Written by Wade 'Frost' Slaughter
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11 August 2012
Evening all, Wade 'Frost' Slaughter here with the first of what will hopefully become a series of interviews showcasing some of the finest talent in our SYF GAMING Organisation.
To begin, I am proud to present our very own Mark "boomah" Boon, Team Captain for SYF GAMING's Dota 2 Division.
Hi Mark, thanks for taking the time to speak with me today.
Firstly for our readers who may not know you, could you tell us a little about yourself?
Hello, I'm Mark 'boomah' Boon. I'm 18 hailing from a little town in Western Australia. I'm a long time player of 'MOBA' games, hopping between WC3, dota and HoN (sadly, I've even tried LoL) until Dota 2 had finally arrived. Gaming is my passion, I'm a very determined and goal oriented person and sometimes that makes me a little whiny and stubborn (sorry team). Also I'm proud to say I have the privilege of playing in syf.dota2 with my team-mates.
When did you first begin gaming? Was there a certain spark that ignited the flame?
I suppose I would have started around 1998 playing on my Dad's old Mac 128k, those were the days. As a kid growing up on a farm I was always very active and unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) a riding accident and a hospital trip later I landed 7 weeks in a cast to heal a broken arm.
Being a young kid without a functioning left arm is quite limiting and naturally, I spent alot of time on the computer playing some great old titles; Blobbo, Rodent's Revenge, Lost Vikings (and other snes games thanks to an emulator). When my cast finally came off the gaming stuck with me, I was hungry to overcome digital environments and play the best anyone could play. Mac 128k turned to Windows 95, 98, N64, Xbox and finally back to PC after a long period of console gaming.
Love for gaming is just inherent for me, the taste of victory is pretty damn sweet.
What interested or persuaded you into playing MOBA games such as Dota primarily over other gaming genres?
I'm not sure, I started to venture into dota in highschool when my friend Brad and I (Cao_Monk) decided to pick up copies of Warcraft 3 and install them on the school computers. To be honest it was mostly luck that I ever played dota, we were just casual custom-map scrubs playing anything from Vampirism to Sheep Tag. I ended up downloading a Map-pack in search of decent customs and ended up spotting an old Reign of Chaos dota map.
I spent alot of afternoons at a local Netcafe at this point, playing mostly DoD:Source and WoW and had from time to time heard some of the gamers I knew mentioning something called "DotA Allstars". Needless to say we loaded that badboy up 1v1 and truth be told, when I first played the game I hated it. To be fair it was a ridiculously outdated version and I was a complete noob at comprehending the game, I did not see how anyone would find it enjoyable. Somehow, I kept playing it. I'm assuming Brad managed to enjoy it and asked for some games.
Eventually leading on to Battle.net games, the purchase of The Frozen Throne and the realization that TFT DotA was on a whole different level to the game I originally found boring. This was a polished map, complete with the possibility of fine-tuning my failure against AI opponents. At that point I spent most of my time shared between DotA + WoW, both games offered me a way to connect with my friends despite living so far away from the city.
As most do, I grew tired of WoW and decided it was time to focus my efforts on the strategic masterpiece that is DotA (and much later, HoN). There's something about DotA to me that makes it infinitely more rewarding than other games, even now years down the track It's instantly gratifying when I outsmart and outmanoeuvre an opponent. Because of it's many aspects DotA is a really difficult game to master, being a perfectionist by nature it's more than I could ask for.
I'm still constantly learning the game, new heroes and items keep the meta-game ever interesting, the possibility that your thinking could (in terms of draft or execution/strategy) revolutionise how the game is played is a really nice opportunity for any gamer.
- 1st Place ~ $430
- 2nd Place ~ $220
- 3rd Place ~ $70 1x STIPE CoD4 Server
