EPTHow my day was “planned”
May day was essentially planned to watch as many of NaNiwa’s games as possible before going to the main stage. During downtime for NaNiwa, I watched other players game, played some Heart of the Swarm (More on that later), searched for a place to eat and bought some merchandise.
My thoughts on...
...the player area
The player area, which was behind the grandstand of the main stage, was, from my experience as an observer, nicely set up. It allowed players and referees/crew members to have space to move around, but it wasn’t too far away so that the fans couldn’t see what was happening. And for four of the Swedish players players (ThorZain, Seiplo, SaSe and someone else), their screen was replicated onto a bigger TV above them
...what you could do at the event apart from watching Sc2
There was a shop where you could buy some Sc2 merchandise, hardware and candy, and the crew working there was nice, I picked up a Protoss T-Shirt, keyring and patch there and some candy. You could also play...
...Heart of the Swarm
There were twenty-something computers set-up where you could try a alpha or beta version of Heart of the Swarm. And since I haven’t played an RTS in a long time, I was pretty bad at everything. Macro, micro, tech, decisionmaking, everything was really bad for me. However, I played 3-4 games in total (as Protoss) and from my perspective, HotS will be an improvement of WoL. One thing I like is that + Show Spoiler +
Protoss Oracle will have a female voice! To few protoss units have it currently
...BMing on ladder
It’s not a very good idea. Seiplo was laddering during his downtime, where ~20 persons (Including me) were standing behind him. And one person he’s meeting decides to BM at the end of the game with not so nice words, and everyone standing behind Seiplo saw it (since his screen was replicated on a TV above him)
...the organization of the competition itself
Overall, I thought it was pretty good, the players were informed of when they played next, and whenever a player had technical issues, the crew to it very seriously. When the Finland Grand Final stretched out on time, then the organizers weren’t like “Lets reduce the main-stage schedule in order to save time”. That was a really good decision.
...the stage-show production
If you didn’t like this, then what do you like?
It had an amazing casting combo (Apollo and Grubby), a really good observer (Adebisi) who listened to the casters really well, and amazing host (Incontrol) and good production in general.
And when there was competition downtime, there were some kind of entertainment going on, either in terms of really good music (It’s hard to top Gangnam Style and Nerd Alert), interesting discussion between the casters or some competition where you had to do the best dance to Gangnam Style.
Did I get any autographs?
Yes I did. I got autographs from NaNiwa, Morrow, Thorzain, Maddelisk, Naugrim, SortOf, Incontrol, Sase and Apollo (Who was the only one to write out both his real name and alias)
Am I happy with this event?
I don’t think I could’ve been happier at this event. It was so nice, at this event you were accepted for being who you are by everyone. It was absolutely worth the 219 SEK (~26 euro, ~32 USD) I spent on the ticket.
