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On August 30 2010 07:06 Siwa wrote:
I think you guys should be in a bikini or something. Err..
What I mean is.
MLG, IEM etc should not take these things so seriously. It's not mainstream. All kind of goofy stuff would be sooo much fun. Day9 stand-up stuff was a step to right direction.
e-sports, be different!
This is important to keep in perspective. It's going to be awhile before you have to start worrying about being 'taken seriously' so don't rush it. Get more sc2 gamers interested and cater to those already watching.
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christ, who cares about the wardrobes?
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I enjoyed the tourney a lot over the stream. I'll just sort of echo some of what I was saying in other threads here for consistency's sake:
- I did fairly well with Octoshape, once I got past the "press no to say yes" issue that I imagine is probably screwing a lot of people up. Specifically, Java has a popup that asks if you want to block Octoshape or not; basic human interface design (as seen by every other such popup in existence) is to ask to allow, not to block. So lots of people, myself included, are just going to click "Yes" without reading the fine print, which means Octoshape can't do its job, which means no stream. Obviously this isn't something you guys can fix directly, but maybe a quick Octoshape FAQ page for next stream would be good.
- Casting was overall very good, I only have a couple minor nitpicks. In one of the games (I don't remember which, sadly) Day9 said "huge blunder" like 5 or 6 times. I love catchphrases and signature terms, but when they get overused then I end up thinking about how the caster is overusing the term and not what's going on in the game. That's the sort of minor nitpicky thing that causes your audience to lose focus, and thus, interest.
- I'm not going to jump on the HDH Hatewagon because I honestly think they did fine, but HD has a few things he needs to work on for future events. He needs to learn the matchups better if he wants to do more than just play-by-play. He needs to not be so quick to call games over, or at least pay more attention to the minimap and the units on the screen; in one of the Socke vs Kiwikaki games I remember him saying "It looks like Socke is going to take this game" when Socke had just 3 or 4 stalkers left in Kiwikaki's main while Kiwikaki had an even stalker count plus a couple zealots. Just little things that end up giving him a reputation for not being very knowledgeable.
- This is probably the biggest issue I had with the casting all weekend, just because it drives me nuts: 3/4 of the casters (the exception being Day9, or at least I didn't catch him doing it) frequently fell into this weird speech pattern where they start emphasising operative verbs as though everything that's happening is just confirming something they'd just talked about (even though they usually hadn't).
Example: "So here we are going into game 1 which is going to be on Lost Temple and it looks like we do have cross positions as the Terran player has spawned at the 3 o'clock position while his opponent has spawned clear on the other side of the map which is the 9 o'clock position. It looks like he is going to be making a supply depot on 10 which is the most common opener and will allow him to wall off if he does build a barracks here..." etc etc.
I have decided to call this "camel casting" because there is a hump every half a second. It makes a really weird flow to the sentences and generally just annoys the hell out of me.
But like I said, I genuinely enjoyed the event and, even with those minor faults, I'm definitely looking forward to the next one 
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It's hard to play day9 drinking games when JP is casting with him (drink every time he says huge blunder, every time he uses wrong name for unit...)
I feel like I'm having double visions too soon
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On August 30 2010 07:43 DeltaH wrote:
christ, who cares about the wardrobes?
Potential sponsors and people who have the disposable income to buy things like nice cars. In order for esports to make it big the prize pools need to be impressive. The only reason the WSOP is as watched as it is, is the millions of dollars that it's played for. Unless you can get SC2 players to pony up $10k apiece to enter a tournament by the thousands you're not going to get pools that large without BIG sponsors like the ones golf sees.
We all know these guys, but the general public does not. We'll watch/follow the tournament whether or not they improve a lot of these things. We may not buy the stream, but we'll watch the free one. Appearance of the broadcasters makes people that don't know Day9 or HD, "This guy looks like he knows what he's talking about". A guy in some t-shirt and jeans just doesn't give that impression to people.
Honestly, competitive gaming is probably a generation away from going mainstream. I know the players would like to make a living at it as would various casters and in order to do that non players need to be drawn in.
The problem is, with the exception of the map previews DJWheat could have put that whole broadcast together in his house and no one would be the wiser. That's the level that the production is at. I love Wheat, but he just doesn't have the resources at his fingers to produce what a professional sporting event's broadcast looks like.
MLG has that potential and love them or hate them they're the best shot that competitive gaming has in going mainstream in the US because they've slowly built the infrastructure. Now it's time to convince them that SC2 deserves the treatment that Halo gets. Not a stream that is missing a lot of production quality.
As I said in my earlier post, for a first trial go not bad. I paid for it, and will likely do so for the next two events. If we don't see some improvement by then my wallet will stay in my pocket.
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I was a viewer on the stream:
1)Downtime, if a necessary evil, should be used more wisely. Consider these points:
1a)SC2 is new to MLG and likely many other gamers so with all the downtime I think there were opportunities to run segments describing the basics of the game/genre vocabulary (2rax FE, APM, etc). I liked the map overviews before the final and when Day9 would explain really basic things like how we measure time with the food count, ex; 10 supply.
1b)If there are one or two matches that look good on paper have a player save the replays and send the files to the caster's station. In downtime load these replays and cast them. It's a very similar idea to how UFC runs their pay per view events. They have prelims to fill time if some matches end too soon.
1c)A lot of other users want to see more interviews and I think HD, or anyone else with an elementary understanding of the game, would be a really good fit for that role. He can speak well and seems like a people person so it would have been a natural fit while Day9, JP, and Husky cast the matches. Without going too much into it, I don't think HD should be casting again, as he likely causes more harm to new viewers than good.
2) I had a very hard time understanding just where we were in the brackets and who played who. Seeing a physical bracket as an overlay, possibly with a minute or two of side commentary on notable matches, would have been a good way to fill time. This is a bigger problem than it sounds because I actually lost some excitement for potentially big matches because I had no idea where we were.
3) Day 1 had streaming problems. It was very hard to connect and once in the cast was chopped off at the sides but I'm sure that's already fixed.
4) I want real HD quality before spending $10 for a two day event. I didn't buy HD because I didn't see the value.
5) Buy some chairs for the SC2 crowd. If you're supplying jackets to the casters in an attempt to look more professional, something I agree with, it's all lost when the camera pans to people sitting and laying on the ground.
6) When casting a skilled player show his hands sometimes. Their face really isn't that interesting because they almost never show a reaction to an ingame event through their face.
7) Aside from HD, whom I already mentioned, I think the casting was really good. Some people are giving Husky some flak but I think that's because he's almost always next to HD. When Husky was with Day9 they worked very well together and it really showcased that Husky can be a very good commentator.
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This doesn't fall into any of the threads already created, so I'll just post it here:
The live set-up was a bit lacking. The main issue was that the players weren't given noise-cancelling headphones, so the speakers for the commentary were completely inaudible 95% of the time. It would also be nice to be able to SEE the players (at least during the semi and finals) and the commentators rather than having them veiled behind a black curtain. Finally, there was almost no seating in the SC2 area, and just barely enough room on the floor to accommodate everyone.
MLG has plenty of room to make SC2 a more impressive spectator sport. Some of the love shown for the Halo 3 main stage would help immensely: visible players, multiple screens showing various perspectives (for SC2 it would be awesome to have the Day[9] obs flanked by both player's views), stadium-style seating and commentary you can hear.
That being said, I still had a great time at the tournament, and none of the above was unforgivable.
Oh, and for the casters: Nerdy and semi-professional is the way to go. Don't change anything.
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Best idea so far i taking a vote on what MU to show in next round. There would be much more exciting matches broadcasted.
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Where are the replays? IEM had them within hours.
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JP: Congratulations on a great first tournament. A few things I'd like to see:
a) shorter downtime between streamed matches
b) higher contrast on the stream--even at maximum brightness, game video looked a bit muddled on my eee 1001p, which has one of the best screens in a small laptop
c) better coordination between the casters and the producers (if that's the right term . . .)--keeping the casters better informed about in-game problems, not cutting off the casters with the map previews, etc. etc.
Loved the whole thing and looking forward to seeing the next event!
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On August 30 2010 05:18 HDstarcraft wrote:I guess nobody took the joke when i said i only played 1 game a week.  Thanks for the great feedback though! For reference though I mostly play cg in house games.
Do you know why? You gotta step up your casting game, look at all the comments.. just playing lots of games wont make you good either, talk alot about SC2, think about all the maps and matchups.
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I made the trip up from Atlanta with my brother in law. We had a blast and it was cool seeing SC2 in a live setting for the first time.
The only thing we really wanted were chairs. It was absolutely insane that there were only 2 benches for the SC2 side. There is no way you guys couldn't have rented some cheap chairs from the convention center or something. It would have made everything so much better. Having to lay down on the floor for 7 hours on Saturday was brutal.
Also, turning the sound off for the spectators Friday night was terrible too. We actually complained about it to someone and they finally cut it on about 2 hours after it started. Thank god you guys left that running on Saturday.
Everything else was great. Everyone was extremely friendly and it was awesome watching these guys play in person. Hopefully I'll be able to make it out to another MLG event within the next year or so. Just please improve the spectating experience! The SC2 community is leagues better than the Halo community. We deserve an equivalent spectating experience to those Halo kids.
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I was PUMPED for MLG in Raleigh. I was moving this week, and I busted my ass Wednesday and Thursday to get all my crap moved so i could be in Raleigh for my 1st big Starcraft tourney!
Man, was I disappointed.
There were SOOOOO many games going on in the 1st round and they hardly showed any of them. They turned the audio off on the live cast to not interfere with the players playing, I understand that. Why not just load replays for the casters to cast on a delay as to not interfere with the games currently being played.
There were like 3 benches setup in front of the big screen to watch. The players were off to the side. I just expected so much more. I didn't even go back for the 2nd day. We watched online and had a much better time.
Anyone else have a let down about the way they handled SC at MLG? I understand Halo gets all the attention there, but couldn't they at least move SC to the main stage for the finals?
The event just left alot lacking for me. It wasn't at all as exciting as I expected live. The main problem was the setup. The crowd was so isolated from the casters and gamers. It wasn't the atmosphere I expected at all.
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On August 30 2010 10:14 Dexerion wrote:
I was PUMPED for MLG in Raleigh. I was moving this week, and I busted my ass Wednesday and Thursday to get all my crap moved so i could be in Raleigh for my 1st big Starcraft tourney!
Man, was I disappointed.
There were SOOOOO many games going on in the 1st round and they hardly showed any of them. They turned the audio off on the live cast to not interfere with the players playing, I understand that. Why not just load replays for the casters to cast on a delay as to not interfere with the games currently being played.
There were like 3 benches setup in front of the big screen to watch. The players were off to the side. I just expected so much more. I didn't even go back for the 2nd day. We watched online and had a much better time.
Anyone else have a let down about the way they handled SC at MLG? I understand Halo gets all the attention there, but couldn't they at least move SC to the main stage for the finals?
The event just left alot lacking for me. It wasn't at all as exciting as I expected live. The main problem was the setup. The crowd was so isolated from the casters and gamers. It wasn't the atmosphere I expected at all.
To be fair, the experience was much better on day 2 outside of the fact there wasn't any seating. The crowd was fairly large and loud, and we had sound the entire day.
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On August 30 2010 10:18 mikesaysno wrote:
To be fair, the experience was much better on day 2 outside of the fact there wasn't any seating. The crowd was fairly large and loud, and we had sound the entire day.
Fair enough, I watched the games online and they were SOOOO epic. CLuck and Huk had an amazing series.
Did they have games constantly on the big screen? We were there for about 4 hours and I think we watched about 5 games tops and there were tons being played. That, and seating, and just the arrangement of the crowd to the players and the casters was my biggest complaint. We were totally isolated from the casters and players.
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i really enjoyed watching the stream at home. i had no technical problems personally.
i thought the casters did an outstanding job. i hadnt heard husky much before but i liked his enthusiasm a lot, i thought it added a lot to the games.
i think for the first time out you guys did well. i look forward to the next event. i will be watching.
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Oh, one more thing: please publish the URLs of your Octoshape streams (e.g. mlg.600c or mlg.1200a). As it stands it is really hard for a Linux user to find what they need to watch the stream. I could not find it anywhere on mlgpro.com
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1) There should be more effort on MLG's part to attract big international stars, particularly from Europe. I realize the main issue, travel costs, being out of MLG's control, but I'm unsure if theres even MLG promotion outside of the States.
2) Be smarter in choosing which matches to stream. Apparently in round 1 there was Incontrol vs Machine, yet we saw Nony stomp some random player (no offense to that player.)
3) Having bracket information more easily accessible and better updated. There's a lot of downtime during MLG, which is understandable, so having bracket information readily available and updated on time makes following the event easier.
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Mainstage for finals please, i understand it was the first time SC2 was at MLG and they probably wasnt expecting record viewers (from what i heard), i feel as if it deserves a higher priority, put the players up on a stage in progamer booths or something, the actual event probably needed more room aswell as viewers were all cramped onto the floor, give the poor people some seats! Great event otherwise and a good start for SC2 on the MLG circuit imo.
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I'll probably get flammed on this,
but I searched the mlgpro website, youtube and a few threads here and can't find a place to look up at the games, I was away from the weekend, and would like to see the games. Any idea where to look ? Thanks in advance...
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EPT
