

Making a Dota 2 Announcer

Dota 2 announcers work as a database of responses to specific events: "your top tower has fallen", "opposing team bottom barracks fallen", "courier slain", and so on. Custom announcers can be created by recording lines for each of these events, and replacing the default announcer's voice. Currently, the easiest way to prepare a script for a new announcer for submission is to work from the provided Instructional Script Template below, which lists all of the lines required of each announcer pack, several optional opportunities to allow your pack to stand out, and a list of guidelines to help your announcer pack be as successful as possible. Once you have recorded your script, you may use the Sample Spreadsheets below to construct an approximation of the event triggers intended for each line. The Sample Spreadsheets show example triggers for the events detailed in the Instructional Script Template, though for a more thorough list of triggers you may wish to refer to the Event Triggers list. We have also provided a lightly annotated version of the governing spreadsheets used with the released Bastion announcer pack for additional study and inspiration. Resources:

Instructional Script Template - Updated 07/16/2013

Event Triggers List - Updated 07/18/2013

Sample Announcer Spreadsheet - Updated 07/18/2013

Sample Killing Spree Announcer Spreadsheet - Updated 07/18/2013

Bastion Announcer Spreadsheet - Updated 07/18/2013

Bastion Killing Spree Announcer Spreadsheet - Updated 07/18/2013





Artistic Suggestions

Intensity, Personality, Brevity, and above all, Variety, are the keys to creating a successful announcer. Every line you record will be heard many times by every player that activates the event. In one game, a player might hear fifteen "tower has fallen" events, three "Roshan has fallen" events, and over thirty "your [building] is under attack" events. For an announcer to remain fresh after many games, each event should have a wide variety of available lines. The Juggernaut announcer has about three variations on every line, while the Dr. Kleiner announcer has as many as five in some categories. You may also wish to use the follow-up mechanism as a way to create variety by allowing the announcer to mix and match a base event ("your top tower has fallen") with a different set of relevant follow-up lines ("that doesn't look good for you"). The Bastion and Axe announcers make extensive use of the follow-up features. Please also bear in mind that we have a limit of 600 lines for workshop announcers. Go big with your performance! To stand out, your announcer must be able to make a solid impression on the listener with just a handful of words. Bringing lots of intensity and personality to each line of dialog will help make your character unique. It is also required that you record at least one "straight" version of each main event in your character's voice. For example, if your Renaissance Faire Announcer has a line such as "Behold! Thine top tower doth find itself beseiged!", you must also record a basic "Your top tower is under attack!" in the same voice. This will help keep your over-the-top lines from becoming repetitive, since they can be mixed in with the straightforward lines at a lower frequency. Keep it clean and keep it positive! Dota 2 has a very wide audience and we want to make sure that each announcer is able to appeal to as many people as possible. When writing the script for your announcer please aim to keep your humor relatively clean, avoiding dialog that is sexist, or racist, or religiously offensive. Additionally, Dota 2 can often be a very stressful game. When a player’s team begins to lose oftentimes the last thing they will want to hear is an announcer insulting and berating their play. Where appropriate, attempt to keep your announcer commentary positive, or funny, or at the very least encouraging. We also advise against referencing copyrighted works such as songs or films, or making remarks about real people. Remember that Dota 2 can be a chaotic game and things may happen very quickly. Aim to keep your announcer's lines short, since the interval between a tower falling and a hero speaking may only be a few seconds, or less. Long lines can be distracting to players, who are trying to focus on keeping their hero alive. Longer lines also become repetitive more quickly, and have a high chance of being cut off by another announcer line being triggered. Generally, the rule of thumb is to keep your lines below three seconds, and absolutely no longer than five seconds. Spectator-only lines, which are heard only when users have your announcer equipped while watching a game, may have more leeway in length and content since spectators are not focused on cutting through noise to hear game-critical information in the same way that players are. You may mark any line as being spectator-specific, so that spectators and players can hear entirely different dialogue for the same events. In the sample spreadsheet, players hear "your tower is under attack", whereas spectators hear "radiant's tower is under attack" for the same event. The Announcer Template Instructions has more information and guidance.



Audio Quality and Recording Format

Creating professional-quality material for evaluation should be among your highest priorities. Proper recording hardware and facilities, good microphone technique and spacing, and correctly managed audio levels can dramatically impact how well your announcer pack is ultimately received. Using a headset microphone to record an announcer pack for submission will not be acceptable. We strongly recommend that you hire a studio, or find an audio hobbyist with a project studio. A professional engineer or audio hobbyist who is able to navigate the intricacies of recording voice will provide us with the best quality material. You should record your original audio in mono using a full resolution format (such as WAV or AIF) with a minimum of 16 bit depth and 44.1khz sample rate. Once your announcer has been recorded and you begin editing your material, listen closely for any harsh plosives or distorted peaks that may have been missed-you may need to re-record those takes, or remove them entirely. Please leave a quarter-second of ambient audio from the initial recording on both ends of each clip for engineering purposes. If your submission is accepted, we will contact you for the original high-res files. However, to reduce the size of your initial workshop submission and make it generally easier to move around and work with, you may wish to compress your audio into .MP3 format using a program such as SoundForge, or iTunes before uploading. Package and submit your compressed audio and your event trigger spreadsheet to us as a workshop item through the game client.



Editing the Announcer Spreadsheets