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![[image loading]](http://www.blogcdn.com/wow.joystiq.com/media/2010/10/mlgdc2010preview.jpg)
Hey everyone, JP here from MLG. First off wanted to say thanks to everyone who tuned in over the course of the weekend and if you were awesome enough to make it out to the event in person, thanks so much for coming -- the finals crowd was epic.
As usual with any big event, there are a billion different threads scattered around the forums here at TL.net with criticism. In order for me to make an event report with (good, constructive) criticism, I've started this thread. Many eyes from MLG staff will be reading this thread and I'm sure the TL.net admins will be closely monitoring it to make sure it doesn't get out of hand.
If you were at the event, tell us how to improve the live spectator experience. If you watched at home all weekend, tell us what you would like to see on the stream. If you were a player, tell us what we can do to improve your experience over the weekend. If you attended the event as press, tell us how we can make things easier on you. We’ll try our best to listen and improve the entire experience as much as possible before the next event -- the national championships in Dallas, Texas.
Thanks again to everyone who tuned in over the course of the weekend. Big shoutout to Singlecoil and the entire crew who produced the stream all weekend long as well as the tournament admins who kept the event running smooth. You may never see their faces, but please make sure to give credit where credit is due 
See you guys in Dallas, Texas, for our National Championships! Open Passes for the SC2 event are still on sale >>HERE<<
MLG Senior Vice President Lee Chen responds to a majority of the criticisms thus far:
+ Show Spoiler +On October 18 2010 08:24 MLG_Lee wrote:
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. ;/
Other Threads and links MLG DC
MLG DC Day 1
MLG DC Day 2
MLG DC Brackets (Click Match Info to Download Replays)
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Thanks JP, I thought it was a really great event, and a lot of fun as a spectator. From a stream perspective, I feel that Saturday was really good. Friday, I didn't like missing the pre-game show... and the delays. Obviously there are some things that went wrong and you guys got it figured out. Also the Friday quality seemed to be a little worse than the Saturday quality. Maybe the Starcraft 2 tournament could be spread out a little more instead of being rushed. MLG has that space for 3 days, so I don't know why it needs to be over in 2 days. If it was slowed down a little, then we can see more matches from each round, and I think the players would have a little more time to relax. Also, who doesn't want 3 days of Starcraft 2 action? My last suggestion would be to make the winners finals, losers finals, and championship match a best of 5. This just seems to be a personal preference, but it's weird to have a Starcraft tournament start as best of 3, and end in best of 3.
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Well the stream was absolutely horrendous the first day and wasn't fixed until day 2 started. How you could go live with that kind of settings was just beyond me.
My suggestions is that you test the stream properly way ahead of going live so that you have time to fix it if these problem occur.
Also the fact that neither you or day 9 acknowledged that the stream was in fact 2 HOURS + delayed on day 1 and explained what had happened, why it happened and maybe throw in an apology was nothing but an insult to your customers in my eyes. You just kept going like nothing had happened, you just don't do that that in the real business world and this is actually not anything different.
Seats.. not enough seats for the SC2 crowd.
Soundproof headphones should be a given with the loud crowd.
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Lovely event! The only criticism I have is that you didn't have iNcontroL casting something on day 2  .
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Stream quality on day2 was good, really nice for a free service. Brackets were kinda bad, not getting updated, and when they did get updated, it was usually with a wrong results.
The long periods between games were a bit annoying, and the number of casted games could have been better, but at least you listened and cast both semi-finals in winners bracket.
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I watched at home with an HD pass, and greatly enjoyed the games.
My one complaint was the stream quality on the first day. There was some sort of strange contrast and low quality, but you guys seemed to have fixed it by the second day (I hope that in game lag wasn't due to the higher bitrate you guys started putting out  ). Hopefully next time around it will look good the first day as well :D EDIT: Oh yeah, the bracket errors were a bit annoying too, though not the end of the world.
In all, great job and thanks for helping organize such a giant tournament, I know I really enjoyed it!
(Also, Day[9] should continue to cast the events. He has great analysis and confident speech.)
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The extended series rule. That works for Halo, but not for Starcraft 2.
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Tech difficulties obviously needed to be sorted, and they were very quickly. I was happy about that.
MLG didn't have brackets for the last event, but they were here for this event, and I think that was really awesome. Also replays released very shortly was really good too. I'm not sure if there is a replay package (there should be!).
Honestly, as a live viewer, I could not find anything I would want. Everything seems to run fine from my end. I'm sure people will come with the change to the ruleset regarding DCs and the Double-Elim format. I'll let them do that.
Great job as usual.
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I'd just like to emphasize that after day 1, the stream issues were fixed for day 2 and I have no complaints about it from then on. Worked beautifully. But for day 1, it crashed a lot, and had that quality issue.
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I was at the event and had an awesome time! After playing RTS for many many years, it was really exciting to see this much excitement and professionalism for Starcraft 2. I just have a couple of suggestions.
1) Allow bottles of water in the venue. I can understand no other brands of soda, but players need their water, and sometimes there isnt enough time to leave the place and come back between rounds. Pretty much everyone had to sneak in bottles of water in their backpacks.
2) Pressure Blizzard into LAN. The entire second day and some of the first day were pretty laggy.( I know this one is a long shot)
3) Sound proofing. I was in the crowd after I lost in the tournament, and I really couldn't hear anything the announcers said. I think only the people in the middle of the actual seats could hear. Also the players could hear the crowd pretty easily when the cheared, etc.
Other than that everything went great and thanks for hoping such an awesome event. Hope you guys come back to this area in the future
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All in all it was very good but I'd like to have seen 3 days of play instead of two, or maybe more games the first day. Also a bo5 finals would have been better imo.
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United States7481 Posts
honestly the only thing i can think of as a live spectator is that the features (taped stuff w/ eg, post-game interviews) were not audible, and obviously better seating would be nice^^
oh there was 1 other thing i suggested to the ref in blue who wasn't asian: a big bracket (like a whiteboard or a big poster or something), continuously updated that both players and spectators can see. kind of ridiculous that the only ones who know the bracket are the head ref and people with computer access.
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Hello,
MLG was my first esports event, and starcraft II is my first RTS/really any game I enjoy competitively other then smash melee a long time ago (wish I had actually tried competing before Brawl went public.) Anyways I LOVED MLG I was jokingly telling my friends now I understand why people watch football. 2 (simple) thoughts:
- Noise Cancelling Headphones? I know a lot of people have commented on the crowd. I thought it was GREAT when everyone started chanting and definately added a lot to the experience. "Time Machines" korean style are definately expensive but noise cancelling headphones don't seem to be too bad, especially if you only got two for the important 1v1s. The seperate room idea seems cool but I actually reall yliked walking over and seeing the people play. Obviously the headphones wouldn't get rid of all sound but at least it would mitigate the problem without being crazily expensive.
- Commentator volume. I could not hear them at all (I was sitting retty near the speakers)I LOVE DAY9. I really wanted to hear him because he's a great commentator and helps people like me understand whats going on when we might miss implications. I figure the volume was low because of the players hearing it but noise cancelling headphones would allow both of these problems to be fixed.
Both those things being said I had an AWESOME time and I think it was really cool that you guys made it free to just walk in and watch. I will defiantely be at any future events in the area and would def pay a small fee for a ticket if it meant the above changes were implemented (hell I'd probly do it anyways.) Thanks for putting on a great event
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COMMENTARY
I thought the Day9 and DJ commentary was excellent, with Sean bringing in the sc2 knowledge and hype while DJ brought up perfect questions to ask while being very motivated himself while you JP were on the floor dealing with interviews. I personally thought this was a much better improvement over the last commentary group.
STREAM
through both day 1 and 2, the stream seemed in both HD and Standard to be blocky. Not sure if this was due to in-game settings or some other factor, but definitely something to look into. Day 2 was however a lot better then the first day.
OTHER
Honestly, there were a few times I wouldn't much care to see a player's face/reaction in-game with their pic displayed at the lower right, as this does remove some intel for players (IE what upgrade does that unit have?) perhaps keep it for say, the first 5 minuets, then periodically put it back up to get their reactions in certain points in the game momentarily.
Oh, and I loved how you uploaded the replays on-demand for fans, great feature to have available :D (that mothership rush deserved a second viewing), but would like the brackets to be more RSS friendly, as there were times they wouldn't be updated for quite some time.
Oh, and perhaps something to look into, maybe noise canceling headphones for crowds? I mean for early stages in the game the crowd doesn't matter to much due to how many games are going on, but when theres only say, 3 left, the crowd could often give a big hint as to whats going to happen (IE cheers in 2 minuets would single proxy or cheese of some kind, or in huk's case a mothership rush)
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Either updating the brackets at a more regular rate or displaying an updated bracket on the stream would be really great for those at home. If I had to step away from the computer for a period of time it was tough to come back and catch up.
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Get booths. The situation in Huk vs Select was absolutely horrendous.
1) Show the game, obviously.
2) Players should not be able to see or hear the crowd in game.
Also, DJ Wheat is ridiculously awesome. More of him plz!
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Information policy during troubles times
Obviously the hours long delay on day 1 was a bad thing. But the lack of information during this period just made the whole situation worse. At one point the Team Liquid Twitter was the only source of info coming out of DC.
Everyone understands that technical problems can happen, but you need to be prepared to put up some information in realtime when it happens, so that we dont have to spend hours idly pressing F5.
Booths
Other than that, I think you need to get player booths for the finals. The whole audience interaction with Huk and Select made for some comedy, but it didnt really seem very professional, I would never expect to see something like that on GSL.
Casters
You, Day[9] and Wheat did a GREAT job casting. I loved the way you called out QxC's missile against Idra the second it started building, and you worded the whole thing really well too! Kudos.
Rules
The extended series rule needs to go. You should have the mindset that when a player is starting a match, he has deserved his spot, and no further punishment is needed.
Live reporting
The bracket web didn't work too well, and many results were wrongly reported during the whole event, that is just sloppy.
Interviews
More of those! There was quite some dead time between matches, interviews here would be great. I really enjoyed those you had. Why not send the players over to the commentators table?
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Great event all in all, something you should/could improve;
1. more seating for your audience, I'm amazed by the people that just stand there for the whole event..
2. Something more visual than just a tiny banner saying names and how the games went, showing the brackets on air, talking about them while watching the brackets, it would feel less like your filling empty air and more like its scheduled and it would give alot more to the viewer than just "this guy won this guy".
3. Get booths or sound-cancelling headphones for the top 8 atleast.
4. More interviews, like in raleigh.
5. more iNcontroL
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1. Excellent casting. You and wheat are the only of day9's recent cocasters who he seemed to not just want to talk over. Please do not bring back HD and Husky. The three of you all did a very good job.
2. The commercials were fine, because I understand why they're there. But during the "other" breaks, during which we were shown the crowd or a logo for 10-20 minutes, it would be nice to have a timer or a countdown of some kind so that we know approximately when the next game will be coming on. If I have 20 minutes to kill, I'd like to know about it.
3. When the game starts, please show the game. It's really frustrating at times that the cameras stay on the players a good minute or two into the game.
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Before I criticize, I want to express my gratitude for what you did. Without events like this, I would be left with youtube commentary of ladder matches. This event was CRAZY entertaining for me! I was glued to my computer the entire time. So many big names, and epic epic games! Being able to hear crowd cheers was great, and if you have an MLG in San Fran, I am totally buying a ticket.
1) No losers bracket until the winners is over, please. With so many top level competitors, we really don't want to see people who just lost, we want to see some of the other big names play.
2) I really didn't like how you had the grand finals set up as the winner of the losers bracket playing the winner of the winner's bracket. This creates an opportunity where someone who was beaten earlier can take the whole tournament, where ideally we want the undefeated player to take the whole tournament. This is easily accomplished by holding the winner's bracket finals for the last game, and having the losers bracket finals be the battle for 3rd.
3) Ditch the extended series. When players rematch later in the losers bracket, it should be a new bo3, not a continuation of the previous series in a new bo7.
4) More Day9 + DJWheat. Try getting PSYstarcraft and see how he does. If Tasteless and/or Artosis is in the country, get them. Oh, and you guys did a great job making day9 look so sharp. Just get someone to fix his hair once and awhile.
5) Issues with fans at event and sound.
A) The fans there need to be able to hear the commentary.
B) The players should not be able to hear the commentary, or the fans.
Solutions would be to put the video screen above the casters, and move the seating there as well.
Have the players area in another room with not fans allowed.
Noise canceling headphones for any game casted.
Sound proof booths.
6) Starting on time. This was a serious fuck up. 2 hours late is not cool at all and a lot of people were really pissed because they planned on having X time block dedicated to watching your streams and felt jipped. To make this situation worse, we had a complete lack of information coming from MLG except for more updates on the time being pushed back further. Very frustrating. Updates every 5-10 minutes would be nice.
7) Also, you really need better people watching over the stream. The HD stream looked horrendous for quite some time. If you are going to be charging people for HD, you need to deliver out of the gate, not on the 2nd day. I think 10 bucks is very reasonable to charge for a good stream, but you HAVE to deliver. I know already I won't pay until after Dallas is over so I can see if you got your issues straightened out.
There were also times when the stream was getting sound from one observer, and video from another. Not a big thing really, but it was pretty distracting and I'm surprised it happened.
Then of course there was the issue with huk vs select game 2, which caused the fan interference.
8) Online updates. The bracket was sometimes incorrect, and often woefully behind schedule. Like, 2 rounds behind schedule. I really did appreciate the links to the replays in the bracket though. I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see links to VODs in the brackets as well.
9) Interviews, more of them please! JP did a great job in the field and in the private rooms. If there could have been pre tourney interviews will all the big names, you could show that in between matches please instead of the doritos tent. I think for the finals, the individuals should be brought up to the casting booth to sit down for an extended interview.
10) Mapgirl. I like her, but there were a few moments when the view of the map was not matched up with what she was saying. Not a big deal for most viewers who know the maps (except the unprofessionality of the mistake) but for new viewers who don't know the map, it could be confusing. I also think the camera movement was too fast for those people as well. I think instead of panning around the map, zooming into the feature to talk about it, then zooming out, then zooming into the next would give new viewers a better understanding than the quick panning.
11) VODs. I know they take time and effort (ie: paying someone to do it) to upload, but getting the really epic games up quickly would be wonderful. Everyone really wants to review the huk mothership rush game, and the replay just does not have the electricity of the casted match.
Overall, I loved the games, but was frustrated by the delay in the beginning, stream quality, watching the losers bracket games when I knew other big name games were going on in the winners bracket. The other things are what you can do to make it better, but these were the things that frustrated me.
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On October 18 2010 02:05 FreezerJumps wrote:
1. Excellent casting. You and wheat are the only of day9's recent cocasters who he seemed to not just want to talk over. Please do not bring back HD and Husky. The three of you all did a very good job.
After watching WCG USA BW finals and now MLG DC I was shocked by djwheat's performance <3
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As a spectator, the one thing I would've liked to see was something like a giant billboard of the brackets themselves that got updated as the matches went by. While in this day and age there were plenty of people in the crowd who could check the full bracket on their phone, and near the end of the tournament there were few enough people to keep all the matches coming up in mind, especially for the early rounds having a physical bracket posted once the matches start is something that I would've been very happy to see. (Having the ticker on Day 2 with the results of previous rounds was a good step in this direction) This would also give somewhere to see the starting map of each round, so that the beginning of the cast of each match wouldn't start out with Day9 wondering which map to host.
Other than that, I actually liked watching while laying down on the floor, and it does give the crowd that overflow vibe to it, but I know there were many people who would've appreciated still more seating.
Overall it was a great event to be there watching and I look forward to doing it again!
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I know sound proof booths are way above your budget since you keep moving across the country , but atleast provide noise cancelling headphones.
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Get more or better speakers for the audience please. The people in the audience could not hear what you lovely casters were saying : (
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i think VoDs are a problem
it's very nice how you managed the replays this time! thats a big evolution from raleigh in my opinion
but i believe you didn't release VoDs and i think thats very very sad
(please correct me if i'm wrong there)
best example is the Huk vs select match
of course you could watch the replay....but that wouldn't be half as epic as with day9 and wheat commentating and the crowd in the background
overall i think you improved quite nicely since raleigh...i almost didn't want to watch day2 because there was absolutely NO stream quality improvement since the last time...
it really was nessesary to up the quality there
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Good: I also thought this group of commentators was much better than the Raleigh group. And honestly, I though you (JP) were much better in this than you were in the King of the Beta (which was the only other time I've seen you cast... for some reason I missed all the Raleigh games you were casting).
Bad: Obviously the HuK/SeleCT thing. I don't know how expensive it would be to get booths, but I think it would help -- at least get some headphones. Someone above mentioned the volume on the stream. I actually had the volume on my laptop to almost full blast and at that setting I could hear perfectly fine. But I probably shouldn't have to set it so high and on other people's hardware it might have been a problem.
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It would be fun to cast different players at the start. I think we got like 2-3 games of Machine and that was kinda lame imo (no offense to Machine). Of course, at the later stages, that's fine.
More interviews would have been fun too. DJ Wheat and Day9 is 2 thumbs up. Bring them back together at Dallas.
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Well, stream quality, specially in Day 1, appeared to be wost then everything else I've seen. It was like someone pointed a camera at a monitor and streamed thru there.
The lag was extremely annoying, but that's not MLG's fault. It's Blizzard, for not providing us with LAN. They could at least make SC2 Professional edition, specifically for official tourneys that has LAN in it.
The "Don't worry, that's Halo" issue is actually quite a big one. It's been already suggested - booths or special headphones.
Else, it was one of the best tourneys I've seen in a while. The casters were awesome, so I have no complains there.
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1. Still need more // better seating if possible.
2. Water please.. Whatever you have to do to get some kind of water in the event would help. I really do not think Dr. Pepper should not have that much of an issue (i would hope)
3. Sound Proof Headsets. At least for 16 players when it gets to that point.
4. There was some lag especially in earlier rounds.. anything done to minimize this would be awesome.
5. More DJ Wheat
6. Forget the extended series and play a bo5.
I think any of these could be a start. But honestly we appreciate everything you do.. We would be spoiled to expect you to deliver more then what you have already done.
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I think you should really use something aside from Octoshape. I didn't know that it was p2p until someone told me, but I was still ok with that. Then I checked how much bandwidth I was uploading and it was a crazy amount. This setup definitely doesn't work for people that have a monthly cap. I had to switch to a restream because of this.
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Great show; the casting was especially good.
Only real criticism I would have is that the grand final was something of an anti-climax (especially after how epic the select-tyler match was). I think it should be a little bit longer than the other matches, like maybe make it a best of seven (just that one match).
Another suggestion I have relates to the gaps between matches. There were periods between matches where the camera is just showing the scenes from the tournament arena. Maybe it would be a good idea to have a caption saying "next game scheduled to begin at XX:XX" so I don't have to wonder how long I will be waiting.
Again great show, and I will be watching Dallas if I can.
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1. I think it was awesome how you and the crew listened to the feedback and tried to fix it immediately. Increasing the bitrate, although did not solve the contrast and brightness problems shows that MLG listens and cares.
2. Bracket and replays were very informative. As well as the live blog and the chat room.
3. The casting was beyond awesome. Day9+ you (JP) or Day9/Djwheat were both very interesting combinations that works beautifully. Choices of game casted were very good as well.
4.I would really like to support by buying the pass but the bandwith requirement was in fact too high for me especially after it was increased to 2.2 mb/s. I suggest having something like a mid range maybe 1.1 mb/s for 5 bucks. Nevertheless, the free stream was awesome most of time besides the down time caused by wireless problem
5. I really dont like the extended series format. A person who is knocked down to the lower bracket is only 1 series away from elimination as opposed to 2 series away in winner bracket. That is punishment enough. If he meets a person that beat him earlier , both have lost once and no further punishment is necessary. Only when the winner of winner bracket meet the winner of lower bracket should the former has an advantage due to the fact that he has not lost before. Double Bo3 is sufficient in this case.
6. 2 days is too packed i think. Especially from players who make a deep run from the lower bracket. Spread it out over 3 days if possible. SeleCT was playing for about 8 hours straight.
All in all, well done for the mlg crew and it is good news that the SC2 crowd and turnout was overhwelming. I think MLG can be the anchor for foreign ( USA) scene and rival the GSL. Maybe invite some koreans? Inviting Cool or Rainbow will increase the legitimacy of the competition and no one will call it "mid-level competition" anymore.
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Once you took care of the in-game setting the stream looked a lot better. Absolutely get DJ Wheat to be a regular, he is a legend and a natural when it comes to this sort of thing. I realize that sound proof booths can be a bit much, but noise canceling headphones are a must! For the most part you covered some great games, keep up the good work!
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I watched this online and only have one suggestion: I would move the semi-finals and finals of both the Winners and Losers brackets to Sunday. You could tell that SeleCT was absolutely exhausted for the finals matches and I feel the quality of gameplay would have been much better had a) he been rested/fed and b) had a bit more time to prepare for upcoming opponents.
Other than that, the stream was great as were the casters. Thanks again guys!
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United States12607 Posts
All in all I think this was an awesome event. Most of the suggestions in this thread (noise cancellation methods, bracket displayed at the event—this should be a no-brainer, more interviews, fewer matches per day) are right on, so I won't reiterate.
The one thing I'd like to add is about the venue/seating setup. MLG's cameramen seemed to be disappointed that the SC2 crowd wasn't going nuts all the time (it certainly wasn't as rambunctious as the Halo crowd is). Part of this just has to do with the nature of StarCraft as a spectator event. It's more like baseball than football or boxing—a more relaxed viewing experience, stressing buildup of tension over wham-bam-cheer-all-the-time action.
But I'd say a good deal of the SC2 crowd's quietness was a product of the venue. SC2 was in the deepest darkest (and I mean very dark, like too dark to take good photos) corner of the exhibition hall and, due to the lack of seats, most people were laying on the floor. On top of this the sound of the stream was quite low. Low volume stream + laying down on floor + darkness = quiet naptime for SC2 fans. It's no wonder the crowd wasn't wild and energized for the whole competition.
Now compare this to the Halo venue: tiered bleachers, crazy lights all over the place, three massive monitors, and a platform for the casters (who were through speakers loud enough to hear from the SC2 area). Now that is excitement. Why can't the bigger SC2 matches be shown on those screens, in that arena? It seems a massive waste for MLG to set up that stage and then use it only for Halo, especially considering the large amount of downtime between matches.
Another advantage of showing both SC2 and Halo in the same venue would be getting some cross-pollination between the fans. It isn't true that RTS and FPS enthusiasts have to hate each other. I'd love to get exposed to other games, and I'm sure plenty of Halo fans would too. For MLG, promoting eSports should mean not only recruiting non-gamers as fans but also recruiting current gamers as fans of other games. The way the venue was arranged at MLG DC, there wasn't nearly enough interaction between the different competitions/fanbases.
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Pros
Day9 rocking as always, He's got the wonderful skill of keeping the viewers watching, i know many other casters don't really got this, you just want to stop watching befor you shoot your self...
JP and DJ did a great job aswell, The interviews where good and the convos between games worked aswell...
A whole bunch of really good players showed up and really gave us a show to watch, ofc HuK's mothership will be the big memory
Overall I enjoyed the event!
Cons
Information, Lack of information tbh.
Yes, Technical issues does happen, Things do get delayed and I could probobly say that most of the viewers wouldn't mind a delay for 2h if we got 2 know why this has happened and whats your estimated time for the issues to be solved, When people are left in the dark they tend to get hostile
Some sort of timetable would have been nice
the thing that disturbed me the most was that I missed almost whole day 1 since im from europe and had to sleep, I tried to watch the games from day1 while the livestream was offline but you only showed the interview with iNcontroL over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, Yea it was a great interview but I didn't wanna see it that many times
I'd rather see a loop from day1
Thanks for a GREAT event!
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Get booths and headsets for the players and (maybe) do not allow chatting during games (anything thats not gg gl hf pp).
It was fun to see the "tahts halo" incident but in the long run its not good to have the players hear the crowd.
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I actually liked Day9+Husky, would like to see him again in the future. But yeah, more interviews would be nice thing, as many are mentioning.
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Btw how come Raleigh and DC tickets were sold out under few minutes, but Dallas has been up for few weeks and still isn't sold out? o.o
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Thanks for making the thread JP. It is nice to get to give feedback in so easy a fashion.
MLG DC Pros
The games were good and the casting was good. The stream quality was honestly pretty bad the first day, but was much improved on day 2 so I'm not gonna fault you guys for that one. All in all it was an enjoyable event.
Cons
The biggest thing for me was the 2 hour delay on the stream on day 1. I am very much hoping something like that won't happen again. For die-hard fans we're going to watch it no matter what, but say I wanted to introduce people who have never even heard of Starcraft to this before as a form of entertainment, and I give them the link and it's down... Pretty bad form.
I agree with everybody above that having booths, or at least higher quality headphones, would reduce the issue with sound and the crowds. I was kind of shocked to see Idra using earbud headphones.
It was difficult for me to find the brackets between games to see how well people who weren't being casted were doing. I may have just been missing a link, but if one was there I couldn't find it.
In general I would like to see more games casted. I'm not sure how you would do this, since the format fits a huge number of games into a short span of time. It might be nice to have 2 seperate streams and 2 seperate casting teams, so we could pick which games to watch, but I'm sure even that wouldn't cover every game, especially at the earlier periods of the tournament.
All in all I was pleased and entertained, I'm just hoping the format becomes a little more organized in future events, which I'm sure it will.
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You and Wheat did an awesome job co-casting, Wheat especially.
With reference to the "tahts halo-gate" affair the necessity for sound proofing is obvious but also chatting in games really pissed me off, seemed disrespectful but maybe I'm stuck in the Korean BW mentality.
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First off, I cannot praise enough the way you've been interacting with the community and I eagerly await an MLG I can attend.
1) As someone who has a very small chance of being able to watch events like these live (and very small patience for any type of delays and issues associated with live anything), please provide timely access to VODs.
Perhaps include VOD access as part of the HD fee like GOM does, so people can pay you ten dollars to either watch it in HD live or to watch it in HD later on as they please. (I'd prefer $5 or so for VODs, but heh)
2) E-Sports
I think one opportunity MLG can capitalize on is that you host many of the most popular and competitive games. I would be really interested in seeing if you can find a way to try and mix these communities together a bit. It seems a bit unfortunate that most people will be interested in MLG for Halo, or for Starcraft, or for Smash, but few people will be interested in more than one.
A challenge with this is most of us are only interested in the games we play, and since these games are spread among several consoles and such, its unlikely. But if MLG took the time to introduce us to other games and their communities and scenes, it could potentially be very exciting.
I really don't have an idea how, but HuK's "don't worry that's for halo" hilariousness made me really want to take an active interest in some of the stuff you guys offer other than Starcraft.
Perhaps a recent Halo game could be casted by Day9 and a figure from the Halo community, introducing the game to us as people who may not have played it, and how to appreciate it and enjoy it as spectators. HuK vs Select Halo: Reach match? For lawlz.
Edit: JWD did a much better Job expressing the same idea on page 2
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I see the biggest problem as Halo being the main event....obviously SC2 can bring in the bigger better crowd. We just need more room >.<
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This has probably been said many a time, but the latency and drop issues are straight-up unacceptable. It really doesn't matter how good blizzard adapts their current system, as long as that system is not LAN there is more room and potential for hiccups.
I honestly feel for QXC, not because he lost, but because he has to think about that game one. Whether he does or not isn't really the point, its that no player should have to be put in that position.
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1) The commentary was excellent. You, Day9 and DJWheat make a good team. (Please invite them back for Dallas)
2) The delay for Day 1 was very bad. Although potential failure like this is understandable, its really fustrating to viewers that they are not updated on what is going on. The only update we were getting was from team liquid twitter and EG during the downtime
3) I am hapy that MLG updated the bitrate for high stream quality. The only problem was the bitrate was not really the problem just the settings. It felt like the settings was more suitable for FPS games than Starcraft which affects video quality. Glad this was fix on day 2
4) For the last 3-4 matches, the games should be play in booths. This matters more for the last few rounds as there were only 1 game played at a time and crowd can affect gameplay
5) I also like the fact that MLG was showing the players and spectator once in a while. I feel that this was missing from IEM in New York which takes away the 'atmosphere'. Props to MLG for doing this
6) Another thing that i feel that needs to improve is the way the competition places are allocated. I do not have a suggestion for this but i feel that competitive place tickets getting sold out in the first 5 minutes is not ideal as a lot of strong players missout as they didnt click the buy button fast enough. Maybe increase even more places or have some sort of qualifiying tourney?
7) I like the double elimination format to give stronger players more chance to qualify. I wouldnt mind a single elim format if the seedings become more stable and if that give a chance for more palyers/place in the tourney
8) Oh another thing, Select 7 match in a row was a bit crazy, maybe should allow players to take 5-10 minute breaks if they have to play x number of match in a row?
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if possible ON STREAM after each match if we could get a Bracket update ONSCREEN on the stream live... if the commentaters could go over the brackets while they are displayed on the stream not showing the commentaters but the bracket each match by match and show clearly who advances... this would be EXTREMELY helpfull and i feel would make the viewing experience much more enjoyable and give us viewers at home a chance to know whats going on and where our friends that may not be mentioned at all stand in the tournament... i had a buddy playing at MLG DC but i couldn't ever find any info about how he was doing or where he stood in the tourney i had to actually message him in game to find out anything even the bracket links were all messed up... this is my biggest complaint as we just didn't really know what was going on... the commenators did a great job going over them every now and then but not to the full tournaments extent... would be nice if this was displayed on the stream since it seems there's SO MUCH downtime between games actually casted... other than that the games were great, glad to not see a mirror match in the finals this time :D ... one other complaint is the HD pass, during day 1 our HD passholder's stream was the exact same stream as the free one so this was frustrating for people who paid money as well as the stream being delayd over 2 hours... but other than that the event was really great keep up the good work
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All in all I was greatly entertained by the stream and the event.
The delay on friday was quite a pain however but I guess technical difficulties can overcome us all.
I tried to purchase a HD pass through paypal several times but was unable to do so with only an error message from paypal saying.
"We are unable to handle your purchase at this time" or something similar. Luckily the regular stream was good enough quality to watch just a bit annoying that when I actually wanted to pay I wasn't able to.
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Another Suggestion:
I think the casting would benefit from a graphic of the current brackets, showing the match-ups and who won out of how many games, that could pop up on the screen as Day9, Wheat, or you (JP) recap while waiting for the next game.
I only watched the last 5 hours or so, leading the finale. Would be nice to catch up on what happened up to that point. I guess this information was somewhere on the site, but the site was a little confusing to navigate.
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On October 18 2010 02:37 N3rV[Green] wrote:
I see the biggest problem as Halo being the main event....obviously SC2 can bring in the bigger better crowd. We just need more room >.<
Halo built the MLG. Do you see how many players and teams sign up for it? It's their cash cow. If they had to choose between the 2 they'd drop SC2 in a heartbeat for Halo. SC2 has other competitions. MLG is THE competition for Halo. Do some research man...
My only issue was all the dead air time again. Show repeats or replays of other non-casted matches or something. Just don't leave the camera sitting looking at people talking to generic background music. Fill it with something, have one of the Com's do a bracket run down and talk about the matches, upsets and results. Do some player analysis.. anything. Dead air isn't fun.
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I had posted this over on the MLG HD Update, but alas I shall post it here since well it is a feedback thread.
I'm not sure if it would be possible at all, I love some of the commercials (the Old Spices ones are still epic).. but for those who have paid for the HD, it would be amazing if at some of the breaks were able to get some behind the scenes footage of people goofing around and just the general area.
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When we had the players meeting at the beginning, 90% of us were sitting in the back unable to hear exactly what was being said. In general I assume a lot of us knew the rules so it wasn't a big deal, but I might recommend arranging the player meeting outside the convention center, in the hall or something. That, or use a microphone
I would issue noise-cancelling headphones to all the players. I know MLG's console atmosphere tends to have people bring their own stuff, and in regards to keyboard/mouse/mousepad I can agree, but without soundproof booths, I think MLG needs to take a little bit more control of that situation. Your fighting games and shooters tend to be extremely fast paced in the sense where, if a caster says something, the information is irrelevent to the teams' temporary strategy (except for counter-strike, where its slow paced.) With Starcraft, though, hearing a blaringly loud announcement is distracting enough (for me anyway)- the potential to hear a caster could damage that tenfold (not that I'm saying anyone casted did.)
Hopefully these issues are within you and your crews' power to work on, even if its a 2011 thing. I know that Starcraft is kind of thrown in to the corner, maybe haphazardly and as an afterthought compared to the other stages, so you did your best with what you had available. I just hope it gets bigger and better!
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- The 2 hour delay was terrible, obviously.
- The Quality was really bad. I believe the main problem was with in game settings, but it was really really bad.
- Brackets were delayed a very long time. I feel that these need to be updated faster, because they really add a lot of hype to matches when you know someone you like will be facing a good player etc.
- I LOVED the fast replay uploads. Please keep this up!
- It's a shame that inControl wasn't able to cast games, the guy is ridiculously funny. Although I can kind of understand since you never know what the guy is gonna say and it could be bad lol.
-The casting was overall much better then in Raleigh. DjWheat was awesome with day9, and it would be great to see him in Dallas.
- Start upgrading for starcraft 2. More computers for players to practice on, bleachers for people to sit etc.
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Really just echoing a lot of what's already been posted:
-Casting: Simply phenomenal. Day9 + JP / Day9 + DJ Wheat worked really well. You guys were all so professional, filled dead time seamlessly, and stayed energetic throughout such a long cast. Without the strength of the casting, I would not have watched the *entire* tournament. I actually preferred JP to DJ Wheat (JP's watched a *ton* of games, it really shows) but both were great complements to Day9.
-Interviews: Great job with these as well - interesting and relevant questions. It's also great for the players to get to shoutout their sponsors and hopefully attracts more corporate sponsorship.
-Match scheduling for Winner's Bracket Semi Finals: Really great to watch both sets of games, excellent job by whoever was deciding matches to shift things around rather than only allow us to watch one game.
-Booths: As discussed ad nauseum, for major games, players really should have soundproof booths if at all possible. The Huk moment was awesome, but I would hope it doesn't become a regular occurrence. It also casts doubt about what players can hear while playing and potentially earhacking which is always unfortunate.
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im sure plenty of other people mentioned this but give the players sound canceling headphones or something so the crowd does not give away big things.
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Try to get some things to spruce up the actual presentation.
Show brackets, player stats, tidbits on a screen of some sort before going into the game.
Sound proof things. Give everyone little ear nubs and sound muffling headsets to go over top of them. Or at least booths. Noise is not a good thing when you are not supposed to see what your opponent is doing.
I know it was golden with the HuK situation (I loved it), but don't let players talk in game anymore, unless maybe it's paused or just to say "GLHF" or "GG". I mean, really, the other player can just ignore it, but no player should have to be distracted by the other player at any point in the game like that.
The stream on the second day was great, but was bad on the first. Glad it was fixed and hopefully it stays that way in Dallas.
I can't really complain about much else. The whole HuK situation could've been avoided had you guys been paying attention to when the game started. Which is another complaint I have, a couple games started with us just looking at the players playing and not the game, plus some sound volume issues. Not big deals, but they really shouldn't happen. When the game starts, we should be watching the game, not anything else, except for maybe interesting crowd tidbits and player emotions, but that's covered in the bottom right anyway. BTW, that bottom right screen you put over the command grid; boring. Nothing seemed to be happening there except extended showings of the players being very concentrated. Why not show the commentators sometimes or switch it up between players more and the crowd, and when nothing seems interesting, just kick it off?
Seems like a lot of complaining, but I really overall enjoyed it, and I feel like I got $10 worth of enjoyment. Great games, great presentation overall, great casters, venue looked nice, and it seemed very professional.
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Casting was amazing this go around, not that it wasn't last time.. but I didn't have to mute every other game this time. Wheat has an amazing way of asking questions and setting Day9 up using his experience and knowledge, ace casting from him. JP is awesome too though, maybe have Wheat doing interviews post games like JP does while Wheat is casting.
Day 1 stream problems aside, Day9's terrible shirt was very distracting. If your buttoning that high, and buttoning the collar down you need a tie or you look like a war vet at church. While it was more professional I kind of liked the handsomenerd t's and blazers.
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Make some kind of alternative stream which doesn't require octoscape. For whatever reason my octoscape goes crazy and starts using all my upload speed, preventing whatever little upload speed i need for my download speed to work probably, and in the end resulting in it getting choppy and extremely laggy. Having to watch mirror streams and being unable to use the HD function is just bleh.
Also showing the full day1 right before day2 would be an awesome idea!
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I have no complaints about this event, (though i missed the stream issues on the first day) - the only thing i REALLY REALLY hope you start doing is to add VoDs (and no not in the form of yourself casting over a replay) - We need VoDs, 2 weeks after the event is fine, not HD is fine, aslong as we can enjoy the vent becuase i'm sure i'm not the only one who can't sit and watch every game due to other things. Replays is a good start, atleast..
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To be honest, I think JP has an unfitting voice, or he should at least practice on it. Maybe it's just me, but his voice put me off, it sounded uninteresting, sometimes it was even hard to understand, because he mumbled (Not everyone is a native speaker  ). This is nothing that can't be fixed, my advice would be to try sounding a bit more enthusiastic, lighter, mumbling less, stuff like that.
Big points go to DJ Wheat, wonderful co-caster, it's way easier to listen to this voice, he frequently asked questions to Day9 about the situation, so it didn't feel like Day9 was stealing all the attention, but more responding to his caster. If possible, MLG should try to keep the Day9/Wheat Combo, they make a great team and should definitely keep working together.
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I didn't really like the rules. The system with looser's bracket is fine but for the person from looser bracket to win 2 straight Bo3 seems a bit unfair. The WB finalist should have an advantage but it should rather to start with 1-0 in a Bo7 series or something along those lines.
Not sure about the extended series either but don't really know a better way to deal with that. Maybe a Bo5 with a 1 game advantage to the one who knocked the other person to LB.
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I have to say I enjoy the fact that the replays are already avalible, this is of course a HUGE improvement over the last MLG event, I only wish there was another way to download them. This is great if you want to watch a particular match, but its a lot of work if you want to download them all, or download all of a specific players replays
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1) Casting was fantastic. I missed out on seeing if Incontrol casted, but you and Wheat did a great job.
I greatly enjoyed the SoTG pre-game (then again every podcast has been hilarious, JP is a fantastic host.) The actual interviews were nice, but I wouldn't be that aggrieved if they disappeared due to time constraints etc.
2) Maybe showing a picture of the brackets occasionally would be a nice small touch.
3) Vods as soon as you can. Understandably you're busy as hell, but there's something special about watching the games right when the tournament happens. At least for me, I don't have as much interest in watching the vods 3-4 days after the tournament.
4) Mapgirl; Meh. Felt a bit G4tvish.
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Great job recovering from the technical difficulties throughout this event.
1. Stick to a schedule and update the video stream and web page with any changes to the schedule.
2. Please, for the love of Starcraft, no more JP commentating unless you significantly improve vocal delivery and accuracy.
3. "Onroaching" is not a word. It is an abomination created by the unholy union of "approaching" and "oncoming."
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Congrats to MLG for getting overall better.
I liked:
- The availability of replays (I'm not sure the players are that trilled though)
- The quality of the casters (I wish I would've seen Incontrol casting a bit)
- The fact that we could hear the crowd (really set the mood for the games)
- The players and games
- The double elimination format (although it's still confusing for me)
- The LQ stream was good. The HQ stream was decent. No lag.
What could've been better:
- The recording streamed after day 1 should've been a full replay of day 1. Day 1 times were really bad for at least Europe
- B.Net (Not in MLG control but maybe it was not b.net but rather the quality of internet at the location?)
- The technical problems and delays (Set a plan how to handle certain failures)
- The HQ stream had worst ingame quality then when streaming camera content.
Overall, this MLG set a very high bar for any SC2 lan event. GG
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Obviously the things that were discussed on the newest state of the game podcast. While i was not there, i would like to comment on the quality of the stream in general. It was really bad the first day, even not considering the delay. The 2nd day, is was ok. (a lot improved, but...)
The big problem i saw was the use of different contrast/gamma settings, and a sharpening filter, and mostly the sharpening filter.
Now i already made a very large post discussing the video quality and what sharpening does:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=161145¤tpage=2#28
But i would like to reiterate something about the use of sharpening.
Added spoiler tag for those who don't care why, and only want the POINTS.
+ Show Spoiler +For each "level" of sharpening that is applied, the size of the image goes up substantially. Lets take this image for example: http://www.techpowerup.com/img/07-05-19/starcraft-2-20070519000501107.jpgIf i take it, and apply a sharpening filter, it goes from 349kb to 423kb. For those who don't know what sharpening is: "Sharpening is the detailed method of increasing the contrast between two objects, usually isolated to the point at where they meet. What this means is that to sharpen an image, you simply darken the lines and lighten the areas around them. If the lines are light, you brighten them even more and darken the areas around them." In star craft, the increased detail level (with terrain and units) means there are a ton of lines in any given picture. Adding even the smallest amount of sharpening can cause an increase of size, without much more perceived quality increase. So, sharpening hurts the size of AN image. How does that relate to streaming? Since you are streaming at a very limited resolution (640x360 for free stream i believe. HD, i suspect, is the same.), this means that sharpening is applied to a much smaller image, making the image even more pixelated then before. Lets this image for example. http://i53.tinypic.com/fnsgly.jpgIt is 949kb original, and when compressed for the web, its 747kb. But, as for reference, Im going with the 949kb version. Im using photoshop CS5 and adding sharpening filters. After applying the standard sharpen technique, the image goes from .95mb to 1.1mb. Then, after another application, 1.1mb to 1.4mb. Then, from 1.4mb to 1.9mb, after a 3rd. Image image size stays the same, @ 1920x1200, and yet the image basically doubles in size. Now, lets scale down the entire image down to 640x400. The new image is: http://i54.tinypic.com/otixcp.jpgAnd has a size of 152kb. With 1 application, its now 200kb. With 2, its 258kb, and with 3, its 326kb. Now that we know what the effect of sharpening is, lets look at the quality of the two different images with 1 sharpening filter applied. Large(1.1mb): http://i55.tinypic.com/14987bb.jpgSmall(192kb): http://i55.tinypic.com/i6d1s1.jpgNow, i took a 3rd sample. The large photo, sharpening applied, then scaled down to a smaller image: http://i56.tinypic.com/v45d2t.jpgAnd its size came to be 162kb. If you look at the original, and this new image, you can see somewhat of a sharpening effect on the image. Its very subtle, but with only an increase of 10kb over the original image size of the smaller image. Now, im making a point of this because it is important to note when the sharpening is being applied. MLG applies it before the image goes out, a sort of "post production". This means, that the highest level of sharpening is applied. Lets get down to the nitty gritty and reassert why its important to have the smallest image possible when broadcasting. If we take all of these images, and compress them, down to a very very small picture size, we can see in my original post Meaning that the image, becomes even more pixelated and the detail is lost, comparing to the original image. (note, that images are different then video, but the same theory can be applied) However, i must also note that BIG IMPORTANT PART: Most people do watch the videos in fullscreen. Which means that some sort of image scaling must occur. If we take a look at the examples of the wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_scalingMore then likely a liner/biliner interpolation method is used. This is the most common when it comes to image scaling. But, the quality goes down as well when its scaled (which is to be expected), and because its scaled, the sharpening (which is now pixelated) has become even worse.
The scaling and the use of a lower bitrate and a sharpening filter, all mean that the final image is going to become unreasonably blocky, distorted, and horrendous. This is why a so many people complained on the first day.
The effect is still there. Even though they have backed off on the amount of sharpening, its negative side effects basically build on each other, and a lower overall viewer experience is had, when compared to an image which isn't sharpened.
So, remember kids. When your going to be doing some sort of broadcasting to the masses, DONT EVER USE SHARPENING EVER!, because while it may look a little bit better in theory, the fact that you have a limited amount of bandwidth, and the broadcast size means for a higher amount of scaling. These all lead to a very bad viewing experience.
THEEND
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-Day 1 was pretty horrendous. The delays were annoying and the updates regarding the delays were few and far between.
-I still dont really like the tournament structure and I don't think it 'respects' the players too well. You should really think about stretching the tournament out over three days. You could REALLY tell that players were getting tired towards the end. Select especially.
-The 'extended series' isn't that great either. It destroys map selection and gives the former winner a huge advantage. Winners and Losers are separate brackets. They should not blend together in any way.
-Do a better job of separating players so they don't hear crowd/casters. Obviously having korean style booths could be expensive, but logistically i think it could be done better. I wasn't at the actual event, but it seemed like the players area was right next to the casting desk and spectator area.
-Make a rule to keep mid-game chatting to a minimum. While it does create great moments(its halo, don't worry), it is pretty unprofessional overall. Start of game should be fine for things like "gg gl hf" and even shoutouts to sponsors/teammates, but then it should be silence until the end in which the loser can say things like "gg", "wp", etc. Obviously things like "pp" can be allowed in the middle of the game. The players hsouldnt be having a friggin convo, though.
-The casting and coverage was absolutely amazing. djWheat is by far the most professional caster in esports. No offense JP, but I think that djWheat and Day9 should be the 'A-team' casting duo. You did a great job with interviews and content, but I think that the actual gameplay should be casted by those two.
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Don't bother with that 'Last Tournament Recap' thing again unless you're going to put serious time in getting the clips. Most of it was just HD/Husky doing the hype shouting thing they do with some tanks moving around.
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On October 18 2010 03:10 Zealotdriver wrote:
Great job recovering from the technical difficulties throughout this event.
1. Stick to a schedule and update the video stream and web page with any changes to the schedule.
2. Please, for the love of Starcraft, no more JP commentating unless you significantly improve vocal delivery and accuracy.
3. "Onroaching" is not a word. It is an abomination created by the unholy union of "approaching" and "oncoming."
I think the word he said was 'encroaching', which is a real word.
I thought JP was good, but not as good as he was at Raleigh. Not sure why.
I think the most important thing for me, as a Canadian who will probably never get a chance to show up in person and will always have to rely on the stream... make sure the stream quality is good and maybe increase the quality of the HD/HQ stream?
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Australia7069 Posts
My only complaint was blocking on the LQ stream. In my opinion i think you'd be better dropping the resolution and other settings to properly accomodate the limited bandwidth available on the LQ stream. I'd rather not be able to read the text properly then not be able to see anything whena ction was happening.
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On October 18 2010 02:01 Energizer wrote:
COMMENTARY
I thought the Day9 and DJ commentary was excellent, with Sean bringing in the sc2 knowledge and hype while DJ brought up perfect questions to ask while being very motivated himself while you JP were on the floor dealing with interviews. I personally thought this was a much better improvement over the last commentary group.
STREAM
through both day 1 and 2, the stream seemed in both HD and Standard to be blocky. Not sure if this was due to in-game settings or some other factor, but definitely something to look into. Day 2 was however a lot better then the first day.
OTHER
Honestly, there were a few times I wouldn't much care to see a player's face/reaction in-game with their pic displayed at the lower right, as this does remove some intel for players (IE what upgrade does that unit have?) perhaps keep it for say, the first 5 minuets, then periodically put it back up to get their reactions in certain points in the game momentarily.
Oh, and I loved how you uploaded the replays on-demand for fans, great feature to have available :D (that mothership rush deserved a second viewing), but would like the brackets to be more RSS friendly, as there were times they wouldn't be updated for quite some time.
Oh, and perhaps something to look into, maybe noise canceling headphones for crowds? I mean for early stages in the game the crowd doesn't matter to much due to how many games are going on, but when theres only say, 3 left, the crowd could often give a big hint as to whats going to happen (IE cheers in 2 minuets would single proxy or cheese of some kind, or in huk's case a mothership rush)
I can pretty much just echo this post as I agree wholeheartedly.
My biggest concern was the streaming issues, but you got it fixed en the end. The battle.net issues should just highlight the need for a SC2 Lan kit.
Oh, and I REALLY loved the Day9 and DJWHEAT combo, it was so mature, professional and just worked!
thanks for a great event, my 10$ spent was well worth it (eventually
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My thoughts:
Good:
1. I thought casting talent was excellent. Day9 is really coming into his own as a professional casting talent. Both duos were awesome, but if I had to choose, I would prefer to see Day9 with djWheat. I thought Wheat did an excellent job asking questions and letting Day9 insert top-flight analysis.
2. Day 2 streaming quality was better.
3. I like that you let fans vote on matches to watch, and then selected those. Great addition.
Bad:
1. You need to solve the technical issues with streaming. I know you guys know this, but it shouldn't something you have to figure out as things are getting ready. If anything, start the stream HOURS earlier and just show the crowd. But at least that gives you plenty of time to work out the kinks. (And people love those crowd shots, especially if there is a female in the building.)
2. WAY too much downtime. Instead of streaming NOTHING for several hours while you are waiting for the next round, in between matches, stream some replays of last round's key matchups. I know you need to give the casting team a break, but just let a replay run while someone (decently knowledgeable) moves the observer cam - heck, just get a volunteer fan, or something. Stream that instead of nothing.
3. Brackets need to be updated REAL-TIME. It was completely unprofessional to not have updated brackets, particularly as Day9 was trying to comment on them during the show. I mean how long does it take some MLG guy to update them? It should be updated immediately. I can understand a delay for the replays and the match info links, but the result?
4. Really need to fix the sharpness issue on the streams. Quality was horrible.
5. Have someone on the ball making sure the stream is showing the games instead of something else.
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Give SC2 the benches that were in the Tekken 6/Brawl area ;o they hvae back rests so that our spines aren't shooting out of the top of our heads.
Media: I'm trying to figure out why the few media members directly assigned for SC2 weren't alloewd into the players area for interviews or to record any sort of action whatsoever. During games there were 6-7 WoW players who pulled up chairs and even you yourself JP was setting up over Select's shoulder to watch them play. If Media members are going to be distracting then they probably aren't qualified, but it would have been nice for people with a media pass to do their job when open players who were out after 2 rounds or WoW players were allowed to hulk over idra's shoulder mid game. That or have some consistency and make it so WoW players who are warming up are there to warm up and not pull chairs up behind select/idra.
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MLG DC improved over Raleigh by leaps and bounds, but comparing the content provided for Starcraft vs Halo there seems to be a lot more that can be added to make Starcraft's show better.
** The prerecorded interview to fill time was a great idea (I only saw the Idra one). Though, I don't know if it was the chairs you were sitting in, but you seemed very uptight and rigid during it. Just relax and chill, you asked great questions and did a very nice job.
** The decision to show the crowd and players while the casters were just chatting in between games was also a great decision.
** The casters seemed more comfortable this time, but without somebody like Husky or HD the duo seemed very, very, nerdy (Tasteless and Artosis are a great example of hosts that are intelligent on the SC2 scene and yet still seem like normal guys hanging out and having fun). Being a casual fan I already take enough shit from my friends for watching pro gaming and the last thing I want are the hosts perpetuating that basement-dwelling, nerdy stereotype.
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to do list for the next event:
- get booths for the semis and finals
- make sure that the commentators (which are awesome btw) get better makeup (Iam serious. they look unprofessional with shiny noses. and the casters you got are the opposite of unprofessional!)
- dont force the players to play so many games on one day (like select for example).
- give the players/teams more room/opportunity to promote their sponsors/organisations.
all in all: if you spread the tournament a bit more out, go more interview heavy and let them breathe between the matches then your events will be even more exciting!
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I watched the stream for the entirety of the two days, and I really liked it. There were, of course, both negative and positive things in regards to the overall experience.
The negatives:
-Obviously, the delayed start on the first day
-Not enough post game interviews with players to "fill time"
-Ambiguous (at best) announcements in regards to exactly "when" the next match would be taking place.
-The brackets were not shown enough
The positives:
-Excellent casting from both combos (Day9+JP/Day9+Wheat)
-Hearing the crowds reactions to what was going on in the games added to the atmosphere of watching via stream
-The interviews which did take place were awesome
-The double elimination format, it simultaneously rewards someone for winning out in the winners bracket while giving players another chance to get back to the grand finals.
Suggestions:
-Post series interviews with players would be awesome if questions were asked that allowed players to articulate their thought processes during certain events in the series. For example, I would have loved to hear Idra describe what went through his head when he flew that overseer through Last Shadow's base on scrap station and saw nothing.
-Give an ETA on when the next series will begin on the stream. Obviously this would be just an estimate, but it will give people a general idea of how long they have before the next series begins. Either an ETA or status updates letting us know if players are even at the stations yet, etc.
-Fix the voiceover for lost temple, the narrator talks about "high yield minerals" when the camera pans and zooms in on the non-high yield naturals.
-Show the brackets more and update them more frequently.
-Keep up the good work!
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Wheat was awesome. Best part of the cast for me for sure.
Also (but less important!): Booths + heaphones. And I'm not asking for good quality stream, but just normal please
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I'd like to see the HQ stream handled better. There were a few times during the tournament when my stream froze, so I refreshed and when i eventually got it to work again, it was the low quality version which meant I had to go back to the upgrade to HD page and re-enter my email and code. The time it takes to do this meant I missed a few matches, (including the second game of the final) as it always takes 4-5+ page refreshes (and a 30 second or so wait for each one while it loads) before the stream comes up.
I'd rather see the HD pass linked with my mlgpro.com account, so as long as i'm logged in while watching the stream will always be HD. Or at least a "high quality" button on the page that's only clickable once you've bought a pass.
Technical issues aside I enjoyed the stream and will definitely be investing in the HD pass for future events as well.
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I think it was a great tournament in general and huge improvement over Raleigh, and most of my thoughts have been covered by others in the thread.
But one thing that is pretty huge and hasn't been mentioned much is that the tournament was insanely rushed. Too few matches on the first day and far too many on the second. SeleCT is an absolute beast to be able to keep playing so well after so much time, that is a really rare thing. You could see the signs of fatigue in the players who had played far fewer games and it was not a good thing.
If it wasn't for SeleCT being such a machine the quality of the games would have been vastly lower than they were. It was sad to see him have to battle through so many players then falter at the last step against Idra. If the games had been spaced out more and given the players time to prepare more the quality of the play would have been much better and the final in particular would have been a much closer game.
It really is unfair on the players to have them play so many games in succession.
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I missed day 1, but i caught several hours of day2, i was pretty happy with the free stream, iw as also ecstatic when i heard a replay pack was out the NIGHT OF the event. props for that one
sound proof headphones seems necessity. and imo, $60 seems a little expensive, ontop of travel, food, stay and misc.
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On October 18 2010 03:20 GGQ wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2010 03:10 Zealotdriver wrote:
Great job recovering from the technical difficulties throughout this event.
1. Stick to a schedule and update the video stream and web page with any changes to the schedule.
2. Please, for the love of Starcraft, no more JP commentating unless you significantly improve vocal delivery and accuracy.
3. "Onroaching" is not a word. It is an abomination created by the unholy union of "approaching" and "oncoming." I think the word he said was 'encroaching', which is a real word. I thought JP was good, but not as good as he was at Raleigh. Not sure why. I think the most important thing for me, as a Canadian who will probably never get a chance to show up in person and will always have to rely on the stream... make sure the stream quality is good and maybe increase the quality of the HD/HQ stream?
Perhaps he was trying to say encroaching and simply pronounced the 'en' incorrectly and omitted the hard c. However, trying to say a word and actually saying it are not the same. As far as I know he is an adult native English speaker, so it is reasonable to expect him to use real words and pronounce every word correctly.
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I watched the games live from my dorm room.
I think everybody's talked about this, but please please please make sure the Dallas stream starts on time. I skipped dinner at the cafeteria to watch the stream and all I got was some rock music and the MLG logo!
Another thing that would be really helpful is if you gave us an estimate of when the next match would be. This way I'm not staring at the screen as it pans around the audience for twenty minutes.
Lastly, it'd be good if you were more proactive in updating the brackets. Since the stream can obviously only cover one game at a time, it'd be nice to have an up-to-date picture of how the tournament is shaping up.
Overall though, great tournament, great entertainment. Good job!
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1. Commercial breaks
You could do so much more during commercial breaks. Map previews that were aired before matches could be played after commercials. Make those previews even longer, with small bits of players taking about that map and why they like/dislike it. Show brackets before/after commercials too. Break doesn't have to be all about repeating ads.
2. Commentary
Awesome, awesome, awesome. Out of all events I've watched in the past I had the most fun listening to this event. Audio commentary definetly made up for low quality of in-game footage. Kudos to JP, Day9 and djwheat.
3. Interviews
I want more of them! I greatly enjoyed JP's interview with iNcontroL. Make more please! Interview with Huk would be awesome. Heck, interview people that were there and weren't necessary playing. Gunrun, HotBid, I'm pretty sure you could make some short interviews with them and play them during commercial break after ads. Interviewing random people from the crowd would be cool too, ask them who's their favorite player and why.
4. Quality
First day was terrible. Second day, little better but still bad. In-game video was barely watchable. You could increase bitrate to 10mbps and it'd still be horrible. Bitrate is not really that important. I'm able to stream in-game video in 720p with 800kpbs, don't understand why you have so low quality with 2.2mbps.
Good luck with future events!
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On October 18 2010 03:18 Siffer wrote:
-Day 1 was pretty horrendous. The delays were annoying and the updates regarding the delays were few and far between.
-I still dont really like the tournament structure and I don't think it 'respects' the players too well. You should really think about stretching the tournament out over three days. You could REALLY tell that players were getting tired towards the end. Select especially.
-The 'extended series' isn't that great either. It destroys map selection and gives the former winner a huge advantage. Winners and Losers are separate brackets. They should not blend together in any way.
-Do a better job of separating players so they don't hear crowd/casters. Obviously having korean style booths could be expensive, but logistically i think it could be done better. I wasn't at the actual event, but it seemed like the players area was right next to the casting desk and spectator area.
-Make a rule to keep mid-game chatting to a minimum. While it does create great moments(its halo, don't worry), it is pretty unprofessional overall. Start of game should be fine for things like "gg gl hf" and even shoutouts to sponsors/teammates, but then it should be silence until the end in which the loser can say things like "gg", "wp", etc. Obviously things like "pp" can be allowed in the middle of the game. The players hsouldnt be having a friggin convo, though.
-The casting and coverage was absolutely amazing. djWheat is by far the most professional caster in esports. No offense JP, but I think that djWheat and Day9 should be the 'A-team' casting duo. You did a great job with interviews and content, but I think that the actual gameplay should be casted by those two.
Why? Chatting isn't unproffesional at all and it makes the players seem more human.
I really enjoyed MLG, I even stayed up until 3AM my time watching Day 1, hopefully the video quality can be a bit better, but yeah definately give better times of when games are going to be, I was sitting around because I didn't want to miss anything, but it was like 20 minutes later before it started.
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Just some negatives, sorry. Enjoyed most everything!
-Extended series should go imo, although I'm happy to hear why it should stay if MLG is really that committed to it. (Shameless self-promotion, with some good discussion from MLG defenders.)
-If you keep extended series, please explain what happens in a rematch grand final. Does it just become a bo7, like it would in a rematch in LB, potentially giving the WB player less of an advantage? Or does it become a bo7 + bo3 or something like that, reinstating the disadvantage that extended series is designed to give to the LB player?
-But that's moot, because you should get rid of extended series.
-Cutting to commercials from time to time makes sense, of course, but if you're not going to do that, you should switch to ongoing matches when the one you're broadcasting ends. I don't need to listen to the commentators talk for 20 minutes while all these great players start new games that I could be watching.
-At the very least, keep your commentators up-to-date during these massive breaks, so that we know what's going on in all the matches that you're not showing us. It would be even better if you could do this with up-to-date brackets, so that we don't have to read the liveblog, check the online brackets (which were completely out of date almost all the time), listen to the commentators, and read the ticker just to try to piece together the current results.
-Day 2 was already too long for LB players. With the move to 128 players for Dallas, either the format needs to change to groups (or even swiss or something if you just want to be different) with a cut to single elim, or things need to be spread over three days (or both).
-No need for canned map overviews. I'd rather have your very talented commentators explain the features of the map that are relevant to the upcoming game. Tell us about the impact the map has on the particular matchup and on the players' preferred strategies.
-I like Machine, but I don't really need to see every single game he plays. What was up with that?
Edit: Agree with the above, chat is fine, there's no need to prohibit it.
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The inbetween interviews with Greg and Geoff were awesome. Would be great to see those with as many players as possible spread throughout the weekend, even with lesser known or up&coming players.
Cheers for the great show!
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It should not be possible for someone to have to go into the finals match after up to 12 Bo3 games straight against someone that didn't. This game is mentally taxing like no other and it will never result in great final matches this way.
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I watched the free stream on Saturday. I honestly don't have any major complaints, the quality was fantastic for a free service and I thought everyone (Day9, JP, DJWheat) did a great job casting.
My only criticism was that I had no real idea how long the "brief commercial breaks" would be. I don't mind that it took time to get people set up and ready between games, I just wish we were told whether it would be 5 minutes or 15 minutes so that I'd know if I had time to run to the store real quick or take care of some things around the house. I remember missed half of one game because the break was a lot shorter than I expected.
Overall though, great work. It was clear that everyone involved put a lot of effort into making it a great tournament.
Thanks for some awesome Saturday entertainment!
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Thanks for the great event, there were really a huge amount of high quality games played over the week end.
You got my glued to the stream from friday 7pm to saturday 7:30pm non-stop.
I can't wait for MLG Dallas!
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First and foremost Day 9 needs gel on his hair. LOTS and LOTS of gel.
Other than that the website layout could really be improved, it's hard to navigate and not very intuitive.
Awesome tournament, loved it.
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Casting was pretty much perfect. Wheat and JP both are a really good complement to Day9.
The tournament really, really needs more than 2 days to run its course if it's going to be that long/big/double eliminination. I don't think it's ok to burn out players like that. Give them an honest chance to recoup so that the final important games aren't ruined by player exhaustion. Proper restream during off hours or faster vods would be nice too.
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Youre probably aware of this, but;
The live stream on friday was like 1,5-2 hrs late.
During (most?) of this time there were no brackets either. Why can't we see the brackets a couple days in advance instead of 2 hours after the event started?
In several games the stream froze/crashed and this always seemed to happen right at the start of a big fight and then when the stream came back online the ingame view was gone and we got to see the players and had to guess which one won.
I really love the fact MLG gives a rebroadcast, but the friday restream failed and showed a JP-inControl interview looping for hours.
Also, maybe rebroadcasting it twice could be better.
A couple of friends wanted to see MLG, but day2 was broadcasted from 16:00 on saturday CET until 01:30 on sunday CET. I actually stayed home to watch but most friends went out cause it was a saturday and by the time they woke up around 13:00 the rebroadcast was pretty much already over.
Day9 is a good caster, but people are getting bored of him. It would have been nice to see JP and djWheat cast together, or even inControl (didnt he say he wanted to cast a few games?) or some others.
Also some other obvious ones;
Get soundproof headphones or booths
Bigger area for live viewers and more seats
+ Show Spoiler +Oh and;
BIGGER PRICE POULES
How can so much money go to Halo players, that game is so bad :S
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I watched the free stream from home, and the quality on day 2 was excellent. Thank you so much for providing a watchable free stream (none of this ESL tiny window crap). A good free stream will help get new people into the game, so props to you all.
I had no problems with Octoshape, at least not more than I experience with UStream or LiveStream's viewers. It would be good to make it clear that it's going to use some of your upload bandwidth; not everyone has a net speed monitor installed. I understand why it does use P2P, makes it much cheaper for you to stream and the stream is free anyhow.
The MLG website is a bit confusing. Can we have an easier to find schedule that isn't buried somewhere on a different page than the stream? When there's a commercial break or "we'll be back soon" screen, can we have some indication of how long till the next game?
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One thing that MLG somewhat lacks is spectator comfort. I have been to multiple events and spectating is often an uncomfortable mass. There needs to be a more organized way for spectators to watch rather than all sitting on the floor or standing in a huge crowd.
On a side note, JP you should cast more. I know DJWheat was a special guest and all, but that doesn't mean we can't have 3 casters like the GSL. I don't know...maybe casting works better in pairs, but I think you bring a lot of stability to casting because of how calm you are compared to Sean. Good ying/yang mix there
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On October 18 2010 04:27 magha wrote:
Day9 is a good caster, but people are getting bored of him. It would have been nice to see JP and djWheat cast together, or even inControl (didnt he say he wanted to cast a few games?) or some others.
NO. day9 is by far the best caster. he understands the game better then any of the other casters so he needs to cast all the games and his back up guy be switched around.
id like to see husky at dallas.
someone else mentioned dragging out the tourny longer. that would be a great idea. have the winners bracket final, loser bracket final, winner of loser bracket final vs loser of winners bracket final, and the final game on sunday.
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There was alot of good things, but Ill just list the bad things to keep it short.
1. Seemed very unproffesional playing the finals an a crappy table like that, dirty + wires everywhere. I think noise cancelling headphones would be good when there is so much on the line, and a booth where all semis and finals would be played + the bigger name matches in earlier rounds.
2. The delay between games was pretty bad, especially on the first day. You have 10+ matches to choose at all times in day one, yet one match ends and we wait 20 minutes for the next one. The 150 minute delay didn't help either. We really didn't see many players play on day 1, which kinda made me angry since we easily could have twice as many and you'd still fit the commercials in.
3. I can't help to say you guys need chairs. Just plastic ones like in BW. They cost 5 bucks a piece when you buy in bulk, so it really shouldn't be that expensive. Also, I think you should look at the crowd more often, when the game starts there isn't much going on so it's fine to do that.
I just want to add that casting was great. Day9 was his usual self, and I was suprised how good of a caster DJ Wheat is, and JP did a great job too.
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On October 18 2010 04:39 beat farm wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2010 04:27 magha wrote:
Day9 is a good caster, but people are getting bored of him. It would have been nice to see JP and djWheat cast together, or even inControl (didnt he say he wanted to cast a few games?) or some others.
NO. day9 is by far the best caster. he understands the game better then any of the other casters so he needs to cast all the games and his back up guy be switched around. id like to see husky at dallas. lol, first you say you want Day9 because he understands the game, then you say you want Husky. Make up your mind.
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suggestions for mlg
1. please start on time
2. need soundproof headphones
3. make blizzard give you guys sc2 with lan
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Small comment: I'm pretty sure that some of the "o'clock positions" that mapgirl gave were way off. I couldn't rewind to make sure so I hope I don't sound like a jerk for saying so.
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I'm sure you all know about the mistakes on the first day, so I won't mention any of it.
However I thought the improvement from Day 1 to Day 2 was great, more live blog updates, better quality, and almost non-stop action.
I really liked the interviews with the players between games and after winning that was awesome!
The casting I thought was great, I really enjoy Day9 and JP, also Djwheat with Day9 was awesome also, so not much to improve on there keep doing what you guys are doing for that.
If Blizzard gives out a tournament lan, that will get rid of that problem.
And last Im not really sure how I feel about everyone saying get a booth for the final players, sure I don't want them getting tipped off by the audience, but getting the crowd involved is the best thing to do for the event I think. Having comments of the players(like Huk) to the audience and having the audience being able to see the players during the game I think gives more connection.
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I only watched on Day 2 for the most part so everything looked pretty good to me by then.
One thing I did find an annoyance was some of the break time. Someone would say we'll be right back in 5,10,15 minutes etc. but the actual break would be much longer. I understand there are always delays and technical things to get through but it would be greatly appreciated if a voice or a text overlay could pop in every once in awhile to try and give an update on the actual time the games might be back on.
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On October 18 2010 04:44 Pyrthas wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2010 04:39 beat farm wrote:On October 18 2010 04:27 magha wrote:
Day9 is a good caster, but people are getting bored of him. It would have been nice to see JP and djWheat cast together, or even inControl (didnt he say he wanted to cast a few games?) or some others.
NO. day9 is by far the best caster. he understands the game better then any of the other casters so he needs to cast all the games and his back up guy be switched around. id like to see husky at dallas. lol, first you say you want Day9 because he understands the game, then you say you want Husky. Make up your mind.
day9 understands the game and husky provides good entertainment=good combo
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On October 18 2010 01:40 itmeJP wrote:
If you watched at home all weekend, tell us what you would like to see on the stream.
Without wanting to sound like a complete douche (I'll probably fail, but I do feel this needs to be said), I'd need a working stream before I could tell you whether what was on it was worth watching. The free stream was working fine (at least for the 30 seconds or so that I watched), so I immediately paid my $10 (which worked out as upwards of 6 whole GBP) for the HD stream, and after that the best I got was 10 seconds of streaming before all downloading completely ceased, at which point I could refresh the browser and get another 10 seconds. And that was during the times when it actually acknowledged that a stream even existed (while others were talking about moments during the match, I was being greeted with a 'No Stream' message). And there was no option to just watch the free stream instead - which I knew was working.
Frankly I'm happy enough for MLG to keep the money, because not only was it next to nothing (you can easily pay more for a shitty takeaway meal) but also because it supports esports. I definitely think it's a good thing that such tournaments exist, so I'm happy that I could be part of the funding for it. But based on this experience there's no way I'll pay again. And this is coming from somebody who was sufficiently satisfied with the GomTV stream to pay for it again for GSL2!
So yeah, fix the streams (just make sure you don't cross them!). It sucks that I can't give other feedback, but judging by the tech forum posts, I'm far from the only one to have issues.
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Get some booths for the semi-finals.
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Free stream had decent quality, wish it was higher and not octoshape.
What I really want is more games streamed. What about having a few cast teams. IE Day9+JP, HD+Husky, and another one and a few different "channels" to watch different games on. With So many games going on at the same team would be nice to have more streamed and casted
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There was so little seating for SC2 compared to the crowd size and the speakers weren't strong enough for more than half of the crowd to hear anything.
I don't think the players should be sitting as close to the fans. Those end stations were right there with everyone crowded down the sides watching. I think a curtain or something should be behind the monitors so there aren't visual distractions. Fans could still watch from behind them but aren't going to be a distraction. Definitely make players use noise-canceling headphones also.
A whiteboard should be put up and updated with bracket along with times for each round. As a spectator I had no clue when anything was happening. That goes for the other games too. I had friends playing in the SSBB and everyone had to continuously ask when the next round started or the finals. I missed the SC2 finals because I didn't know when it started.
I don't think the National harbor was the best place to hold the event. It was such a high class area that the general MLG fans weren't going to actually enjoy it. It looked amazing, the Gaylord was amazing, but the price on everything suited someone who could actually afford to pay $300 a night staying there. I ran into many others who looked around at the places to eat and realized there wasn't anywhere to eat without spending $20-30 on a meal for 1 person, some were lucky enough to order pizza before dominos said they weren't taking any more orders. The only place to get bottled drinks was the small shop across from the convention center and they were $2.50 each. I slept in a car in a parking garage friday night and ate one meal between the two days besides the free foods being promoted.
I'd suggest selling cheap bottled water inside so everyone isn't getting dehydrated from only drinking dr. pepper. Try to get a few food stands up selling pizza/sandwiches/hotdogs/burgers/whatever so fans can grab something to eat without having to drive 20 minutes like the case was at MLG DC. I'm sure there's places that would love to be selling food in a big room with hundreds of teen and low 20s guys in a place where the cheapest place to eat within a 10 minute walk is selling $15 burgers. The whole area was just too expensive.
It was my 1st MLG, and I'd gladly go to any other that I had the opportunity. Great environment.
Forgot to add that I think the games being played and what everyone sees should have a delay of several minutes so nothing can be tipped by a crowd or commentators.
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Live attendee for all of Day 2:
First of all I had a great time. Having all the players mingling with the crowd instead of in some secluded area was great. Casting was superb and the crowd was indeed epic.
Now for the criticisms.
Please post bracket updates in a graphic format in between games! Hell a guy with a ladder who has to update a large real life bracket has a certain amount of drama to it. Its pretty silly how un-updated the ticker at the bottom of the screen was. Usually the way I could tell the bracket info was from who was being called for the next round. Or HuK running through the crowd giving high fives. He must have 2-0'd Kiwi pretty quickly.
It didn't take long at all for the crowd to reach what you called epic levels. I hope all the higher ups at MLG are beginning to realize that SC2 deserves a bit more recognition in terms of seating and priority. It was obviously silly how little seating there was and hopefully all the pictures and video will show that.
Honestly though, the only thing that was truly disappointing was the tournament format. This format seems highly tuned towards the players. It's very fair. The more you win, the less you play. However, to be honest, if players want to play a tournament for themselves they can do so online on any night. MLG should be for the fans with respect and consideration for the players. Watching two two and out semi-finals is silly and anticlimactic. Please consider using the winners/loosers bracket structure on Day 1 and then moving Day 2 to a more traditional tournament bracket cumulating in Bo5 and Bo7 matches.
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1. More DJWheat w/ Day9. Or HD/Husky, since they are always entertaining.
2. For the love of god get some damn chairs for the spectators, I feel sorry for those people if they actually paid to sit on the floor.
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add husky to the commentator group he brings in the comedy
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It was a great event I watched it from HD stream. The casters were great. Both you and djWheat are great casters and complement day9 very well (some people seem keen on HD/Husky, but IMO MLG went with the best possible casters. HD/Husky are great at shouting, while your commentators are great at commentating the game.). There were a lot of great games and I would definitely call the event a success.
Some things that I would have liked:
1. Stream on 1st day could have been better. Not sure what went wrong with settings (contrast+sharpness), but something went wrong and of course there was the 2hr delay. I'm sure you know this went wrong and it's difficult to manage, but just thought I'd mention it. ESL is becoming known for never being ready on time, I hope MLG won't follow in their footsteps.
2. The interviews with e.g. Incontrol and Idra were great. Wished you would have done more of these with players.
3. There was a little too much downtime. I'm not sure why you couldn't jump into set 2 or set 3 of another series when you had 20min of downtime. I realize you need to air commercials, but when they have looped the gum, old-spice and beef jerky commercial 4 times it feels like mere filler.
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Going to complain about the press thing (I did it in the other thread):
I got a press badge, had this whole 'orientation' thing with the lady, and then I find out that I can't even go into the players area. Its tough for me to do my job as press if I have the exact same access as a random person who walks into the event. I couldn't get good pictures of gamers playing because I was so far away, I couldn't get any game footage like I did at Raleigh - it was pretty frustrating.
While I understand you don't want to clutter the player area, I think it is important for outside press to be able to do their jobs, otherwise what is the point in even having such a thing as a press badge?
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As far as what I'd like to see in the future:
1) Brighter stream. The stream, while the quality improved greatly from day1 to day2, still remained fairly dark and dingy. I'd like to see the brightness or what not turned up so that it appears more like what I see on my screen when I am playing.
2) Featured player sound proof booths. I know these are very expensive and not going to just appear immediately, but I think that in the future these will be a really great addition. I love to see the crowd going crazy, and I also love to see players doing awesome stuff to make them go crazy. But when the crowd betrays the players strategy, it just takes some of the awesomeness away.
3) More Player interviews! JP you do an awesome job interviewing the players, and there were a lot of good interviews on the MLG DC stream. I'd like to see even more interviews though of players before or after their matches!
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Biggest Problem: 2 Hour delay on day 1, the video quality signal from Day9's computer was messed up or something as the contrast ratio was WAY too high, You guys tried to fix it by saying the bitrate was upped but that wasn't the problem.. You did rectify it however in Day 2.. So the HD pass was kinda worth it I guess..
Another issue I dunno I can't speak for the players but allowing the spectators to be within arms reach of the players or taking pictures of them so close while they are playing HAS to be distracting.. I know it's not the best solution to just hide the players from the fans as you want there to be an atmosphere of interaction and the players to give back to the fans who came to see them, but I mean its still a professional tournament you need to ensure that the players are comfortable in their surroundings to ensure a proper game is played.
So other than just the physical setup of how the games were held (maybe booths if u can afford it for the big matches), and the video stream problems, it was a fairly well done event.
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As for the quality of the matches - I couldn't have asked for more.
However, as a paying customer for the HD stream I was very very upset with not only the quality of the in game stream, but also the complete lack of acknowledgement that something was wrong from both the casters and the support forum... And the fact that you were still plugging the "crystal clear 2.2 mbit" stream during the cast was, quite frankly, laughable.
If the second day hadn't been as awesome as it was it really would have ruined the tournament for me... but fortunately it was and MLG DC was saved. 
Sort your streaming issues out and provide some support for used DURING events - I saw one moderator post around the lines of "We are not answering any tickets until after the event as we are too busy." .. I mean seriously.. why even bother pretending to have an HD stream support forum if you are not going to provide any support during events?
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1. First day stream was super delayed. This is easy to fix though.
2. Update brackets faster if at all possible.
Those were the only complaints I had with the stream. Other than that, it was one of the best, highest quality that I have seen. Much better than GSL's stream.
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As a live spectator i must say if you could maybe get the bleachers like they had for the halo or whatever main stage that would be cool and start the casting and stuff in round one on the big screen because i was sitting in the bleachers saving myself a seat untill like 6 when my friend was like hey they are playing because i thought round one would be up on the screen.
also while the mothership thing was funny soundproof headphones for at least the last few games where there is only like one going on would probably be pretty big
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Overall it was great event. The in game settings for the stream need to be looked into. The ingame quality wasn't very good while outside of game the picture quality was great. Even when the stream was bumped up to 2.2mb ingame was still bad to look at. Maybe consult with theGunrun about ingame video settings.
Less downtime and updated brackets like everyone else said.
<3
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1.Schedule, Please if the matches start at 5:00 then stay true to your word.
2.Stream, Needs to be calibrated correctly and offer alot more stability. Especially for HD buyers.
3.Casting, Smoother transition into commercial breaks and more interviews with players.
4.Matches, Less down time...not all matches need to be casted, while we wait for matches to start please stream us other matches that are currently playing. ( Use a extra acc like MLG Cast #x)
5.Tournament, Bigger prizes and larger player pool to attract better competition.
6.Other, not a fan of the match delays, like when were waiting for a match and the casters drag on and on and on its too much. Also Repetitive commercials. I understand they are the sponsors but spice it up. While we wait for matches to start or end it would be good to start interviewing players about current/future patches, the tournament experience all that good stuff ect. while we wait to make it bearable.
Player histories and how they performed in past events. Also add some guest players to co cast when not playing and get their pro input like halo 3 casting.
hmm........oh and time management for the players, i am really disappointed on how little breaks these players get causing them to not play at the optimal level ie Select.
OH AND! please update brackets LIVE! they were hours behind.
and.....thats all i got for now.
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On October 18 2010 06:12 Xeris wrote:
Going to complain about the press thing (I did it in the other thread):
I got a press badge, had this whole 'orientation' thing with the lady, and then I find out that I can't even go into the players area. Its tough for me to do my job as press if I have the exact same access as a random person who walks into the event. I couldn't get good pictures of gamers playing because I was so far away, I couldn't get any game footage like I did at Raleigh - it was pretty frustrating.
While I understand you don't want to clutter the player area, I think it is important for outside press to be able to do their jobs, otherwise what is the point in even having such a thing as a press badge?
I agreed with Xeris and Josh Suth on the other thread and do so here too. I agree with everything Xeris has to say regarding the press pass. The only conclusion I can see on them making that restriction would be so that we don't hover over players shoulders while they play, unfortunately I'm seeing WoW players and sometimes I felt like other competitors who got in from other games jsut because they had a green bracelet on, along with JP hovering over selects shoulder. Either make it so press gets that access or make it so nobody but staff (JP and other casters etc.) can do that.
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I'd like to see more guest casters, maybe Chill or some other cool dudes would be sweet.
On October 18 2010 05:29 Incognetus wrote:
Free stream had decent quality, wish it was higher and not octoshape.
What I really want is more games streamed. What about having a few cast teams. IE Day9+JP, HD+Husky, and another one and a few different "channels" to watch different games on. With So many games going on at the same team would be nice to have more streamed and casted
Also this guys idea is actually great, but I don't know how affordable it would be to hire multiple casters, and also how it would effect competition with different audiences. But watching more of the great games happening at very high levels would never be a bad thing and having options on which players you like to see is also good.
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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
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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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279 Posts
On October 18 2010 09:05 [p]Drake wrote:
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!
Good question. We're not doing booths. They'd get wrecked travelling and they don't really work anyways. It's still being actively debated on the best way to handle it so I'm not going to comment on what we're thinking right now, but I will say that we do monitor what you guys say here and speak at length with other organizations on what works and doesn't.
P.S. Thanks. We do try. :D
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Yeah, the integrity of the tournament is definitely at stake without booths. If the players can hear the crowd the game should be stopped immediately and resumed when that issue is taken care of.
Need to do something, maybe have them play in another room or something.
Booths do work btw, sound proof booths prevent all sound and are the standard for sc tournaments that are held offline in a professional environment.
Not saying you have to do booths, but you'll need to do something because the state of the game with Huk was laughable.
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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. Will you also explain why it's good for it to suddenly become a disadvantage to the WB player in the grand finals? I mean good competitively, not good for hype and spectators. Why is it good for the WB player to get punished for meeting in the finals someone he or she earlier sent to LB? (Edit: By punished I mean have less of an advantage than he or she would have if facing the LB player for the first time.)
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Still no way for the casters to view multiple games. It would be awesome if you could get a few of the games going on at the time of casting to all have a spectator client in them, and then switch between games (even if they are already in progress, they're still entertaining to catch). This is really important in the earlier rounds where less important games are going on (obviously you wouldn't want to switch from an insane matchup or later stage game like a quarter finals)
OGN and MBC game, the Korean TV channels, use this system for their offline preliminaries, and it works quite well to catch some games.
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1. It would obviously be great if the event started on time, but I think you guys stayed later so that we would get the same amount of games. that was greatly appreciated.
2. I know it's tricky to show matches during breaks but it would be nice to maybe watch a replay or something during the extended breaks. I mean it was great to see the crowd a little bit but it got a little boring.
3. More Freudian slips by JP lol
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As an online viewer, I can only ask for more of the same please!
Day one needs a tighter casting schedule as it suffered from long waits once it kicked off. The same, however can be said of most live streams of early tournament stages. To help this I would love to see more pre recorded segments and floor interviews to fill in what time does exist between games! Day two was tight and extremely enjoyable as we saw every game from the semis onwards. It was a great build up and would have presented well on TV. I hope in future events the casters and those being casted can be allocated an amount of stage space by the crowd and that big screen I saw in the YouTube videos, to add to the sense of occasion.
Two big thumbs up and looking forward to Dallas =)
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Day9 and DJ wheat FTW!! I would also like to suggest you try out Chill as a caster, his commentaries are very entertaining!
I would like to see the players in sound booths, playing in front of the crowd. I don't want any fiasco's like we saw in some other tournaments, to mar your orginizations clean track record or the players who work hard to win
If your going to cram that many games into 2 days it would be nice if you could have a secondary stream or something, so many good matches I would have liked to see!
Also, you should give your site a more user friendly starcraft 2 section. With all the tips,vods,interviews, replays ect. On 1 easy to navigate page.
You should also prep up some pro techniqe demonstration clips (like how to kite with MM or how to properly defend a 6 pool for exampl) for those wierd times when you need something to put up on the screen, before or after a commercial perhaps or while your waiting for players to be ready for a match. I'm sure if you asked some of the pro's if they want to film a short 3 minute clip for the mlg stream they'd say okay. (Day9 could do it....) There were a lot of waiting times last weekend that a few of these clips would have been very handy for.
All and all though the whole thing was very entertaining, and no onther tournament touches MLG in how easy it is to watch, and how professional the whole production is.
Not trying to be demanding but you asked for feedback, hope this helps.
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On October 18 2010 09:19 Tump wrote:
Still no way for the casters to view multiple games. It would be awesome if you could get a few of the games going on at the time of casting to all have a spectator client in them, and then switch between games (even if they are already in progress, they're still entertaining to catch). This is really important in the earlier rounds where less important games are going on (obviously you wouldn't want to switch from an insane matchup or later stage game like a quarter finals)
OGN and MBC game, the Korean TV channels, use this system for their offline preliminaries, and it works quite well to catch some games.
Most of the areas of him improvement have been beaten to death in this thread so far except this one, I think.
Having the set-up mentioned here by Trump would be excellent. The little updates on the side of the stream page saying how slush and select had an ABSOLUTELY EPIC 2-1 series or how Select has UNGODLY APM in game x of series y did little relax my displeasure at not being able to watch it, despite huge amounts of downtime and long commercial breaks.
Overall, the event was excellent and I was very much satisfied by the end. However I feel it could have been much better if I would have been able to see some major engagements of other matches instead of pre-recorded interviews that could be posted elsewhere or repeated map previews with analysis that is so obvious there is really no point having it in the first place. Felt like there was too much hype in some areas at the cost of actual action/game footage, considering how many games were being played.
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Another thing I just remembered, I don't know if someone else pointed it out;
On the stream, the in-game sounds didn't come from the observers computer, I'm guessing it was from the secondaries-computer since JP was saying something about something and you could hear the sounds from that (pylon warping in, life for aiur, zealot hitting a zergling) while day9(or, the observers computer) was watching something different.
it annoyed me a few times, and its a really easy fix I'm guessing :p
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I forgot to writing something actually positive.
The production overall was better. Great, great job.
Day9, DJ Wheat, and JP were great casters. I liked the jackets, but I thought the collared shirts were a little much ... not to say they should be Miami Vicing it. I think just dressing "clean" -- like you have your shit together and you have reasonable taste -- is enough. But it's great to see the community making an effort to be "professional".
Can you run interviews or highlights in-between games or when there's a break in action? There's a lot more opportunity for prerecorded material. Although I'd rather hear Day9 explain a map then some mystery lady.
Again, I think cramming all that gaming was anti-climatic. And I don't think it's beneficial to the players, tournament, or sponsors. If you had the semi's and finals on a separate day, you could have so much more programming, fanfare and AD REVENUE leading up to the semi-finals. Predictions from other players, highlights, the whole-shebang. It should be like a Superbowl pre-game show.
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I watched every game of Raleigh and D.C on the stream and found that the double elim format is TERRIBLE. At no point after the first round could I follow the bracket with any real certainty. The double elim format has to go ASAP. A group play format (thru the first 1 or 2 rounds) is better at weeding out bad players early while still being easy to follow.
Bracket updates (shown on the stream) after every broadcasted match would help people follow the tourny, especially when tuning in late.
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.
The fact that all MLG games us a double elim format isn't justification that SC2 should work like that. Early round group stages and single elim Bo3 are what works (and has for the last 10 years) for SC. The current MLG tourney structure for SC2 is a failure for spectators. If there aren't some drastic changes for the 2011 circuit I will have no reason to watch.
Not to just shit on MLG for the tourney structure and less than stellar event coverage, I do like quite a few things.
Great production vaules. Second only to GOM
Best looking free stream (at least for day two)
Great casting. Day9 & djWHEAT FTW.
Awsome crowd. tahts halo. dont worry
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As a sparse spectator (I was busy this weekend and couldn't watch much or attend the event):
1) The online bracket display was awesome! Wish it would show more of the loser bracket however so I could see the earlier rounds of who knocked whom out of the tournament.
2) The ability to download reps right away was AWESOME. I could see the games I missed and things that weren't cast right away.
3) Increased stream quality meant that not having the HD broadcast (I wasn't home enough to purchase it) was very worth it for the games I could see.
Huge improvement from the first event and I can't wait to see things keep getting better. There were some GREAT games in this tourney, a great run by SeleCt, and a great crowd that really supported the players. You could hear the crowd on the stream and it just made games that much more epic. As always, I think JP and Day9 are your best casters. Their chemistry is through the roof. DJ Wheat is great too, but JP and Day9 are just the best of the best at the moment. Amazing work together by those two.
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Okay My feedback from being there in person also you know the seating and halo-gate issues so I'll not address them.:
The Format: While Double elimination is confusing, Being at the event in person at least the little group I was with REALLY into the Painuser storyline, the way he dropped in round one, and then battled as hard as he could though competition like White-Ra for what was it Day 9 said something like a billion rounds or something? I have no idea how this is going to go forward, I think DE itself has pros and cons for streams vs live. Live the Pro is that it creates buzz. to see Pain user pumping his fist in the air after beating white-ra was awesome. the con is no live brackets, so .. no-one really knows what is happening. oh and the extedned series.. has got to go. Also Bo5 Winners games and Bo7 finals, Please!!!
The casting: Amazing, This set up was brilliant. with wheat and day9 bringing the pain at the announce booth, and then jp rocking the mic on the show floor was great. I'd say that you have struck a great balance, keep it up. my one beef with the casting was not with the casters but the tech, that I will get to later.
The non sc2 on site experience Was really tough. I love Dr pepper, and free Dr Pepper I love even more, However the ability to drink WATER would have been a life saver, if I had not snuck some chocolate milk in for Day9, and myself some water I think I would have been less happy also Food, I was lucky to have a bag that I could sneak things in with but some were not so much, and yes, free hot pockets and doritos are all well and good, but the line for hot pockets took someone near us 30 minutes to get through (and they missed the whole idra/HuK series) just some other stuff. I know these guys are your sponsors, and it is hard, but is there not SOME way to change it up a little?
Technical "Show the Game" chants aside..there were tech issues all weekend for the live crowd, there was exactly a 5ftx5ft square in the middle of the spec area that you could clearly hear the casters, outside that it sounded like adults from charlie brown.
One thing that REALLY impressed me, that I hope is something that does not go away was the availability of the players to the fans, I mean I was able to walk up to HuK before the first round and just talk to him, and he was totally amazing. I know the ATTITUDE of the players is not something that MLG can control, but I hope you don't sequester the players or casters away at any time. You, Sean and wheat were amazing. brilliant, gracious people and for that I thank you.
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can we please get day 9 a haircut and maybe some new glasses for the next cast? i mean, i'm the biggest plott fanboy but he always looks like he just woke up or like his 9th grade yearbook photo.
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Feedback as a player:
You guys should really save the replays immediately after player's matches are finished or something. I asked ref if you guys were gonna save the replays and if i could ninja some off (awesome ref i think you are on TL somewhere lol) and then i stupidly decided i'd "follow the rules" and not ninja the reps of me n lzgamer off comp...and well whadda ya know? Those replays I do not happen to see on the MLG brackets...-_- I want em
So maybe pay extra care to save all of the event replays. From every round...not just the known names as well. I guess I'm semi-known, but it's still nice to be able to come home and see all the games from every player in the event, of every round just as a courtesy to the players please !
Feedback as spectator:
it was great to watch, day9 is awesome, djwheat is awesome, and they flow well together. Sometimes it's really hard to hear though because the volume was varying so much on the speakers...
oh and you should get sound proof booths, especially for the finals.
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As a spectator, the event was overall fun. There were only a few problems
1.) Audio. Whenever something would first start, you would get 30-70 seconds of silence.
2.) Speakers. In the loud convention center, people like me who have meh hearing have issues if you're not under the speaker. Maybe multiple speakers?
Like I said, overall great event. The free doritos were great. The Dr. Pepper wasn't that great, since I don't like soda myself. It would have been nice if there were somewhere I could get some water nearer to the event.
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I think the current format needs some work. On one hand I love that all the matches happen within almost one day, on the other I think it's a result of MLG trying to fit SC2 into a format that works for their other games, rather than trying to adapt their format to work for SC2. I think back to other competitions where players step out of their booths after playing a series against one other pro, players that have practiced specificly for that one match for 12 hours a day, and they end it drenched in sweat and mentally exhausted. Given I'm talking about broodwar but SC2 is comparible in the way that it taxes you a lot more than mass gaming something like Halo. I don't think this format will work in the long term.
At the same time it's a format that rewards stamina more than other competitions that center around SC2. The players making it far like Select and Huk are well known for being mass gamers on ladder and generally maintain a higher score. Nony also recently went nuts on ladder from what I understand. In the end decision making suffered, Nony lost with pheonixes due to fatigue, Huk was wiped enough to toss a mothership at select and hope for the best, and Select showed obvious signs of fatigue in the finals. but all of them faired better than the other players. It reminds me more of an eating contest than a starcraft competition, but Idra got to rest comfortably until the finals. I don't see the loser's bracket player ever winning the finals with this format unless he's way better than the other guy. I do like that it all happens within a short time, but that may not work for starcraft.
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10387 Posts
Having the whole entire tournament in two days doesn't work very well imo, games are less special and crisp due to lack of preparation, and the finals being only a Bo3 makes it a lot less epic.
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8748 Posts
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.
select had to play so many games because he got knocked into the losers bracket (by me, lol). having to play more games is part of the disadvantage of being in the losers bracket. idra won more games than select in the winners bracket, so that is why select had to play more. tournaments are not about specific series. you should take the competition as a whole. if you want one isolated series that is the best it can be, you have to look to leagues (osl msl tsl gsl) and exhibitions/showmatches. tournaments like mlg have a component of endurance to them. and double elimination tournaments give a second chance to people who lose but it's not supposed to be easy.
if i had to guess, i'd say select and idra had more endurance than any other players at the tournaments. and probably idra had more endurance than anyone. so i dont think the result of the finals should be bothersome to you. it seems likely that idra would have outplayed select if they were both fresh and would have outplayed select if they were both fatigued. if you dont like endurance being a factor, then you should actually be upset that select got as high as 2nd, since i think the best arguments (weak as they are) indicate that part of select's success through the losers bracket was due to him bringing top-notch energetic play to every series when his opponents were undoubtedly faltering. space out every series so that every player is fully rested and i think select has a much harder time getting 2nd. personally, i like that endurance is a factor so im happy to credit select for his excellent performance
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One important criticism that I wanted to bring was on Hype for the FINALS / SEMI-FINALS.
IEM Cologne did this. GSL does this very well. The Superbowl is a prime example of this. OK, so you dont have the budget of the superbowl, nor the GSL, that's fine, there are alternatives to raising the hype for the finals.
MUSIC is one of them. Introduction music. Match highlight videos of each player that made it to the finals / semi-finals. Pre-game interviews. This is a chance for the players to bring some personality to the table and bring more emotions to the matches that you can't have in online tournaments. Raising the money pool is another.
Day9 is amazing to raise the hype/emotion before the match. He tries his best to give credit to both players, makes sure we are uncertain of the outcome and bring the crowd into it, but he can't do it alone. Adding music, quick introduction videos, etc. is vital to keeping people tense and excited about the upcoming games.
In DC, the finals were introduced by a commercial break and it went right into the games... fun, but it didn't give the Finality / Importance that I think, it deserved. The fact that the players were casually chatting / giving excuses about performance during the game contributed also to lowering the tension/cheapening it.
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Firstly, would like to congratulate the casters on a fantastic effort. I really enjoyed listening to all 3 of you - it was great.
Anyway, enough ass kissing.
Something that would be REALLY REALLY cool would be if there is some way for the audience (not just at the event but also viewers at home) to be able to interact.
For example: some sort of moderated questions feed that can go to the casters and perhaps the players can be interviewed with some viewer questions after their matches. This would be really great as some of us live far away (eg: Australia) and are in different time zones, would make the experience even more exciting I think.
I am not sure how players in the events would respond to this? Maybe they don't want to give away their thought processes until post event?
The second suggestion would be maybe for a secondary set of prizes that might give incentive for players to try something a little different in their play. Something like a "Pimpest Play" of the tournament prize. This could also coincide with audience feedback - casters could nominate from a game and then audiences could vote
Other than that I think most of the main issues have already been raised: stream quality on day 1 was really bad (some sort of sharpness effect was added ??), excessive delays make the event seem unprofessional and also the setup for the players didn't seem that comfortable (HuK had a pillow lol!).
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@Tyler
You’re focusing you’re argument too much on Select when it doesn’t matter if it’s him or you or qxc etc, no one should’ve been made to play in less than their best form in a finals match. Maybe this isn’t as important from a progamers pov but it is from the spectators’ pov.
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On October 18 2010 13:10 TehRaZer wrote:
@Tyler
You’re focusing you’re argument too much on Select when it doesn’t matter if it’s him or you or qxc etc, no one should’ve been made to play in less than their best form in a finals match. Maybe this isn’t as important from a progamers pov but it is from the spectators’ pov. I don't like this contrast between the spectators' and the players' points of view. I want to watch what the players want to play.
That aside, I don't buy that endurance being part of the competition is bad. I mean, if you're up 2-0 in a bo5, I don't mind you dragging out a loss in game 3 to wear your opponent down (within reason, of course; no building pylons/depots/extractors everywhere just to waste time). You're doing everything you can to give yourself the advantage, and that's what I want to watch.
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Whats up with the long ad breaks.
Playing the same add back to me 15 times every hour and a half isn't going to make me want to get it anymore than if you played it a few times, at a point it got super obnoxious, especially that midget KISS Dr.Pepper ad.
Truthfully, every time there was a break I would just mute and do something else, it got to a point where I preempted the ads
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On October 18 2010 14:56 Pyrthas wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2010 13:10 TehRaZer wrote:
@Tyler
You’re focusing you’re argument too much on Select when it doesn’t matter if it’s him or you or qxc etc, no one should’ve been made to play in less than their best form in a finals match. Maybe this isn’t as important from a progamers pov but it is from the spectators’ pov. I don't like this contrast between the spectators' and the players' points of view. I want to watch what the players want to play. That aside, I don't buy that endurance being part of the competition is bad. I mean, if you're up 2-0 in a bo5, I don't mind you dragging out a loss in game 3 to wear your opponent down (within reason, of course; no building pylons/depots/extractors everywhere just to waste time). You're doing everything you can to give yourself the advantage, and that's what I want to watch.
Well, I'd certainly prefer to see them at their best. Better quality games naturally.
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The bits of the commentary i could hear were awesome, great job! But about 75% of the time I couldnt hear the commentary over the Tekken crowd lol.
Although Huk's mothership play was amazing I think its pretty important MLG gets booths.
Overall, awesome event! I even got my shirt signed by idra wooo
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Better games, maybe, but not necessarily better competition. These aren't show matches. (Edit: Just to be clear, I'm not trying to say that double elim is definitely the way to go or anything like that. I'm just saying that I think it's not always bad to have endurance play a role.)
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On October 18 2010 09:41 Yrq wrote:
Another thing I just remembered, I don't know if someone else pointed it out;
On the stream, the in-game sounds didn't come from the observers computer, I'm guessing it was from the secondaries-computer since JP was saying something about something and you could hear the sounds from that (pylon warping in, life for aiur, zealot hitting a zergling) while day9(or, the observers computer) was watching something different.
it annoyed me a few times, and its a really easy fix I'm guessing :p
That only happened when the observers went into player vision mode, and when they do that, it gives off the same notifications that the player hears when a unit is done, they are under attack, when you need more pylons, etc.
One thing, I noticed that there is a rule against chatting mid-game. Even though it was all pretty light-hearted (and I love HuK even more for the mom), you guys need to enforce that next time or drop the rule. It specifically states that you can get forfeit for doing so, that's VERY unprofessional if you ask me to just ignore rules, because it happened in some other games.
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dammit i wanna watch this so bad
is there ANYWHERE i can get VODs of this??
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On October 18 2010 15:32 Subversion wrote:dammit i wanna watch this so bad is there ANYWHERE i can get VODs of this??
DL the replay from the site.
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Great job posting the replays in a timely fashion, and please continue to do miniature States of the Game. Those are so wonderful for getting a feel for the mood around the tournament.
I was unable to catch any of the tournament live, so I won't pile on the bandwagons that people who were actually there or could actually watch have already started. Instead I want to suggest that it would be really awesome if you could somehow implement a stream for Android/iPhone/etc. in the future.
I know it's a long shot since the there are already enough bandwidth problems at your event sites, but it really would be great and it would have allowed me to catch some of the action even though I wasn't at home.
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On October 18 2010 08:24 MLG_Lee wrote:
Lastly, re: Friday delays. Definitely agree that we needed to communicate better to you folks what was going on. We'll work on that.
Just going to reemphasize this: Information can go such a long way in alleviating the damage done from technical problems.
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Long-distance streamer here. Loved the casters, loved the tournament as a whole. Some points can be improved, but you are definatly on the right track! Most of what I want has been pointed out already, I really just want to chime in that I enjoyed it. Most wanted addition for next time: Psy! And don't put any restraints on him either. I want to hear him bitch about that damn queen!
One thing tho. I've heard you put up VODs after a few days, but thats still using that octoshapething and on the mlg site. I love that during live shows, but when you post the vods, I would really appriciate it if you could upload to a Youtube account as well. Youtube is just friendlier to mobile devices, allows preloading of the video before watching and it's easier to favorite certains matches.
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On October 18 2010 05:18 beat farm wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2010 04:44 Pyrthas wrote:On October 18 2010 04:39 beat farm wrote:On October 18 2010 04:27 magha wrote:
Day9 is a good caster, but people are getting bored of him. It would have been nice to see JP and djWheat cast together, or even inControl (didnt he say he wanted to cast a few games?) or some others.
NO. day9 is by far the best caster. he understands the game better then any of the other casters so he needs to cast all the games and his back up guy be switched around. id like to see husky at dallas. lol, first you say you want Day9 because he understands the game, then you say you want Husky. Make up your mind. day9 understands the game and husky provides good entertainment=good combo
you got starcraft2 for entertainment, do you really want him to do some stupid jokes and ruin MLGs professionalism?
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I am curious as to why we needed to download a new program (octo stream or whatever) in order to view the free stream.
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Australia7069 Posts
My biggest criticism is that this event didn't have Slayers'boxer participating in it
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On October 18 2010 07:45 Liquid`Tyler wrote:
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.
I was thinking the EXACT same thing. This would be great for spectators, especially for those fans who want to watch their specific player, even if they aren't being cast. I for one wished I could have gotten a better look at KawaiiRice but wasn't really able to, minus trying to stand next to the rail and peek in. Watching FPV of good players would really get a ton of people's interest.
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I watched the stream on day1, and was there on day 2. From a spectator point of view a few things would have helped:
1. Name tags for players and admins would have been very useful. I can understand why many wouldn't want this, but it was hard to tell what was going on as a spectator. Who was that playing on Station 4?
2. Show the brackets somewhere! There was a poorly done Halo 3 bracket in the back, but even that was supbar. Nobody (including Day, when I talked to him) had any idea who was winning or losing.
3. Some real food. I realize this is half the venue's fault, but limited doritos, isn't really acceptable, and the main alternative was the mismanaged pizza in the atrium.
4. I liked the map intros, I think for less familiar viewers getting into watching SCII they were super useful. I would encourage more of those, and other similar things.
5. Less complete downtime on the stream. Day9 was really hardcore, but it would have been nice to have like, wheat plus a random player casting a replay from the previous round rather than just sitting there watching the MLG logo. I realize that casting all the games live is hard due to the observer thing, but going straight into a replay of a match that just finished would work, and be technically easier.
6. Better announcements on the stream and in the venue about brackets and that sort of thing. Who was knocked out, who was still in.
7. Having better options for watching the non-casted games would be great.
8. Slow down the first couple rounds. There were a lot of presumably great games, but it was just rushed like crazy. Nobody had any sense of what was happening, who won, who was looking good, etc. Is it really necessary to shove allll those games for Ro64 and Ro32 into just an hour or two?
9. Perhaps do some short ad breaks between games, rather than just 20 minute breaks between matches?
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8748 Posts
On October 18 2010 13:10 TehRaZer wrote:
@Tyler
You’re focusing you’re argument too much on Select when it doesn’t matter if it’s him or you or qxc etc, no one should’ve been made to play in less than their best form in a finals match. Maybe this isn’t as important from a progamers pov but it is from the spectators’ pov.
I don't need to focus on select to make the argument that, at a tournament like MLG, admins aren't responsible for making sure players can play their absolute best in the finals. It is too fundamental to expect MLG to be able to do something about it. When you have only 2-3 days to run a tournament with 64-128 people and you do double elimination and you do bo3's, endurance is a factor. If spectators can't appreciate that kind of event, it's their problem.
Most of the best players at MLG are able to put in practices sessions of 20+ games if the want. A lot of them could do it every day. It's the player's responsibility to be able to bring their A-game all day long. So if your favorite player started to suck toward the end, then blame the player for not preparing properly. I certainly played worse on day 2, making uncharacteristic mistakes against huk, select and drewbie. But I barely ever play more than 3 games in a row in practice so I deserved it. I think maybe huk and qxc lost some steam too. Maybe slush too. I dont know. It's the players' faults.
And going through the winners bracket isn't really tiring anyway. It only really becomes an issue when you have to play through losers. So if they didn't have a losers bracket, this wouldn't be an issue. But that doesn't give the spectators more good content. It'd be the same content you're already seeing but less. You can already see the finals of the winners bracket. That would be the end of the whole tournament. But luckily for the spectators, it's a double elim event, so after the finals, you get to see the losers finals and then the grand finals.
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8748 Posts
On October 18 2010 22:52 Wolf wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2010 07:45 Liquid`Tyler wrote:
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.
I was thinking the EXACT same thing. This would be great for spectators, especially for those fans who want to watch their specific player, even if they aren't being cast. I for one wished I could have gotten a better look at KawaiiRice but wasn't really able to, minus trying to stand next to the rail and peek in. Watching FPV of good players would really get a ton of people's interest.
Yesss, Lee please steal some TV's from Halo cuz this would be really awesome for SC2
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I think it would be a great idea to have stations like that for SC2. Players would play on raised platform and have the TV's above them showing their first person view so anyone can see. That's the only thing that sucked was that you could not see any match other than the one being streamed.
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On October 18 2010 15:12 TehRaZer wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2010 14:56 Pyrthas wrote:On October 18 2010 13:10 TehRaZer wrote:
@Tyler
You’re focusing you’re argument too much on Select when it doesn’t matter if it’s him or you or qxc etc, no one should’ve been made to play in less than their best form in a finals match. Maybe this isn’t as important from a progamers pov but it is from the spectators’ pov. I don't like this contrast between the spectators' and the players' points of view. I want to watch what the players want to play. That aside, I don't buy that endurance being part of the competition is bad. I mean, if you're up 2-0 in a bo5, I don't mind you dragging out a loss in game 3 to wear your opponent down (within reason, of course; no building pylons/depots/extractors everywhere just to waste time). You're doing everything you can to give yourself the advantage, and that's what I want to watch. Well, I'd certainly prefer to see them at their best. Better quality games naturally.
I'm with Tyler on this one.
While SeleCT and Painuser's stories were epic, they brought them on themselves by losing so early in the tournament.
I don't think that his fatigue had anything to do with how easily IdrA rolled over seleCT, it was his build order and his composition which I'm pretty sure was his standard TvZ order.
anyone who drops to the losers bracket has to earn their way into the finals, it;s the downside of losing.
the only issue I had with the format was that without having brackes at the live event it did get a bit confusing.
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I was there personally! One thing I would like is if they increased the volume of the casters. It was hard to hear over anything else. other than that it was amazing! I wish I had met sean plott and you as well it would've made my attendance 10x better
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GJ posting replays, and quickly at that.
MLG > GSL for that single reason in my mind. Thank you for caring about the audience.
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It would have been great to do some introductions, presentations, etc on stage between matches. Introduce the matchup and have the players walk out, so we can see who they are. Then announce the winners, etc. Maybe a little trophy ceremony at the end where you announced 1-8? After the pretty lame idra v select bo3 it was just kind of a big let down. It felt like there was little to no conclusion or wrapup. The interview was good, but hard to see in person.
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Australia7069 Posts
On October 18 2010 23:48 Phrencys wrote:
GJ posting replays, and quickly at that.
MLG > GSL for that single reason in my mind. Thank you for caring about the audience.
you realise that every single GSL game gets casted while only about 1/10th of the games at MLG get casted, hence why replays are released. dont get bitter at gsl, they provide vods for all their games and stuff
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On October 18 2010 23:48 Phrencys wrote:
GJ posting replays, and quickly at that.
MLG > GSL for that single reason in my mind. Thank you for caring about the audience.
So very true, glad we can look at every MLG game - much appreciated.
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I went to MLG Raleigh and I think the only real thing they could improve on (minus more isolation between the screen and casters for the sound to be louder without disturbing the players) would be a live bracket. Whether it's on an LCD at a corner of the area or between matches it's up on the screen it'd be very useful. Like one poster said, it was kind of confusing trying to figure out who won what and trying to keep track of what was going on.
/2cents
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8748 Posts
On October 19 2010 00:16 Kiante wrote:Show nested quote +On October 18 2010 23:48 Phrencys wrote:
GJ posting replays, and quickly at that.
MLG > GSL for that single reason in my mind. Thank you for caring about the audience. you realise that every single GSL game gets casted while only about 1/10th of the games at MLG get casted, hence why replays are released. dont get bitter at gsl, they provide vods for all their games and stuff
He probably just prefers replays. Or at least really likes having replays to look at even after watching the stream. Most people really like getting the replays
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My only complaint was the finals sucked but nothing can really be done about that.
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Really looking forward to Dallas.
Assuming Idra does well in GSL I really hope we get a Liquid player holding the trophy at the end of the tournament. Rumor has it they're gonna show up in force this time.
Spectator area and stream quality obviously needs to improved, as stated a million times in this thread.
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Gotta agree also that posting replays is really nice.
BTW anyone has advices on which matches to take a look at (apart from finals and Huk's Mothership rush, obviously ^^) ?
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On October 19 2010 00:32 Kerm wrote:
Gotta agree also that posting replays is really nice.
BTW anyone has advices on which matches to take a look at (apart from finals and Huk's Mothership rush, obviously ^^) ?
The entire QXC vs Idra series was very good, as well as Idra vs. Kiwikaki. I think Game 2 of Kiwikaki vs Select was also worth checking out.
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On October 19 2010 00:26 Liquid`Tyler wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2010 00:16 Kiante wrote:On October 18 2010 23:48 Phrencys wrote:
GJ posting replays, and quickly at that.
MLG > GSL for that single reason in my mind. Thank you for caring about the audience. you realise that every single GSL game gets casted while only about 1/10th of the games at MLG get casted, hence why replays are released. dont get bitter at gsl, they provide vods for all their games and stuff He probably just prefers replays. Or at least really likes having replays to look at even after watching the stream. Most people really like getting the replays
I can give him replays if he wants, i prefer to watch the real pros play in GSL any day over MLG.
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1) I appreciate the fact that this is incredibly complex, however I will most certainly not be purchasing a HD pass again until I've seen multiple events transpire where there is no late starting and no extended periods without games.
2) The extended series crap resulted in yet another anticlimactic final. It's just not suited for SC2 at all. Modify it so that past the quarterfinal phase all games are straight up BoX.
3) It's really hard to keep track of what's going on with the brackets, I'd like some on-screen graphics and explanations from the casters. Often. Tabbing to the bracket page is clunky and since Octoshape eats so much bandwidth, painfully slow.
4) Octoshape eats way too much bandwidth. It's fine to use it for the free stream, but if I'm paying for HD access I'd like to not slow my upstream to a complete halt.
5) Less Gene Simmons and midgets please.
Other than that, it was a good event and the casting was great by all involved.
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The video was very dark I would have liked more lights at least for the casters and if possible lights on the players too. And some color correction on the game too to make it lighter and more visible.
The tournament went too deep in the brackets on the 2nd day. There were too many games for the players and even though Huk's mothership probably wouldn't have happened if he didn't play many games I think you could have kept the semi finals and finals for the sunday. I would have liked more games to be casted too, if you had the tourney on 3 days you could have shown more games.
I like double elimination because you can still root for players even if they lost a game, but I don't like the fact that it's so hard to win a double elimination final if you come from the losers bracket. You should make it double elimination first and then switch to single elimination for the quarter finals and up.
Wear less eyeliner especially JP. It looks wierd, it looks like a guy that wears make up.
Try to find a more relaxed dressing code for the casters, shirts are nice but in the MLG they were not really cool and a bit like children' shirt. They were basic and not colorful and all the buttons where closed.
And I don't know if you can really tell the players to stay in the game a bit longer but honestly Idra ruined the fun in so many games, leaving after just losing a few units. I don't remember which tournament it was in but once he left just because his opponent forcefielded his wall and he couldn't enter with his banelings. I just mean when you see White Ra losing his whole base to DTs and still fighting to come back and the next game you see Idra not even fighting and leaving before the combat it's anti climatic. It's not against him but it just ruins spectating.
PS : I like octoshape because that's the only browser videos I can watch fullscreen without losing fps on my old computer. ustream and the likes are slow in fullscreen. I'm talking about the low quality stream not the Hd one. I have a good connection but not a great pc so I like when streams are openable in VLC or with the octoshape plugin.
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hey there,
NO BOOTHs is my opinion - because of that - it was the 2nd greatest match ive ever seen in sc2.
i dont care if people call this unproffesional - in the end it comes down to the players.
hearing a crowd cheer after 1 min , could indicate a double proxy - but doesn't have to - and tbh if a players throws his game away because he gets distracted by that - l2p
d9 + dj wheat = very good
10$ for 2 days too much for me
5$ would be fine, but i guess you wont get more than douvle the people paying so iguess it stays the same - im fine with my gom tv payment
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Heres my two cents:
Pros:
- Excellent matches by excellent players made for quite an exciting event
- I like the brackets system with winners and loosers running for the final victory but it requires somekind of live update shown on screen (maybe between matches) for viewers to follow whats going on and how far are we into the tournament
- Day[9] / DJWheat combo casting worked quite well for my taste, im pleased with it
- The replays were released so much faster than in MLG Raleigh, im sure not only me enjoyed that and shows how much the organization was commited about bringing them to the community. Thank you for that.
Cons:
- Im in favor of booths, at least, for the final matchups. I do enjoy seeing some mothership fun but if you want to make SC2 grow more in the US there will be a point where you just gonna have to take it that serious.
- The stream suffered from technical issues that killed some of the hype around the players and matchups
- Octoshape is a resource hog (at least on my PC) and other "lighter" options should be considered
All in all it was a good event and im sure it will improve with time. Thank you for all the work done and excitement provided.
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I definitely think an on-site bracket would really help the players, spectators, etc be informed and up to date on everything that's happening. I think it also creates even more BUZZ in the tournament area because people are actively aware of how the brackets are playing out.
Also I'm not representing MLG here, but having done a cast with them and seeing their setup (something I'm always interested in)... it's alot harder than many of you might think to just add a 2nd setup that mirrors the one they have just to cast some additional games. It took tons of equipment and another 4-5 guys running it just to get a single stream, you'd basically be doubling that just to try to pump out more games. From a spectator perspective of course even I wanna be greedy and say, "WE WANT MORE MATCHES", but putting on my "OK LET'S BE REALISTIC" hat, I could see where that would be alot of time and money invested.
Maybe we can hope for something like that in the future.
I just want to say thanks to the entire MLG staff. At this event I got to play the role of caster and spectator... and both were awesome. I would love to see a bit better sound setup in the spec area, but it seemed to be an issue that MLG was eager to address so I have faith they'll sort it out!
Great work to all!
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On October 18 2010 23:48 Phrencys wrote:
GJ posting replays, and quickly at that.
MLG > GSL for that single reason in my mind. Thank you for caring about the audience.
I'd rather they wait until the event is over, if at all, so players have to adapt on their own without knowing the minutia of an opponent's builds.
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On October 19 2010 00:26 Liquid`Tyler wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2010 00:16 Kiante wrote:On October 18 2010 23:48 Phrencys wrote:
GJ posting replays, and quickly at that.
MLG > GSL for that single reason in my mind. Thank you for caring about the audience. you realise that every single GSL game gets casted while only about 1/10th of the games at MLG get casted, hence why replays are released. dont get bitter at gsl, they provide vods for all their games and stuff He probably just prefers replays. Or at least really likes having replays to look at even after watching the stream. Most people really like getting the replays
I actually appreciate both VoDs and replays. Replays are pretty good when you want to take a game apart on your own to check timings and whatnot. It's also a good way to reveal pros build orders other than adding them to your friend list and stalking them (which you can only do when tournaments are on your gateway anyway).
VoDs are obviously more entertaining, but when I want to watch a game with the goal to learn and improve, I prefer replays.
I just don't understand why GSL refuse to hand them, but I'm getting off-topic.
Anyway, keep rocking, MLG!
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this is in the korean culture to not give replay
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8748 Posts
On October 19 2010 00:37 Jiddra wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2010 00:26 Liquid`Tyler wrote:On October 19 2010 00:16 Kiante wrote:On October 18 2010 23:48 Phrencys wrote:
GJ posting replays, and quickly at that.
MLG > GSL for that single reason in my mind. Thank you for caring about the audience. you realise that every single GSL game gets casted while only about 1/10th of the games at MLG get casted, hence why replays are released. dont get bitter at gsl, they provide vods for all their games and stuff He probably just prefers replays. Or at least really likes having replays to look at even after watching the stream. Most people really like getting the replays I can give him replays if he wants, i prefer to watch the real pros play in GSL any day over MLG.
Then give replays of GSL :o
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I'll be short and simple.
I believe that anyone who has ever had some professional experience with advertising will agree that these massively long breaks actually cheapen the value of your adds. Not because we all hate them so much but because all of us quickly learned that we have more than enough time to go cook something or even play some quick 2v2/3v3/4v4 games. Of course, it's probably an impossible task to convince your sponsors that they have to pay you the same money for showing the add just once instead of five times but I truly believe that it will be for their benefit as well.
Please, try to put an estimate time off air on screen. A bit more consistency would be nice... Like "After ro16 we'll have a 15 minute break. After ro8 - a 20 minute break." Even if you don't follow the plan strictly, it would be much better than letting us guess what to do.
I realise that it is extremely hard to run a massive event like this and that some of these things might sound impossible but you asked for feedback.
Also - the final should be your massive main amazing event. Give the winner of the losers' bracket some time to rest and hype it up. And, for Aiur's sake, don't make it a fucking best of three! The player from losers' bracket is likely to be so tired that the one from winners' bracket has an advantage anyway. And, even if he/she doesn't... who cares? Seriously, this was the biggest flaw of the whole tournament - two quick games and goodnight, guys, thanks for watching.
Finally... Octoshape is obviously a good deal for tournament organisers. That's fine. But seriously, is it completely impossible to include an alternative? I was restreaming the whole event to a friend of mine using Skype's video feature because he, like so many others, has problems with Octoshape. In his case the issue was that his modem was resetting his connection every two minutes while watching the stream, so it was two minutes MLG, one minute waiting for the connection to reappear.
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A few things:
1. If you're looking for new/different casters, Think of Diggity! He's an experienced, knowledgeable caster who could work with anybody and is overall a complete class act.
2. I really honestly believe that the extended series is terrible even in non-rts games, it's really incorrect. I think it's okay to do it for the finals only, but it shouldn't matter what the other player started with, it should just be a Bo7 with the winner from the winner's bracket starting 2-0 (rather than doing 2 Bo3). It just nobody cares about head to head records and I think it creates ridiculously perverse incentives. A 2-0 for a Bo3 shouldn't be treated any differently than a 2-1, players are playing to win the series, not to win the game.
3. The coverage was great, it would be ideal if you could provide updates during the cast if you're running behind and plan on adjusting the schedule.
4. The press situation was bad, you even made an effort saying you wanted more coverage and then didn't make sure it would work.
5. I think you could do the jumping into another game by just having idle observers ready to bring up on screen. Just add a few extra computer to the rig, the same streamers would be able to cut over.
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On October 19 2010 01:32 djWHEAT wrote:
Also I'm not representing MLG here, but having done a cast with them and seeing their setup (something I'm always interested in)... it's alot harder than many of you might think to just add a 2nd setup that mirrors the one they have just to cast some additional games. It took tons of equipment and another 4-5 guys running it just to get a single stream, you'd basically be doubling that just to try to pump out more games. From a spectator perspective of course even I wanna be greedy and say, "WE WANT MORE MATCHES", but putting on my "OK LET'S BE REALISTIC" hat, I could see where that would be alot of time and money invested. I can't speak for anybody else, but this isn't what I meant to be saying. I meant, rather, that it would be cool if something like this happened: "OK! Ret advances over Machine in a quick 2-0 series, so now we're going to wait until a new game starts in one of the other 31 matches, and then we'll jump in and broadcast that."
This might still take more people, because it would require that the broadcasters be fed information about games that have ended so that they can pick one of the just-starting games to watch. But I don't think they need to get a second full broadcast setup running. It would be enough to have the broadcasters jump into the middle of an ongoing match once a new game has started in that match. (It would also require some quick decision-making from the broadcasters about which match to jump to, but I think it's not unreasonable to ask that of them.)
On October 19 2010 01:15 Special Endrey wrote:
hearing a crowd cheer after 1 min , could indicate a double proxy - but doesn't have to - and tbh if a players throws his game away because he gets distracted by that - l2p This is just stupid. It doesn't have to mean a proxy, no, but it does mean that something unusual is happening, and at 1min into the game, if you aren't doing anything fancy, you now know that you need to be scouting more.
It's even worse if you can hear the commentators, of course. Then you can hear them talking about hidden expansions, tech paths, tech switches, army movements, army composition, etc. And if the commentators are loud enough for the crowd to hear, and you can hear the crowd, then you run a good chance of being able to hear the commentators.
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Stream on the first night was garbage. It was down for a long time and then when it came up it had contrast issues. It looked A LOT better on day 2 and i thought it was good quality for free.
I liked the coverage overall. I dont think you should charge 10 dollars when you barely show any of the games. A lot of games were not shown at all when there was a lot of in between time of nothing. you could even have the casters go back though some replays and cast the replay while you wait for the next match. Of course you would have to cut down on the spoilers then. Im not saying show the entire series but at least maybe a game 2 or game 3 here and there. Something besides just chatter.
Also, the stream crashed day 2 during the idra /qxc match so even day 2 was not perfect. What happened to the 3rd day. There was 3 days listed at first but then you cut a day off. Keep the 3rd day so you can cast more games. Plus it will give the gamers some downtime between games.
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It's even worse if you can hear the commentators, of course. Then you can hear them talking about hidden expansions, tech paths, tech switches, army movements, army composition, etc. And if the commentators are loud enough for the crowd to hear, and you can hear the crowd, then you run a good chance of being able to hear the commentators.
If you listen to the State of the Game from 10/16 you'll hear the players say they could not hear the commentators. Idra said he heard one word, here or there, but nothing unerstandable. Tyler (or maybe HuK?) said he heard cheers, but always thought they came from Halo. I'm not talking about the Mothership rush either.
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I made it out to the event on Saturday afternoon. I had never been to something like this and it was really a lot of fun. I want to re-iterate everything people have said regarding seating and not being able to hear the commentators unless you were right under the speakers
Some other suggestions:
1) I was there for seven hours and never once saw the brackets displayed on the main monitor, or even just taped to a post somewhere. There was a lot of downtime between matches in which the monitor just showed the MLG logo. Perhaps you could have had some kind of slideshow display that went through various brackets, summaries of the performance/status of popular players, etc. I recognize this would take time/energy, but it really would have added to the spectator experience.
For example, you could show a slide like:
Name:
ID:
[Headshot of Player]
Team:
Race:
Last Match: (Bracket / Opponent / Result)
Next Match: (Time / Bracket / Opponent)
Or something like that. You could cycle through these for everyone when the commercials weren't running or games weren't being covered. This would catch people up who were just sitting down / tuning in.
2) Have monitors showing additional games. You don't have to have commentators on these, or even stream them if it's too logistically difficult. But it seems like it would be easy enough to setup one additional spectator machine and just show it on a big monitor. You could have 2-3 of these with a few benches at each, and then have the big main event monitor with the commentators / stream, etc.
Overall, I had fun! Come back to DC!!!
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On October 19 2010 02:17 Cleomenes wrote:Show nested quote +It's even worse if you can hear the commentators, of course. Then you can hear them talking about hidden expansions, tech paths, tech switches, army movements, army composition, etc. And if the commentators are loud enough for the crowd to hear, and you can hear the crowd, then you run a good chance of being able to hear the commentators. If you listen to the State of the Game from 10/16 you'll hear the players say they could not hear the commentators. Idra said he heard one word, here or there, but nothing unerstandable. Tyler (or maybe HuK?) said he heard cheers, but always thought they came from Halo. I'm not talking about the Mothership rush either. Yeah, I'm not saying they could, or that MLG needs booths. I'm just saying that the reasoning in the post I was replying to was bad. He was saying, "It doesn't matter what they can hear!" and I thought that was pretty obviously wrong.
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To the guys going on about SeleCT being fatigued and that being why he lost:
If you listened to SotG 15b (I think it was in 15b?) all the guys in the podcast were in agreement that if SeleCT wants to win tournaments he has to become more versatile... Doing the same exact build every game, only winning because you are "faster" is not going to win a GSL.
IdrA knew exactly what SeleCT was going to do because he showed him his build order and did the exact same thing again the second game... I think it was Nony who said, "what's his build order? did he build a reaper? double hellion next, k..." or something to that effect.
Edit for feedback on MLG DC:
I watched the Octoshape stream from home. Yes, the delay at the beginning was annoying, but I found something to do with myself- so it was no great tragedy for me. I'm color deficient red (partially colorblind) so the contrast looked a bit lower than what I'm used to playing with- again, no great tragedy.
I thought it was hysterical when they panned to the audience and that chick had the sign saying, 'apologize for playing that race!' Lotta IdrA fans there. =0) I think the casters did a wonderful job on the games, whether it was Day9/wheat or Day9/JP, it was always pretty solid.
The only criticism I have is that the bracket was really slowly updated. The twitter or LiveFeed or whatever it was was miles ahead of the bracket. =0X
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Just a repeat of the same criticism of the first event (although in general this event was much better):
1. Stop picking pro vs. noob games to cast in the RO64, follow the favorites!!
2. The paid stream should not have advertisements. Period.
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Would like VODs of the matches with the original commentary, even if I have to pay for em.
Do these exist? If not, they should. Tell MLG. :D
BTW, awesome commentary on all the games. JP + Day[9] is my favorite casting duo! xD
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On October 19 2010 03:22 SteeJanS wrote:
Just a repeat of the same criticism of the first event (although in general this event was much better):
1. Stop picking pro vs. noob games to cast in the RO64, follow the favorites!!
2. The paid stream should not have advertisements. Period.
First game was ret vs machine, (that was casted). Then maybe one game after that wasn't high profile. They can't just jump in and cast, they have to be ready a head of time to cast a game and then join the game before it starts. So, they just joined what games they could.
Second, better to have advertisements than to have a dead stream. Sponsors are needed to make this bigger, get used to adds. We need them sadly.
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On October 19 2010 03:22 SteeJanS wrote:
2. The paid stream should not have advertisements. Period. Why on earth not?
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It was a blast being there, but the stream sucked. It froze constantly.
I disliked a few things: The admins kicked us off during the warmup games for a good ten minutes to tell us the rules. I assume it was technical difficulties that took so long, which should have been figured out before kicking us off. Also, the guy who told us the rules did so without a mic, so nobody could hear a word he said.
There weren't enough computers for everyone to play warmups at once(four of the computers didn't have SC2 installed). I was walking around for a long time, searching for one to use, then gave up and watched other events(Super Smash Brothers Brawl was absolutely stunning, yet it had no coverage).
The casting of the matches on the projector screen for the spectators was very quiet. People could barely hear anything. However, after the first day, the issue seemed to be solved.
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All in all, great event - $10 well spent despite the issues on day 1 because of the noticeable improvement in quality day 2. Hard to think of a better entertainment received vs dollars spent ratio (especially since I wasn't just watching SC2). Looking forward to going to Dallas to spectate.
Comments/suggestions:
- I've watched every MLG broadcast (for Halo) since mid/late '07, so it was actually quite surprising to see it start *hours* late (instead of the usual 5-15 minutes). There should have been an explanation, and it almost certainly turned off many of the HD subscribers, especially those who are just forming (or re-forming) their opinion of MLG based on how they handle SC2. Lee, there's no need to sugarcoat what's going on if the stream goes to hell -- I'd rather just be aware of what's actually happening instead of 'slight technical issue' live blog posts. And I know you guys are going through a huge tech transition right now, so it's not exactly a huge surprise that something came up that couldn't have been anticipated - it's just that I wanted to know what technical issue could have held up the entire event for 2 hours, especially when I'm paying $10 for the pleasure of watching it live.
- Closer to real-time bracket updates. This has been an issue for *years*, and although it's getting better, it's not clear why it hasn't been resolved much sooner. When the results are collected after each game, unless I'm missing something, part of the collection process should be to upload that result straight into whatever bracket application you guys have built so it's reflected online at the conclusion of the game/series. And if it's not easy enough to do that update post-game in the current framework, it sounds like that process needs to be optimized further (possibly by creating an iPhone/Android front-end for MLG refs, perhaps).
- Seemed like there would have been enough 'downtime' between series (even after accounting for commercial breaks) to accommodate additional interviews with players/etc.
- Lag. Though not really in your control, the lag is so damn annoying. I mean really, you guys talk to Blizzard - what in the hell is their justification for not even accommodating large-scale tournaments so they can ensure a lag-free competition? What good are they hoping to achieve by not making even reasonable exceptions? In fact, I don't even care what the answer is - it just needs to be *fixed*. As far as I'm concerned, it's a bug. Even if y'all have a fancy setup where virtually all the traffic is local, that SC2 client seems to be 'phoning home' throughout every match (not just when the players login), and so while Blizzard is reassured that the pro players haven't lifted an SC2 client midgame by having it constantly check in with its remote authentication servers, we get the pleasure of stop and go movement in game. *sigh* I know you guys are all about LAN though, so I imagine you're reinforcing that message when you talk to Blizzard, but this thread seemed like a convenient enough opportunity for me to vent about it.
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I attended the event live on both Friday and Saturday from 1630 Friday to 2330 and then 1130 Saturday until 1930.
First thing I noticed on Friday was that there was very little information at the event itself on the Starcraft schedule or where the station was. We swept through the room twice and could not find the Starcraft Area (because there was nothing on the screen at the time and no signage to indicate that's what would be played there later) and then asked one of the people at the registration desk where the Starcraft area was and even they didn't know. The only schedules we could find were for the main stage and other activities, for a schedule of Starcraft matches we had to rely on what we brought with us or our phones. Once the cast started it was really easy to find the right area.
The cast started late, I'm sure that's come up a few times, but more importantly the people at the event had no idea why it was delayed or even that it was delayed at all. Some announcements were made by Day 9, possibly others, but they were not made to the entire crowd and they were not done over any kind of speakers so coverage was very spotty and a lot of people, including myself, were confused as to what was going on.
The sound mixing was spotty. Sometimes everything would be easy to hear and then the source would switch to something else and it would be way to quiet. The level of noise in the all also varied throughout the day but the volume of the cast did not. Noise inflation can be an issue in convention halls but it would be nice if we could always hear the casters. The speaker coverage was pretty tiny as well. Many spectators had to sit or stand around the bleacher area and after a very short distance it become impossible to hear anything at all.
Bleachers are uncomfortable. Blah blah blah, whine whine whine.
The tournament format itself could use work I think. I love double elimination, I like that rematches are a best of 7 resuming the previous result of the last best of 3. I don't like that the finals were decided in only 2 matches, that's just too short. Winners finals, Losers finals, and the grand finals should all be best of 5 at a minimum extending to best of 9 for rematches in the grand finals I think.
Soundproof rooms are unnecessary and a little showy. Without a pair for every match it would be a little unfair for some players to enjoy them at not others given that spectators can yell stuff out no matter what game is being played on the big screen based on what they can see from the sidelines of the play stations. Circumaural headphones that are fully sealed should be issued by the event and mandatory for each game. With that provision spectators could watch from behind the players like they can for the halo stations which would be nice in the early stages when the game on the main screen isn't what someone necessarily wants to see.
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Cast more matches. I know it can't be GSL where every match is casted (weekend vs a month) but try to schedule more. Maybe you can start earlier in the day friday and not have as many concurrent matches?
Repeating the same ads over and over in large blocks is not effective advertising. No ad should be seen more than once in a block and preferably no more than once every two to three blocks.
In the non-match time when the commentators are speaking, use ambient footage more sparingly. The area is interesting, and its neat to see the crowds and their signs, but I'd rather spend more of my time looking at the commentators.
More player interviews.
Don't let the HD get off on the wrong foot like DC again. You need someone at the event who can check the stream and make the adjustments needed and is dedicated to that task. He should also have HD support forums access. Also, please aim to have the HD stream running at 720P. With a 2.2mbit bitrate, there was no reason you couldn't. It's somewhat misleading to charge for an HD cast that isn't at least 720P.
As far as the events themselves go, if you want to sell more passes to play, find cheaper hotels. I don't have a problem with covering the pass costs, but for example, $179 a night hotel does not make taking the trip to dallas a welcome figure in my budget.
Also I have noticed some requesting additional casters. Do not bring back HD and Husky. If you can get GunRun there, that's a good choice. As far as any other names go, please be very picky and no matter who you have, please keep Day[9] on the cast as much as he is willing and/or is practical. He is unparalleled in his casting performance and I can't imagine another caster out there who should be taking time from him.
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I was very pleased with the quality on Saturday, though the initial delay was rather frustrating, along with the weird contrast issues following it. I have purchased an HD pass both weekends and overall have been very satisfied. One thing I think that could be improved, would be to provide a Flash based, non Octoshape option for HD subscribers. Octoshape seems to be very unstable, and actually causes my router to crash every few hours (it tries to make too many simultaneous connections, and there is no way to disable it)
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Do a second "minor" stream and invite hd/husky so you can leech off their viewers that way while still having a good stream with boss commentators like djwheat / day9. Also so we can follow more players early.
Cut off the second stream when you get down to the top 5 or whatever.
Also help out teams, what I mean is pimp out EG, Root, Dignitas, etc. Those teams are the ones that are sending players or players paying to come out. Support them so they can get better sponsor/support in general. You can't compete with GSL on prize pool but at least make MLG very attractive to teams just with how much you will highlight their teams / sponsors.
Maybe even do a team spotlight section for EG, Root, Dignitas, liquid etc and really give them a chance to talk about their sponsors. The App Factory people sent Ret from Europe etc, and I don't even remember White Ra's Team name (mtw) being mentioned. If these people are paying money to send players around the world, scratch their backs a little so it can continue and more european teams and korean teams will see good value in sending players.
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On October 19 2010 03:51 PackofHighly wrote:As far as the events themselves go, if you want to sell more passes to play, find cheaper hotels. I don't have a problem with covering the pass costs, but for example, $179 a night hotel does not make taking the trip to dallas a welcome figure in my budget.
Why don't you just book a nearby hotel with cheaper rates? I mean why house the event and the players themselves in a place that fits your budget when they can clearly afford better venues than you can? There are a least a dozen places within a 10 min ride of the Gaylord that were less than $100 a night and I'm betting the same is true in Dallas. The choice of venue in DC was fantastic, the place was very nice and there were plenty of facilities to handle the crowds without making it feel crowded. Well, except for the seating.
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I wasn't there but i heard about some sound issues due to the speakers on some stream and the thing is that it's basic physics and is called interference if you just got 2 speakers playing the same frequency's you need to hire someone to calculate how to minimize the destructive interference it impossible to bypass it completely but if that was a huge problem you should get someone working on that. I wasn't there after all just heard something about the sound going from really loud to pretty much mute if you moved around.
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On October 19 2010 04:03 tetracycloide wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2010 03:51 PackofHighly wrote:As far as the events themselves go, if you want to sell more passes to play, find cheaper hotels. I don't have a problem with covering the pass costs, but for example, $179 a night hotel does not make taking the trip to dallas a welcome figure in my budget. Why don't you just book a nearby hotel with cheaper rates? I mean why house the event and the players themselves in a place that fits your budget when they can clearly afford better venues than you can? There are a least a dozen places within a 10 min ride of the Gaylord that were less than $100 a night and I'm betting the same is true in Dallas. The choice of venue in DC was fantastic, the place was very nice and there were plenty of facilities to handle the crowds without making it feel crowded. Well, except for the seating.
I REALLY wanna echo this.
the Gaylord resort, unfortunate naming aside was an AMAZING venue for this.
please come back to DC and use them again, it was stellar the way they were willing to house a bunch of gamers and an african wedding on the same day and treat us both with equal respect.
good for them!!
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On October 19 2010 04:03 tetracycloide wrote:Why don't you just book a nearby hotel with cheaper rates? I mean why house the event and the players themselves in a place that fits your budget when they can clearly afford better venues than you can? There are a least a dozen places within a 10 min ride of the Gaylord that were less than $100 a night and I'm betting the same is true in Dallas. The choice of venue in DC was fantastic, the place was very nice and there were plenty of facilities to handle the crowds without making it feel crowded. Well, except for the seating.
This is very true, but the simpler things are, the better imo.
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Pros : Casting was great, interviews (both pre recorded and live) were a really nice addition. Cameras were good also, if I remember correctly Raleigh was the one were you could only see 1 spectator angle where everyone was lying on some blue floor.. right? This time we actually got good looks at the crowds and it actually appeared to be nice out there.
Cons :
- 1st day delay : just innaceptable
- in-game lag for players : im not sure how the network guys do it, but I seriously hope they are competent enough to priorise traffic (QoS) for players and calculate bandwith to make sure it is sufficient, at some times I was raging for the players and figured I would've paused WAY more then they did and start yelling at a blue guy.
- format : maybe its just me, but having to be glued 2 days in a row to my screen to watch 10 games with 1 hour of doritos and 6 hours of MLG logo felt like a waste in retrospect. Dont get me wrong the actual games were really good for the most part and the casting was top notch, but I feel it couldve been condensed way more. If you compare GSL to MLG i mean its really clear : you dont feel like you're wasting your time there, it's an actual TV show. I find this type of viewing way more enjoyable to spectate. I wish american and european tournaments would start getting this. To make actual TV shows instead of trying to film a LAN tournament, the interviews and quality of casting where all goin in that direction but the pace and randomness of what gets casted and what isnt felt like the tournament had to go on wether the viewers were able to see it or not.
Anyways, thanks for the improved quality of casting and interviews, this really stood out compared to previous IEM and MLGs.
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Kyrgyz Republic1462 Posts
Very good event, I liked everything.
Day and djWheat perfectly balance each other as casters. Wheat acts like a control rod for Day's enthusiasm reactor, and makes it produce just enough energy so that the cast is lively but it does not become over the top and unprofessional (which unfortunately happens with Tasteless and Artosis).
The double elimination bo3 format is also very refreshing, I wish more tournaments used it, at least for the final ro32 or so.
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Spectator seating is a big thing to me, probably the most important.
Second was the flow of games seemed very slow. Might want to brainstorm with the team a bit more to keep the delays to a minimum.
Pretty great overall though.
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I really enjoyed the stream on saturday. Quality was excellent (at least compared to GSL).
Minor things to improve:
(1) Official bracket was always 15-30 minutes behind. Bracket here on Team Liquid was much better.
(2) Also more in general, the official web page is a mess. SC2 seems still to be missing in many categories like "Standing, Pros, Broadcast Personalities, ...".
(3) A little bit more info in between the games. I know you have to show adds. But at least during the time where a random view of the players area / crowd is shown, some moderation or subtitles what is going on would be nice.
(4) I liked the shout outs / blog thing next to the stream, but this could have more frequent updates.
(5) Promote players and teams a little bit better. On the webpage, just a nickname is shown. Put some hyperlink to players nicknames to goes to a page with real name, past results, other nicknames, ladder rank, team and so on.
Overall definitely a great event that I will watch again.
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Calgary25980 Posts
On October 19 2010 03:58 dacthehork wrote:
Do a second "minor" stream and invite hd/husky so you can leech off their viewers that way while still having a good stream with boss commentators like djwheat / day9. Also so we can follow more players early.
Cut off the second stream when you get down to the top 5 or whatever.
Since it's SC2, you theoretically don't even need them there. They could cast on Skype from their houses... All you need is to allow them into the games.
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I really didn't feel like I got my moneys worth for the HD stream this time around, it felt like there were way more games casted at Raleigh, would be interested to see hard numbers on this. Watching a halo pregame show for 30 minutes or whatever during the first game after upgrading to HD was really painful after all the delays.
Would be really nice to get some real first person video cuts during the casted matches. Just seeing the player's camera from the spectator's screen isn't really the same.
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I was at the event personally and I had an absolute blast.
I understand that MLG is still in a "wait and see" phase with SC2 and I respect that. The accomodations for spectators did get better between Raleigh and DC, and I trust that, given the growing success of MLG SC2 that they will continue to grow. I have followed MLG since they first began doing events with Halo 2 and they have ALWAYS been good about this. I trust them and feel that this is in good hands.
From the live spectators perspective, some on-site brackets would have been SO nice. All of the other games, Halo, Tekken, SSB:B, all had brackets posted even if it was a dry-erase board on a tripod. As a spectator who was not staying at the Gaylord (and thus did not have access to the wireless internet) it was not possible for me to know who was still in and who was still out through the entire first day. This is minor, but that would improve the experience so much.
All in all it was a greatly run tournament. Once things got going, the tournament ran smooth and there was always something going on to check out. I know there is a whole outcry for booths but I know that that is not practical for MLG at this point in time with SC2. Booths are a big commitment and MLG is still trying to feel out the possibilites with where SC2 can go. I ask that everyone, though constructive criticism is good, please respect the effort and the value of what MLG is doing in trying to bring a respectable Starcraft scene to North America on the scale of which we have never seen before. Booths will come, in fact, a stage to the likes of what Halo is played on now will probably come. But MLG is a business and they don't want to be committing resources to a PC gaming scene that they aren't sure about just yet. I don't doubt that the reason the commentary volume to the spectators was so low was specifically so the players could not hear it, which I agree with until something better can be implemented. I'm sure sound-insulating headphones will be added for the players being casted in the near future, and that is sufficient for now.
MLG has a real chance to revitalized PC gaming in North America and it is something that, if done right, will bring SO many good things to this community and e-sports in general. Please please be patient. I have seen MLG develop games and they have the right mindset. The amount of transparency that they are grainting us over this entire process is truely a gift that we should not take for granted. They are trying to make money, but they understand the value of doing things the RIGHT way as well. This community and e-sports is in good hands with people like JP and the MLG admin staff behind it, and I can't wait to see how it grows over the coming years.
Great job guys, you are all so awesome and I appreciate what you're doing so much.
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On October 19 2010 04:10 Korben wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2010 04:03 tetracycloide wrote:On October 19 2010 03:51 PackofHighly wrote:As far as the events themselves go, if you want to sell more passes to play, find cheaper hotels. I don't have a problem with covering the pass costs, but for example, $179 a night hotel does not make taking the trip to dallas a welcome figure in my budget. Why don't you just book a nearby hotel with cheaper rates? I mean why house the event and the players themselves in a place that fits your budget when they can clearly afford better venues than you can? There are a least a dozen places within a 10 min ride of the Gaylord that were less than $100 a night and I'm betting the same is true in Dallas. The choice of venue in DC was fantastic, the place was very nice and there were plenty of facilities to handle the crowds without making it feel crowded. Well, except for the seating. I REALLY wanna echo this. the Gaylord resort, unfortunate naming aside was an AMAZING venue for this. please come back to DC and use them again, it was stellar the way they were willing to house a bunch of gamers and an african wedding on the same day and treat us both with equal respect. good for them!!
not exactly sure what you mean by the unfortunate naming...
On the topic of secondary casting though, I think what would be ideal, not perhaps not immediately achievable, would be to have the normal cast with the regular guys, and then a secondary cast with much more basic explanations geared towards first timers or new players. That's the best way to get someone to casually check out the SC2 games and then get hooked on them. I think that the commentary was perfectly fine for the average player, but I went to MLG with someone who was essentially a novice, and i was talking over the speakers constantly to explain things to her. Not something I mind personally, but if that could be added to the event I think would help with expanding the appeal of the game.
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I think everyone has covered the big issues and I agree with a lot of it. I think my number one complaint is the number of games shown vs the amount of downtime where we're just looking at the MLG DC logo.
I understand that a second broadcast rig probably isn't feasible and if nothing can be done in venue then use BNET 2.0 to your advantage and do what ESL did with IEM Cologne and let GLHF (or some other reputable casters) cast games from home onto Ustream of non featured matches.
My one concern is making sure you get credit with your current and potential sponsors for those viewers, but Ustream does provide a pretty good amount of metrics that could be used. I'm sure they'd even run your ads for you in between games.
Whatever you have to do to get us more games within your budgetary constraints would be fantastic. I do think the future of SC2 in MLG is very bright based on these two events.
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On October 19 2010 04:30 Chill wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2010 03:58 dacthehork wrote:
Do a second "minor" stream and invite hd/husky so you can leech off their viewers that way while still having a good stream with boss commentators like djwheat / day9. Also so we can follow more players early.
Cut off the second stream when you get down to the top 5 or whatever. Since it's SC2, you theoretically don't even need them there. They could cast on Skype from their houses... All you need is to allow them into the games.
This is actually a really good idea tbh. Would be interesting to see if it could work, especially with so many games played simultaneous early in the tournament between reasonably big name players.
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I just posted this in the Thread of IEM NY vs MLG DC.
(though I have to say if you are going to rotate jp and wheat out it seems a little unfair to ask Day9 to cast every game for 2 days and yet jp is the "Face" of sc2 MLG gaming, either call in a reliever for sean , who gets so tired after these events he cancels his daily or really give him the props he deserves with some kind of recognition.)
and I think this is Key.
sean busts his ASS for MLG and the other people he casts for...
please.. reimburse him in some way.
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On October 19 2010 00:53 chuky500 wrote:
Wear less eyeliner especially JP. It looks wierd, it looks like a guy that wears make up.
hahaha... no one was wearing make-up this event. my eyes are just naturally really dark.
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United States7481 Posts
jp is like richard alpert
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279 Posts
On October 20 2010 03:40 Korben wrote:I just posted this in the Thread of IEM NY vs MLG DC. Show nested quote +(though I have to say if you are going to rotate jp and wheat out it seems a little unfair to ask Day9 to cast every game for 2 days and yet jp is the "Face" of sc2 MLG gaming, either call in a reliever for sean , who gets so tired after these events he cancels his daily or really give him the props he deserves with some kind of recognition.) and I think this is Key. sean busts his ASS for MLG and the other people he casts for... please.. reimburse him in some way.
Korben, you realize that all staff at MLG are paid, right? And you realize that we couldn't pry Day9 out of that chair with a forklift? We've tried. Day9 LOVES to cast. We had to force him to take a 15min break at one point. Love that guy.
P.S. some of the extended breaks we take are so that casters can actually go to the bathroom and eat.
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On October 20 2010 05:37 MLG_Lee wrote:
P.S. some of the extended breaks we take are so that casters can actually go to the bathroom and eat.
Sounds like you guys need bed pans and sustenance IVs, or robot casters.
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United States7481 Posts
hey lee if you don't mind i'm trying to put names to faces in terms of refs. I know who ender was, but i'm not sure on the others. i'm guessing red shirt was ryan moore, you were the one with the sweatshirt, and shrew was the other, is that correct?
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Make the press pass actually worth something. They are there to help promote your event and draw more attention to it. I have covered quite a few events (non gaming) and have never seen where the press was told to go sit int he general spectator area.
Maybe a press table or something. As it stood it was not possible to do play by play coverage of the event due to the lack of seating and the lack of power plugs for the press for their laptops/phone.
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Korben, you realize that all staff at MLG are paid, right? And you realize that we couldn't pry Day9 out of that chair with a forklift? We've tried. Day9 LOVES to cast. We had to force him to take a 15min break at one point. Love that guy.
P.S. some of the extended breaks we take are so that casters can actually go to the bathroom and eat.
honestly, No I didn't know that about the MLG staff.. so thanks for letting me know.
and fair enough if you can't pry him out of the chair..
please listen when we say he and wheat are awesome at the desk and jp on the floor as the man among the people is amazing.. it's a great great balance.. please keep it up!!!
Sounds like you guys need bed pans and sustenance IVs, or robot casters.
catheters?
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You should seriously consider making the last two or three rounds a Best of 5 or Best of 7. Best of 3 just doesn't cut it for the Semifinals and Finals.
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^ Imagine SelecT having to play a best-of-7 against Idra after having played all those best-of-3's already. No, I don't think so.
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On October 20 2010 07:34 GenoZStriker wrote:
^ Imagine SelecT having to play a best-of-7 against Idra after having played all those best-of-3's already. No, I don't think so.
If he couldn't handle that, then he doesn't deserve to win. It was his fault that he had to play so many rounds. Having a final that is Best of 3 is anti-climatic and just generally bad entertainment. You put all this effort into getting the two best players in the finals and it's done in a flash. No, I don't think so.
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On October 20 2010 07:34 GenoZStriker wrote:
^ Imagine SelecT having to play a best-of-7 against Idra after having played all those best-of-3's already. No, I don't think so.
That's silly. The finals could have been a bet of 7 without having to be played right after a dozen best of 3s. Just move the finals to the next day or start earlier on Friday or intersperse WoW games with SC2 games or any number of other options that puts space between the loser's finals and the grand finals. Hopefully next season SC2 will be taken more seriously and will get a separate PC section from WoW so that the tournament can be spread across more days.
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I watched the stream from home. I missed the first day, but caught the second day. Didn't know if I was going to watch ANY of it, so I didn't buy an HD pass. Well, when my setup started on Saturday morning, I decided that even if for just a day, the $10 HD stream would be worth it. Let me just say, I was not wrong.
The casting was great, the event was awesome and things just went smoothly. You even had the camera guys moving around on the extended breaks! It's always nice to see everybody that actually made it to the event, even if some annoying guy kept throwing his leg up in the air
The only thing I beg of you to change.........THE COMMERCIALS. I can only watch the Doritos Late Night Cheeseburger commercial so many times before I decide to boycott the company! *Not really, but you get the idea *
All in all, I rate the event a 9/10 for the Streamer, and that was with hearing all about that delay *Nothing is perfect, so I can't seriously knock you down much for it*
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279 Posts
On October 20 2010 05:54 Takkara wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 05:37 MLG_Lee wrote:
P.S. some of the extended breaks we take are so that casters can actually go to the bathroom and eat. Sounds like you guys need bed pans and sustenance IVs, or robot casters.
ROFL. Day9, JP and DJwheat (and Husky and HD in Raleigh) deserve every bit of credit. If they could, they'd all cast every match in the tournament, but that's not technically feasible.
hey lee if you don't mind i'm trying to put names to faces in terms of refs. I know who ender was, but i'm not sure on the others. i'm guessing red shirt was ryan moore, you were the one with the sweatshirt, and shrew was the other, is that correct?
Uh no. Not quite...
The red shirt (bad star trek reference as he's far from a replaceable security guy) is Ryan Moore.
The two asian's in sweatshirts are the "Trance twins" Brandon and Matt. I'll apologize in advance because I get them confused all the team.
I don't think I got caught on camera at all this event.
On October 20 2010 07:18 Korben wrote:Show nested quote +Korben, you realize that all staff at MLG are paid, right? And you realize that we couldn't pry Day9 out of that chair with a forklift? We've tried. Day9 LOVES to cast. We had to force him to take a 15min break at one point. Love that guy.
P.S. some of the extended breaks we take are so that casters can actually go to the bathroom and eat. honestly, No I didn't know that about the MLG staff.. so thanks for letting me know. and fair enough if you can't pry him out of the chair..
No problem.
On October 20 2010 07:18 Korben wrote:catheters?
That's... gross.
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On October 20 2010 09:02 MLG_Lee wrote:
I don't think I got caught on camera at all this event.
Sad face! If there's ever an MLG Pro Circuit scavenger hunt, that's going on the list.
I can't really think of what else would go on the list, though.
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My only suggestion is just more more more. More MLG and larger prize pools.
MLG needs to be in SoCal in 2011.
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United States7481 Posts
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On October 20 2010 09:48 fantomex wrote:
My only suggestion is just more more more. More MLG and larger prize pools.
MLG needs to be in SoCal in 2011.
Yes I agree, I know that Halo has bad history in southern california(despite me attending every event there since Halo 2's release) , I know Sundance was upset with Anaheim, but please please come back to the west coast.. Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah.. somewhere in that area please ;D...
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On October 20 2010 08:43 tetracycloide wrote:
Just move the finals to the next day or start earlier on Friday or intersperse WoW games with SC2 games or any number of other options that puts space between the loser's finals and the grand finals.
Very much agreed
zemiron wrote:
If he couldn't handle that, then he doesn't deserve to win. It was his fault that he had to play so many rounds.
Then what’s the point of a double elim format? Even the best players can be upset early in a tournament, and it's counterproductive to give them a chance to redeem themselves and penalize them at the same time. The winner of the lower bracket deserves to win as much as the winner of the upper bracket (at least that’s what I think is the purpose of a double elim format).
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On October 20 2010 05:58 Antoine wrote:
hey lee if you don't mind i'm trying to put names to faces in terms of refs. I know who ender was, but i'm not sure on the others. i'm guessing red shirt was ryan moore, you were the one with the sweatshirt, and shrew was the other, is that correct?
i was in the black MLG hoodie
trance brothers = short asians in the blue collared shirt and grey mlg hoodie
ryan moore in red collared shirt
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United States7481 Posts
zyz you should have told me you were going to the event, i would have high fived you for killing juvey wen you were level 3
as is i don't remember anybody in a black hoodie, sorry
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Baltimore, USA22254 Posts
On October 20 2010 05:37 MLG_Lee wrote:
We've tried. Day9 LOVES to cast. We had to force him to take a 15min break at one point. Love that guy.
P.S. some of the extended breaks we take are so that casters can actually go to the bathroom and eat.
I'll echo how sick of a guy Sean is. While we were waiting for food to arrive long after the games had concluded, I went to talk to Sean briefly before he went to bed (he couldn't even wait for the food). I swear to god, it looked like he was literally staring past me he was so worn out. Like he was just looking right at me but right past me at the same time, he couldn't even keep his eyes open. His girlfriend took him up to his room, and joined us a few minutes later. She said he was asleep before she even left. Dude is a hero!
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day9 is a hero, so are jp + djwheat. Best 3 casters ever <3 <3 :D MLG was really fun , I just wish they casted more of my games ;(
I think that 2 bo3's is just fine for the grand finals, if it was 2 bo5's then the guy coming from the loser bracket would have to win 6 games without losing 3 out of 5 ,which is prettttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttty damn hard and it might get kind of boring to have a 4 hour finals
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EPT
