EPTHi, I've been wanting to do this post for quite a while, but never found the time to actually write it. So here it goes now.
When I watched BW back in the day, one of the most exciting things was to see how other people reacted to it. Being
the lonely guy I was in my schooldays, these people were mostly just guys on the internet. But I had a very good replacement:
Korean casters and audiences.
I don't know exactly why, but hearing the korean casters shout "JEEJEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!" while hard basses/guitar riffs were coming out of the speakers that caused the audience to go nuts and clap with their little plastic thingies always got me
excited. It was even better when while all that happened players jumped out of their booths and taunted their opponent.
I then always felt like something epic happened. Two players were battling it out. For 5, 10, 15 or even 30 minutes there was was action, mind games, nailbiting engagements and much more. They were sometimes even, sometimes one was behind, someone planned a counter-attack or maybe a contain. One ended
up having a superior strategy, getting a lucky punch or maybe was just overwhelmingly fast and his opponent could not keep up.
In the end, someone lost the game.
He would then type "gg" and tap out of the game. He surrendered, accepting his defeat.
This meant something. Even if you take it out of context, those guys were having a fight and the other lost. Add the fact that those are games for money, for tournament spots or just for prestige, even if the BoX wasn't over after that game, the playing field changed and it had impact.
Impact that, especially for newer players, is not always that obvious. If I watch a game for the first time I don't know the stories, I maybe don't even know the game all that way and the concept of "GG" is nothing I can connect to.
Last weekend I had some friends over. We were watching some movies (R.E.D. and some other movies, good movie btw) and sometimes I would open up Dreamhack to introduce them to Starcraft. They liked it, they even asked me to turn the movie off so we could watch the finals. One thing I noticed:
The game hooked them. All of them are LoL players and fans. They know eSports exists but only really watched LoL eSports, if any.
But Starcraft 2 seemed so exciting to them that they wanted it to watch all evening long. One game that I remember in particular was Taeja vs Life, I explained the "alien bug race" and the Terrans to them, they liked Zerg more so they began cheering for Life. I told them about his playstyle, about him being a Royal Roader
and everything and they soaked it all up like a dry sponge in the ocean.
And then it happened. After a few minutes of explaining, a few moments of clapping, nailbiting and cheering it finally happened. The last sentences from the casters:
(VOD: http://www.twitch.tv/dreamhacksc2/b/483683325?t=11h36m00s)
"Look at the supply difference, 160 for Taeja 130 after cracking that third base and Taeja hase done it. Game number one goes over to the Liquid Terran after being on the backfoot for almost all of the game"
All WHILE the GG happens, all WHILE one player gives up. The casters don't even see a reason to just stop and acknowledge the win or the loss, they just keep on talking as if the game was still going on.
Now, I know that it was only the first game. But seriously, this was the winners finals. This game MEANT something, even if it just mean that Taeja is in the finals and Life has to battle it out in the Loser's Bracket, this game meant that Taeja was one step ahead on the road to the finals.
But nothing from that got conveyed from the casters. I had to explain everything to my friends, it felt like I was filling the holes the casters left behind.
Okay, this is mid-series. So let's give this another shot. Here's the ending of the second game leading to Taeja's advancement into the Grand Finals.
http://www.twitch.tv/dreamhacksc2/b/483683325?t=11h36m00s
Can you feel it? Can you feel just how tired these guys are? That is NOTHING that creates excitement. If you don't know that game, if you're not already a fan, this feels like shit.
I don't want to blame the casters on this one. You can clearly feel that they are trying, that they WANT to show you how excited they are, but you can only do so much.
But what else is there? Well, you hear clapping. That's good. Clapping creates some kind of excitement, but is it the dominant part? No, the dominant part here is Apollo trying to make it look exciting, but the moment Life GG'd out the production lost it's way and everything went kinda...
![[image loading]](http://cdn.www.babble.com/babble-voices/dad-overboard-seth-taylor/files/2013/01/meh-45665170944.jpeg)
No music, and you instantly see the production hurrying to get the interview going so they can all go on and/or probablys go to sleep sooner.
Casting a tournament is nothing you can "just do", it is a really hard task especially for a tournament like Dreamhack. I can understand when the earlier games are not casted as exciting as the later ones, but in my opinion it is extremely important to let the viewers know what just happened. In comparison, let's just watch a video on YouTube called "Firebathero Ceremonies" uploaded by xHydrax:
I'm not saying I want casters screaming like this, but if you watch that video you will see how incredibly good the production takes the excitement of a game and portrays it for something understandable: The casters soak it up and shout, the music goes RAWR and the crowd goes wild.
Music is so big, I can not emphasize enough how important it is. Music determenites the general colour for a broadcast. If you blast loud rock music and have shiny lights blinking into the crowd and on the stage, it can create an epic feeling of what I like to call "The Starcraft Zone". You're being sucked into it and you can not stop it, and then the game starts and you just HAVE to watch until you jump out of your seat after the game ends with a "GG".
To stop myself from talking so much, I will now just list a few things that I consider important to make a set feel more rounded and perhaps also give Casters a little more break to actually be able to show excitement when needed:
1) Don't treat every game like it is the most epic game you ever (will) watch. BUT - when you have a game that is truly important to at least the players OR the tournament, don't forget to SHOW that in every possible way. Shout, tell everyone just how good this is and give the crowd the opportunity to do their part. Also, play MUSIC, but for that see my next point
2) Music. Play it. Play it loud, let the crowd go wild over it if you want to. Let the music show the audience, at the venue and at home, that this game is epic, that this is MOTHERFUCKING STARCRAFT.
3) Stop talking. I did not address this in the text, but another big point is that after a game, when it was good enough, just say "GEEEGEEEEEEEEEE" and leave it be. I don't want to hear your bedtime stories or funny jokes, I want to FEEL what the player feels: Music, crowd cheering and just EPIC WINNING. Or the bittersweet taste of tears when my favourite player lost.
4) Take your time. Rushing everything never ever feels good to a viewer. And we will ABSOLUTELY see when things are too rushy. And it will ruin the experience.
Obviously, many things I wrote here can not be addressed by just a few persons. Tournament organizers and producers have to do their job properly and for that to happen you have to pull a lot of stuff and work really hard, so I'm not saying this because I think it is easy.
I say this because I'm seeing this since SC2 tournaments started occuring in the foreign scene. The GSL, funnily enough, did all these things from the beginning and it's the tournament I enjoy the most, not only due to it's players but also due to it's high production value. Even if I don't care about a single player playing right now I just tune in to enjoy the sweetass production.
Thank you to whoever is going to read this, probably no one but I really wanted to make a point about this. I also really suck at formatting and writing in general, so please don't be so harsh on me.
