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On October 18 2010 07:00 Wargizmo wrote:
After Raleigh I thought the double elim/extended series was a good idea, but I've since changed my mind. After SeleCT had to play 21 games in a row I don't think it was fair on him at all, and made for a pretty horrible final as he was no doubt exhausted. Hosting the finals on a Sunday could help solve this issue but I think it goes deeper than that.
For me, the extended series thing just doesn't make much sense at all, especially because if it's the final it gives the winners league guy a disadvantage (instead of getting an entire 'extra life' he only gets the extended series advantage), but if it's pre-final it gives them an advantage (extended series vs one Bo3 from scratch). This seems pretty arbitrary.
Group stages one day and knockout finals the next day would make a lot more sense, everyone would play the same number of games and it's a lot easier for spectators to follow too. Also I think semis should be bo5 and finals bo7
I've been thinking about the same thing lately.
I agree and disagree with some of the things you suggested. I think it's important to give the player's a second chance in the game. I like the way that every single player that shows up (that flew all the way out there and spent countless hours training for) gets a minimum of 2 best of 3 games before they're eliminated. But I also agree that the later stages of the game because of certain advantages and disadvantages (extended series, physical fatigue). The finale was very anti-climactic.
In other words, I like how it works out at the beginning of the tournament, but not how it shakes out at the end.
Why not find a way to keep it the way it is until you get to -- let's say -- the Top 8 players. Once you're in the Top 8 is should turn into a strict single elimination series of best of 5 games (possibly 7). They could even leave the Top 8 for the final day of the weekend.
So players would go through the normal tournament, fighting for those Top 8 positions. That night, there would be plenty of time to get to know the players that are left, the people they had to beat to get there, and who the remaining competition is going to be. In other words, there would be plenty of time to get a big picture of what's happened so far and enough time to get hyped about the matches leading to the finale.
Once you get into the Top 8, it would kind of be like the play offs and everything before that was the regular season. There wouldn't be any extended series and in a way, everything you've done up to that point is wiped away, except for seeding. (The 1 seed would be matched up against the 8 seed.)
Also this way, a player like SeleCT, who fought his way all the way back through the loser's bracket, will have a chance to rest up for the Top 8 the next day.
Thoughts?
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On October 18 2010 07:10 MrSexington wrote:
Why not find a way to keep it the way it is until you get to -- let's say -- the Top 8 players. Once you're in the Top 8 is should turn into a strict single elimination series of best of 5 games (possibly 7). They could even leave the Top 8 for the final day of the weekend.
So players would go through the normal tournament, fighting for those Top 8 positions. That night, there would be plenty of time to get to know the players that are left, the people they had to beat to get there, and who the remaining competition is going to be. In other words, there would be plenty of time to get a big picture of what's happened so far and enough time to get hyped about the matches leading to the finale.
This is the best idea I've heard yet. Seriously, people, SelecT could have won if he weren't so freakin exhausted. He played like a madman, destroyed all comers (almost), and then tried to play against one of the best players in the world who had time off to relax, hang out, and get psyched for the finals.
If SeleCT won, I am pretty sure, that would have been more Idra losing it than SeleCT winning. He just wasn't in a position to play his best.
Cheers.
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The Finals were so anti-climatic. You need to spread the event over three days. At least have the semi-finals and finals on the Sunday. A best of seven for the top three positions would be more exciting.
I think if the games for the top three were on the Sunday, Huk wouldn't have thrown away the set to Select, and Select would have had time to: eat, sleep, take a piss, not stare at computer and clicking manically for hours straight, etc.
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8748 Posts
Halo has some stations set up where players play on a raised platform and there are TV's above them showing what they see (their first person views). There are always a lot of people hanging around the edges of the SC2 area, looking in at a bad angle trying to watch the monitors of the players. It would be really cool to have 4-6 TV's put up around the edges of the SC2 playing area that show the views of the players and then you can arrange to have the best players to sit at the computers that are hooked up to those TV's. People that aren't interested in SC2 are always very impressed and intrigued by the first person view of a fast player and hardcore SC2 fans would of course also get a lot out of such displays.
ps: lots of people get exhausted and play worse. i dont know why select is being singled out. i thought he was playing really well on saturday. it's ridiculous to think that he hit some hard limitation on games right when he had to face idra. more like his tvz is his worst matchup (and his tvp and tvt play very similarly, MMM lololol gg) and idra was the best player at the event
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Overall I enjoyed it. Really liked Wheat and Day9 as a pair. I won't go over what everyone else has said, I'll just nitpick around the edges.
- People don't know all the players faces. It would be nice if when you showed them in the corner of the screen while playing you were able to put an overlay there telling us who it is we're looking at.
- Casters should use the correct names. I don't know now many times Tyler was called Nony. Most people will know it's the same person but if you're trying to expand your audience keep it straight. Same goes for when Wheat kept asking "Sean" questions. Who's Sean? If you're going to be on a first name basis, then show Day9's full name in the overlay before the match starts, or only call him Day9.
- If you're going to have rules for the games, enforce them. There's no reason Huk and Select should be allowed to chat mid game, it's spelled out right in the rules that they're not allowed to. Slippery slope here if you let players get away with that.
I still hate double elim (it's already double elim because it's bo3). I much prefer the way the GSL does it, except it should be seeded. But alas I'm sure that this won't change.
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On October 18 2010 07:45 Liquid`Tyler wrote:
ps: lots of people get exhausted and play worse. i dont know why select is being singled out. i thought he was playing really well on saturday. it's ridiculous to think that he hit some hard limitation on games right when he had to face idra. more like his tvz is his worst matchup (and his tvp and tvt play very similarly, MMM lololol gg) and idra was the best player at the event
Not meaning to single out Select, Select is just the obvious example in this tournament.
It just seems that if you're going to invest time and money in a tournament, and you want people to pay to watch it, everyone will want to see the best players playing in top form. It produces the best content, for the hosts and the spectators.
The MLB would never have a double-header during a World Series, for instance.
In this case, maybe Huk wouldn't have flaked out of the tournament if had a night to sleep on it, taken out Select and we would have had a much more competitive Final.
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For a while it seemed like you were gonna have both semis played at the same time and only cast one of them. It's good that you didn't, and hopefully you won't in the future either.
Also, on the map preview videos I think less zooming in / camera panning would be better. Maybe replace it with graphics highlighting what's being talked about and some slight zooming. Also, there were some videos where the audio wasn't matching the video, talking about the gold but showing the nat etc.
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South Africa4316 Posts
Technically, the stream had multiple problems throughout the weekend. Me and quite a few of the other TL members got stuck watching Halo and could not change the channel. This problem persisted through multiple browser changes, cache clearings (all browsers and java), restarts, reconnects, reinstalls of all the involved tools (java, octoshape, browser), and pretty much everything any of us could think of. For me, the problem started half way through day 1, and lasted until the end of the event, so I was stuck watching a restream.
Another problem was the sharpness of the stream which was painful on day 1, but much better on day 2.
My main complaint is still with regards to the format. Double elimination is impossible to follow from a spectator's point of view (especially when the MLG brackets are rarely updated). It also removes much of the excitement from the winners bracket matches. SC tournaments have come in all shapes and sizes, but for as long as I can remember no large tournament has ever made use of double elimination. It is simply not a good format for spectators. For example, I still don't know in which position Ret actually ended, even after looking at the brackets.
Furthermore, as has been said, there needs to be more games streamed. If MLG wants SC2 to maintain fan interest after the initial hype has worn off, they need to create a fanbase that will do their best to watch every broadcast. This is what has allowed SC1 to remain popular in Korea for the past 10 years: fans. Fans want to be able to watch every game played by their player, and observers will only become fans if they get exposed to new players and get to follow these players. Imagine you are a budding SC2 fan that loves Incontrol. He managed to get to the Ro16 in both MLG's (I think, not sure with double elimination), but almost none of his games were broadcast. The same goes for most of the players. In the end you are deterred from becoming the fas of any one player, which makes it that much easier to stop following the event as a whole. To give an example, I watched almost every SC1 match played in 2007. By the end of 2008, I no longer had the time to do so, so I stopped watching as much. However I still made a point of tuning in to every tournament in which either KTF or Flash played. To this day, I still do my best to watch all of Flash's games, even though I haven't played SC1 in years. Fans will keep SC2 alive, and MLG should be doing everything they can to create fans.
At the moment, each MLG tournament feels more like an exhibition match than a sport. The viewers are given snippets of the tournament to watch and they have to try to fill in the blanks (which is difficult with double elimination). Just like an exhibition, we often get to see great players playing and the games are fantastic, but without the context or the history, no match can carry that much weight. Changing the format will make the tournament more enjoyable for the observers, while at the same time improving MLG's chances of developing a sustainable following for the subsequent seasons. In just one season the GSL has achieved a significant fanbase, with even casual SC2 spectators already having their favourite players and teams which they follow. MLG can do the same if they just reconsider their format and tailor it to SC2 specifically.
On a more positive note, the commentating was fantastic. It was without doubt the best commentary I have heard at a SC2 tournament to date. The commentators were professional, they gave brilliant play by plays, the offered insight, they didn't try too hard to be funny or get the internet's approval, they just did their jobs. It was the closest that commentary in SC2 has come to sounding like that of a professional sport's. It was fantastic.
The games were also amazing, and of a considerably higher level than Raleigh's.
Finally, the interviews were good and professional, and I felt like the flow of the tournament was much better. There were considerably fewer unnecessary delays between the matches than there were at Raleigh.
All in all I enjoyed the games, I just hope the technical problems get sorted out and the format reconsidered.
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I don't know if this is out of your control due to the other games being run at the event, but as an international viewer it'd be awesome if the games were on the same time each of the two days. I don't mind having to either get up early or stay up late to watch (as an Aussie I'm used to having to do that to watch international anything), but the current set up requires both which is a bit much for an old man like me.
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279 Posts
A few quick comments, scanning through in my first downtime of the event... :D
First off, thanks for the great feedback, will read more later.
re: spectator seating. It's way less than it needs to be. We're working on it, and I'm pretty excited to announce what we'll be doing in 2011. As I posted earlier, we can't use chairs because they wander off and then we end up with the fire marshal yelling at us for fire hazards. It's a catch 22, but there are ways around it. The entire MLG show travels around in 4+ tractor trailers. They're packed to the gills. It's like 3D tetris watching the production team load them up. We literally can't fit any more benches in the trucks.
re: multiple streams. The way we do streaming requires video SWITCHING--there's literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of gear in line to create graphics, camera shots and convert video signals from the broadcast PCs into something we can then encode and send out to the you, our fans. Setting up a second stream is not a simple matter of getting some cameras and throwing a couple more people on the air. Much much more to it than that.
re: jumping into another game. Unfortunately, as I think many of you know, you can't join a game once its started, especially as a spectator. So in order to accomplish that, I'd have to have 10 broadcast machines sitting around and then have the talent, who have enough to do already keeping track of the game play and talking on air to entertain you, be ready to join themselves to the game. There's some other ways to do it, but again, it's not a simple matter and we need to carefully plot it out before we implement it. MUXing out keyboard/mouse inputs so that Day9/Jp/Djwheat can switch video and audio inputs, but there are some fundamental limitations ot how many video signals you can get into an HD switcher.
re: extended series/bo7. we'll get an article published laying out how it works precisely. In fact, I think JP posted on how it works when we announced the addition of SC2 to the circuit. But it's here to stay. And as an old PC LAN veteran, I'll say that I think its the fairest thing possible. We can debate the absolute value of "fair" sometime, but it is a system that MLG uses on EVERY game.
re: sharpness explanation. Good explanation. And you're a 100% correct about what that is. But that was not the issue here, although I'll admit that I looked there first when I saw it. As I stated earlier, it's not that simple. At all. I'd nerd out and give you the technical explanation (I was one of the chief designers of the HD system we use) but that would be giving away trade secrets :D
If we could, we'd cast every single match in the tournament, but unfortunately, it's just not that easy. There's a tremendous amount of infrastructure that has to go into broadcasting ONE match at a time, much less being able to switch on the fly to another one (again, you can't join a game in progress, and you can't hold the tournament to wait for the video team to be ready for you).
Lastly, re: Friday delays. Definitely agree that we needed to communicate better to you folks what was going on. We'll work on that. The basic issue was a series of bugs in the way some legacy systems we have interface with the new MLG 2.0 infrastructure (we are mid-migration onto our new awesome web platform that Agora is building for us) which resulted in the site not correctly displaying the streams. The testing processes we have in place weeks out from the event, but these bugs slipped thru the cracks, largely due to how complex it is. Folks like livestream and ustream have great products which make it very easy for YOU to do things, but our set up is infinitely more complex than what you have to go through to throw up a stream--and no, we can't just use livestream or ustream. We couldn't go live until we had this resolved.
Now that I'm able to take a breath, I'm able to explain it. The bugs have been corrected and we've revised our QA/testing process to make sure that we're better able to catch these kinds of things. Live event production always has issues. Most of the time, you never notice how much we run around at the events trying to make sure the show goes well (even those of you here in attendance). No live show is flawless, especially one as complex as an MLG show (there are 6 tournaments going on at the same time and 4 live streams (each one in both SD and HD)). We usually do a better job of it, such that you never see it. But we missed this time around.
MLG as a whole prides itself about running on time. And John Nelson (MLG_Anakin, our league commissioner) and his team do an amazing job keeping the tournament on time. There were over 292 games played in SC2 alone, and over a thousand more in the rest of the event. These guys, and John and Ryan Moore, the PC Admin, in particular get way too little credit for how hard they work and how great they are at keeping us on schedule. The broadcasts we do could not happen if they weren't awesome at their jobs.
That we were delayed on our streams was not just a let down to you guys as fans, but also to John, the entire league ops team and the rest of the production team that makes these shows happen. So believe me, we're NOT okay with being delayed 2+hrs to get our streams live. So for that, apologies.
Overall I hope you all enjoyed the stream and the show. And again, thanks for the feedback.
Hrmm... guess that wasn't that quick a reply after all. ;/
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gr8 stuff, cyu in dallas!~
sc2 spectators area is enormous though, hopefully we can get a better/bigger spot at dallas!
as well as better volume from the cast, perhaps players should be forced to use noise cancellation headsets!
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I thought it was another great event overall and I thoroughly enjoyed watching it. That being said, there were definitely some hiccups on the technical side of things. The stream quality on day 1 was atrocious - thankfully you guys got it fixed for day 2 but I hope you can avoid that happening again in future events. I also had issues getting the stream to load sometimes (if I ever closed my browser and came back later it would typically take a couple refresh attempts just to get it started, not to mention sometimes when the stream did start it was showing the wrong game). The initial delay with day 1 was also quite annoying, which was made worse by a lack of communication on MLG's part. I don't know how you all prepare for these events but some sort of test run earlier in the day could probably avoid a lot of these issues.
The games themselves were awesome and commentary was good as would be expected with Day9 on the scene. I particularly liked DJ Wheat, and I hope he is part of the casting team even more in the future. Day9 and Wheat just have a certain chemistry which works really well. JP was good too but a notch below Wheat... nothing to be ashamed of though. Overall I thought the casting was even better then what we got in Raleigh, so definitely a positive there.
The only other (minor) criticism I have involves the bracket posted online. It just needs to be updated on a more frequent basis. There were a lot of sets where the results were announced in the live chat but were not updated on posted brackets for quite a while. I also had some minor issues viewing the far side of the losers bracket (which could be resolved by zooming out to 60%, but no way to scroll over at normal zoom levels was an annoyance... I don't know though, could of been firefox causing this one). I did like how quickly you guys released replays this time, so a big thumbs up on that. That's all I can think of for now, but like I said it was a good event overall and I look forward to Dallas (which I will hopefully be attending!).
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can we please get a best of 5 at least for the finals and grand finals?
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On October 18 2010 07:45 Liquid`Tyler wrote:
ps: lots of people get exhausted and play worse. i dont know why select is being singled out. i thought he was playing really well on saturday. it's ridiculous to think that he hit some hard limitation on games right when he had to face idra. more like his tvz is his worst matchup (and his tvp and tvt play very similarly, MMM lololol gg) and idra was the best player at the event
This comes off as pretty bitter. Select won more games than you, so he played more games than you. In fact, he had the longest string of games to be played of ANY player. THAT is why we keep referring to him. IdrA could sit back and wait for the true finals, Select fought for hours straight to get there and then got to play a rested player who is ridiculous to begin with.
Maybe IdrA is the out and out best player, and if that is the case, it wouldn't matter that SeleCT was tired. But if the two are close in skill level (which I believe they are), being on equal rest means their skill levels get to decide their match, not the length of time one was forced to grind games out.
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On October 18 2010 08:43 Sleight wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2010 07:45 Liquid`Tyler wrote:
ps: lots of people get exhausted and play worse. i dont know why select is being singled out. i thought he was playing really well on saturday. it's ridiculous to think that he hit some hard limitation on games right when he had to face idra. more like his tvz is his worst matchup (and his tvp and tvt play very similarly, MMM lololol gg) and idra was the best player at the event This comes off as pretty bitter. Select won more games than you, so he played more games than you. In fact, he had the longest string of games to be played of ANY player. THAT is why we keep referring to him. IdrA could sit back and wait for the true finals, Select fought for hours straight to get there and then got to play a rested player who is ridiculous to begin with. Maybe IdrA is the out and out best player, and if that is the case, it wouldn't matter that SeleCT was tired. But if the two are close in skill level (which I believe they are), being on equal rest means their skill levels get to decide their match, not the length of time one was forced to grind games out.
In retrospect, that is an advantage IdrA earned by not losing in the winners bracket.
But I also agree with Incontrol that what happened earlier should not effect your future game vs the same person.
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On October 18 2010 08:43 Sleight wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2010 07:45 Liquid`Tyler wrote:
ps: lots of people get exhausted and play worse. i dont know why select is being singled out. i thought he was playing really well on saturday. it's ridiculous to think that he hit some hard limitation on games right when he had to face idra. more like his tvz is his worst matchup (and his tvp and tvt play very similarly, MMM lololol gg) and idra was the best player at the event This comes off as pretty bitter. Select won more games than you, so he played more games than you. In fact, he had the longest string of games to be played of ANY player. THAT is why we keep referring to him. IdrA could sit back and wait for the true finals, Select fought for hours straight to get there and then got to play a rested player who is ridiculous to begin with. Maybe IdrA is the out and out best player, and if that is the case, it wouldn't matter that SeleCT was tired. But if the two are close in skill level (which I believe they are), being on equal rest means their skill levels get to decide their match, not the length of time one was forced to grind games out.
it doesn't come off as bitter to me at all, it comes off as someone who actually knows what they are talking about. you know, a guy who actually competes at a high level and actually played a lot of games in the tournament you're theorizing about. a guy who has played countless tournaments, many of them with lots of games.
but clearly he's just bitter and talking out of his ass
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United States22883 Posts
On October 18 2010 08:24 MLG_Lee wrote:
re: extended series/bo7. we'll get an article published laying out how it works precisely. In fact, I think JP posted on how it works when we announced the addition of SC2 to the circuit. But it's here to stay. And as an old PC LAN veteran, I'll say that I think its the fairest thing possible. We can debate the absolute value of "fair" sometime, but it is a system that MLG uses on EVERY game.
And as a competitive PC gaming veteran, I don't think it's the fairest thing possible. You know as well as I do that whether it's CS or BW/SC2, people hold out strategies until the later rounds. The 4k d2 middle stack wasn't used during opening rounds nor was the X3 boost on Nuke. The same is true in real sports. Bill Belichick doesn't show the Patriots' complete defensive package until the playoffs roll around.
The same is true in this. Round 2 is simply less important than round 7. Having a double elimination already deals with advantages/disadvantages. Each game is akin to a point, and you need to get the most points in a bo3/5/7/etc. in order to win a single set. It's like saying the Rangers are leading the Yankees because the overall run total is 12-8. That's not how any sport works.
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I think the event was great and other than a few minor hiccups at the start was pretty much perfect.
Day9 with JP / DJwheat are the best at casting and were the main reason i paid for the HD stream as I knew i could watch them commentate games for hours. I hope you can make sure they are present at every future event, they make it so much more fun to watch.
The only improvements i'd like to see are player interviews after their matches whenever possible. It makes the games more interesting when you can get insight from the players on decisions they made and why they chose certain strategies.
The brackets need to be updated more frequently and perhaps even have results scroll along the top/bottom of the screen as they come in. Otherwise unless the players your are supporting are having their games casted it becomes difficult to track your favourite players progress and are often left waiting far too long to find out the results.
The finals would be better if it was two bo5 instead of bo3. Alot of tournaments do this to make it more of a spectacle and last longer. Otherwise it can be abit of an anticlimax when its over in two short games.
Other than that im happy with how the event was run and streamed and thanks for putting on such a great weekends entertainment. I'm already excited for Dallas and will definately be paying to watch the HD stream when the time comes.
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MLG_Lee you guys are doing excellent work. I have been to a few events over the years and I know how MLG has evolved to be an impressive Esports venue.
Can you please comment on the issues with crowd interactions that happened during this tournament? Every live tournament in Korea has booths and/or noise canceling headphones. I believe that would add a large level of professionalism to the SC2 event.
Keep up the good work!
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I didn't get to watch it live, so I was shocked to see how fast the VODs were up right along with the brackets! That was so nice!
Thank you!
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EPT
