ITB Interviews - FocusFire Series
In this month's ITB Interviews, we spoke to Community Manager Ruby ‘valkyrjaRuby’. You might know Ruby from your favorite Dota 2 pro’s Twitch chat, or Discords dedicated to the scene - but you probably know her best for her work with SirActionSlacks and her DotaValkyries project. Community Managers have a weird place in the Dota scene - their role is to be seen without being seen, and heard without knowing who’s speaking. Today, we’re going to change that. Between Community Management on Slack’s new player tutorial, her new role in directing Loregasms, and that DotaValkyries project we mentioned - we had a lot of questions for Ruby.
-> Focus One: Arriving in the Dota Scene
We’ve known you for a while, but others in the scene may not actually know who you are. If you were to sum your role in the Dota scene into one sentence, what would it be?
I would probably call myself support staff? I’m here to make sure everything runs smoothly in Dota communities, and to provide help to those that might need it wherever I can - whether that’s through direct management or just consulting.
What got you into the Dota (pro) scene?
I had been bouncing around as a community moderator for a while before this point, but I would say that the first time I really got my foot in the door was when MidorMeepo commissioned me around March of 2020. He liked some of the dumb Dota emotes that I was making and asked me to make some for n0tail and Topson, also giving me access to moderate their Twitch streams. It’s been a step-by-step growth since then to now helping JerAx with his content by myself.
Obviously you must also play Dota, and nothing is more amusing than going back and remembering our first experiences. Do you remember the first hero you ever played? How did it go?
The first hero that I didn’t just pick at random was Earth Spirit. I loved his roll mechanics and the combo of Stun Silence into Slow was super fun to try and pull off! Naturally, it was a total disaster and I fed horribly.
If you could accomplish one thing for the Dota community, what would it be?
I would extend the lifespan of Dota by at least 5 years, helping to create systems and enact change that generates interest in our game both from the community of esports fans but also the larger pool of PC gamers that haven’t taken a bite out of Dota just yet. If I can generate more interest from the community, it should also bring more attention and support from Valve to the game and create a positive loop!
--> Focus Two: Loregasms and the new Player Experience
You help direct Loregasms with Slacks, right? Working with Slacks must be quite the experience. How did you end up there?
When Slacks first announced he was moving to streaming, I looked through his Discord and it was just a total mess - very similar to Sophie from Howl’s Moving Castle, I moved in, told them (the mods and Slacks) that I was the cleaner, and just got to work. I eventually got the chance to help with other exciting projects once I had shown that I was able to do good work, like the Loregasms and the New Player Experience.
That is an amazing movie and a pretty funny visual. It’s great that you could assist with that, and then move on to working on bigger projects - like Loregasm! What is the most exciting aspect of working on Loregasms for you?
The most exciting aspect is definitely being able to work with AngerMania and Marry Mind -. Slacks sends over a script and the accompanying audio recording to match, and we then meet to decide where to create new artworks, share ideas and sketch out the piece in a call together. That first call is always really exciting!
You also ended up helping out with Slack’s new player tutorial for the workshop. What was your role in that?
The new player tutorial project had two aspects - satisfying the current community that supported and were invested in it, and then also being beneficial to new players and actually useful in learning the game. I was focused on the former, creating and managing the community spaces for the project, putting out any fires, working with the mod team to make sure they could focus on developing the mod. A lot of the work in projects like this is in creating a strong initial structure that would then minimise future workload and make things easier for Slacks and the mods to do their thing - I have to give a shoutout to Elihu from the WeLikeDota community for his support here, creating custom bots to make our work easier for free, and generally helping to find solutions to problems that I couldn’t.
When the new player experience/tutorial was being developed, what was your ‘measure of success’ for the project? As in - what outcome would’ve made it successful in your eyes?
Personally, I would’ve considered the tutorial a success if it was enjoyed by the current playerbase, and those that supported it were able to go in-game and enjoy what the mods, Slacks and SUNSfan created. Obviously that’s not the goal of most tutorials, but there was no telling how many new players would be brought in by the anime, and I didn’t want Slacks to take any heat from the community after he had worked so hard to make something positive for them.
--> Focus Three: What is Dota Valkyries?
You’ve worked on a lot of other people’s projects, but you also have your own! Tell us about Dota Valkyries - where did the idea for the project come from?
I was talking to Sheepsticked in her Discord, purely hypothetically about whether it was possible for a woman to go pro in Dota, what steps we could take to make it happen if we had full control of the scene. What went from hypothetical joking around became more serious when I realised that there were actual steps that could be taken to make this happen and that’s when I advertised on Twitter for a partner to help me give it a shot. I should take some time here to thank Emma (Catfish_DOTA) for everything that she’s done to get this project off the ground - I doubt the idea would have lasted more than a week without her intelligence, talent and level-headedness to begin to make possible what I could only imagine. A conversation can only mean so much without the hard work that needs to be put in, to turn it into something more, and I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have as a partner on this project.
Taking the step from idea to reality is always an impressive one. Obviously the whole point of DotaValkyries is to accomplish certain goals within the Dota scene. What would you say are the three main goals of DotaValkyries?
1 - To create a safe space for women in the Dota community - often you’ll find posts on reddit from women saying “I love this game, but where do I go? Are there any communities for me?” I’d like Dota Valkyries to be one answer to that question. 2 - To elevate the women in the scene that are creating content and providing value to the community even further, celebrate their achievements and make sure they understand the value that they bring to our scene. To also connect these women that are creating content with each other and foster an atmosphere of support and encouragement - if we help each other then everyone wins. 3 - To implement a model of accelerated development in order to break through the barriers that are preventing women from going pro in the Dota scene. Much like in STEM fields, or in coding, initial stigmas and sexist beliefs gave a big head-start to men in esports and especially in a game like Dota where long-term experience is so important. Similarly to these fields, the solution lies in creating programs that include direct mentorship, access to the same resources that men have had, creating a self-sustaining atmosphere of healthy competitiveness between women that play Dota at a high level, as well as campaigns to recognise and challenge any sexist beliefs still preventing women from competing at an equal level.
Every project has roadblocks along the way, have you run into any significant ones yet? If not, what do you think will be the biggest one down the line?
So far any roadblocks that we’ve had to overcome have been from inexperience, and trying to figure out how we want to approach each goal of ours. When you look at the idea of this project from the surface, it seems to be nothing but roadblocks, getting women to go pro in Dota is just breaking down barrier after barrier after barrier, and still having so many obstacles to get past to make it sustainable, even after that goal is achieved. The drawback of the accelerated development model in this situation is that it requires a significant amount of funding - hiring coaches to work with players and teams over a long period of time to focus their growth is an expensive venture, and it has a lot of risk too if the players are unable to improve to the level that they’re aiming for.
What has been the most surprising thing about running DotaValkyries?
The model we intend to use requires a shared understanding that women are not only capable of performing at the same level as men (with the same amount of playtime), but that it is in everyone’s interest for women to be visible at the top level of play; with that in mind, I suppose I’m fairly surprised that we’ve mostly had positive feedback, and that we haven’t had more backlash from bad actors in the Dota community. Here’s hoping things stay that way!
It’s wonderful to hear that feedback has been positive. Now that the wheels are moving, where are you hoping DotaValkyries will be in a year?
I’m hoping that we will be consistently running events, creating content for our community to enjoy, and have secured enough sponsors to be able to pay our volunteers for the amazing work that they do. Ideally we’ll be at least in the first step of our plan for accelerated development, but the focus has to be on expanding our community and creating events
If you could get support from one key part of the Dota scene, who would have the most impact on making the project a success? (TOs, players, personalities etc)
Developer support would be incredible of course - I think we could do a lot with support from Valve. Otherwise, TO support would also be very useful to us, especially once we reach our goal of having women performing in mixed tournaments at LANs, making sure they’re protected and looked after by staff at events. On a more personal level, it would mean a lot to me to receive the support of those inspirational people throughout the larger esports industry that have fought to improve things to the point they’re at now, people I look up to like Daggstar, saphhiRe and Frankie.
Broadcast Producer World Cup Champion and the and interviewer across
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Okay and before we let you go - how can people help? How do they get involved?
We’ve currently closed our volunteer applications, but we’re now hoping to build out our discord server with more members so that we can give all the women that play Dota a safe and thriving community - we’ve also started running almost-weekly in-houses that we’d love to have more Dota players involved in! We’re always looking for more ideas to improve our community, so please contact us with your feedback through our twitter @DotaValkyries anytime!
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Any closing thoughts you’d like to share? Words of wisdom, what you wish you knew 10 years ago, projects you want to promote, a great song you heard recently etc?
10 years ago I didn’t even know PC games existed - so I’d probably introduce myself to Dota back then if I could! On a serious note, it’s now been almost a year since the metoo movement in Dota shook things up seriously for what felt like the first time. A lot of pain that had been buried was brought to the surface - a stark reminder of the progress we had yet to make - but also a chance for us to start making that progress, to challenge things as they were, to move forwards knowing that abusers aren’t safe in the Dota scene. I’d like to believe that what came from the resurfacing of this pain is the chance and potential for projects like Dota Valkyries to exist and succeed - that the failures of the past will lead to a better future for Dota, and that new systems to protect the vulnerable will now take over from the old systems that protected the abusers. Dota has the best community in esports - and I think it’s fair to say that Dota is still in a rough spot right now - but I plan to work hard to improve that where I can and hopefully make a positive and lasting impact. Thank you for all of this insight Ruby - it was a joy to get to know you a little better and we hope all your projects continue to get the support they deserve.
You can follow Ruby and her DotaValkyries projects on Twitter as well as support Loregasms by watching them on YouTube!
[INTERVIEW END]
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