I can't remember the last time I had that much fun casting Starcraft. After casting literally thousands of games, they all start to merge together. Only a few really stick out in my mind, most of them involved Axiom either winning or... more often than not, losing at a key moment. Those were the games where the passion was at its height for obvious reasons.
I think I'll remember this tournament for a while as a collage of stories and throw-caution-to-the-wind fun. I'll remember it for + Show Spoiler +
juggernaut of Innovation, who in a hilarious twist, was just in it to get some money for his birthday that day.
.
I've thought for a while that SC2 has a story problem. The changes to WCS have made that problem more obvious. Tournaments feel like islands with closed borders. You see the same players but their year long journey to the Blizzcon finals isn't something that is well told and when it is mentioned, it's often in the context of dry, sterile point values. A successful sport needs stories. It needs streaks. It needs upsets. It needs relateable characters. It needs local heroes to root for. It need villains you just love to hate. All of these things are very much in the hands of the tournament and the casters and I think as of late, we haven't been doing as well as we could on that front.
Kings was inspired by a desire to change that and in order to do that, we had to radically change the format to something that lended itself to creating all of the things listed above, in a way that was easy to understand. SC2 still has casual viewers, lots of them actually, they're just not tuning in to every event. Of course they aren't, they're casual after all. To attract casual viewers, the story needs to be accessible right off the bat and the action called in a way that's easy to understand. Traditional tournament formats have a lot going on at once. They are intimidating in that regard, difficult to track. Sometimes you might not even get to watch your favourite player because there were 8+ games going on at once and that one didn't get streamed. The experience of connecting to a player and following them can be a frustrating one. I've always liked small events and went out of my way to create them. One match at a time, simple stories that can be understood and followed. Kings really felt like we were going back to our roots of the "1-day invitational", where the action starts and finishes in one, easily digestible day, with a story that carries on logically to the next event with whomever remains King at the end.
Does BO1 mean anything?
I think the better question is. Does it mean anything even if BO1 doesn't mean anything? Does it actually matter? People love to debate over who is better. People love "what ifs?". What is + Show Spoiler +
Stephano and herO
were in Korea in the same room rather than playing on NA servers? What if there was a few extra milliseconds less latency? What if X player wasn't as tired? What if it was a BO3? BO5? What would happen?
Those aren't questions we're here to answer. It's a shame they don't get answered more often now that Koreans and foreigners rarely meet in LAN environments, but really if the goal is to create entertainment it's not really our job to answer them. BO1 has been largely reviled for its inconsistency. Anything can happen in a BO1, a better player may very well not win. Longer series tend to promote the idea that the better player wins. At least, that's what we assume at any rate. We never know if the loser is just having an off-day and no length of BO-series is gonna fix that. I think for our format, making every match mean something was a goal that we achieved. By having mystery players and nobody but myself knowing who the next player would be, we created intrigue and interest in-between matches. Rather than downtime being the necessary evil between games that all tournaments have to deal with, downtime became exciting. Viewers were eager to see who the next player was, maybe even more than seeing the match itself. It was also a great opportunity to tell the story better. Give some information about the player, that players history, why this next match mattered. The format lends itself so well to that, there's no such thing as a low-stakes match when every map pays out and one loss is all you need to leave the tournament entirely.
King of the Hill is not the messiah
Maybe I'm making it out like a KotH format is the absolute best thing. It's totally not. If every tournament was a King of the Hill it would be just awful. It's cool because it's not that common. It spices up what is otherwise a line-up of very similar tournaments with very similar players. If anything I think that's what grass-roots efforts should be focused on, creating something different.There's so much room for cool things to be done with Starcraft 2. The "optimal competitive format" has been figured out for years now and that's totally fine. When there's big money and WCS points on the line, you should create a tournament whose format and rules are setup to be as fair as possible. In our case though, we created a tournament that wasn't fair. It wasn't setup to have a margin for error, matchups weren't randomly determined, they weren't seeded. We threw players into the lions den because we could and because it was entertaining. We threw them in for the possibility of an upset and we got just that. Upsets are great stories. Streaks are great stories. If we have to manipulate who is playing who to get them, we will absolutely do that, because we can and because this is entertainment first, competition second.
A surprising lack of problems
Getting 21 players to show up at the right time is a pain in the ass, but there were surprisingly few problems on the day. We had a couple of players show up late but the way we organized it was to put the players into 5 "blocks". Each block had a call time, an estimated "show up and be available now" time so nobody would have to sit around for 6 hours waiting for a game. We exhausted one player block before moving onto the next, which is why some of the matchups ended up the way they were. Rather than picking for the pool of 20, we were actually picking from a pool of 4-5 at any given time. This still gave us some flexibility though if a player was late or AFK, we were able to switch to another player and keep downtime to a minimum. That could change for future events if there's a killer matchup that I really want to see happen and the players are in different blocks but both online at the time. The blocks are really just for player convenience, they're not set in stone.
We did have 2 players "on the bench" who were promised slots for next time in return for sitting there for 6 hours being "available" just in case, simply because we feared there would be a no-show or two. There wasn't, so perhaps our fears were unjustified. It does mean that next month we will have a couple of underdogs in the mix, Root`SoLo and Pandabearme. Whether or not they will be fed to King Innovation remains to be seen. Who knows what can happen in a Bo1? Seems like a great opportunity to make a name for oneself. I'm not sure if we'll have anyone on the bench for the next event. Worst comes to worst and we get a no-show, I think just going to my B.net list and dragging someone in last minute will not actually be that hard. The number of players that want a shot at this event seems to be larger than those that don't at this point.
Numbers?
Not much to complain about on that front. According to Fuzic.nl we peaked at 31,985 concurrent viewers with 161,839 viewer hours over the 8 hour broadcast. Twitch stats reveal that we had just over 85,000 unique viewers during the event. We were the #2 ranked event in July, just behind the Dreamhack finals. For an online only tournament to be that competitive with big offline events is massive for us, not to mention very humbling indeed. Once the VoDs are out that will no doubt put the event on the map for a lot more people too, which will give us some nice momentum moving into next month.
What to expect next month?
More of that, basically. There's not much I think we need to change. Would be nice to get a cooler "player unveiling" animation than the one we have. Some cooler intro music. Make sure we keep getting awesome players. Make sure we dodge Proleague so we can get those awesome players. Convince KT to come play this time (they were busy prepping Proleague). Get some more foreigners in the mix. I'd love to have a "stats guy" feeding us cool information to augment the stories of what's going on. A system like The International used to use with stats pop-ups is not impossible. Tricky considering I do all the production while also trying to cast, but not impossible to rig up. Otherwise, it's really just a case of trying to ride the momentum from this event into the next one and try to make it even bigger and cooler than before. We have funding for 5 more of these. God I'd love to do one live at some point... with like... ring intros and stuff.. That'd be nuts. One step at a time.
Thanks to
CranK who shouldered way more of the burden for this event than he should have. He cast the Korean stream and he was the main liason with most of the Korean players.
Nathanias for excellent co-casting, stepping in for Geoff at the last minute.
Olivia for handling the admin of the entire event without a single problem. As always, clean, efficient and quick, which is exactly what an event like this needs to keep its momentum going.
Genna for keeping me sane and liasing with a few of the foreign players. Also for that Chicken Pad See-ew at the end because I was bloody hungry.
O'Gaming for the french commentary
Alicia for co-commentating the Korean stream.
Stephen from KeSPA for being instrument in the involvement of many of the Proleague teams.
Cara from Blizzard for doing a HELL of a lot of paperwork to put this whole thing together.
Amy, Tim, Christopher, Adrian, David and Andrew from Blizzard for all their help facilitating it.
All of the players for putting on some great matches.
All of you for showing up to watch, making our event one of the most successful online tournaments of all time.
Thank you for all you are doing for Starcraft 2 and in the video game industry in general. This was a great tournament and I already look forward to the next one.
I was out for most of the day so I only caught a little bit. Seems like everyone loved it....hopefully I can catch next month's.
The only feedback I have is that I think it would be good if during the games there was some sort of indicator for who the current King is. Even just simple text on the screen would suffice.
On July 26 2016 00:26 JazzJackrabbit wrote: I was out for most of the day so I only caught a little bit. Seems like everyone loved it....hopefully I can catch next month's.
The only feedback I have is that I think it would be good if during the games there was some sort of indicator for who the current King is. Even just simple text on the screen would suffice.
On July 26 2016 00:26 JazzJackrabbit wrote: I was out for most of the day so I only caught a little bit. Seems like everyone loved it....hopefully I can catch next month's.
The only feedback I have is that I think it would be good if during the games there was some sort of indicator for who the current King is. Even just simple text on the screen would suffice.
That should be simple enough to implement.
a crown over the name of the player who is king :D
also looking forward to KT players for next month, especially with an SKT player being king.
Thanks for the event, it was great and ran very smoothly.
One random thing about the event I liked were people in Twitch chat making up fancy titles for the current King based on what they had done, playing on player names.
It was amazing, a ton of fun, thank you so much, looking forward to the next one. I hope you can manage to get a better racial distribution next time, the lack of Protoss players (in numbers, not skill, the ones you got are all great) was a bit disappointing.
On July 26 2016 01:25 Elentos wrote: It was amazing, a ton of fun, thank you so much, looking forward to the next one. I hope you can manage to get a better racial distribution next time, the lack of Protoss players (in numbers, not skill, the ones you got are all great) was a bit disappointing.
Should be easier this time now the event is established to get a more balanced set of picks.
Also, thank you so much to TB and everyone else who made this event (and the future rounds) possible. This is what StarCraft 2 needs right now, and it's incredibly refreshing.
This was just what SC2 needed, an exciting format with match ups you can't see anywhere else. I loved every minute of it from start to finish. The best online event in history in my opinion.
If you can get TaeJa to play before he retires you would make a lot of nerds very happy and that guy loves a pay check, just sayin'.
Absolutely loved the event, thanks so much TB, Blizzard and everybody involved.
I was kinda sad about our EU zergs knocking each other out instead of playing more Koreans, but I understand it and having pools of players makes a lot of sense.
I'm sure Nerchio will be back for more in the future and play someone like Inno, Maru or TY at some point.
Now I am really looking forward to this event every month, much more than to any other sc2 event, except maybe BlizzCon. So once again thanks so much!
It was a FANTASTIC show ! Thanks a lot. I was at the edge of my seat watching every game.
About improvements, maybe have a backup caster that can step in for a game or two? Both of you seemed to be really sucking it up at the end to muster the energy to cast this marathon to the end. Well done, regardless! :D
Can't wait to see the replay. I was in Upper Austria mostly during the event and didn't want to jump in half way through. So looking forward to it, after it appears on youtube !
The event was fantastic and I hope it continues to build momentum.
There were a lot of mentions in chat on how to increase the prize pool with a tipjar.
My suggestion would be for an additional "bonus pool" that gets paid out when a player hits a winning streak milestone, ex 5 wins in a row they take a portion of the tipjar or even the whole thing. It would get paid out again when a new person hits 6 wins, then a new person hits 7 wins, etc etc.
Just a thought and I look forward to next months KOTH.
On July 26 2016 02:11 Primelot wrote: Vods anywhere besides on TB Twitch Channel?
On their way, taking a long time to process and edit due to the sheer size. Could have ripped the Twitch VoDs but wanted to upload a higher quality bitrate than the stream to Youtube so its taking longer.
Hands down, it felt like being back in the glory days of SC2, it was just a ton of fun to watch this and your passion for the game is really something else, so thank you for that.
Ps.: And I finally wanted to apologize for that blog shit that went down earlier this year, kinda was involved in that and really felt guilty because I behaved like a dick - so glad to see you back here, after all.
Kings was inspired by a desire to change that and in order to do that, we had to radically change the format to something that lended itself to creating all of the things listed above, in a way that was easy to understand. SC2 still has casual viewers, lots of them actually, they're just not tuning in to every event. Of course they aren't, they're casual after all. To attract casual viewers, the story needs to be accessible right off the bat and the action called in a way that's easy to understand. Traditional tournament formats have a lot going on at once. They are intimidating in that regard, difficult to track. Sometimes you might not even get to watch your favourite player because there were 8+ games going on at once and that one didn't get streamed. The experience of connecting to a player and following them can be a frustrating one. I've always liked small events and went out of my way to create them. One match at a time, simple stories that can be understood and followed. Kings really felt like we were going back to our roots of the "1-day invitational", where the action starts and finishes in one, easily digestible day, with a story that carries on logically to the next event with whomever remains King at the end.
I still think the MLG 2011 format was the best thing an organizer has done yet to attract casual viewers. The idea of having GSL "invaders" in a group of local players was brilliant, as were the winning streaks generated by their "championship sunday" format. (even if almost no one liked the extended series part, it still had the excitement of a player going through a gauntlet, much like a KotH)
I hadn't watched Starcraft in about 6 months prior to this but I like your stuff anyway and when I saw all the viewers I wondered what was going on. Tuned in Just at the end of Polt and watched for the whole rest of the day, it reminded me why I love this game so much :D Thanks TB you got this spot on.
i enjoyed this event too although i didn't get to watch the extent of innovation. look forward to the future rounds. pretty exciting to see starcraft once more at quasicentennial viewership
On July 26 2016 01:46 MarinePrince wrote: Also, thank you so much to TB and everyone else who made this event (and the future rounds) possible. This is what StarCraft 2 needs right now, and it's incredibly refreshing.
I dunno if this has been answered before but had Solar won the last game, would have he been the overall winner and getting a spot on the next months tournament? If so, then the format is heavily favoring the later entries for the overall win
On July 26 2016 21:25 Noonius wrote: I dunno if this has been answered before but had Solar won the last game, would have he been the overall winner and getting a spot on the next months tournament? If so, then the format is heavily favoring the later entries for the overall win
Yes, winner of the last match will start as king in the following tournament, but since there's $250 prize money for every map you win, it's actually no big deal to "win" the final map.
Mhm. When you actually win is irrelevant. You remain king until you lose, doesn't matter what point in the event, if it's at the end it just means you defend in the next one.
On July 26 2016 02:55 NEEDZMOAR wrote: Thank you TB and (blizzard) for hosting this event! Were so fucking lucky to have you as a part of the sc2 community.
^ This. I missed this, but Stephano beating ByuN, herO and Nerchio? Is...am I reading that right?
I might download some VODs to watch at work tomorrow!
On July 26 2016 02:55 NEEDZMOAR wrote: Thank you TB and (blizzard) for hosting this event! Were so fucking lucky to have you as a part of the sc2 community.
^ This. I missed this, but Stephano beating ByuN, herO and Nerchio? Is...am I reading that right?
I might download some VODs to watch at work tomorrow!
Many of the games and upsets were awesome beyond belief, but I might still have been able to stop watching and go do the chores I really really really should have been doing...
...were it not for that little nagging voice in the back of my head that kept mumbling, contemplating and raving about what matchup we might see next. And TB kept pulling magical wabbits out of his hat.
There's no way (surely?) next time can be overall as ridiculously crazy fun but my eyeballs will be glued to the screen because that little voice is still mumbling.
So after the second month... I must say thank you TB, thank you.
After I moved on from playing SC pre-HotS I kept watching Axiom all the way until it's unfortunate demise. Last piece of news that came to me from SC2 is that Ryung came into MVP which was amazing to hear.
And I came back to watching SC2 even some streams and so and only reason was this tournament. I have never watched tournament of 40 games where 30 I thorougly enjoyed. And that 10? That ten i F-KING LOVED!.
Thank you TB, you are the sole reason I feel like 6 years younger self loosing my mind screaming joy at the sight of SC2 (Yes, I am talking about Solar - uThermal).
I hope that you know how much joy and happiness you bring with your effort.
For me at least, but surely there are more of us, you are carrying the SC2 scene with your erect penis.
EPT
![[image loading]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BUwZpKRCEAA_YI3.png)
