This thread has derailed and this is my last contribution to this perversion. Diggity seriously, c'mon man.. (technical) information is repetitive? Are you trolling or something? The games are always different. So having a really good understanding of basic builds and strategy overall is vital for appreciating what's going on in the players minds. What do their deviations mean. Which of the things we're seeing on screen are mistakes or due to poor scouting and which are concious adaptations? You have to guess in these matters because you don't have a clue. I respect you for your contributions to the community. I dispise you for your lack of repect for the (richness of) the game. And don't even think that I'm some kind of elitist. After I got reintroduced to starcraft via TSL I used to prefer klazart over tasteless, because klazart is and will always be a noobie (he was at my level) and an extremely good talker. Now I can't stand listening to him, because he's so stubborn in his ignorance. And proud of it, like you. Cholera was pretty good though.. Anyways, I and many others don't really care about the hierarchy of commentators, but don't even try to shove Day9 into some 'technical' corner to make yourself look better. He doesn't fit into a box. You do.
wadadde, I'll bet you like apples, don't you. Typical appleist.
By the way, I just rewatched my how to vid on making replay commentaries on a mac. It's a bit out of date.. I might make another one but in the mean time if anyone has any questions feel free to PM me.
On January 08 2010 23:20 7mk wrote:Example: Flash vs Calm game 3, when Flash did an eraser with two science vessels on calms 3o clock day9 mentioned how he did it by putting both vessels on patrol so he can go back to his army/base or whatever. I thought that was a great idea and it was just fun to realise this. (I never play Terran, so I definitely wont implement it into my play)
I am sorry, but that was a very bad example. Namely beacuse that was easy to figure out just by seeing the fact that the Science Vessels were moving back and forth in an empty expansion. Day[9] was merely stating the obvious.
Also, while Day[9] is a brilliant commentator who`s game knowledge and witty humour is unsurpassed, his Dailies are not really commentaries. They are more of a post-game analysis, where he takes the liberty to forward and rewind the video as he pleases. As such, he has much more freedom in terms of noticing the intricacies of the game then someone who has to commentate the game as it is running.
Is Day[9] still the better commentator? Yes. Would he still notice some of the minor details even if it was a normal commentary? Yes. But the example you provided hardly highlights this.
Yeah I was really sleepy when I watched game 3 the first time, but that is the thing, you dont need A- lvl knowledge to point out things like this, yet most commentators fail to do it.
You are absolutely right about day9 daily though, I shouldn't have picked an example out of that one, day9 daily for once really is for improving as a player, not just for pure entertainment.
OK now on to Diggity's epic post
Ok first paragraph has the same topic:
"I would call it a technical commentary. It is still there for entertainment. It is still a commentary. Its not weaker or stronger than any other type of commentary it just appeals to different people. "
Like I said though, I shouldn't have picked something from day9 daily, it's not fair to compare your commentaries to post game analysis like this, it's way too different in the way it's done and it is more than just a difference in style and commentating skill.
But in TSL2 for example we will definitely see great commentating with great focus on entertainment, and the excitement of the question who's gonna win, rather than a sole focus on strategy and this will be the kind of commentating that will - in my opinion - be superior to that of any sc2gg commentator, simply because those 4 really know what they're doing (especially Artosis imho (I can only talk about those sc2gg commentators I have watched though obviously). Chill out of those 4 is the only one where you could criticise him for not bringing enough excitement in his voice, it's something that people like you and cholera do better than him. (He said he wanted to work on that though after the first TSL)
Now each commentator tries to communicate the information that he/she possesses in a a unique way. However Day is communicating a type of information that the rest of us simply cannot and therefore his commentary is unique.
I just wanna point out here that it's not like day9 is this professor who only does super technical analysis. I'm sure you have seen chill vs combat-ex right? now that was just such ridiculous entertainment. And it had lots of jokes and was utterly unproffessional (which was a good thing). But that doesn't mean that he couldn't talk about the game itself, too.
I think a lot of people make the mistake of thinking that tons of knowledge = good commentator. Its the same mistake as brilliant scientist = great professor. Most of the time when you find people at that level, they have invested so much in their expertise that they fail to develop accompanying communication skills. Perhaps that is why there are so many emotionally underdeveloped trolls in these forums.
I don't think anybody said that. Nobody said that a good player automatically is a good commentator. But if you are a commentator, and your good at talking, bringing over excitement etc., you also need to know what you are talking about, and you don't need to be an A- lvl player to do this, your in game mechanics can be D- level, but you need to have a certain level of knowledge about the game.
Commentary is all about communicating information in an entertaining way. It is a focus on the communication, not the information.
Well this is where I just have to disagree, that's like saying it doesn't matter what you say, as long as you say it with a nice voice/lots of enthusiasm. So lets expand your little metaphor, when you're with a girl it's not just about the physical aspect of sex, it's also about intellectual stimulation because a lot of what happens when you have sex/how enjoyable it is is all in your brain (especially true for women).
But even if it's true that the focus on the way you communicate is much much much more important than what you communicate, you'd have to agree that if someone does both well, it's better than doing just one well ,right?
Now, don't get me wrong, I think what you're doing is great. I'd rather have someone like Artosis do this all the time, but none of my favourite casters do (of course day9 is doing a ton right now, but again that's different, except for his OSL live casts which are pretty rare) , and what you do draws a whole lot of people to starcraft. If I want to introduce a friend to korean progaming I do it with an english commentary, not with a korean one. It's just that, since you must put so much time into this, I just always wish you would put more time into learning the game better, and maybe do a little less commentaries for a while. I felt so even more when I saw for the first time that you guys are hanging out with EG players on ventrillo quite often. Cause damn that makes it SO much easier. Now funnily enough you actually mention this in your post, and you say you have improved, so I can't say much except that that's a very good thing - I definitely didn't realise when I watched your commentaries, but nowadays I do it only quite rarely, so that's not too surprising I guess. + Show Spoiler +
maybe you should cut off moletrap more often he's generally the one imo who gives me goosebumps of the negative kind by saying certain things. Sorry if you read this ^^
I'd just like to see you put even more time into it, since you must already put a ton of time into starcraft anyways, I think it would be more rewarding for everyone if you rearranged that time and used it a little differently for a bit. (more learning, less commentaries, and I mean osl/msl will be over soon anyways)
Of course it's your life and you can do whatever the fuck you want, and I'm just some random dude on the internet. Anyways, rock on
I was thinking about this earlier more and I realized I lumped in a lot of stuff into "technical information" that should be segregated. Additionally I think going in depth on this stuff helps explain the differentiation of viewers and might help people understand how to target a viewing audience and additionally might help people understand which audience they inhabit.'
First of all there is player mechanics. Player mechanics involve micro tricks, macro movement, basically any interaction physically between the player and the game. Sometimes its important to move 7 control groups of medic/marines across the field, but for some players that is not mechanically feasible.
I would put the science vessel on patrol thing into the "player mechanics" portion of technical information. This is what I was directly listing when I was talking about "expensive" information. The only way to gain it is through obsessive amounts of playing and then when you say it, it is out there. Players like Day9 possess this information but at the same time I don't think it should be overvalued in the commentary process. Yes it adds nice information quirks but ultimately if you said this same information every commentary viewers would get bored extremely quickly.
This is also information that appeals almost exclusively to the player who is looking to "improve his game". Its less vital to the spectator. Usually this is the D+ to C+ range on iccup. I have no interest in casting to this group of people. I don't expect you to enjoy my commentary. Sorry but you guys are too high maintenance. (see italics at end of post reply to 7mk to elaborate on this)
There is then also flat line "game mechanics" knowledge. I would call this cheap information with cheap distribution. Protoss should stay 1 base ahead of terran and the strengths of lurker ling against protoss would fall into this category. Its really easy to pick this up and really easy to disseminate this information as well. I would also put map features into this section. This is the core section of knowledge that most sc2gg commentators generally focus on.
Yes its obvious to the more skilled player, but it is not obvious or known information to the BGH battle net player or the viewers who played nothing but the single player campaign. This is the core audience we try to draw in.
Then there is meta game information. Day9 will always be better at this source of information than the rest of us. Meta game information involves timing attacks, popular styles of play, the rotation of build orders since 1999 etc. This is expensive information to obtain and expensive information to disseminate. What I mean by that is, it takes years of play time to develop this information. Then even when you have this information, when you divulge it to the audience it generally goes way over their head. This is the information that again appeals heavily to the hardcore player.
Day9 will always be ahead of us when it comes to this information since he played at an extremely high level. Additionally the rest of us either don't have the capacity or the time to focus on obtaining a high proficiency in this type of information.
I think Day9's core strength is his ability to effectively communicate this particular type of information to the viewers.
I will generally either avoid or intentionally skew this type of information to make commentary more appealing to a wider audience. For example there are many times in a match when I know the game is absolutely over, one player has won and its going to be another 15 minutes before we see a "gg". However I will intentionally not divulge that fact to keep the commentary entertaining. You will also never/rarely see me ever say "timing attack" or go to depth into anything that takes more than 2 minutes to explain.
Very few viewers have a conception of a "timing attack" and I have noticed that generally when they hear the words or something that is out of the realm of their current knowledge their brain shuts down and the commentary becomes much less entertaining. I am not saying this is the case for every viewer. I am sure there are plenty of higher level players that love this, but draw back for a second and realize that there are a lot of viewers who will be lost with this sort of information.
This is information that guys like Day9 Artosis etc will be wayyyyyy better at providing than we will. I can see where many people would say "ok that makes them better commentators and therefore their commentary is superior and everyone should love it best". I would agree that it makes them more knowledgeable commentators. They will definitely catch meta game stuff the rest of us don't. But again commentary is about conveying information in an entertaining way. It should now be obvious how this style and type of information conveying is more entertaining for some but not others depending on their own personal experience.
I know its extremely difficult but I am asking you the reader to step back a second and evaluate yourself as a starcraft fan. That way you can better understand how to interact with other starcraft fans rather than turning these topics into regular flame wars. Lofty goal I know. Additionally if you aim to provide your own commentary this information is vital.
I reallllllly want to nip this in the bud before SC2 hits full swing because I think its going to be incredibly important that the community act together as a unified whole to see amazing things happen.
On to responses
I just wanna point out here that it's not like day9 is this professor who only does super technical analysis. I'm sure you have seen chill vs combat-ex right? now that was just such ridiculous entertainment. And it had lots of jokes and was utterly unproffessional (which was a good thing). But that doesn't mean that he couldn't talk about the game itself, too.
I am talking more about Day9's general commentating style. Unprofessional goofy commentary is another style of commentary I didn't address here at all. It is a valid style though.
Day9 isn't unique for that style though. Almost everyone is capable of doing a solid goofy commentary I think. But Day9 realllllly excels when it comes to his technical teaching style.
I don't think anybody said that. Nobody said that a good player automatically is a good commentator. But if you are a commentator, and your good at talking, bringing over excitement etc., you also need to know what you are talking about, and you don't need to be an A- lvl player to do this, your in game mechanics can be D- level, but you need to have a certain level of knowledge about the game.
I dont think you personally said this, but I have run into this a lot in two years. I agree with you entirely that your game mechanics can be D - level. I am a really bad player for example but I feel like I can convey information beyond my playing level.
Well this is where I just have to disagree, that's like saying it doesn't matter what you say, as long as you say it with a nice voice/lots of enthusiasm.
Going to walk on egg shells with this one. One of the WCG commentators they had to Starcraft stuff instead of tasteless was Bruce. Bruce is an excellent commentator. His starcraft commentary was terrible just because of how unique the game is. Bruce will fully admit that this commentary was bad, but he is still a great commentator.
But even if it's true that the focus on the way you communicate is much much much more important than what you communicate, you'd have to agree that if someone does both well, it's better than doing just one well ,right?
What I am saying is when you provide commentary you are going to have a target demographic. Just like TV shows or commercials. The information is going to determine your demographic, the way you communicate that information is going to determine if the commentary is "good" or not.
Have you ever seen a movie that was well made but you just didn't like it? I think Public Enemies was the most recent movie like that for me. I think that is a decent metaphor.
response to spoiler
Sometimes being a good "dual" commentator involves not interrupting. Believe me every single multi-person commentary I am DYING to get the mic back to mention something that is happening that I feel that the other commentator is not focusing on. Sometimes though the moment has passed and its better to move on and "feed a line" to your partner. I could come up with a lot of examples of this but the post is really long already.
I'd just like to see you put even more time into it, since you must already put a ton of time into starcraft anyways, I think it would be more rewarding for everyone if you rearranged that time and used it a little differently for a bit. (more learning, less commentaries, and I mean osl/msl will be over soon anyways)
(this is the high maintence portion referenced earlier)
I don't think its possible to put any more time into this. I don't think I would want to unless I was paid full time. Allow me to explain my logic
1) Starcraft commentating takes a ton of time. Try making a commentary sometime and you will see. The majority of commentating involves video processing and splitting videos. Its not glamorous. I think day9 has found a bit of a shortcut for this using livestream but there are costs and benefits to having stuff on livestream. Most of my aims preclude me from using it.
2) Starcraft playing using up the same type of energy that commentating does. Not sure why this is the case, it just is.
3) Starcraft playing is fun for me but not relaxing. (I am sure that a lot of people will agree with me on this). The onlllly gaming I do right now is league of legends with the EG guys. Its 2 games a night when I come stumbling in at 11pm. I do it because its relaxing for me. Starcraft just keeps me up all night.
4) I have a full time job 5) I have a girlfriend 6) I have a social life 7) I have bills that preclude me from not working.
Now what I could do is stop commentating altogether and play instead. But then I would have a lot of angry youtube fans.
If I did do that, what am I logically gaining?
I would be aiming to envelop an audience that is mostly disinterested in my style of commentary to begin with and is already in my opinion mentally segregated (which is frustrating but that is life). Basically the people I would be gaining are more interested in playing than watching to start with. On top of that even with the improvements I have made I doubt I will ever break the general stigma of "lack of knowledge" or whatever here in the community even if I hit B-. I see a ton of people go "moletrap and diggity have zero game knowledge... but cholera is good". Cholera is at the same level in both playing and knowledge as the rest of us. As far as play style goes he tends to be a lot more cheesy than I. As far as commentary style he tends to be more goofy. The difference? Word of mouth reputation etc. I started off a total newbie, he didn't. FYI Psyonic is the best player among us. I think Rise managed to cheese his way to C- but don't quote me on that. I don't put a lot of faith in the community at large to tell the difference anyway.
Side story: I was on louder's stream awhile ago when he was playing a TvP. Louder was under heavy vulture harass pressure but holding 2 expansions. I was like, well looks like louder will win the game. Some TL guy who had been a steady anti-Diggity advocate chimed in, "he is totally done you sc2gg newbie". Two minutes later Louder steam rolled his base. Lesson: a lot of people that pretend to be able to judge the difference in reality can't.
So I could invest a ton of time in playing but I don't think it would gain me anything. Put looming Starcraft 2 on the horizon and I have even less interest.
That being said I do play when I can and tend to play more on the off commentary season (inbetween all the finals).
Ultimately though I think having this players player commentator come out of the woodwork is just silly. I wouldn't want anyone investing the hours of play time and hours it takes to do the commentary, particularly without pay. Their lives would be starcraft and there would be zero appreciation for it in my opinion. There are better things to prioritize in life.
anyhow thanks for the support 7mk I really appreciate it.
I love to watch commentated games over raw games for sure, and I really like diggitys commenties. Its not only the tactical commentry of the VOD thats important. Its also nice to have someone present you the statistics for the map, current league standings etc etc.
The most important to me is however that I get to share the experiance with someone. It might sound stupid but thats the best part about SC commentaries. I get to listen to someone that has a passion for the game and want to share that passion with me.
i've been watching commentaries for years now (mostly SC2GG stuff tbh) i don't think i have the technical know-how for colour tho so i'd have to dual,
edit: all I know about the finer points of commentating i picked up watching SC2GG's presentation of "Commentator's Idol" i didn't really like everyone who was in it - there was one funny game in the entire "show" but the bonefide commentators, diggity, klazart (IMO), cholera, chill was on for one, and moletrap gave great analysis of the commentaries themselves and shared what they had garnered from commentating these years.
@Diggity OK, there's a few things that I think you misunderstood in my post (for example I never wanted you to invest more time into sc overall than you already do) but oh well they're not too imporant so I'll just go to the main point.
Maybe you're right, maybe I should have thought about the demographic a bit more, in your previous post you already made that point but you were largely referring to day9 daily which is obviously super technical and only for some, therefore you didn't convince me in that post.
I still really disagree that commentators like the TSL commentators are only for people who want to improve their game. I don't plan on ever learning PvT/TvP but Nony vs Idra was great to watch and it was great to listen to all the stuff that Chill and especially Artosis had to say about the strategical/tactical side of things. I probably forgot everything that they said right after the matches but it still imo made it more entertaining. Now would your demographic not enjoy commentary like this? I honestly don't know, I guess that's possible, even though there certainly are a LOT of D-/D players on TL.
I still have one thing to complain about though (I'm pretty good at that), which is when commentators simply say things that immediately make you aware that they dont know the game well. Because your point is that you focus on other things, on more obvious things, and that's fine but when people say things that are just wrong it always makes me shiver. Like I am pretty sure it was moletrap in a ZvT not too long ago, where Zerg did 2hatch muta, laid down the 3rd hatch at pretty standard timing but for some reason he talked about how that was a super early 3rd hatch and about how this was sort of a mix of 2hatch and 3 hatch. It's just a bit frustrating to hear stuff like that. (I do know about the cutting off thing btw, I did watch that sc2gg commentary contest thingy that kenny won.)
However, you've explained yourself very well and I can see pretty much all your points, so there's nothing left for me to argue about... And sadly you are probably right about the stigma part, certainly there would be lots of people who are not that stupid but there wouldn't exactly be a lack of them either.
But oh well, good discussion, gg
Btw. starcraft isn't relaxing for me either. Not at all.
On January 09 2010 02:20 Lazzarus wrote: Hope NukeTheStars enters this competition - I really like his commentating. He doesn't only do playbyplay which is awesome, he's extremely skilled when it comes to hype videos as well!
Wow, I thought your first post was long diggity! I couldn't make it through your second one, sorry
I'm a big fan of your commentary and I appreciate the nature of it and tend to enjoy it more than the technical commentary of TL casters even though I enjoy playing Starcraft and do want to get better at it.
EPT
