|
Great first day!
I gotta agree with some people though, the studio is a bit too dark and empty. Maybe change the background, the cloths or the table itself. It felt like two guys in a garage for me. Also, the sound quality could be better.. That aside, liked it quite a lot and I feel comforted that every night I'll have some SC2 to watch if I want to. Good job!
|
I am looking at the NASL website now, and it is saying that the first day of games hasn't been, i.e the latest video is the Day 1 Preview, is this because I live in New Zealand?
|
Good to see Morrow ripping it up. He's just been unfortunate enough to run into MC in the first round of pretty much *everything* lately. NASL will give him a good opportunity to show that he's one of the best.
|
NASL was alright. It's not something i will likely tune into every single night but I will definitely try to catch important or intriguing matches.
It doesn't quite reach the mark of "Nothing will ever be the same" or whatever the boastful line was in the trailer (as cheesy as that line is, I mean why are we trying to change nothing?) and all the hype leading up to it about being the future of esports and this and that.
It didn't get that far for me, it was very much just another gosucoaching production with a few more zeroes on the prize pool end and a cute but useless and disorienting map preview.
I am beginning to question how the "quantity over quality" approach to the broadcast schedule and amount of games will actually grow esports. As fanatic as the current fanbase is, the amount of games is great to capitalize on that, but production and presentation wise, I think the product is far too rough around the edges for the unconverted masses to tune in on a given night and ever say "this is what I have been missing my whole life"
Granted I can't say whether that was ever the intent behind NASL, but if I had to guess what events have the greatest potential to lure people into the game NASL would be somewhere at the bottom of my list of "big" events (with things like DH, IEM, MLG topping it simply because they have so many people who aren't necessarily there for SC2 being exposed. a little bit unfair to NASL)
I think the casting will improve with time. The excitement and the nerves probably got to the both of them. For what it's worth, the people bashing Gretorp may not have heard him before now but I got the feeling he was trying to cast in a style that just doesn't suit him. He has always been a sort of lower energy caster who simply goes at his own pace, explaining things from his own perspective as a player. He tried to come at the NASL games with lots of enthusiasm but it felt kind of fake. If he goes back to what he does best I think people will have a lot less to complain about.
|
On April 13 2011 23:42 Raygun wrote: I thought that the first day went pretty well. Incontrol and Gretorp did a decent job casting and I'm sure it will continue to get better over time. The stream seemed pretty stable after the first half hour or so.
I'd like to share a few first impressions and concerns in hopes that they are heard and taken into consideration by the NASL staff.
I wasn't impressed by the sound quality. It seemed to me like they were using $15 microphones. In comparison to GSL or Dreamhack, the caster sound quality was very low. The difference in volume between regular times and really excited times seems too much for me. I was listening at a volume that was comfortable during normal times, but when excitement happened, it was way too loud.
The lack of music made it seem boring. I think adding in-game music and something to fill gaps out of game would be great. During early game especially, some music would help a lot.
The studio that they cast in is really boring. The background is dark and uninteresting. They also wear black clothing. It is so subdued that my first impression is that they could have been receptionists in a funeral parlor. It's great that the casters dress nicely, but with that background... it's just so dull.
I understand that it's hard to make an environment without an audience seem alive, but some tweaks to the studio and sound would go a long ways! Some music during transitions and a more lively background would be great, in my opinion. I know that it's not really possible to get a GSL feel with the live setting, but aiming for that kind of exciting and flashy production would be great!
I didn't purchase the subscription yet, but I think I will. I'm really pleased by how smoothly the first day went.
Nice suggestions. I am sure they will improve over time. Just like GOM did. I remember first GOM shows were laggy as hell and dced frequently. People were criticizing Tasteless a lot because he wasn't the same and he was a bit off etc... Things will get much better. Give em time.
+ Show Spoiler +
|
Only issue I have is that the framrate of the game is kinda bad sometimes... And the unit portrait aint moving around (are you guys using lower graphics settings on laptops? dunno but its annoying as hell).... But overall its a pretty good start considering its your first event...... All though I feel like the match between Morrow and Rainbow was destroyed cuz of lag...
|
Admit it, you guys just miss the kpop between games that the GSL does.
|
On April 14 2011 00:04 andrewlt wrote: Admit it, you guys just miss the kpop between games that the GSL does.
I don't like Kpop. The music in-between games for GSL is not Kpop. It is all English based.
|
On April 13 2011 23:56 PeggyHill wrote: I am looking at the NASL website now, and it is saying that the first day of games hasn't been, i.e the latest video is the Day 1 Preview, is this because I live in New Zealand?
It's most likely because they don't want to spoil the results before restream finishes.
|
I tried watching the whole thing yesterday at the US times but then SotG started and I couldnt handle the awesomnes of 2 Incontrols talking so I stayed with SotG, will catch rest of Day1 in the EU rebroadcast I hope someone is still working on the Paypal Option while normal Quality looks good 1080 has more Details and vods and replays speak for themself and gotta Support E-Sports.
Also made a list of things that I noted for the First Day everything went OK but they are definitly points of improvement.
- Introduction off the Players was awesome getting more Information then"the guy plays to win" is always good for newer Audiances.
- Quality of Stream was, as said really good even on Standard, some little Lag what is to be expected with so many ppl watching.
- Casters both did solid work and I am sure will only Improve over Time one thing for me, I wasnt sure who was supposed to be the analytical Guy or the Funny Guy at times Both tried to be Funny and I am not sure how I feel about that.
- No Break between Games is AMAZING "although I didnt have extra Time to make Pizza q_q ^^"
-I feel like NASL needs to work more with music not only missing ingame Music but also between the Transitions some short Music Clips would keep the Viewer Pumped having even 10sec of Silence is not good.(remeber the 5min silent GSL Breaks between interviews)
- some small things like the not animated Unit Portrait or the Observer needs some Improvement which I am sure will happen over Time.
yeah //End Good start for NASL looking forward to more.
|
Really happy with what I am seeing so far. Keep up the good work guys. Just some minor comments from me.
Please have streaming quality for VODs at lower settings like 720 or 480. I have a really fast PC and internet connection, but it still cannot load seamlessly.
Please help to organize the VODs page. It is really messy right now, with different naming conventions for all the files and also dummy files that say "test".
|
I'm sure the VODs will get lower quality settings soon.
|
Let me just say, day 1 was awesome. 4hrs or so of high quality content and epic matches that I could watch and not have to wake up at 2am to see was truly a nice change. I thought everything went pretty damn well, for a first kick at the cat. I do not regret spending money on the season pass one iota.
But since you asked for feedback, take this as constructive criticism since I'm very happy with what I received.
- Improve audio quality for the casters - There wasn't enough talk/hype/info between matches. I felt the show jumped into matches too quickly without enough backstory on the competitors, especially when you switched to a new set. Artosis, caster BW player vs Sheth 'no show' at lans guy. There had to be something more that could have been done. - Pregame show could be shortened, I do want one. Something like a high overview of upcoming matches, and maybe a bit of backstory (which will write itself as the weeks go by) and then more focused between matches to set them up. - Studio is very dark, more lighting but brighter colours as well. I would also think something like a couple of screens behind gretorp/incontrol with profile pictures of the current/upcoming players would be nice. Throw in some product placement/ads for revenue. =) - Website needs an overhaul, sorry but it is fairly unusable. It's the next day, I don't know where to find the VODs on it. Nor was it entirely obvious whether I was logged into the site (or justin.tv) at the start of the stream. - Ignore what me and everyone says, you can't please us all and trying to pleases nobody. =)
And hey, thanks for putting on an awesome show!
|
I was happy with the overall production
-Great quality
-They kept moving efficiently to the next game (I'd rather sit through 30 seconds of commercials that support them than 10 minutes of useless downtime)
-Relatively good commentating overall
-No huge production blunders in general
Good stuff Impressed
|
Good first day I liked the amount of content and short delays in between games as well as quality of the stream, some constructive criticism though:
1. Increase production quality especially sound. The sound quality was not very good and having some music maybe in game and definitely between helps loads for atmosphere and there is really no excuse not to have it in a pre-recorded format. GSL does a great job with this as an example and is live. The studio itself looked quite bland and as someone else mentioned gave that "two guys in a garage" feel. You guys made the mistake of hyping this league to the point where people were going to be disappointed with your production even if it was much better than it is now, undersell and over deliver not the other way around.
2. Do not spam ads in between breaks if you do not want people to use ad-block. Some people experienced this, some did not it probably depends on region but I was getting 3-4 justin.tv ads spammed back to back between games which was annoying and caused me to quickly turn on ad-block. One or two ads max, anything more than that and you are just encouraging people to use ad-block.
3. Casting was not that great but it is the first broadcast and I'm sure it will improve. I felt both casters, Gretorp especially were trying to act like something they are not, Incontrol started to act more natural as the cast went on though.
4. Map descriptions were fine but the PoV was awful and not helpful. I realize you were trying to do something different and cool and I applaud the effort but I think the general consensus was that it didn't really work.
5. I'm not sure what can be done about this last one so it is more a fact than any criticism of you guys. If the korean's games keep going like how Rainbow's went last night there is really no point in having them in the league I also heard that they were being made to play their games at 4am in korea which is another issue on top off the latency if accurate. The only way I can see it being viable is to have division 5 an entirely korean one so that way they can all play each other on korean servers and they would not have to actually play foreigners until the tournament they have to travel for.
|
On April 14 2011 00:22 VillageBC wrote:- There wasn't enough talk/hype/info between matches. I felt the show jumped into matches too quickly without enough backstory on the competitors, especially when you switched to a new set. Artosis, caster BW player vs Sheth 'no show' at lans guy. There had to be something more that could have been done.
This is a really good point since they stated that they want to play up rivalries and such. One matchup would end and they jumped into the next without any fanfare at all.
|
You were supposed to watch the pre-show for the fanfare/rivalry discussion I really like the quick pacing of the matches. Especially in the wake of MLG Dallas, the contrast was quite stark
|
On April 14 2011 00:17 Raygun wrote: I'm sure the VODs will get lower quality settings soon. They better, otherwise VODs are usless to me with the cap my ISP enforces. Running in 1080p I will consume my monthly usage limit in next to no time (it's about 22.5MB/minute @ 3Mbps that the 1080p broadcast requires, with a 4 hour broadcast the usage quickly adds up) and I'd prefer all the options available to the live stream are available to the VODs as well. P
lease implement this NASL/JustinTV. Some people simply don't have unlimited transfer, and at this point I'm not willing to spend $100/month (literally $100.00 for 250GB monthly) on internet to up my cap to something reasonable to pull that much simply for streaming Starcraft 2 casts .
|
Excellent value, games, and commentating for a first day! I'm sure all aspects of the tournament will improve as time rolls on. Good job nasl!
|
Maybe you guys should just give a brief introduction at the start and leave the player profiles for before the matches. Right now you talk about everyone at the beginning and later there is not much to say, matches are rushed and not talked enough about.
|
|
|
|