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What with the NASL finals coming up this weekend and it being talked about at the recent SOTG i found myself with an urge to express my take on the issue, specifically with an eye for the future.
This entry is not about any of the specific critisism that has been directed at NASL the previous seasons; im not in a position to speak on that because i - like many - have barely watched it this season.
Lets be clear though; There will always be dicks, especially on the internet (literal and figurative dicks), but i dont believe that the average starcraft-watching fan that vent criticism of NASL are doing it out of spite or wishing the league will fail or go away; they're just stating it like they see it, witch generally mainly includes bigger and smaller reasons they havnt followed the season.
Although the season should ideally by flawless, epic and avidly watched by us all as to lead up to the final event in a good way, the final event has its own legs to stand on regardless of alleged poor excitment-value of the leagues week-by-week content.. Those own legs are quite shaky though; seeing as the first season final event was just that; shaky.
... the NASL final event may not end up rivalling the MLG or Dremhack in terms of viewership, but we should expect it to do at least ok. However, if there are any significant production-hicups it may well end up damaging their already struggling reputation to the point that even if they manage to produce more exciting week-by-week content than previous seasons, potential customers and viewers may end up hesitating to spend more time and money towards a league that they arnt sure will be able to post a reasonable production even for its final event; even if a season three succeeds in creating the hype that S2 and even S1 failed to produce for various reasons - what good is that if the supposed climax-event cant be trusted to give a professional impression? who's gonna show that to their friends to share the gospel of esports?
... im sure many of us know some people that are not players or fans, but are never the less beginning to be intrigued by e-sports as a phenomenon to the point where they'll consider watching it socially on occasion. The finals of the established tournament-hosts constitute great opportunities for us to show these people our world. NASL isnt one of those established brands. Can they get there? for me this next final event will be a big indicator of whether they're on the right track riding a fast enough train or not.
they SHOULD be on the right track by now; its rather obvious that we should expect them to do better than they did for the first season finale, but i ask not only that but if they're on a fast enough train; I think esports is hot enough to continue growing at a high pace for some time, that means both the quality and the quantity of content produced by NASL's competitors will keep on increasing; if NASL doesnt start to actually catch up in terms of production-value, they could still be lagging behind and be considered sub-par by comparison, all the while 'actually' getting better than they were. They probably have a slew of quite loyal followers, but how loyal? how blind to putting their money and viewing-time on more professional alternatives?
Thats why i believe that if there are significant screw-ups in the final-event management/production - or the setup for season 3 doesnt deliver in terms of becoming more relevant and exciting in its week-by-week content - the NASL will run out of steam to the point where recovery becomes a long uphill struggle.
If it gets to that point where NASL loses popularity and viewership even further, it'll create a weird situation, because the tournament will probably keep on hosting one of the largest prize-pools in starcraft esports. That should be temporary though, as the pools of successful organizers should grow to surpass it soon enough.
In conclusion, its my opinion that NASL is walking a thin line right now they have a lot of things working for them in cooperating with the right people, a great player line-up - although short on koreans - and a yummie prize-pool, but with the lack of week-by-week excitement and the production issues overall they cant afford to fail this if they want to make it big.
In any case, NASL seems resilient; even if things dont go great i think they'll stick around for a while; maybe they can recover even if they do crash and burn now; maybe they even need to hit that bump - again - to shake things up.
This has been my first blog entry. Thanks for reading. be gentle.
peace.
edit: im pretty bad at spotting my typos. hopefully its better now
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Frankly, I don't think the NASL has much of a future. The production quality has continued to be bad, the casters continue to be bad or just terrible people (I once made the mistake of tuning into Orb's stream and it took him all of 20 seconds to demonstrate to me and everyone else in chat that he is a massive, massive douchebag. That alone makes me unwilling to tune into anything he hosts). The lack of Korean players is also a big drawback for me. I'm not much for the whole "rooting for foreigners" thing in the first place, especially because I play Terran and really apart from Select and Thorzain, there aren't any Terrans based outside of Korea whose play impresses.
With MLG as its only competition in the US, I figured maybe there was a chance for it to survive even after the mediocrity-fest that was the initial season. Now, though, with IPL stepping up its game and showing us what a real rival to MLG can be, it doesn't feel like NASL deserves to continue being around if what we keep seeing is what they're going to bring. The couple of NASL broadcasts I tuned into earlier this season will be the last couple, unless something big changes.
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The NASL might limp through another couple of seasons if this weekend's final goes off without a hitch. If it bombs, however, the NASL is done.
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NASL is confirmed for 3 seasons, but it faces many problems and may not go to a season 4. The issue is that NASL seems to have fallen behind its competition significantly. IPL 3 was very favorably received even though it was beset by several internet problems out of its control, and introduced many innovative changes to major tournament production. MLG also continued to improve, starting with a very absymal MLG Dallas and gradually improving the tournament. Dreamhack has also been busy improving their product, and held this year's Dreamhack Winter in a huge arena setting.
These tournaments are exciting and innovative because they are constantly making improvements, and are largely weekend tournaments (lots of action packed close together). On the financial side, MLG and Dreamhack are established brands with a diversified product line, while IPL is run by IGN (another established brand), which as a large umbrella entity could provide additional funding and cover any financial losses.
NASL operates in a season format that spans several months, and without the top-tier Koreans this season, it is hard to generate interest from the community for so long of a period. In addition, while NASL has sponsors, it is a relatively new company and does not have such a fallback.
In general, it just seems that there is not enough interest or hype for the NASL, especially compared to its constantly improving competitors.
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Calgary25977 Posts
NASL S1 finals really impressed me because I had low expectations and they smashed them by the final day. Honestly, I have even lower expectations for S2 finals. I'm hoping they can impress again, but not expecting it.
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I hope they stick around just to have another tournament in the scene. Honestly I watched a lot of their first season, but ended up watching only like 2 hours the second.
Why is that - you might ask. Does it have to do with the Koreans leaving? Does it have to do with it no longer being new? To much content to keep up with? Bad casters? Bad players?
Not at all. Not even close.
The answer is the stream quality. You have to pay 20 bucks to see it in HD, and I just don't want to spend money on something that is being shown completely free elsewhere - namely EG Masters Cup (before it ended) and the IGN Pro League. Both of those streams show/showed just as high quality games and I didn't have to pay a dime for it. I really hated doing it, but I skipped over this season because I really hate watching shitty quality streams - and it sucks because there were some amazing players, good matches, and Gretorp casting <3.
In order for me to watch season 3, they have to make the stream free HD and make the payed option give you access to VoD's, no commercials, and maybe some behind the scenes stuff. To be fair, its not like they lose much by me not watching, but I get the feeling a lot of other people have a similar opinion and are not watching because of this.
Anyway I'm gonna watch the Finals and I hope it goes as well as it can.
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As the poster above me said stream quality is quite the turn off. It's already hard to be excited for a lacklusted non korean lineup for season 2 but when I say to myself, 'why, sure let's check out NASL tonight, see who is playing' and it's in 320p with a BUY ME if you try and go 480 or higher it's like 'welp, fuck this' and I turn on any other featured stream with free 1080+. The content and the quality doesn't justify spending money and the free version is so awful that it detracts normal stream watchers it's just a double dose of losing $ on subscriptions and losing eyeballs because better stuff is out there.
They have made some improvements in production since season 1 but it still seems like a second rate organization in comparison to the IPLs/MLGs or even the Korean Weeklys etc. I like some of the suggestions on SOTG and the biggest was when incontrol talked about how he had to play like 6 games in 1 or 2 sittings? Wtf.. That's not a season that's a 2 day group play tournament. When it's a season you can have those awesome cinderella stories, the drama, and the hype of turning it around and making the playoffs. If you play all of your games in 1 or 2 days all you're doing is dragging it out, (rather obnoxiously) to the players and the fans.
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NASL finals will be awesome. I feel like NASL is like College basketball.. the players just play to make the "big dance" and only hardcore NASL (NCAAB) fans watch the regular season. I think the grand finals (march madness) will be amazing again.
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I have to say I kinda like NASL because I actually think gretorp is a pretty ok caster and I haven't seen anything terrible from orb yet, so I catch some games here and there while eating dinner and such. The lack of epicness compared to an IPL, a Dreamhack, an MLG, a GSL and so on is slightly worrying though I guess considering the finals aim to be such events.
Now also something slightly ot
On December 01 2011 06:26 forsooth wrote:
Stuff
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I'm not much for the whole "rooting for foreigners" thing in the first place, especially because I play Terran and really apart from Select and Thorzain, there aren't any Terrans based outside of Korea whose play impresses.
more stuff
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I think maybe you should watch some more of empires terrans (specifically kas and beastyqt) 'cause they're pretty damn solid and scary =]
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Change the format.. do 1 day qualification events.. maybe some seeding..and then a starleague style bracket.
the group play is just so meaningless..
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On December 01 2011 07:01 Swilvan wrote:I have to say I kinda like NASL because I actually think gretorp is a pretty ok caster and I haven't seen anything terrible from orb yet, so I catch some games here and there while eating dinner and such. The lack of epicness compared to an IPL, a Dreamhack, an MLG, a GSL and so on is slightly worrying though I guess considering the finals aim to be such events. Now also something slightly ot Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 06:26 forsooth wrote:
Stuff
stuff stuff
I'm not much for the whole "rooting for foreigners" thing in the first place, especially because I play Terran and really apart from Select and Thorzain, there aren't any Terrans based outside of Korea whose play impresses.
more stuff
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I think maybe you should watch some more of empires terrans (specifically kas and beastyqt) 'cause they're pretty damn solid and scary =]
DeMusliM is pretty fucking good too.....
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United States4991 Posts
I used to follow NASL back in season 1 (I even had the season pass). That said, I found it incredibly hard for me to care this season. I used to have fun trying to predict who would win the matches, but then when I discovered they'd been played like 1 month or more before, and in some cases on different patches than the current patch, it suddenly became a game of guessing "well, maybe this game was played two days ago, or maybe it was played a month ago", instead of "who do I think is going to win this if they play now".
The quality of the stream didn't really bother me, because I have no issue ponying up for something that I feel is worthwhile (MLG sufficiently impressed me to get me to buy a gold membership for example). I've listened to other casters than just "the big ones" (i.e., Day, Tastosis, Husky, etc.), and although Gretorp has grown on me from the initial very first casts, I haven't found that he's grown on me sufficiently to make me want to tune in. The problem NASL has is there's too much actual high quality (I don't just mean from the stream quality, I mean what actually is on the stream) SC2 out there for me to want to tune into a mediocre production featuring a caster with habits that mildly annoy me.
Ultimately, I have a hard time caring much about the final of the NASL if I don't care about the actual season itself. Maybe I'll tune in a bit, but for me tournaments are indeed a lot about the stories and history of the players / event, and since I haven't been following the regular season I don't have any of that. If I just want to watch high quality SC2 I can look at the featured streams and find random Korean progamers who are as good as or better than the vast majority of the finalists anyway, and are streaming in a 1st person view which is a plus for trying to learn. Tournaments need to bring something more to the table than just pretty good games with mediocre casting, which is what NASL has come to be for me.
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On December 01 2011 06:26 forsooth wrote:Frankly, I don't think the NASL has much of a future. The production quality has continued to be bad, the casters continue to be bad or just terrible people (I once made the mistake of tuning into Orb's stream and it took him all of 20 seconds to demonstrate to me and everyone else in chat that he is a massive, massive douchebag. That alone makes me unwilling to tune into anything he hosts. + Show Spoiler +The lack of Korean players is also a big drawback for me. I'm not much for the whole "rooting for foreigners" thing in the first place, especially because I play Terran and really apart from Select and Thorzain, there aren't any Terrans based outside of Korea whose play impresses.
With MLG as its only competition in the US, I figured maybe there was a chance for it to survive even after the mediocrity-fest that was the initial season. Now, though, with IPL stepping up its game and showing us what a real rival to MLG can be, it doesn't feel like NASL deserves to continue being around if what we keep seeing is what they're going to bring. The couple of NASL broadcasts I tuned into earlier this season will be the last couple, unless something big changes.
Wow you want to back that up with something substantial or do you just want to shit on a community member because it makes you cool?
Orb is a good caster and deserves praise for his accurate and intelligent casting, especially when solo casting.
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On December 01 2011 07:26 Probe1 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 06:26 forsooth wrote:Frankly, I don't think the NASL has much of a future. The production quality has continued to be bad, the casters continue to be bad or just terrible people (I once made the mistake of tuning into Orb's stream and it took him all of 20 seconds to demonstrate to me and everyone else in chat that he is a massive, massive douchebag. That alone makes me unwilling to tune into anything he hosts. + Show Spoiler +The lack of Korean players is also a big drawback for me. I'm not much for the whole "rooting for foreigners" thing in the first place, especially because I play Terran and really apart from Select and Thorzain, there aren't any Terrans based outside of Korea whose play impresses.
With MLG as its only competition in the US, I figured maybe there was a chance for it to survive even after the mediocrity-fest that was the initial season. Now, though, with IPL stepping up its game and showing us what a real rival to MLG can be, it doesn't feel like NASL deserves to continue being around if what we keep seeing is what they're going to bring. The couple of NASL broadcasts I tuned into earlier this season will be the last couple, unless something big changes. Wow you want to back that up with something substantial or do you just want to shit on a community member because it makes you cool? Orb is a good caster and deserves praise for his accurate and intelligent casting, especially when solo casting.
I agree with Probe here. Orb is an amazing caster when he casts the ESV Weekly. I don't watch NASL, but what did he do to make him seem like a massive douche bag? Give some type of example or source on his behaviour before you insult such a great community member.
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United States4991 Posts
I believe he's most likely referring to Orb's ladder streaming, not his casting streaming. He's known for being a bit of a rager while laddering, I guess in a similar vein to how Idra does. It doesn't bother me if he wants to rage while laddering, and the alternative is that he just doesn't stream ladder and only casts events.
If he does that though, it's not going to improve his actual event casting, all it's going to do is make people who wanted to watch him ladder unable to do so. I'd suggest that you should separate how people act in/outside casting. If you enjoy his casting of events, then you should be able to do so without caring if he gets mad when he loses to a roach allin or whatever he was raging about at that time.
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I said it before:
They need a format change. If they were to pretty much copy the TSL format and run NASL season 3 like that? I think they'd be onto something. A season where so many of the games just aren't important, are played weeks in advance, etc, is just hard to have any sort of hype around it.
I like their idea, but it just doesn't work well in practice. The GSL can get away with a longer tournament with a handful of games 5 nights a week, but they get the benefit of being live, being the best players, and having the players at the venue. The NASL, as it stands, doesn't do any of those 3 things. I think while downtime and unforeseen problems are a bummer, it beats the idea of having weeks-old games being shown.
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I'll be honest, I just do not enjoy the casting of Gretorp + company. Maybe I'm just biased, but I've never liked his casting.
I think that they were the best when they had Incontrol, but they don't so whatever. I am not entertained by NASL (there's very little to keep me entertained/involved, lower production quality than IPL, less frequent streaming than MLG, IPL, etc., and just worse casters overall I feel). Hopefully they have remedied this, but I have low expectations.
I didn't even care after watching the finals. The finals were the most exciting part of the day, and they were disappointing. Bad selection of games (can't even remember if there was a selection of games to choose from  ), and the final matches were disappointing. Just MC losing to PuMa who definitely should've lost, MC almost looked really bad in those games and not in his top shape.
Hopefully NASL rebounds with a good finals this season, but I don't have a high expectation. If it goes well and is good, then I'll be happy. If not, then it's exactly as I expected.
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On December 01 2011 08:00 Insane wrote:
I believe he's most likely referring to Orb's ladder streaming, not his casting streaming. He's known for being a bit of a rager while laddering, I guess in a similar vein to how Idra does. It doesn't bother me if he wants to rage while laddering, and the alternative is that he just doesn't stream ladder and only casts events.
If he does that though, it's not going to improve his actual event casting, all it's going to do is make people who wanted to watch him ladder unable to do so. I'd suggest that you should separate how people act in/outside casting. If you enjoy his casting of events, then you should be able to do so without caring if he gets mad when he loses to a roach allin or whatever he was raging about at that time.
That is correct. I was referring to when he was playing on ladder on his stream, not when he was actually casting. Essentially, some person in chat said something about a strategy that was done in the game not being an all-in (it was) and Orb instantly perma-banned him, called him a fucking retard and a waste of existence who needs to shut the fuck up and never talk about SC2 again (paraphrasing a bit, but this is essentially what was said) and it wasn't as a joke either. There is absolutely no call for a person to be that big of a douche to another person with so little (or really, pretty much none at all) provocation. Based on that, I have no interest in anything he's involved in and won't support his work by tuning into events he hosts.
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OK so i thought I'd add some insight from my perspective. and to start off, I'd like to give a little background:
I played sc2 at retail launch. bought it first day, and me and a few friends just absolutely dominated the game. we played 100s of games the first season. i got involved with TL pretty quickly off the bat, due to the desire to better myself as a player. none of my IRL friends were involved with TL though, which disappointed me. I would actually write them down build orders and help them learn to play them (offrace for me) because they just didn't care about the community. Then GSL happened. When GSL started, we ALL became HARDCORE sc2 fans. Staying up retarded hours EVERY NIGHT to catch them live (even with season passes) because, nothing compares to the live experience.
When NASL was announced, we were all SUPER excited about it. I bought the season pass (we alternated buying passes for GSL / NASL seasons and shared accounts *BLASPHEMY!!!*) for the first NASL season and it seemed to start off AWESOME... I absolutely LOVED the website, being able to look up players before the match, having so many cool *in-depth* features was just the best. I saw it as the future of sc2 e-sports (at the time). Other friends lost interest quickly because of the production value of the GSL being so much better. Myself, I was quite hardcore at the time... watching every single match of NASL / GSL... EVERY day. I tried talking them into keeping up with NASL, but between production value and players, they just stuck with the GSL.
My computer fried around April of this year, and money being as tight as it is with my wife and family, couldn't get it replaced until about a month and a half ago. I would go over to my friends houses from time to time to play sc2, but I fell WAY off my mechanics. I returned to the game a practice-league noob again (mechanics / timing / game sense just GONE). However, my old laptop worked and I was able to follow e-sports and TL and whatever, just not able to play. I would watch streams mostly, and for the most part just watched GSL / IPL.
I know this is probably just going on-and-on so I'll try to get to the point quickly here.
S1 of NASL seemed so "oh my god - eSports is actually going to happen!". But by the time S2 of NASL started, with IPL making an uproar and MLG / GSL continuing to always kick ass in terms of production and quality... the NASL that I had known and loved in S1 just seemed... the same. When I look back onto s1NASL, and tune in to watch it today, it simply seems BLAND.
The website looks like a web designer hasn't touched it since launch... perhaps some edits from the in-house "i-know-HTML!" guy to add some new content... but NOTHING seems as innovative as it did when it was released.
Where other organizations have expanded their features, broadcasting capabilities, ect... NASL just seems to "coast along" with the theory of, "if it ain't broke... why fix it?". They are right to a certain extent, but this is ultimately going to be their downfall. I really think someone needs to step in to NASL management and CHANGE things. I can't quite pinpoint what needs to be changed... but something with the NASL just doesn't feel like it did back in S1. Be it the hype (at the time), be it the lack of competition (at the time)... whatever it is, NASL has gone stale.
I set out with this post to give my perspective and add some insight, and I'm not sure if I've added much that hasn't already been said... so if anything, atleast I'll help reinforce the idea that something needs to be done with the NASL, because honestly, i can't stand tuning into the stream anymore. I'd rather watch a mid-masters stream with some personality then the same old same old from NASL.
ORB does a great job casting at the NASL btw... I love him. First time I heard him cast I absolutely loved it. I just can't bring myself to follow the NASL like I used to, with all the other leagues that have REALLY stepped up their game (and NASL hasn't)
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On December 01 2011 08:36 forsooth wrote:Show nested quote +On December 01 2011 08:00 Insane wrote:
I believe he's most likely referring to Orb's ladder streaming, not his casting streaming. He's known for being a bit of a rager while laddering, I guess in a similar vein to how Idra does. It doesn't bother me if he wants to rage while laddering, and the alternative is that he just doesn't stream ladder and only casts events.
If he does that though, it's not going to improve his actual event casting, all it's going to do is make people who wanted to watch him ladder unable to do so. I'd suggest that you should separate how people act in/outside casting. If you enjoy his casting of events, then you should be able to do so without caring if he gets mad when he loses to a roach allin or whatever he was raging about at that time. That is correct. I was referring to when he was playing on ladder on his stream, not when he was actually casting. Essentially, some person in chat said something about a strategy that was done in the game not being an all-in (it was) and Orb instantly perma-banned him, called him a fucking retard and a waste of existence who needs to shut the fuck up and never talk about SC2 again (paraphrasing a bit, but this is essentially what was said) and it wasn't as a joke either. There is absolutely no call for a person to be that big of a douche to another person with so little (or really, pretty much none at all) provocation. Based on that, I have no interest in anything he's involved in and won't support his work by tuning into events he hosts.
Curious - do you ever use the chat in IdrA / Destiny's streams? No different there... there are a few others that are like this aswell, forget who they are though.
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