[Forewarning. This is all my damn opinion, and that's why it's in the blogs section. If you don't want to read this, then don't. Easy peasy. I didn't post it in a thread or as its own thread in SC2 General because I don't think my opinion matters that much, but I thought I may as well get my opinion out there in some way, so here it is.]
There's way too much doom and gloom in the SC2 forums.
HotS doesn't have X and Y! Fuck this game!
B-rated pro player thinks HotS is bad!
etc - You've seen them. I've seen them. People have a bias towards their past, and as such people consistently think what's coming is worse than what's already been. Blizzard isn't evil, they aren't releasing inferior products to what they've done in the past, etc. You've just grown up, and you're used to something different. Yes, there's no LAN on SC2, but they're in line with every other recently released game. Yes, you have to be always online for Diablo 3, but it's an online-based game - people were arguing the same shit about online activation for Half-Life 1 in 1998. If you don't have the internet you have more problems than not being able to play Diablo 3. Yes, there are pandas in WoW. There were pandas in Warcraft 3 ... seriously.
That's another rant for another time, though.
None of this is why I don't follow SC2 anymore.
The metagame of SC2 isn't exciting. Where are the player rivalries? Where are the epic matches?
They're there, don't get me wrong. There's no reason it can't be exciting. Only one thing stands in the way.
The casters.
I stopped watching GSL because I never knew when Tastosis would cast (ie almost never). I stopped watching NASL because Gretorp is boring (and Incontrol lied through his teeth about how epic it would be). I don't watch EG's events because Incontrol casts them.
I used to really like analytical casting. "Player X could do A or B which would counter what Player Y is doing very well." "This will be very hard to come back from." These kind of statements are all over SC2 casting. Wolf, Kaldor, Gretorp, Incontrol, and the others all use them. They're useful statements for learning the game or getting better at playing it. If I'm in this situation, how should I react? That's precisely what the casters tell you.
This is a plague on the scene.
I have taken to watching a lot of pro DOTA 2. I watched DotA 1 a lot, mostly a guy called Luminous. He's pretty analytical, too. When DOTA 2 rolled around, one psycho australian guy kept getting to cast all the big tournaments. Tobiwan.
I HATED Tobi, but I really wanted to watch the tournaments he casted. He shouted, he was obnoxious, he mostly did play-by-play. But as I watched him more and more, I realized how much more entertaining everything seemed because of him. He reminded me of the Korean commentators for Brood War.
Even if you don't watch Dota, watch this video for Tobi shouting into a bad mic, his voice already half-gone at the first International. He's only improved since then.
I couldn't watch Luminous anymore, and now that I've tried going back to SC2, the commentators are all more boring than I remember. Tasteless and Artosis, at the very least, do something to make the games more exciting, but the other English casters make me turn off the stream within 5 minutes because I'd rather be doing something else.
Here's the thing: the analysis kills it. I don't care what someone could do. I don't care if the game is basically over. I don't care if his 11rax could open him up to 4 different builds. Tell me what he IS doing. I watched Incontrol cast MCSL today, and he was just joking about everything. There's an army moving. Oh, Protosser killed Huk's observer, that's too bad.
This is NOT the kind of play-by-play I mean. THE OBSERVER WAS SNIPED! Huk lost a MAJOR tool in that transaction, but HE DOESN'T CARE! He's going in with his army! THE MOTHERSHIP RECALLED INTO HIS BASE!
Yes, this is, when you take a step back, inane. Yes, we all have eyes. But we all have brains too. I don't need someone doing really simple analysis while I'm watching the game. I'm watching to be entertained, not to learn. When I want to learn I play endless games of ladder and watch replays.
I don't care if it seems loud and obnoxious at first, or if it seems comical like this:
People can qq about HotS all they want, but even if it had all the changes the community is asking for, I wouldn't start following the pro scene again. I won't watch Starcraft until someone can make it exciting for me. I'm not ADD, I'm apathetic, and that can be much, much worse for a spectator sport.
I would mute casting if caster screamed 'OBSERVER SNIPED!'. That would be completely stupid. Dota is quite other game and casting is not the same too. Tobi shouts when someone is killed, not when 'DENDI BUYS TANGO!!!'.
Its called psychological conditioning. Every time you watch a Dota2 game, you watch that clip of piccolo. Every time you think of Tobi or Dota2 you think of piccolo. Every time you hear genuine excitement, you play that voice of Piccolo in your Ipod. Piccolo is you're life. Piccolo is everywhere, he stalks you, he follows you. He's in your dreams. You'll have no choice but to like SC2 casters because you just cant get enough of what piccolo is. You'll love piccolo.
It will be unreal. Gosh, it will be amazing. You'll feel incredible. YES YES YES YES. YOU CAN WIN. YOU'LL FEEL GREAT. YOU - CAN - DO - THIS. ARRGHH.
YOU'LL BE HOME. YOU'LL BE ALIVE. IT WILL ALL BE A MIRACLE. YOU'LL BE AWAKE, YOU'LL BE WIDE AWAKE!!!1
I can kind of understand where op is coming from. When I was just purely a spectator in BW, I almost exclusively watched OSL because I like their casting way more than MSL or proleague. I didn't care if they missed action (which they rarely did anyway) or say a lot of non-game related things because they were entertaining. Hence why most noobies liked the sc2gg casters (moletrap, klazart, diggity, cholera) very much whereas some of the more skilled players hated them. But when I began to try to actually learn how to play 1v1, who casted the game didn't matter because I was focused on watching whats going on in the game and not necessarily whats coming out of casters' mouths.
I don't understand the responses. To garner a bigger audience, you want the most exciting and hype making commentators possible. Someone who doesn't know anything about the game will more likely get interested in screaming, hyping, and intense atmosphere building to make the viewer actively engaged in the game even though all he/she is doing is watching the game. This doesn't happen in most SCII commentators. He has a completely valid point from a casual and viewer perspective.
On October 28 2012 02:20 EienShinwa wrote: I don't understand the responses. To garner a bigger audience, you want the most exciting and hype making commentators possible. Someone who doesn't know anything about the game will more likely get interested in screaming, hyping, and intense atmosphere building to make the viewer actively engaged in the game even though all he/she is doing is watching the game. This doesn't happen in most SCII commentators. He has a completely valid point from a casual and viewer perspective.
Rather, SC2 fans want free coaching from the commentators.
On October 28 2012 02:20 EienShinwa wrote: I don't understand the responses. To garner a bigger audience, you want the most exciting and hype making commentators possible. Someone who doesn't know anything about the game will more likely get interested in screaming, hyping, and intense atmosphere building to make the viewer actively engaged in the game even though all he/she is doing is watching the game. This doesn't happen in most SCII commentators. He has a completely valid point from a casual and viewer perspective.
Rather, SC2 fans want free coaching from the commentators.
To be fair, many commentators try and fail miserably at being analytical. A ton of commentators, even very established ones (not gonna name anyone), to this day can't tell the difference between a 3base build and a 2base timing in PvZ for instance, and still say outright wrong things like "stargate play forces hydras" or "fast +1 weapons means there will be a gateway timing!"
EPT
