!

But someone on my floor, who I barely know except as one of the fellow fire wardens, said something as well, so when AB asked me to join her in the social committee fashion show, I eventually relented and said yes.

Not too long ago, Kalg came down and I joined him, Kat and Neverpie for breakfast. Kat mentioned that I'd never look like the waitress that was serving us, and that's when I started to have second thoughts about the fashion show. I've known Kat for so many years, and I have never seen him do the girly circle jerk. He has no reason to lie to be about something like that, so I feel like his comment is genuine, as opposed to the people at my office who like to be seen as friendly.

Still, the fateful fashion show was approaching, and I couldn't let AB down by pulling out, as she has done so much for me, and she is always pushing me to challenge myself and do things outside my comfort zone. So when the day came, I sat patiently when the make-up artist started painting my face. And again when the hair stylist was brushing my hair. But when I tried to slink back to my desk without being seen, I was caught by my boss and my fellow dev. My boss only got a quick glimpse before I hid behind my 23" monitors, but I couldn't hide from J who sits next to me.

I don't think I'll ever forget the look on his face. It was a look of total horror. The last time I saw him make that look was when I mentioned that one of the grads from my year is working in a team that doesn't believe in source control. My boss tried to tell me that I looked nice, but it's hard to believe that when you get the J-No-Source-Control-Look-Of-Horror.

Despite the fact that I wanted to run to the nearest bathroom and rub it all off, I persevered and made it through the fashion show (also without falling on my face despite wearing heels and a long gown - minor victory). Afterwards, a lot of people came up to tell me that I did a good job, but now I'm afraid. What if the painted face Anna is the one they like better now? It reminded me of that song in Mulan, where she looks in the mirror and sees her face with the make-up, and without.

The painted face being the person that the people around her want to be, and the unpainted face being the person that she wants to be. I have a photo from the night on my phone, but I haven't looked at it yet. I'm not sure if I'll like the person in the photo, or if I'll have the J-No-Source-Control-Look-Of-Horror. I also haven't been back at work since the night, so I haven't had to face anybody yet. Hopefully it'll all have blown over by now, and everyone will have forgotten.

Definitely on the list of first-world problems, but I wish that I could trust someone to give me an honest opinion, but I think that people like me too much to want to hurt me. I can't tell honest opinion from a white lie. Someone on Reddit said that the best way to learn to spot a lie is to become a good liar yourself. Do I want to go down that dark road?

Well Played!

Russians players have a reputation for being bad at Dota - at least on the Dota 2 subreddit, which is English based, so maybe a bit biased. I don't know if it has just become a meme, like how people will start a chain of "Hodor" comments, or the tree-fiddy stories, but there are so many comment threads complaining about them. Whenever someone calls them out, and points out that it's unfair to lump a trait to an entire country of people, the usual reply is something along the lines of, "It's not that they're bad, it's that they don't speak English, and it's really important to be able to communicate with your teammates in a game like Dota, so please stop downvoting me, I'm not racist". I agree completely with the communication aspect of it - playing is so much easier when you can talk to your team, especially with voice chat, rather than typing.

But Russia isn't the only country where Dota 2 is popular, but English isn't the main language. It is ridiculously popular in China, but Chinese players don't seem to have the same stigma. While some people do complain about them, the complaint is almost always about the lack of English speaking skills, not their skill at the game.

I've played 841 games, and I don't get raged at very often. So I thought I'd see what life was like as a Russian. Although my Steam profile says that I'm from Kenya, I don't think anyone would really bother to check. I changed my name to Андрей (Andrei) and restricted myself to the chat wheel options and "ty". I think my numerous blog posts are enough to say that I understand English, and so any rage that was directed at me for "being Russian" wouldn't be able to hide behind the excuse that they were only angry because I didn't understand English.

I didn't want to go overboard and have some stock Russian phrases to paste into chat, because that felt a bit like entrapment - "Of course I assumed you don't speak English, noob, because if you did, why would you be talking in Russian when there are English players on your team?"

To be honest, that was the hardest part of the experiment. I couldn't even say the other team has a gem, or my ultimate is up in X seconds, or any kind of helpful info. Everything had to be communicated via chat wheel or pings and lines drawn on the map. I actually started to feel sorry for the players who have been muted from being reported, but then I remembered that they got reported for being dicks in the first place.

Here's the summary of my 28 games as Андрей:

Game ID	Outcome	Mode	Hero	Kills	Deaths	Assists	Comments	Party Size
293128419	Defeat	AR	Qop	6	7	13	Some abuse from Slardar and Naga, although that seemed more to do with how I played QoP than to do with being Russian	1
293164350	Victory	RD	Tide	3	1	13		1
293190815	Victory	AR	Batrider	4	4	12		2
293218817	Victory	RD	Kotl	5	6	10		2
293546861	Defeat	AR	Shadow Shaman	3	7	10		2
293596156	Victory	RD	Dazzle	5	2	16		2
293648248	Defeat	RD	Warlock	6	8	10		2
293735223	Defeat	AR	Pugna	2	11	5	Lots of abuse from Alchemist, but no R word. He kept asking for wards even though there were none in stock.	3
293789098	Victory	SD	Darkseer	3	0	11		3
294438705	Defeat	RD	Treant Protector	1	3	3		4
294464318	Victory	SD	Timbersaw	17	3	18		4
294495964	Defeat	AR	Rubick	4	8	11		2
294540176	Defeat	RD	Bane	5	10	17		1
295844788	Victory	SD	Witch Doctor	12	4	11		2
295930079	Victory	RD	Slardar	4	5	13		2
299015107	Leaver	AR	Anti-Mage	1	0	0	Sand King left during the picking phase.	3
299032634	Victory	SD	Nature's Prophet	5	6	15		4
301521856	Victory	AR	Lina	8	6	15	Razor and Luna raged at “Team China” (me, omni, es), though to be fair, we could have played better.	1
302220050	Defeat	LP	Darkseer	2	3	15	Rage from Drow (non-Russian rage). Complained I didn't use my mek even though I did (it was on CD)	1
302255230	Defeat	AR	Outworld Devourer	6	7	10		1
302290480	Victory	AP	Crystal Maiden	6	1	12		4
302314816	Victory	AP	Rubick	5	4	19		5
302355250	Defeat	AP	Drow Ranger	12	10	17		4
302694860	Leaver	RD	Disruptor	1	2	6	Zeus abandoned mid-game	1
302977800	Victory	AP	Slardar	7	4	11		1
303037167	Victory	RD	Warlock	5	4	12		2
303096721	Leaver	RD	Windrunner	1	1	2	Riki left early game after calling his team a “fider team”	2
303123201	Victory	SD	Puck	1	1	10		2

I recorded party size because friends will rarely rage at me (I think Charles is the only exception), so larger party means less likelihood of rage. :( I recorded the party size 5 game, because I was playing with a co-worker's friends, so I thought they might rage at me, especially because we were in the low-priority queue. But my co-worker dropped the G-bomb, after someone asked who "the Russian dude" was, and they were all super nice to me after that.

Out of the games, there was really only one game (301521856) with rage that wasn't based on me playing badly:

For some reason, despite the Cyrillic letters in my name, Luna (brown) was convinced that I was Chinese. ES (pink) and Omni were speaking in Chinese, but I didn't say anything.

I kinda wished that I played carry rather than support, because I'm thinking one of the reasons there was so little rage is because I did what supports are meant to do - ward, stack, pull, gank, buy the courier. You don't really need to be able to communicate to do four of those things. Whereas carries need to be able to say, "GTFO of my lane", "Stop stealing my kills", "I need to farm a little longer". It seems like a silent carry is more rage inducing than a silent support since they'll go off and do their own thing and it'll look like they're ignoring everyone else.

The Pugna game (293735223) nearly made me break my vow of silence. Alchemist kept saying "We need wards!", but there were none left to buy. I wanted so badly to just tell him to look at the shop and see there were none left, but I couldn't. He kept getting ganked because he would walk out with no river vision, and that just made him spam "We need wards!" even more, and start abusing me over voice chat. :( Although, in my defense, I think some of those deaths were his fault. He didn't put any points into his stun until level 10.

Olek and Julian say that I probably didn't get much rage because there aren't many Russian players on the Australian servers. I was tempted to try my luck on the US West servers, but after a game we played with Sumeet, I don't think I could go back to that kind of ping. So any rage that came my way might be because I played badly, not necessarily because of the Russian name.

Time to retire Андрей for now. It was kinda fun pretending to be someone else.