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Disclaimer: this is supposed to be contructive, maybe start of a discussion, but if you answer, answer in a polite manner, no "caster-bashing" here.
The first week of Kelly
The first week of GSL code A is lying behind us, and Kellymilkies, after receiving a shitstorm of hatred und criticism lacking of any contructive criticism, had her first couple of shows to silence the critiques.
I must admit, I was one of them that stated from the beginning, that my viewers experience of GSL Code A will undoubtly suffer from her casting along with another equaly inexperienced caster. Little has changed in this statement regarding quality of this statement, although if we are honest to ourselves, our deepest fears have not become true.
This first of all results from GOM deciding - or being forced, I don't know - to field Kelly together with an experienced caster, namely Artosis or Tasteless.
Both did a remarkable job of supporting her in their best possible ways and helped her to not be exposed to the next wave of rough barking all by herself. You could already see her nervousness in the first couple of shows even with this support, so it was a wise decision to do so.
Props here to GOM for smoothing out the possible roughness of her start.
On the other hand, and this should not be ignored by any means, Kelly herself performed better than I personally expected. The main point of concern - apart from her being female (which is unreasonable) and having a too high voice level and therefor, as science has proved, it is harder to follow her commentary and the voice gets even higher when she is excited and you cannot understand what she says anymore (which is reasonable) - is her having not the suitable amount of game knowledge required. I think, she proved most people wrong in that, her game knowledge is remarkable compared to the expectations, and she can provide valuable information from time to time.
Of course, she is not in the league of Liquipedia reciting 'this is new amongst top Koreans' Artosis, but let us be honest, whose is?
Enlightment or Embarassment?
So, in the end, did our stomaches ache, or was it a pure revelation? Neither of both, I would say.
Her casting was decent, but the moment she got excited, her voice went 2 octaves up and the speed doubled at the same time, together which her asian pronounciation, this equaled into a puddle of noises which I couldn't understand anymore.
Her expression was ok, although she urgently needs to expand her vocabulary. Significant repetition of some words as "however" or "actually" spoil the overall listeners experience.
Her game knowledge was decent, with some slops her and there but if she starts reading Liquipedia or the Strategy Forums here and talk with Artosis (all of which I expect from her if she takes her job seriously), she will overcome this obstacle.
The thing that maybe bothered me most, was something she sadly adapted from Tastosis: premature GGs and anticlimatic ending of a game. The battles themselves are extreme tense, but once one of the two has to fight in his base, it is stated: "This is over, I don't think he can come back." Not with exaggeration, just as a statement like a weather forecast.
The remarkable difference however, with Tastosis doing this, it is always correct although anticlimatic, in Kellys case, she was sometimes just wrong with this. When it already annoys me when it happens when Tastosis cast, it angered me how Kelly did it.
Where Kelly needs to improve
The most important part of my train of thoughts here, what should Kelly work on, to give her the rewarding feeling of doing her job right and pleasing the audience in the best possible way, and give us the listeners experience we are waiting for?
First of all, lower voice and tempo a bit in tense situation. These properties naturally increase in emotional situations, so manually decreasing them benefits the quality and doesn't take away excitement, after all, gore is in front of us on the screen anyway.
Second, increase game knowledge. I'm fairly certain she talks to Artosis a lot, but she should still study strategy forums in here in spare time for example. This prevents from calling out wrong strategies, colours the cast with knowledge, and once she isn't taken by her hand by Tastosis anymore, lets her stand on her own feet.
Third, don't call a player dead until he is dead. Comebacks are the most epic thing happening in a sport, so don't spoil them by lowering the tension beforehand. Try to avoid getting ahead of yourself.
Fourth, try to spice up the vocabulary, practice some expressions to avoid repetition. Repetition is natural when you cast 15 games a week of course, but some work here might turn out rewarding.
I could also ask for her to start smoking 50 cigarettes per day to lower her voice as I have a hard time following female that high on focus on such a long period, but I guess we're getting ahead of ourselves here 
Expectations for the future
After all, Kelly will improve. She seems to be smart enough to know that she has room for improvement, and seeing her nerves at the first day, I feel sad for all the hatred she received without a chance of proving her.
Although the quality of games in Code A have drastically improved, I thought the first two days, this season is worse than before aswell.
But I gave myself and Kelly some time, and I think when we all, including herself, do that, and she works on herself, she is able to provide decent Korean Starcraft on GOMtv.
Cheer up, girl, you can do this, for us all!
  
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I had no problem with it from the start, and I thought she did perfectly fine. If not good.
Second, increase game knowledge. I'm fairly certain she talks to Artosis a lot, but she should still study strategy forums in here in spare time for example.
Yes...what better way to learn about strategy than on a strategy forum...*ahem*
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United States4126 Posts
On March 02 2011 23:49 kazansky wrote:
Her casting was decent, but the moment she got excited, her voice went 2 octaves up and the speed doubled at the same time, together which her asian pronounciation, this equaled into a puddle of noises which I couldn't understand anymore.
Despite being Asian myself, this is a major problem for me too. I showed a VOD of her casting to a friend and he thought she was speaking Korean.
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Yeah just put a dead corpse next to tasteless and artosis, and they will manage to make something of it. But that gives no credit to the dead corpse.
User was temp banned for this post.
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On March 03 2011 00:25 Navane wrote:
Yeah just put a dead corpse next to tasteless and artosis, and they will manage to make something of it. But that gives no credit to the dead corpse.
This was very mean and hurtful. You do know Kelly is a contributing member of TL right?
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On March 03 2011 00:18 The KY wrote:I had no problem with it from the start, and I thought she did perfectly fine. If not good. Show nested quote +Second, increase game knowledge. I'm fairly certain she talks to Artosis a lot, but she should still study strategy forums in here in spare time for example. Yes...what better way to learn about strategy than on a strategy forum...*ahem*
I figure she plays on her level (which seems to be rather high) and watches tournament VoDs or streams, as far as I understood from her casting.
That is why I mentioned it. I think she knows certain builds, but the refinement state is a essential part of knowledge that for example artosis has.
Things that work but also things that don't. And that kind of background knowledge, she lacks in my oppinion.
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I've listened one GSL cast with her. I thought she did a good job.
However, I simply don't like the sound of her voice. It is too high pitched. I prefer the soothing male voices of Tasteless and Artosis.
I'm watching only code S now. Previously, I would tune in to code A just to see Tastosis cast, even though the matches themselves didn't really interested me. Now I have no real reason to tune in to code A anymore.
No hard feelings towards Kelly, I think she is hardworking and doing a good job. I just don't like her style.
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I actually laughed out loud when she gave Artosis the high five and put her hand down.
But overall, she is not the best commentator but she is so much better than most of the commentators I see on the TL streams. And game knowledge is not going to be that important in the future where the crowd will be mainstream.
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Her game knowledge is fairly decent. I agree it would be nicer if her voice was lower. I would love for her to get some sort of speech coach to help with her overall knowledge of the English language, including 'western' intonations of the voice, and hopefully reduce her accent.
My biggest problem is that she (thankfully) says things like "Zerg is opening hatch first because he sees that the Terran player got gas", and then Tasteless chimes in to tell me that there's an SCV on the screen. I know there's an scv on the screen.
I would like commentary to stay away from what we can already see, and tell us more of player strategy and player decisions that their years of progaming has taught them to see. I really hope Kelly doesn't pick up the bad habit of just telling us what we can see on the screen.
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There was a lot of threads, some with dozens of pages, about this topic, but thanks for reopening the debate.
I think you are missing the point. I appreciate the constructive comments that you wrote, but It's not about "improving", because no amount of improvement is going to make up for what she lacks.
It's about not being fit for this job. It's that simple. Honestly I don't know how Kelly became a caster in the first place, and that genuinely puzzles me, because she doesn't even meet the basic requirements. Casting as a hobby, sure, go ahead. But it stops here.
You know yesterday I was watching this ad about marines.com. Can you imagine what would happen if a quadriplegic guy decides to apply in order to become a marine? Huh-huh. Even given infinite practice and time for improvement, this is simply not going to work.
In my opinion this is quite a funny & mind-boggling topic, because in the real world where I live, either you got what it takes, either you're fired.
Anyway I have stopped watching Code A, nonetheless I wish Kelly a nice & happy life.
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:D Want to start a discussion on Tasteless and Artosis instead of incontrol and Bisu for once?
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I'll be honest, at first I was very critical of Kelly and didn't expect her to do a very good job. But after the first week I have to say I think she's done a very good job. Of course there have been some problems, mostly just her accent which can be very hard to understand sometimes. But, all in all I think she has done a very good job and I have enjoyed her commentating. Her game knowledge is much more than I expected. Of course, while I'm writing this, I realize one more problem I have with her casting, she can tend to get off topic sometimes, much like a teenager with ADD. But, I can't complain I think she's doing a great job!!! 
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her game knowledge is remarkable compared to the expectations, and she can provide valuable information from time to time.
uh... she just said "he pulled the drones off the gas, so he's probably going for an all-in" in a stream
but I guess I agree on most parts with OP: My worst fears didn't come true. that's a fact. Code A IS watchable. I still have a hard ass time understanding a lot of stuff she says =(.
Not sure I really care tho
edit: also, my signature. I LMAO when tasteless "translated" what she said :D
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No need to whiteknight that much.
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As far as casting ability goes I think Kelly does just fine, better than most of us probably good. I think the issue is going to be understanding her voice. If she's serious about the job she could always get voice coaching, actors and announcers all over the world do it and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. It shows commitment and seriousness about the job. I can however understand her so i really don't mind all that much.
All in all, Kelly you're doing a great job keep it up, and do your best.
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So ... in other words; all the drama surrounding Kelly Milkis was in fact
*pause for dramatic effect*
just drama!? OMG, in light of TL being full of overly critical quick to judge bandwagoning people who feed on eDrama, that just completely caught me off guard.
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I didn't find anything wrong with it before she was hired. Still don't see any major issues. Considering the pool of possible choices it was a good pick with some minor downsides as mentioned in the OP.
Sadly I havn't had time to watch more than two days of code a due to various reasons. :/
I do like her more than the same old tastosis combo since she seems to care more than they do in a normal game. In a special game tastosis does well, but when it is same, same they just don't bring excitement.
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I can understand her, BUT I have to TRY to understand her. So I spend more time thinking about what she's saying instead of watching the game and getting excited. So in the end I'm bored because I end up basically just listening to the cast figuring out what she says, it doesn't get me excited, it doesn't make me feel like I learned something new. I could listen to tasteless/artosis cast games no problem, don't need the video, but with Kelly, regardless of her casting ability, I have a hard time understanding what she's trying to say. And as stated above, I have heard her say something in one of the casts that was just blatantly untrue.
I think she's a great person and I know she cares a lot about what she does, she just needs to get her game knowledge up to par and she needs to sound excited without increasing her speed and pitch.
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Hi five!
*Withdraws hand*
Did you just dodge a hi five???
Now you know how "grack fields!"
Kelly fighting!!
I suppose I should contribute something to the OP: Just like the observer, Kelly is putting in the hard work to take steps to improve her casting. By consciously slowing down and hopefully to brush up on her SC2 knowledge.
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I think with a little bit of practice and patience from us viewers, she can be a really great addition. It is good to mix things up and it's nice to have a female voice casting as well. Here are some ideas I had to help her improve.
A few weeks ago I mentioned that she needed to slow down and not get as excited yet. She should practice with a sound recorder and listen to her casts. I've done a few casts and I noticed that I tend to slur my "s" when I get excited so I repeatedly practiced pronouncing the "s" sound correctly until I got it right. I've taken a few speech classes as well as singing classes so it's not too hard to practice this.
1. Needs to learn to say "L" correctly. This is the hardest problem for most asians since it is pronounced completely differently. Use L tongue twisters for this. L is pronounced putting the tip of the tongue at the top of the mouth and dropping it. There's plenty of videos online on how to fix this
2. Enunciation. Unlike asian languages, english needs to be enunciated in order to be understood. It sounds a lot cleaner too. She should focus on over-enunciating for a few weeks until she gets into a comfortable position. She tends to slur words together and by pronouncing each sllyable seperately, she will get better. A great example is Arnold Schwarzenegger. He has a thick austrian accent, but you can understand him because he over-enunciates everything. She doesn't need to be as drastic, but right now she doesn't enunciate.
3. Stop using the word "like" and "uh". Tasteless really needs to work on this as well. A good technique is whenever you are about to say "like" or "uh" is to just say nothing instead. Pausing is always fine and it sounds much better. Eventually you get used to it and you can talk faster and more clearly.
4. Learn the vowel "u". She has gotten a little bit better, but her "u" as in "push" sounds like "poosh". The sound she is making is the "oo" sound when she needs to make a sound more like "u" as in lush.
5. Don't make assumptions about builds. She said "He's pulling drones off gas means he is going to go all in" or "huk is build 4 gates, it really needs to be scouted(on 2 base XD)". A better statement would be "He's pulling drones off gas, I guess he isn't going to be teching" and "Huk is building 4 gates, I wonder if he plans on making 2 more for a mid game push or is he going to tech". The best casters ask questions about a players play, even artosis. At some point it becomes obvious what they are going to do. The only people i've heard predict builds accurately are artosis, idra, tyler and incontrol, so unless you are one of those 4, don't predict builds. Tasteless does this a little, but he doesn't make his statements so boldly. Kelly needs to understand that it sound bad for her when she is corrected by tasteless and predicts wrong. Asking questions is much better for her role. Jason Lee is a perfect example, he knew nothing about the game, but he asked questions of the other caster and it creates a nice balance. Tasteless does this with artosis as well.
I wish her well in the future and hope she is really practicing hard, because it's still really hard to listen to.
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Haha but you guys are atrocious ! Anyone of you ever been standing in front of a camera ? It's not easy to become pro like that.
Now Asian accent if anyone's mistake is Gom's since they made the decision, so, in the casting context of the gsl, not something she can be held responsible for. Besides this, every thing you guys usually point out isn't really accent related, but pure diction stress in front of an audience, something perfectly natural and very common that will disapear once the person will get accustomed to it.
Her English not beeing perfect is something everyone that likes Sc Esports should start beeing familiar to, because most of Asian people involved in gaming don't have that great of an English to begin with.
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Singlish is more of a regional English dialect than just an "Asian accent". -_-
Not to be mean, but not many English speakers I know, native or otherwise, really feel that that particular dialect is soothing to listen to.
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On March 03 2011 02:32 lutarez wrote:
Singlish is more of a regional English dialect than just an "Asian accent". -_-
Not to be mean, but not many English speakers I know, native or otherwise, really feel that that particular dialect is soothing to listen to.
uh she isn't speaking Singlish, you'd know by the grammar and vocab if she were. It's an accent that she speaks with, not a dialect.
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The only thing i dislike about kelly is her voice and accent, both things can obviously be worked on. Overall I'm definitely happy with her casting the GSL, especially after the artosis high five denial :D
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I think after working with artosis she's gotten much more comfortable and now actually has some chemistry with tastosis also.
I don't know if it has to do with being familiar with accents or not, but I've never had a problem with her voice (but that's one of those things that's all just subjective).
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On March 03 2011 01:23 valaki wrote:No need to whiteknight that much.
Relax, I was just kidding. I don't hate Kelly and I think the ferocity that people have attacked her with is both weird and totally uncalled for, but I'm not a Kelly cheerleader. I don't watch so much Code A anyway.
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I don't want to be a dick. But personally her voice does not agree with my ears at all and i don't find her game knowledge to be anything special. Everyone seems to be coming around to her and maybe i will too but i just think we should expect a higher quality of casting from the GSL.
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She was way better than most people expected. I think a decent part of the community who know of Singlish can understand her fine. All the other points are pretty minor imo. She actually tries to contribute interesting strategic/tactical information/insights instead of being a mute. It's a much different role than Suzy (?) and one that I like better.
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I will admit I wished it had been TorcH instead of her at first, but that's no reason to go slagging her on the internet when she hasn't even casted yet, and the response to her casting really saddened me. Fortunately, she's done pretty well at silencing the critics. She's not perfect, but she's no worse than Tastosis were when they first started out (go listen to some old GSL1 casts, they're actually quite bad in comparison to what we've come to expect from Tastosis now). And she's improved already, so there's no reason to believe she won't get even better in the future.
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I have no problems with her from the start and have none now, she is getting better too.
I watch the GSL because of the games though and care less about the commentators, which all people should.
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I really like her O.o
I don't have difficulty understanding what she is saying, she's pretty damn funny, cute as hell, and brings a different kind of person to the cast entirely.
I can't really see how people are so insane...but that's an everyday kinda thing for me.
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Lol, people need to stfu, it's her first time casting in front of a really significant audience and tv, give her a fucking break.
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I agree with the OP's analysis. I think that if Kelly could make a strong effort to enunciate her words, that would already be a huge improvement. Everything else is minor and I'm sure she will be able to fix!
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On March 03 2011 03:36 N3rV[Green] wrote:
I really like her O.o
I don't have difficulty understanding what she is saying, she's pretty damn funny, cute as hell, and brings a different kind of person to the cast entirely.
I can't really see how people are so insane...but that's an everyday kinda thing for me.
ditto that
I live in Canada, you hear a whole bunch of different accents and don't really care about it. If it's understandable, then respect.
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Great OP for the most part. I can agree with most of it. Great writing except for the spelling of repitition, har har.
I'm sure she'll get good if she stays. Not sure what her situation is right now.
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On March 03 2011 01:19 DayJP wrote:Show nested quote +her game knowledge is remarkable compared to the expectations, and she can provide valuable information from time to time. uh... she just said "he pulled the drones off the gas, so he's probably going for an all-in" in a stream but I guess I agree on most parts with OP: My worst fears didn't come true. that's a fact. Code A IS watchable. I still have a hard ass time understanding a lot of stuff she says =(.Not sure I really care tho edit: also, my signature. I LMAO when tasteless "translated" what she said :D
Yeah I agree with that. I was worried that I would just end up skipping code A days and only watching S, but that isnt the case. I still find her accent incredibly hard to understand at times, but her personality kind of makes up for it.
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I agree with the repetition part. Especially when she repeats what Artosis/Tasteless said word for word immediately after they say it, sometimes she'll do it twice in a row.
I don't know a second language. So this might be beneficial for her improving her English as a whole. But my God it really eats at me lol, I guess it's a personal pet peeve really... Because I hate it when I'm around a group of people and somebody is doing the same thing.
Overall though, she's doing a decent job. Sometimes she still gets ahead of herself in a couple of different aspects, whether it be casting the current action in the game and being wrong about it, or getting too excited and speaking some sort of mutant form of English.
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On March 03 2011 04:43 Djzapz wrote:
Great OP for the most part. I can agree with most of it. Great writing except for the spelling of repitition, har har.
Ouch, I feel so embarassed!
Fixed, thanks for pointing out.
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I went to her youtube page just so I can see what everyone's talking about. I can understand her fine but I guess that's because I've dealt with Singaporeans before.
But yeah Singaporean English (Not Singlish) is not exactly the easiest to understand and they speak so god damn fast rofl.
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On March 03 2011 01:19 DayJP wrote:Show nested quote +her game knowledge is remarkable compared to the expectations, and she can provide valuable information from time to time. uh... she just said "he pulled the drones off the gas, so he's probably going for an all-in" in a stream
Yeah, she also said that when moonglade was going 14 hatch at the natural, he's going to go for a speedling all-in. Also in the GSL, she said that when a techlab was switching from factory to starport, it might be an early drop because the guy had 6 marines
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I love all the comments about her being an 'OK' caster; fair enough, but 'OK' shouldn't be satisfactory for casting Starcraft at the highest level of play. Match the level of play with level of casting.
It's OK not be the most knowledgeable about the game and current trends, but then don't expect making a living commenting on precisely those things.
Her voice also bugs me, but since this is A) a matter of taste and B) somewhat hard for the caster to alter, I feel I should go easy with this complaint.
Things I do like about her: she's enthusiastic, seems genuinely interested in what's going on and eager to comment. She also works better with Tastotis that I first expected.
All in all I applaud GOM for finding a female caster, and thus opening the scene somewhat to very male-dominated sport. But Tastotis was already a A-team to begin with, and it's shame to see them taken apart for this sake.
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The question is: Can she be replaced by another female with equal or better knowledge and voice. The answer is no so let her have her chance.
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Kelly is doing a great job. Her game knowledge far surpasses many of the most popular casters such as Husky, HD, and TotalBiscuit. Also, if so many people can listen to TotalBiscuit's god awful voice I can't possibly see how people can mind Kelly's voice.
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I think it's unfair to judge so quickly. I mean, tasteless was still just "ok" (with some good moment, and some bad moments) like one or two months ago.
When she casted with artosis, she was good, I think it was her best day. When she's with tasteless, it goes from bad to good. When she's with tasteless, he controls his own obsing. Artosis always "feeds" tasteless with informations, supply count, army size, and so on. Tasteless never think to look at those things. Today was the first time she actualy asked him the supply count, I think she should ask him more, so tasteless can take habit to monitor those things to add to the conversation.
By the way, please tasteless, call the player by their names, stop saying "the zerg" or "the protoss", it's just bad (and disrespectful). Same remark for Kelly.
Anyway, I don't like, neither I dislike the tastolly casting. Tastosis are worth watching at, even when the games are soso. Artolly too. But tastolly not so much, but I still guess she'll become much better, when she get used to be on TV. Her voice and accent are a handicap still, I guess the koreans who hired her didn't realise that obviously.
As Huk said to Jon "I didn't understand a word of what you said" <3
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On March 03 2011 05:45 haduken wrote:
The question is: Can she be replaced by another female with equal or better knowledge and voice. The answer is no so let her have her chance.
But she has had a chance, and as you can see, many people are upset.
And why must she be replaced with a female?
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On March 03 2011 06:12 Mastermind wrote:
Kelly is doing a great job. Her game knowledge far surpasses many of the most popular casters such as Husky, HD, and TotalBiscuit. Also, if so many people can listen to TotalBiscuit's god awful voice I can't possibly see how people can mind Kelly's voice.
Apparently HD is in master league for 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4?
While Husky's commentating is rarely insightful, he sticks to the basics (always helpful), has a great sense of humor and a knack for generating entertaining commentating.
TotalBiscuit and his 260k subscribers including myself disagree with your assessment on his accent.
I am not discrediting Kelly here, I just don't understand this hate for Husky/HD/TotalBiscuit. Is the community really that elitist?
And why must she be replaced with a female?
Definitely not a must, but rather a plus, as it brings in diversity. There are, indeed, female viewers. A female caster serves as a nice representation of a niche population of the community.
However, there is no well known female SC2 commentator in existence, excluding Kelly of course.
Usually female casters are always the ones getting hammered on. I remember both the OGN female caster for BW and also the Korean female caster for GSL had their credibilities questioned.
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She's doing well given her previous experience and performances, but I still feel she's below the standard GSL should provide. Wrong calls, poor articulation, and her casting doesn't interest me in the game as much as it could.
Keep at it I guess, but I've lost a lot of interest in Code A.
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Norway28624 Posts
I thought kelly did a nice job and she wasn't unpleasant to listen to. Her strategic insight was much better than expected. I greatly prefer the artosis/tasteless duo, but honestly, I liked kelly/artosis or kelly/tasteless more than a good 90% of people who try casting. exceptions are essentially chill, day (with or without djwheat), TB, tastosis.. everyone else I've ever listened to is either greatly lacking in game knowledge (whereas this would probably apply to kelly if she was casting alone, when she is with artosis or tasteless it's not a problem), in ability to keep the flow going, keeps giggling or laughing or breathing loudly into the microphone, makes jokes that aren't funny, or are quiet or talking about completely irrelevant stuff too often.
I mean christ I remember I watched some jackass talk for 5 minutes about how he's a much better caster than other casters because he plays the game. jesus christ what a moron, he's a much worse caster because he keeps talking about how much he plays the game and how that gives him superior strategical insight rather than talking about strategy or the game.
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I really don't get it why almost everyone's so negative towards her, maybe it's just because she's a woman...
I think she is a good caster(she may not be the best but my main reference are the casters provided on TL) and if you compare the featured casters on TL to her, she is definitely one of the best imo.
She has not the ultimate game knowledge but except of Day[9] and Artosis(maybe also Tasteless, but I am not sure about that) no one can fullfill that criteria.
Another point mentioned quite often is her accent and I have to say that I have absolutely no problem to understand what she says. I am not a native English speaker or have anything else to do with languages, I am just regularly listening to streams/casts and I know that there are many people that don't speak perfect English and so is she. Just try to listen to her completely unbiased one time and maybe you will be able to understand what she says, it isn't as hard as most of the people pretend to!
The OP also added that she could try to "spice up her vocabulary" which may be right concerning her but Tasteless is using the same phrases quite often, too. I don't say that this "task" is easy, especially in the strange breaks right before a game starts or sth like that but I think it is unfair to criticise only her because of that.
All in all, I like that she was added to the caster team. At the beginning the casts with Tasteless weren't that good but it seems that they are becoming familiar with each other(right phrase?) and the first cast of Ar-Kelly was just awesome(fake high five!). Maybe people should just try to deal with the fact that a women is telling them what's going on ;-)
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On March 03 2011 00:25 Navane wrote:
Yeah just put a dead corpse next to tasteless and artosis, and they will manage to make something of it. But that gives no credit to the dead corpse.
User was temp banned for this post.
i wonder why he got warned for this post - its not said in a nice way but there is some truth in this statement - she didnt even know the names of each unit on the first days of casting. When she states her opinion tasteless and artosis always try to make her not look dumb and kinda agree with her opinion even if she is wrong and missunderstands the situation. But she will never get that kind of knowledge she would need to read the little tells unless she grinds Starcraft 8 hours a day for the next 3 months.
I was hoping that she actually casts only with Artosis and Tastless at the same time - and her part is saying the obvious such as "ooooooh so many banelings" or " good micro" and stuff like that. But her trying to do analytical stuff combined with her voice and accent is just not an enjoyable experience.
Yeah she might be better than expected - but is better than expected good enough to cast the biggest Starcraft2 tournament? I think not and i hope she will get replaced in the next season, i think the only reason she got the job is that there was nobody else applying for it.
Also something you guys probably didnt consider is that you already know what is happening on the screen - you played that game and you will have at least the basics down, but if someone that never seen a starcraft game in his live before watches her cast he needs to focus on what she is saying - if you know what happens you can turn a deaf ear and her casts seem to be not as bad because you dont really have to focus on her if you dont want to.
Some other fact to think about Tastosis isnt perfect either - they didnt know that you shouldnt enter a vortex with archons if there are banelings already in it or close to it.
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On March 03 2011 07:32 idonthinksobro wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2011 00:25 Navane wrote:
Yeah just put a dead corpse next to tasteless and artosis, and they will manage to make something of it. But that gives no credit to the dead corpse.
User was temp banned for this post. i wonder why he got warned for this post - its not said in a nice way but there is some truth in this statement - she didnt even know the names of each unit on the first days of casting. When she states her opinion tasteless and artosis always try to make her not look dumb and kinda agree with her opinion even if she is wrong and missunderstands the situation. But she will never get that kind of knowledge she would need to read the little tells unless she grinds Starcraft 8 hours a day for the next 3 months.
He was banned not because of what but how he said it, i think that is obvious
Yeah she might be better than expected - but is better than expected good enough to cast the biggest Starcraft2 tournament? I think not and i hope she will get replaced in the next season, i think the only reason she got the job is that there was nobody else applying for it.
Fact is, she casts this tournament. You can either bicker on this or provide constructive criticism that may enhance your viewers experience.
It is irrelevant at this point how she got their or if she deserves it in my oppinion.
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I don't get why people keep defending Kelly with the "she's a girl" defense. There have been several popular warcraft 3 commentators, for example, that were female. I recall immensely enjoying Bunny back in the days of wc3replays.com. I think she casted a tourney at blizzcon, too, and it was enjoyable.
I think for the most part guys love female casters. But they love female casters with a sexy voice, good humor, and knowledge of the game. Kelly might have decent knowledge of the game, but not enough to make up for her lack in the first two categories. That's my theory on why she's unpopular.
Frankly, I don't much care for tasteless, either. I have no theory on why he's popular at all, as he seems to mostly be bouncing off Artosis for good commentary. In the absence of artosis, I found the kelly/tasteless commentaries to be quite annoying. On the other hand, Artosis/Kelly wasn't too terrible. I think the underlying key here is that you have mediocre casters bouncing off Artosis' ideas and coming off a lot better than they really are. In any case, please stop the "people don't like kelly cause she's a girl" defense. I would love to listen to a female caster, but she'd better have a soothing voice or be really funny, just saying.
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Yeah I'm pretty sure she knew all the unit names.... she plays the game. Why would you say something that's not true? People are just finding reasons to talk shit and dislike her. I mean come on.... There's a thin line between criticism and shit talking.
PS. Why do kelly critics have to high jack every thread that concerns her to just bag on her. Bag on her somewhere else. Like the High Five thread, we had tons of people just going on about her casting when the thread wasn't even about it
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On March 03 2011 08:37 adeezy wrote:
Yeah I'm pretty sure she knew all the unit names.... she plays the game. Why would you say something that's not true? People are just finding reasons to talk shit and dislike her. I mean come on.... There's a thin line between criticism and shit talking.
PS. Why do kelly critics have to high jack every thread that concerns her to just bag on her. Bag on her somewhere else. Like the High Five thread, we had tons of people just going on about her casting when the thread wasn't even about it
hellion is a racecar? and she said something like the raven blocks marines with the pdd.
There were more mistakes like that i didnt make a list of it - i dont want to shittalk but thats how i felt watching her the first time - probably iam biased because i laughed so much at incontrol making fun of her on the first time but you know so many minor mistakes add up to a bad cast.
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lolol i don't understand why some people are all up in arms about kellymilkies and her casting
it seems to be more of a bandwagon sort of thing
more power to her though \o/
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On March 03 2011 09:00 idonthinksobro wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2011 08:37 adeezy wrote:
Yeah I'm pretty sure she knew all the unit names.... she plays the game. Why would you say something that's not true? People are just finding reasons to talk shit and dislike her. I mean come on.... There's a thin line between criticism and shit talking.
PS. Why do kelly critics have to high jack every thread that concerns her to just bag on her. Bag on her somewhere else. Like the High Five thread, we had tons of people just going on about her casting when the thread wasn't even about it hellion is a racecar? and she said something like the raven blocks marines with the pdd. There were more mistakes like that i didnt make a list of it - i dont want to shittalk but thats how i felt watching her the first time - probably iam biased because i laughed so much at incontrol making fun of her on the first time but you know so many minor mistakes add up to a bad cast.
Oh come on, there are a lot of valid criticisms but the hellion = racecar thing isn't a big deal. Even tasteless uses other names for units sometimes (medivac=dropship, vulture bikes in BW, etc). Granted, she should probably wait to be more established before making stylistic additions to her casting because people could be confused, but it's not because she doesn't know what the unit is called.
If anything, it's just unprofessional and potentially confusing to some viewers.
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OK. I think the biggest issue here is that people expect that the commentator/caster is of sufficient skill to be an ATTRACTION as opposed to being tolerable or adequate.
Tens of thousands tune in to Day9 in order to hear him talk. The quality of the game he commentates is sometimes less than 50% of the content and attraction.
I admit that I do not tune in to Code A, ever, in order to hear Kelly commentate. I do, however, tune in Code S because Tastosis are so good and funny that they pull me in.
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Well, I don't have a problem with her game knowledge or the jokes she is pulling.
Her accent however, is quite irritating.
Now, I have no problem in understanding what she is saying (apart from few minor and scare things) and I have no problem with her as a person. On contraire, she seems quite nice to me.
But employing a person with a heavy accent to cast in one of the most prestigious tournaments of its kind for paying customersis quite a weird decision in my opinion.
A professional commentator should have a great voice and be able to make commentarys that are so brilliant, that they are on the verge of being addicting.
E.g. day9, under whose youtube videos you will frequently find comments like "I would listen to day9 commentating on paint drying on the wall".
Anyways, bottom line: some people just aren't suited for certain jobs and yeah, life's unfair.
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GOMtv hired a (supposedly) attractive female to cast for them in order to appeal to the lonely nerd stereotype, and this is what we get. No surprises at the level of her casting on my part. Oh, and some random guy who's good at starcraft(huk) shushing "haters" doesn't really bother me. Same amount of caring on my part as if some random guy walking on the opposite side of the street thought I was talking too much.
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i still can't understand her accent. i dont know how anyone who doesn't speak english as their first language can come anywhere near understanding her.
im sorry. but it's an english international stream and i can't watch code a anymore.
being a clear speaker should of been the most important thing when gom was looking for casters.
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On March 03 2011 09:07 TheJoyBringer wrote:
lolol i don't understand why some people are all up in arms about kellymilkies and her casting
it seems to be more of a bandwagon sort of thing
more power to her though \o/
people are not "up in arms". those people just do not like her casting for whatever personal reason. are people not allowed to have an opinion? are we not allowed to provide criticism? this is the bigger issue, the fact that these people, including myself, feel like we are labelled as bigots, chauvinists, all-in-all hellspawn, and feel like we just don't have the opportunity to voice our concerns because of posts like yours.
the kelly fanclub thread is not for critical comments. that will cause unnecessary flame wars and derails the topic. this blog post is purely opinion based and as such all comments, positive or negative, should be taken to heart. please try to respect other people's opinions.
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On March 03 2011 02:54 The KY wrote:Relax, I was just kidding. I don't hate Kelly and I think the ferocity that people have attacked her with is both weird and totally uncalled for, but I'm not a Kelly cheerleader. I don't watch so much Code A anyway.
I really like her O.o
I don't have difficulty understanding what she is saying, she's pretty damn funny, cute as hell, and brings a different kind of person to the cast entirely.
I can't really see how people are so insane...but that's an everyday kinda thing for me.
This is the problem. Imagine gom hiring a male with Kelly's accent and lack of game knowledge. How many people would be defending him? How many people would say he's qualified to cast the GSL, the most prestigious tournament in the world?
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On March 07 2011 09:00 APurpleCow wrote:
This is the problem. Imagine gom hiring a male with Kelly's accent and lack of game knowledge. How many people would be defending him? How many people would say he's qualified to cast the GSL, the most prestigious tournament in the world?
Nice one, reminds me of "A Time To Kill". ^^
But on the other hand, there's quite a hype around John, isn't there?
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I did not like her at first, but hey that was her first times casting. I think now shes really good and improving, i really like it when commentators try to predict what will happen instead of just saying what is there. And kelly is pretty good at that.
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On March 07 2011 09:00 APurpleCow wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2011 02:54 The KY wrote:On March 03 2011 01:23 valaki wrote:No need to whiteknight that much. Relax, I was just kidding. I don't hate Kelly and I think the ferocity that people have attacked her with is both weird and totally uncalled for, but I'm not a Kelly cheerleader. I don't watch so much Code A anyway. Show nested quote +I really like her O.o
I don't have difficulty understanding what she is saying, she's pretty damn funny, cute as hell, and brings a different kind of person to the cast entirely.
I can't really see how people are so insane...but that's an everyday kinda thing for me. Show nested quote +I really like her O.o
I don't have difficulty understanding what she is saying, she's pretty damn funny, cute as hell, and brings a different kind of person to the cast entirely.
I can't really see how people are so insane...but that's an everyday kinda thing for me. This is the problem. Imagine gom hiring a male with Kelly's accent and lack of game knowledge. How many people would be defending him? How many people would say he's qualified to cast the GSL, the most prestigious tournament in the world?
Pretty much
Maybe I'm missing something, but what exactly has she improved upon?? She still sounds exactly the same as she did in any other casts you can find online
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Kelly sounds the same as when she started.
The other caster, though, is quite enjoyable in comparison.
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I like her more and more as I listen to her. She's got a lot more enthusiasm than Artosis/Tasteless at a lot of points, which is refreshing. What the fuck is this whole "science proves 2 octaves rapes ears" bullshit? Women have higher voices... It's kind of how half the world speaks. If you're not used to that by now then... well I guess you need to get out more.
I think her accent is cute. Then again I'm not a scumbag racist like you guys... Just kidding. I get it if you find her a little hard to understand as a purely practical matter. Again though, I think she sounds nice/cute.
I like the new guy. I can't remember his name, but he did a great job in this morning's code A games. I only watched HUK though.
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Wow, doa was totally smooth in the code matches today. Kelly, poor thing, called Alicia her favorite zerg player in code A. -_-" He's protoss. Doa tried to smooth it over best he could.
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I feel lately she did not only stop improving but sadly even got weaker, the unneccessary giggle and screaming amount has risen drastically, and the quota of chunks of sentences that I don't understand growed.
I hope this its just a few bad days for her and not that she is getting lazy just after a few weeks 
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I'm watching Code A tonight and it's really difficult to listen to Kelly. Aside from some of the previous comments, it's not how she says things so much as what she says.
I had read a post about how she has claimed gg before the game was over and I was in agreement with this. But it's also that she states very obvious things all of the time. For instance, Alicia's army was in Supernova's base and she says "Supernova is going to have to attack with his units to his base"
I mean, what else is Supernova going to do, but bring his units to his base?
Arg
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Erik is great and really tries to create some chemistry between himself and Kelly.
Unfortunately Kelly seems unable to make small talk. : (
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I don't like the two of them together. Neither has that great of insight into the game, they are both quite serious for the most part, and Kelly is very difficult to understand, especially when there is excitement in a match. I really think GSL should try to find someone better to fill this casting position.
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I am too used to tasteosis, sadly for me it takes away from me enjoying the games being casted. I understand everything they say but I just do not find it as entertaining now
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I like Erik. I think he does a great job. Seems to imitate Tasteless, but that's fine with me. He's professional and adds a welcome sense of humor to the cast.
But I have trouble understanding Kelly and even upon understanding her, I often disagree with what she says. She's preemptively called the game for a player or particular battles before they were over, and was wrong in her prediction. This really takes away from the experience, as I can tell beforehand that it is a close battle and it is not obviously one way or another.
She also preemptively calls out courses of action. If she sees 3 gateways, she will claim that it is going to be a 3 gateway expand. I'm all for casters predicting events, but I don't feel that she has the game knowledge or game experience of Artosis or Tasteless to make these predictions. I guess the problem might not be that she is making these predictions, but the certainty she has with her predictions in unclear situations.
Perhaps it would be to speculate instead of saying "He is going for a timing attack", and then not seeing that happen
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I've noticed that the vast majority of good things you read about Kelly refer to her appearance, which have nothing to do with her casting ability. "She's beautiful", "She's cute", "She will be my wife" (taken from GOMtv forums)
This confirms to me that GOM likely picked a female caster for the"lonely nerds" who watch the GSL. If this is the case, than any attractive female caster would have prompted the same response throughout the Starcraft II community. People would have liked the caster because she was a female gamer and would have posted some of the same comments. However, there are many other female casters out there who are not only attractive (which shouldn't be the main reason to hire someone), but also very knowledgeable.
In this case, we would get the best of both worlds. More diversity in the game and great commentary to boot. Right now, I'm surprised how willing people are to accept Kelly based on her looks alone, and are not more critical of her casting ability. Someone made the point that anyone would "look good" next to Tasteless and Artosis, and I feel that this is true. They would make you look good, because they're just so experienced and great at what they do.
I bought a Season pass so that I could hear intelligent game commentary, infused with that some great Starcraft humor. I have to say that I look forward to Code S, but am more apprehensive about Code A. I think Erik is doing a fantastic job and I'm all for his casting. I'm just not sure he can compensate for what I believe is a lack of casting ability from Kelly.
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I liked Kelly's casting and had little difficulty understanding what she was saying though I can understand the frustration from American viewers who rarely watch programs hosted by non-natives.
For me, most of the mispronunciations were nothing more than cute characteristics. What I like most about her casting is that when she's analyzing she will explain her train of thought. "I think x are good in situation y because of factors z1 and z2." Tartosis can sometimes be belittling and just state x-y which doesn't help as much from a learning perspective.
Most of her flaws is stuff she'll learn with more experience in front of the camera. These includes nervousness, casual talk, and high-pitched voice in tense situations. These are also fields where Tartosi's sageness really shines through.
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EPT
