EPTTo quote something from Star Trek - "This is no time to argue about time... we don't have the time". And it's true. How many of you have sat down, said "I'm going to do some laddering!" and then have played one or two games, then with gusto exclaimed "well I'm pooped, this is tiring, I must have played for at least 2 hours". It's a mental thing as much as it is an actual physical realisation of how much time has passed. Regardless - time is not something that we can easily get back - unless you have a spare flux capacitor and some extra jiggawatts. But what does that mean to members of the Starcraft community? What does it mean when you need to devote time to playing and stealing nerds' ladder points - along with watching the latest vods, replays and interviews?
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Content is so easy to find now
The constant influx of content
It is difficult to think of the volume easily - despite certain producers trying to make the task easy - but there is a literal flood of amazing information and matches that we are provided in this fantastic community. Youtube casters such as myself churning away night and day bringing you matches from replays and the odd-recorded-live pieces of video, Live shoutcasters blasting through their microphones with the most up-to-date and current live matches going on around the globe at the big tournaments - and of course lets not forget the venerable live streamers who provide you with great live content and the occasional /commercial.
There are easy ways to find the content - that hasn't ever been (and I don't think ever will be) the problem. The issue is the time that it takes - it's not like you can put a match on fast-forward and just shoot through it, getting the basic picture. Even if it was something simple to do - why would you? Half of the fun is in the experience of watching amazing battles, glorious macro and micro and of course the commentary spice that gets added to the mix. We have some great sites that aggregate content like starcraft2vids.com and sc2casts.com, you can have a look at r/starcraftvods on reddit and the livesreports here on TL, and of course you can follow channels on Youtube to stay up to date with content coming from them.
What do I watch?
I'm going to try and eliminate as much of my own bias as possible, but here we go -
Youtube casts or VODS are really good if you have some favourite casters who regularly produce content, and you're happy to sit down and watch for a while. Another awesome thing about Youtube casts (and other forms of VoD) is that you can pause them. For someone busy, perhaps you're cooking at home and you need to turn that steak over - pausing is incredibly useful. Perhaps you're at work, watching a GSL vod when you really shouldn't be and the boss walks by... pause that bad boy and wait until the boss is gone. It's so simple and effective.
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Youtube, a great source
What do you lose in a VoD? Unfortunately if you're watching "popular" videos, such as the afforementioned GSL vods, delayed MLG casts, or something along those lines - you may have already been spoiled before you even get to load them. To me this is purely a "viewer" problem. If you don't want to be spoiled, you're a smart cookie and you should know that avoiding reddit, twitter and other sites are a must. The ironic part about the digital age is that even though we are sometimes much further apart than a "normal" community is - information is ridiculously difficult to keep secret.
Not saying that people are just terrible at the secret game... but take the announcement of Zenio to TL and Moon to Fnatic for example - these were pre-announced with a "little" info and the obvious goal of creating a lot of hype and excitement - but those nerds with some skills in Photoshop, de-pixelling or who are just good at extrapolating were able to pickup on the tiny piece of information and run with it. That's another story though.
The other big problem with watching delayed vods is that you lose the... atmosphere. It is something that is really hard to define in words, but there is a certain aura when you watch a game live, it's almost like you are there in the crowd. And hey, we're in the business of redefining standards (see: sport, community, bar events...) - who says that in the Starcraft community, the online audience isn't a crowd? Think about that and let me know what you think.
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MLG Orlando
Live matches (including big events) are amazing fun to watch online, and from what I've seen and been told by you magical people online - they are just ridiculously awesome to go to in the flesh. Watching live games have that amazing aura of "spectacle" and "grandeur" that vods lack. You feel the presence of the players, the other fans, and just that whole energy surging through from the games themselves. Another great part is that you can take part in the games in real time - Tweeting your thoughts, blogging straight after, crashing sites if they can't handle your F5 spam...
What's the drawback? There aren't as many, but there are a couple. Online events have no pause if you're there at the event - they won't PP while you go peepee. Simple fix though - plan things out properly. This can also be a factor watching from home/barcraft - just make sure you have your drink, your pizza-pockets are already prepared before the games start. But the chance that you need to do something is there, so just keep that in mind. It's worth keeping in mind though that there are restreams of some events, and you can also rewind some streams too which is just amazing for Esports.
Live streams are also a great source of entertainment. I say "entertainment" with a little bit of a twist (you can't see it, but the way I said it in my head has a twist,
) because live streams can be very different depending on the streamer and how they are feeling at the time. I'm going to take a moment to express my sadness at the fact that Axslav was just released from Evil Geniuses - unfortunate as it is, I hope everyone continues to jump on his stream, probably one of the most educational streams (especially for Protoss players) given his high-level skills and real-time commentating. I don't know of too many others who can play at that level AND interact with the chat and provide information on exactly what they are doing and why.Enough TT from me - live streams are great to watch - a lot of the time when I come home from work I'll jump on a stream just to see someone else playing - it seems to give your mind a bit of a break. You don't have to sit there learning - sometimes it's just fun to watch. Korean streams are educational in the aspect of "oh that's how I beat that cheese", but they are no doubt entertaining too, watching LiquidHerO stomp all over Zergs makes me proud to wear a TL shirt when I do.
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QxG,Destiny doing his thing!
What is lacking in streams? To be honest, not that much. As I said, depending on the stream you may not "gain knowledge" or have as much colour as a vod or a live shoutcast will have - but that's purely up to you, you're the one picking the streamer. If you pick oGsForGG - you'll get a high level Terran who seems to destroy everyone on ladder - but he won't tell you how, you need to figure that out yourself. If you try out Catz or Destiny, you'll get some humour and fun builds thrown in to your streaming session. If you pick Axslav, Whitera, Sheth or Demuslim - you'll get high level play, and you'll also get the added benefit of learning something new. It's all up to you, and how you are feeling. I suppose this does seperate out live streams from Vods or Live Shoutcasts in a way, but hey, I'm rolling with it.
A snazzy heading to sum up
It all depends on your situation, how much time you have - and what you're interested in. I recently made a tweet asking what GSL vods I should "put in a list to watch because they are awesome but never actually get time to watch" - some folks tweeted back and let me know. I'm not sure if they were mocking me, but it was great that the community was able to help. How do you pick your video content for SC2, do you have a particular favourite stream you love to watch, a vod channel on Youtube or perhaps you have a back-catalogue of vods you still need to watch?
Cheers
