Stream cheating

On February 08 2011 01:20 Iplaythings wrote:
Streaming tournament games is also very "not smart" in that manner, though the TL open was streamed by alot of players

On February 08 2011 01:21 TotalBiscuit wrote:
but in any tournament that matters, no player with the potential to win anything, would risk cheating.

On February 08 2011 01:21 TotalBiscuit wrote:
Nothing, other than the fact that if they're caught cheating they get blacklisted from every tournament in existence so it's not worth doing.

Justin.tv is implementing a tape-delay feature so that there's about 5 minutes lag time between what happens and what the spectator sees, but in any tournament that matters, no player with the potential to win anything, would risk cheating.

On February 08 2011 01:20 Bleak wrote:
His respect towards the competition and his opponent.

On February 08 2011 01:21 TotalBiscuit wrote:
Nothing, other than the fact that if they're caught cheating they get blacklisted from every tournament in existence so it's not worth doing.

Justin.tv is implementing a tape-delay feature so that there's about 5 minutes lag time between what happens and what the spectator sees, but in any tournament that matters, no player with the potential to win anything, would risk cheating.

On February 08 2011 01:39 Deadlyfish wrote:
Has there ever been a case where someone was watching a livestream while playing that person? Maybe there has, but i cant remember anything like that.

I mean, yea maphacking, arranged matches bla bla bla. But actually watching your opponents stream?

afaik most streams have a pretty big delay, i dont think watching it would help as much as people seem to think.

On February 08 2011 01:41 mizU wrote:
There's generally a 5 second or so delay in most streams, but it's usually fairly easy to determine if someone is listening to a stream while playing... So most players don't do it.

On February 08 2011 01:46 Grumbels wrote:
What I always wondered: if someone plays in the TL:Open vs someone that streams his games and he is told by an anonymous person "hey, he's going proxy banshee rush", what is he supposed to do? Pause the game and inform his opponent?

On February 08 2011 01:30 Boonbag wrote:


even pro gamers use to abuse and map hack ladder

On February 08 2011 01:47 delHospital wrote:
Set the status to busy, I guess.

On February 08 2011 01:48 skindzer wrote:


This reminds me of that SUPER OLD replay of Nada map hacking in ladder against an opponent who dt rushed him. I believe Masterofchaos or someone of the sort confirmed that he was indeed using MH but most of the community dismisse as something he used just to test build times or someone else using the account.

On February 08 2011 01:49 Grumbels wrote:

Yeah, would it be his responsibility to have set himself to busy beforehand to stop such things? I think a case could be made he would have to forfeit the game, though that sounds a bit ridiculous I suppose.

On February 08 2011 01:52 Herculix wrote:


no, the case could be made that the game would have to be restarted. why would he have to forfeit a game over something he didn't do?

there are some tournaments which make players take a "busy check" to make sure they aren't informed of anything like that before a match. if you are gonna stream games live, i think this is pretty mandatory.

On February 08 2011 01:39 Deadlyfish wrote:
Has there ever been a case where someone was watching a livestream while playing that person? Maybe there has, but i cant remember anything like that.

I mean, yea maphacking, arranged matches bla bla bla. But actually watching your opponents stream?

afaik most streams have a pretty big delay, i dont think watching it would help as much as people seem to think.

On February 08 2011 02:03 Finrod1 wrote:
The best indicator for cheating i think is too watch if there is a difference between online and offline results.

On February 08 2011 01:26 Liquid`Tyler wrote:

Joined TL.net Saturday, 20th of March 2010

I think that explains that! You have some bold opinions for how little you know.

So let me get this straight....Knowledge is based on the date joined to this crap half ass community? Is'nt your statement bold enough in its own right for even saying that...?

On February 08 2011 01:34 Hot_Bid wrote:

The bolded portion of your statement is so absurdly not true it's mind boggling. Years of history of cheating, abuse, and maphacking from top players in the international scene disagrees with you.

I say this with all due respect since you're a relatively well known caster, but you're extremely wrong.

Assuming what you in your post here will lead to an atmosphere of cheating. Until there is a delay implemented, no event with money should have a live stream. That's our stance on it. If some events want to ignore this, that's obviously their choice. But I would not be surprised at all, in fact I believe it more likely than not, that these events have already had cheating occur. There's no way to prove it but in the past, when players can cheat without being caught, some will cheat.

On February 08 2011 02:19 Pro]ChoSen- wrote:
I don't think it would it would be very beneficial for a player to listen to a stream while they are gaming to try and cheat. Whenever I'm watching a stream it's usually like a 30 second delay isn't it? So they would hear "oh he's moving out for an attack" like after the battle already happened.

I think it would be more distracting than helpful to try and cheat by listening/watching a stream while ur playing. I feel it would be better to just focus 100% on ur game. Now if there was 0 delay, and you are hearing commentary in ur headset live and in realtime, then yes obvious that would be a huge help / unfair advantage, but I believe there is always a delay.

On February 08 2011 02:13 ThisiswhyIdontjoinok wrote:




So let me get this straight....Knowledge is based on the date joined to this crap half ass community? Is'nt your statement bold enough in its own right for even saying that...?

So by your logic and reasoning, by which you have NONE, I myself do not know anything about anything since I just joined today....

The people that run this mainstream lamer website is just disgustingly more disgust by day by day.


Teamliquid.net is just a newbie magnet and will always stay a newbie magnet.

On February 08 2011 02:18 TotalBiscuit wrote:
Delay is a technical aspect that only Justin.tv seems to be trying to implement right now and nobody's come up with a local software buffering solution yet.

On February 08 2011 02:13 ThisiswhyIdontjoinok wrote:




So let me get this straight....Knowledge is based on the date joined to this crap half ass community? Is'nt your statement bold enough in its own right for even saying that...?

So by your logic and reasoning, by which you have NONE, I myself do not know anything about anything since I just joined today....

The people that run this mainstream lamer website is just disgustingly more disgust by day by day.


Teamliquid.net is just a newbie magnet and will always stay a newbie magnet.

On February 08 2011 02:13 ThisiswhyIdontjoinok wrote:




So let me get this straight....Knowledge is based on the date joined to this crap half ass community? Is'nt your statement bold enough in its own right for even saying that...?

So by your logic and reasoning, by which you have NONE, I myself do not know anything about anything since I just joined today....

The people that run this mainstream lamer website is just disgustingly more disgust by day by day.


Teamliquid.net is just a newbie magnet and will always stay a newbie magnet.

On February 08 2011 02:24 ThisiswhyIdontjoinok wrote:


So to stay on topic you would reply to my post and comment on my actions without responding to the question of the thread which is about gamers watching other gamers via streaming.....

Half assed * ITS OVER 9000!!!???? *

So let me get this straight....Knowledge is based on the date joined to this crap half ass community? Is'nt your statement bold enough in its own right for even saying that...?

So by your logic and reasoning, by which you have NONE, I myself do not know anything about anything since I just joined today....

The people that run this mainstream lamer website is just disgustingly more disgust by day by day.


Teamliquid.net is just a newbie magnet and will always stay a newbie magnet.

On February 08 2011 02:22 ThisiswhyIdontjoinok wrote:



This has nothing to do with this half ass community.

The question is related to a gamer watching another gamer via streaming.....

Thanks for proving this half of assed as I know it to be.

On February 08 2011 02:22 ThisiswhyIdontjoinok wrote:



This has nothing to do with this half ass community.

The question is related to a gamer watching another gamer via streaming.....

Thanks for proving this half of assed as I know it to be.

On February 08 2011 01:34 Hot_Bid wrote:

The bolded portion of your statement is so absurdly not true it's mind boggling. Years of history of cheating, abuse, and maphacking from top players in the international scene disagrees with you.

I say this with all due respect since you're a relatively well known caster, but you're extremely wrong.

On February 08 2011 02:31 Mentos wrote:


so if he wasn't ' a relatively well known caster ' you wouldn't say this with all due respect? Just fyi, this condescending tone is completely out of place, especially coming from an administrator.

Ever thought that some may look at things from a different perspective, and would rather assume that the majority of the player base is actually honourable and with integrity? Of course that there are bad apples, have been and will be, but why would their presence dictate such pessimistic view on the scene as a whole?
Assuming that a player with the potential to do well in a big tournament, doesn't need to watch a stream to know what his opponent is or may be doing is a totally valid way of thinking in my opinion, so I don't really understand why anything in what you quoted boggles your mind.

On February 08 2011 02:31 Mentos wrote:


so if he wasn't ' a relatively well known caster ' you wouldn't say this with all due respect? Just fyi, this condescending tone is completely out of place, especially coming from an administrator.

Ever thought that some may look at things from a different perspective, and would rather assume that the majority of the player base is actually honourable and with integrity? Of course that there are bad apples, have been and will be, but why would their presence dictate such pessimistic view on the scene as a whole?
Assuming that a player with the potential to do well in a big tournament, doesn't need to watch a stream to know what his opponent is or may be doing is a totally valid way of thinking in my opinion, so I don't really understand why anything in what you quoted boggles your mind.

On February 08 2011 02:35 hackmed wrote:
I always wondered about the EG masters cup, great production value but i wasn't sure if there was a delay or not. As far as i know, ustream doesnt have a delay option yet so im not sure if it was delayed locally before streaming.

On February 08 2011 02:18 TotalBiscuit wrote:
I had a word with Justin.tv's COO a couple of days ago and they claim to have resolved that (plus they're getting servers in Europe to alleviate the problems some European viewers have).

On February 08 2011 03:02 Neverplay wrote:
any half decend player would be better off concentrating on the game, then watching the stream while playing

On February 08 2011 03:02 Neverplay wrote:
any half decend player would be better off concentrating on the game, then watching the stream while playing

On February 08 2011 02:25 TotalBiscuit wrote:


I dunno where the fuck this tirade came from. Tyler is right, I don't know the backstory of the competitive scene pre-SC2, I wasn't part of this community at that point, hell I didn't and still don't give a shit about Brood War, wasn't my scene, won't ever be my scene.

Doesn't matter how harsh he was in the delivery of the message, the message was on point and accurate. It's the internet, best not to get crazy offended because somebody pointed out that someone else is wrong.

On February 08 2011 03:11 Jibba wrote:

Plus when you say it in Tyler's voice, you can't help but feel the chillness in his tone.

I think Justin.tv is going to get a huge leg up (they're already getting one) if they're the only casting service that offers a useful delay (1 minute is not useful.) Even if I trusted all the players, I probably wouldn't trust the viewers. Now that everyone knows qxc's character code, if he ever got in a finals of a big tournament and didn't have /dnd on, I'm absolutely positive he'd get spammed with what his opponent is doing.

On February 08 2011 03:11 Jibba wrote:

Plus when you say it in Tyler's voice, you can't help but feel the chillness in his tone.

I think Justin.tv is going to get a huge leg up (they're already getting one) if they're the only casting service that offers a useful delay (1 minute is not useful.) Even if I trusted all the players, I probably wouldn't trust the viewers. Now that everyone knows qxc's character code, if he ever got in a finals of a big tournament and didn't have /dnd on, I'm absolutely positive he'd get spammed with what his opponent is doing.

On February 08 2011 01:26 Liquid`Tyler wrote:

Joined TL.net Saturday, 20th of March 2010

I think that explains that! You have some bold opinions for how little you know.

On February 08 2011 01:34 Hot_Bid wrote:
I say this with all due respect since you're a relatively well known caster, but you're extremely wrong.

Assuming what you in your post here will lead to an atmosphere of cheating. Until there is a delay implemented, no event with money should have a live stream. That's our stance on it. If some events want to ignore this, that's obviously their choice. But I would not be surprised at all, in fact I believe it more likely than not, that these events have already had cheating occur. There's no way to prove it but in the past, when players can cheat without being caught, some will cheat.

On February 08 2011 01:49 Grumbels wrote:

Yeah, would it be his responsibility to have set himself to busy beforehand to stop such things? I think a case could be made he would have to forfeit the game, though that sounds a bit ridiculous I suppose.

On February 08 2011 03:42 semm wrote:
Despite some of the classless responses to the contrary, TB is on average correct. It's the same as in life. It's really super easy to purposefully bounce a ton of checks around town. So long as they didn’t have your name on them, you could get away with it an awfully long time. And yet, check bouncing isn't a major problem. For some, they don't do it because they know it's just wrong, for others its the fear of consequences. I don't think if someone said 'People really don't bounce checks on purpose' folks wouldn't jump down their throat

On February 08 2011 02:36 leakingpear wrote:

Speaking of boggling minds how on earth did you leap from disproving a statement with evidence of it being false to how HotBid views the community in general?

He didn't say the history of cheating was purported by the majority of progamers or the minority or anything, you just made some bizarre leap to satisfy your own bizarre preconceived notion of what he meant despite there not being any evidence to support it.

On February 08 2011 03:07 Sein wrote:


I doubt it. Knowing what your opponent is doing really helps and that's why many top level players have cheated in the past. You can also just listen to the stream rather than watching it.

On February 08 2011 03:47 Mentos wrote:


If you actually read the topic and understand that a discussion doesn't ever have just one angle and that my post doesn't address only the quote, but also the general approach he viewed towards online tournaments as a whole (as in: we won't approve live streams in tournaments with prizes, because people can and most likely will cheat), you will get your answer.

On February 08 2011 03:45 MindRush wrote:
implement a delay in the tournament of 10 minutes. The viewers can see everything 10 minutes after things happen. Any1 watching a stream and aiding a player participating is useless. A player will have already figured out what the opponent has been doing for 10 minutes anyway.(ex. if PLAYER_A is doing a 6 roach push, PLAYER_B will see it ingame about 5 minutes after the roach warren begins constructing. After another 5 minutes the guy aiding PLAYER_B tells PLAYER_B that his opponent is building a roach warren.)
10 minutes is nothing, really! sometimes you wait so long for a tournament to start that 10 minutes seem like nothing

On February 08 2011 05:05 Keitzer wrote:
absolutely nothing...

in fact streaming promotes cheating (if you think about it).

i can't wait until jtv releases their delay... will make for a better viewing experience... since even if it's not 100% live, it's still pretty damn close.

On February 08 2011 04:56 DusTerr wrote:
besides local events, casting replays or delayed casts... have each player stream their desktop. Unfortunately it would still be possible to get around that (2nd pc watching stream, etc)

On February 08 2011 06:41 Signum wrote:
you dont even need to actually watch it, you could just have the stream on a minimized browser tab and listen. or listen with a phone.

On February 08 2011 03:42 semm wrote:
Despite some of the classless responses to the contrary, TB is on average correct. It's the same as in life. It's really super easy to purposefully bounce a ton of checks around town. So long as they didn’t have your name on them, you could get away with it an awfully long time. And yet, check bouncing isn't a major problem. For some, they don't do it because they know it's just wrong, for others its the fear of consequences. I don't think if someone said 'People really don't bounce checks on purpose' folks wouldn't jump down their throat

On February 08 2011 01:20 Bleak wrote:
His respect towards the competition and his opponent.

On February 08 2011 02:31 Mentos wrote:

So if he wasn't ' a relatively well known caster ' you wouldn't say this with all due respect? Just fyi, this condescending tone is completely out of place, especially coming from an administrator.

Ever thought that some may look at things from a different perspective, and would rather assume that the majority of the player base is actually honourable and with integrity? Of course that there are bad apples, have been and will be, but why would their presence dictate such pessimistic view on the scene as a whole?

Assuming that a player with the potential to do well in a big tournament, doesn't need to watch a stream to know what his opponent is or may be doing is a totally valid way of thinking in my opinion, so I don't really understand why anything in what you quoted boggles your mind.

On February 08 2011 01:21 TotalBiscuit wrote:
But in any tournament that matters, no player with the potential to win anything, would risk cheating.

On February 08 2011 02:18 TotalBiscuit wrote:
Well there ya go, that's me told. So assume players are dishonourable self-serving cheats with no regard for the competitive scene until proven otherwise, no problem.

On the subject of live streams Hot_Bid, you know for a fact that's not going to happen. Players and organisers are extremely unreliable when it comes to getting replays to casters on time. I'm still waiting for replays promised by Dreamhack months ago that should have been sent on the day, to cover a series that did not get cast. There have been plenty of issues in the past where players have not sent replays on-time and you simply cannot do a tournament live-stream with significant delays like that, people will switch off.

Delay is a technical aspect that only Justin.tv seems to be trying to implement right now and nobody's come up with a local software buffering solution yet. SCReddit's delay had problems so they had to disable it, but I had a word with Justin.tv's COO a couple of days ago and they claim to have resolved that (plus they're getting servers in Europe to alleviate the problems some European viewers have).

On February 08 2011 02:18 TotalBiscuit wrote:
Delay is a technical aspect that only Justin.tv seems to be trying to implement right now and nobody's come up with a local software buffering solution yet. SCReddit's delay had problems so they had to disable it, but I had a word with Justin.tv's COO a couple of days ago and they claim to have resolved that (plus they're getting servers in Europe to alleviate the problems some European viewers have).

On February 08 2011 07:31 KevinIX wrote:
Of course, it's pretty easy to tell if someone is cheating, just as easy as if they were maphacking.

On February 08 2011 08:40 RyanRushia wrote:
feel like if someone is caught stream-watching or something... youll basically have the rest of your competitve career get screwed over, so i wouldnt say its worth it to win some online tourny

On February 08 2011 08:53 .Trex wrote:
Not really related to the OP but about the upcoming implementation of "delay" by justin.tv

I don't know what you guys think about that, but I'm looking forward to blizzard's implementation of a synchronized way to watch replays. Having a 15 min delay with the real game and with the casters (ie justin.tv implementation of delay) is more like watching a VOD with fast encoding for me.

The current way of running the TL opens is my favorite way of casting an online event because the casters are synchronized with the chat and everyone involved discovers the action at the same time. Also, a game with 10 observers streaming leads sometime to lag, and can also be a source of cheating. The only cons of this method is

- obviously when there is no more replay to cast, the caster has some time to fill, not a big deal

- the actual delay between the casters when they are 2, it's frustrating to hear the off-screen caster saying something totally off ("oh what a nice baneling !"... what ?! 1 mins ago, or not yet happening), That's why I tend prefer single caster with the actual format (while waiting any kind of coordination method).

But it really looks like the most "fair" way to provide live entertainement without disturbing the players and the games.

On February 08 2011 09:06 TotalBiscuit wrote:


The thing is, with stream delay, you really don't realise it's even there. Especially with online tournaments, how would you know that the games are delayed by 10 minutes or actually happening right now? You won't see a difference, the casters don't see a difference (because the footage is buffered, they don't know when it's actually airing).

i believe that the casters will be casting live and that the chat will be 10 minutes late, relative to the caster.

On February 08 2011 01:31 knL wrote:
I also think thats kind of a problem. But you have to life with that until its normal to have a delay on the tounament streams. Also "getting caught" abusing it is not that easy. I mean if you intercept a drop or blind counter something you can always argue on luck.

btw I think tyler is in a bad mood :o

On February 08 2011 02:18 TotalBiscuit wrote:
Delay is a technical aspect that only Justin.tv seems to be trying to implement right now and nobody's come up with a local software buffering solution yet.

On February 08 2011 11:47 KevinIX wrote:
It would be interesting as a player to finish a match and then tune into the stream to watch your own game casted live. Hahah.

On February 08 2011 12:04 Liquid`Tyler wrote:

I'm not sure if this counts as a solution since it uses a local network and 2 PC's, but I was able to set up a delay by doing the following: The computer that is in-game records screen and saves to an .flv file on its hard drive in a folder that is shared over a local network. A second computer on the local network opens the .flv file 10 minutes later and streams (to ustream, jtv, etc) a media player playing the file. As long as the first computer keeps writing the file, the second computer will keep on playing it. In other words, the video doesn't simply stop when it gets through the data the file had when it was opened. It keeps on streaming. Disk space isn't a concern because the video is compressed so you can stream at 720p while using up ~1GB/hour or less.

Its retarded that most tournaments allow the people to stream their games - and its even worse that "cash-hungry hookers" known as casters are allowed to stream games live and in HD. Its basically a free maphack and anyone can use it

On February 08 2011 20:25 Shameless wrote:
Few weeks ago i was watching Mana's stream while he was in some tournament, he was really on a roll and went through the brackets like a truck. Then he ran into some guy from aAa that asked if it was ok if some streamers joined. So suddenly he had 3 aAa observers in his game, i went to get a drink and make a quick phonecall, when i got back he already lost...

So, i'm not accusing anyone, but if i was Mana in that game i would have never let those guys in in the first place.

On February 08 2011 12:04 Liquid`Tyler wrote:

I'm not sure if this counts as a solution since it uses a local network and 2 PC's, but I was able to set up a delay by doing the following: The computer that is in-game records screen and saves to an .flv file on its hard drive in a folder that is shared over a local network. A second computer on the local network opens the .flv file 10 minutes later and streams (to ustream, jtv, etc) a media player playing the file. As long as the first computer keeps writing the file, the second computer will keep on playing it. In other words, the video doesn't simply stop when it gets through the data the file had when it was opened. It keeps on streaming. Disk space isn't a concern because the video is compressed so you can stream at 720p while using up ~1GB/hour or less.

On February 08 2011 19:17 idonthinksobro wrote:
its retarded that most tournaments allow the people to stream their games - and its even worse that "cash-hungry hookers" known as casters are allowed to stream games live and in HD. Its basically a free maphack and anyone can use it, as long you arent totally retarded e.g, the caster says huge as drop on the left and you suddenly move all your army from the middle of the map back to defend that drop. But even early game and only hearing what he is going to do will help you way too much, "oh he is one rax expanding allin incoming".

The players should have the right to say that they dont want their game castet in any tournament.

On February 08 2011 01:26 Liquid`Tyler wrote:

Joined TL.net Saturday, 20th of March 2010

I think that explains that! You have some bold opinions for how little you know.

On February 08 2011 22:47 shaaw wrote:
what do u think guys of casting tournaments entirely from replays? That would be an option with the "watch a replay in group featured" ?

On February 08 2011 22:56 AgentSmax wrote:

Nah... It's good but not the same. Watching games while they happen live is much better. Stream delay is the perfect fix to disable cheating on stream. And I'd think if it's obvious that players are cheating they would get penalized one way or the other.

On February 08 2011 23:48 kellymilkies wrote:
It is also obvious when someone is stream cheating.

On February 08 2011 01:21 TotalBiscuit wrote:
Nothing, other than the fact that if they're caught cheating they get blacklisted from every tournament in existence so it's not worth doing.

... no player with the potential to win anything, would risk cheating.

On February 08 2011 22:56 Morfildur wrote:


The simultaneus reading and writing will definatly be a problem for normal HDDs. SSDs might work, though a RAID setup might improve the performance, too. A big problem should be the on-the-fly encoding of the flash files while still having the game open and lots of action going on, it requires quite a powerfull PC.

You could use a capture card on the second PC, capture the output of the first and do the encoding/streaming there. For 10 minutes delay a PC with 2-4GB ram should even be able to keep the encoded file in memory if you write to new files every ~30 minutes and delete the old ones, removing the need for expensive SSDs or RAID systems.

Hmm.... maybe i should start developing a "streaming box" that does all that as a black box, you just buy it, plug a VGA/DVI/HDMI cable in, configure your stream, configure delay and it works automagically :p

On February 09 2011 00:14 Ipp wrote:
Having live streams of the finals just makes it so players don't have to go out of their way to cheat. Heck, I recall some games back in beta where people messaged a certain pro in middle of a game the build his opponent was doing; he respectfully paused let his opponent know and went on busy.

Not everyone is this trustworthy, additionally lets not forget there are other methods to cheating such as map hacking. I'm not sure how strong blizzard looks at map hacks in custom games and all the player would have to do is win 1 tournament, and his/her license has been paid for. Blizzard to my knowledge doesn't have a public database of map hackers like BW did, so the player would just have to buy another copy and he still gains money.

There are only two ways to absolutely prevent cheating:
1.) Live event
2.) Only tournament admin in game, players forced to provide a FPVod or Stream themselves. Casters go off replays; which is ridiculous.

Streams aren't the only problem: where there's a will, there's a way.

On February 09 2011 00:14 Ipp wrote:
Not everyone is this trustworthy, additionally lets not forget there are other methods to cheating such as map hacking. I'm not sure how strong blizzard looks at map hacks in custom games and all the player would have to do is win 1 tournament, and his/her license has been paid for. Blizzard to my knowledge doesn't have a public database of map hackers like BW did, so the player would just have to buy another copy and he still gains money.

On February 09 2011 00:15 Chill wrote:

Why is option 2 ridiculous? I don't get why you choose to just gloss over as if it's a foregone conclusion when it's at the heart of the discussion.

On February 09 2011 00:15 Chill wrote:

Why is option 2 ridiculous? I don't get why you choose to just gloss over as if it's a foregone conclusion when it's at the heart of the discussion.

On February 09 2011 00:21 bmg4ever wrote:


still map hacking is quite easy to proof for tournament admins, especially in starcraft 2, while stream cheating isn't. with a maphack you still need to look at things ingame , which will very fast become suspicious while watching the replay in the first person view.

On February 09 2011 00:31 bmg4ever wrote:
@Ipp

i think what chill means is why forcing casters to cast the replays instead of live would be ridiculous, cause it just isn't.

of course forcing players to stream first person is just silly, nobody would ever do that, and it wouldnt solve the issue at all.

On September 07 2010 09:14 iCCup.Raelcun wrote:
Okay so Huk's thread got closed with the invitation to summarize the main points and make a more positive discussion so here goes:

See his original post here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=150556

I will try and be much more clear in this OP about what I think should happen.

The big tournament issue

Huk has some valid points but the problem is saying that all events should be done from replays is just unreasonable. I'm all for compromising but this involves accepting that many events cannot use replays. Big $$ tournaments with large prize pools can easily say "send replays or else," or have enough organization to get a referee into each match to save replays and tell the players to save the replays as well and they might be asked for the replays if there is a problem.

Smaller tournaments

The problem are the smaller tournaments that are filling up the SC2 Tourneys forum, the smaller $$ tournaments that many times have large numbers of entrants. Chasing around 500 players for a $100 tournament and or trying to get enough referees to sit in each round 1 game is not going to happen. Tournaments such as the Gosucoaching weekly tournament are a good example of when live casting games is really the only option.

And these smaller tournaments are happening constantly there are weekly cups, smaller events that draw in a lot of players in that the top players want a chance to win some $$ and the other players want a chance to try and beat these players. These tournaments have a big role in the esports scene right now as there are far more of them than the gigantic tournaments.

edit: Yes well why don't we cast the last 16 players then? Well the main draw for these gigantic tournaments for a sponsor is the idea that the stream will be online for many hours straight with lots of plugging of their name over and over. Saying we will only cast the final 16 removes some incentive for lesser players to enter to possibly get on stream, and for the tournament to be sponsored. [/edit]

Lag

So for the big well organized tournaments yes you can try and organize replay casts but then the players themselves have to cooperate or face the consequences. The lag issue should not happen, tournaments need to have restrictions on the number of people in game this is a fact. Allowing 5 different streams into a game is just plain stupid, admins need to put their foots down and say "NO." This also means that if it's lagging the admins who are observing because they don't want to watch the stream also have to be willing to step out as well. These solutions work what needs to happen are the sweeping generalizations need to stop ie "only cast LAN live" "every other event can use replays." This is simply not true.

Other issues

The stress issue is covered by having an official stream and limiting the number of people who are allowed to cast as well because then the player can say "you're not on the list talk to the admin." If a player is being bothered by a someone wanting to stream they should be legit able to tell the admin "deal with this guy for me." The admins should be trying to keep as much stress because of the stream off the players as possible.

Sub point: admins

Admins need to be able to recognize that they made a mistake issues like what happened with Morrow should not happen. Basically both parties were at fault and they should be able to recognize this and say that you broke the rules but only cuz we fucked up and be willing to improve their policies for the good of the scene.

Conclusions

The final point, when it comes down to it the sponsors are paying for the tournament to be covered, the live coverage should not infringe upon the ability of the players to play. But at the same time players need to put up with slight annoyances in order to get that coverage out there so the sponsors can get their money's worth. This means sometimes you'll have to wait for the stream sometimes a guy will lag and it will take him a minute to leave (which he should), sometimes a streamer will drop and interrrupt the game. But both parties need to work together on this issue like I said about five times previously; the players can't say "without us there is no tour" and refuse to compromise and the streams can't say "without us there is no prize" and do the same thing. Middle grounds must be found.

So what does this mean? When discussing this don't talk in imperatives saying this MUST happen or else. Try to keep the discussion more constructive than just saying "no it must happen my way because I"m more important." Or else the discussion will go the same way as the last one, with it being closed.

On February 09 2011 00:26 Skomski wrote:
No one will ever stream cheating because cheating is so much easier with a external maphack:

On February 09 2011 00:27 Ipp wrote:
I didn't want to go into #2 as it is much hard to do then is sounds and requires a lot of thinking of how to enforce it; additionally I could write an entire essay on repercussions this has.

On February 09 2011 00:45 Keregan wrote:
Let the cheaters cheat, People that cheat are just sad and should not play.
There is nothing you can do about people that "Stream cheat" (If they use their real ID + is in chat you can catch them, but why would they)
I have seen a lot of streams from tournaments where people seem to cheat, Although; If it's an online tournament, You have to get the luck to get your own game casted aswel before you are able to cheat in the first place.
The only way to prevent "stream cheats" or friends spectating telling you what to do (On skype, Teamspeak, Ventrilo etc.) would be to only cast replays, Wich by me would seem like the best idea actually, Since it prevents the cheating by 100%. (Obviously not maphacks).

On February 09 2011 00:47 Ipp wrote:
Let me get this straight - casting from relays is not ridiculous, I say it's a smart idea whenever I get to Ro16 in TL Opens and people complained. What is ridiculous is doing 30 things to prevent cheating.

I don't see how it's taken out of context just casting from replays is not hard at all.

On February 09 2011 00:27 Ipp wrote:


I didn't want to go into #2 as it is much hard to do then is sounds and requires a lot of thinking of how to enforce it; additionally I could write an entire essay on repercussions this has.

On February 09 2011 00:47 Ipp wrote:
Let me get this straight - casting from relays is not ridiculous, I say it's a smart idea whenever I get to Ro16 in TL Opens and people complained. What is ridiculous is doing 30 things to prevent cheating.

I don't see how it's taken out of context just casting from replays is not hard at all.

On February 09 2011 01:05 Morfildur wrote:


A problem with only casting replays is that many smaller casters can't get hold of them. There aren't just big casters but also newcomers who like to cast small tournaments unrelated to the main casters just to make a name for themselves.

Ofc it doesn't matter for big tournaments, but for the small, regular tournaments the small casters can be important to make the tournament better known to players and viewers.

On February 09 2011 01:49 Ipp wrote:



#2 - The "Live" feeling would be killed by a delay too by your explanation. If you cast replays after the game is played it is like having a "fool proof" delay; it is still live by commentators point of view.

On February 09 2011 02:04 ffz wrote:
i think the problem from casting from replays is that when you get 2 ppl dualcasting a replay, it's so hard to keep it sync. It really bothers me when the battle is happening and something hasn't died yet on the stream, but the other caster is just a little bit ahead and he tells us it dies. kills the suspense a little.

On February 08 2011 02:18 TotalBiscuit wrote:
Delay is a technical aspect that only Justin.tv seems to be trying to implement right now and nobody's come up with a local software buffering solution yet.

On February 09 2011 01:53 italiangymnast wrote:


i disagree - the live feeling is still there with a 10 minute delay. cause you know the even is goingon right now!
feels the same.

On February 09 2011 02:29 Zocat wrote:


Wait what? Really? A friend of mine is streaming his WoW raids and can adjust the delay as he wants. Though he isnt using any of those streaming websites but his normal rootserver (thus nowwhere possible to sustain more than couple of viewers).

When it comes to replays, there's the nebulous feeling of "it's just not quite as epic", though I don't think that can be properly quantified into anything concrete so it's not necessarily worthy of major consideration.

On February 09 2011 03:00 Bleb wrote:
- cheating via stream is really easy (who doesn't have old laptop with decent internet connection?) and incredible hard to spot (assuming that cheater has more than 1 brain cell)

On February 09 2011 01:54 TotalBiscuit wrote:
When it comes to replays, there's the nebulous feeling of "it's just not quite as epic", though I don't think that can be properly quantified into anything concrete so it's not necessarily worthy of major consideration.

On February 09 2011 02:17 MrKozi wrote:
I was watching last TLOpen some MorroW games. He was on DecemberTV stream answering accordingly to that casters were saying. Then ppl on chat start taking about cheating and MorroW said that he's only listening stream between games. You can belive him or not but I notice after that he was playing some random terran who went for cloack banshees and MorroW build some spore clawers without scouting anything...

Its sad... MorroW isn't my favorited player anymore.

On February 09 2011 03:24 Timerly wrote:


Ok, so because YOU can't put a number on it, it's not worthy of consideration? Wait, what? Maybe let the guys doing research on the subject for years handle that, thank you.

btw we're talking maybe 5min delay, not 10min+, 5min is more than enough to not make a major difference, every tech will have been shown after 5min and every hidden base should either be scouted or is half empty already, nothing to get all excited about.

In my opinion you are underestimating the effect of live-casting.

On February 09 2011 02:41 Justanx wrote:
We keep hearing about cheating does go on or it doesn't. That there has been incidents of cheating with big names being caught. What really gets me, is that these cheaters are still lauded upon. Spades as an example. So what happened to being black listed, i think more he is being A-listed.

So this solution of trying to stop cheaters from cheating.It seems it doesn't matter because if they are caught, it gets glossed over.

On February 09 2011 01:54 TotalBiscuit wrote:
When it comes to replays, there's the nebulous feeling of "it's just not quite as epic", though I don't think that can be properly quantified into anything concrete so it's not necessarily worthy of major consideration.

Because the TL tournaments that are cast from replays are done in a problem-free and efficient manner (so I'm being told) Chill, I think perhaps you're assuming that every tournament runs that smoothly. It doesn't, that's the main reason why there's opposition to tournament replay casting. It causes a lot of downtime on the stream when replays are not supplied promptly, it is a sub-par experience for the viewers. Consider the following hypothetical situation.

Mega Tournament XXL

00:00 Game 1 - Player X vs Player Y - takes 11 minutes
12:00 Game 2 -Player X vs Player Y - takes 27 minutes
40:00 Game 3 - Player X vs Player Y - takes 16 minutes

Casting schedule

00:00-12:00 - No cast
12:00-23:00 - Casting Game 2
23:00-40:00 - Downtime, no cast.
56:00 onwards - Casting Game 2

And that's assuming a 1 minute delay between finishing a game and getting a replay sent to the caster, which may be generous.

You can get around that by delaying the cast significantly but then you run into time issues as well and that's something you have to take into consideration from both a casting and viewing point of view. Let's say Mega Tournament XXL starts at 7pm and ends at around midnight. Let's say the casting is delayed by 1 hour, which might be a reasonable window to ensure a constant stream of replays. So the cast is going on from 8pm to 1am, that's a stretch and can affect the quality of the cast, since the casters will be getting very fatigued by the end of it. It's also unreasonable to expect spectators to stay up that long (obviously timezones are a major factor, but it's still worth considering). This is all assuming there are no other problems that prevent replays from getting to the casters, further delaying the broadcast.

Then there's the issue of spoilers. The longer the delay between the games and the cast, the more likely it is that the result will be spoiled. It's not an inconsiderable factor, sports broadcasting of any sort relies on that drama and excitement that is easily destroyed by spoilers. TL obviously cares about spoilers, as we've seen. I know that some of these replay-cast tournaments have been done with smurf/guest pass accounts, but that's not necessarily practical to do all the time. Spoilers are possible in a tape-delay situation too but they're less likely since the window between game and cast is smaller. Does it have to be? No, but I'm suggesting that a significant window is required for replays in order to ensure minimal downtime and problems, keeping the caster supplied with games to cast rather than having the hypothetical situation above occur.

Anyway, just a few thoughts on why replays are not necessarily ideal.

EDIT : Oh yes, a major issue I completely neglected to mention. As stated by the guy below VVV

Replay casting is impractical for co-casted events. Until Blizzard implement a proper synchronised multi-spectator replay system, you will run into syncing issues where one caster gets ahead or behind another. If you watched the SCReddit finals cast from replays you'd have noticed Sean getting ahead of the stream. Not his fault by any means, but it negatively impacted the viewing experience.

On February 09 2011 00:30 Aberu wrote:


Meh, TotalBiscuit is pretty well known, but more for WoW. I think what he's saying is that the good players, in the good big tournaments, are not the kind of people that would usually cheat. He's wrong because it has happened before. Of course he is mistaken, but to attack him for when he joined the forum as some sort of way to discredit what he said; isn't that aimed in the wrong direction? How about just pointing out the logical fallacy of what he said, like how he made a blanket statement with no room for variables whatsoever.

To me, elitism on message boards about how long you have been around just bothers me, no matter how important you are, you can still look pretty bad trying to show it off.

On the topic, there is hardly anything that would stop that happening, but a good tournament will do the new system of only allowing people to cast the replays, and obs were only tournament organizers. I like that new method, and I think it's quite effective.

On February 09 2011 02:17 MrKozi wrote:
I was watching last TLOpen some MorroW games. He was on DecemberTV stream answering accordingly to that casters were saying. Then ppl on chat start taking about cheating and MorroW said that he's only listening stream between games. You can belive him or not but I notice after that he was playing some random terran who went for cloack banshees and MorroW build some spore clawers without scouting anything...

Its sad... MorroW isn't my favorited player anymore.

On February 09 2011 03:59 Liquid`Tyler wrote:
What does being well known or knowing a lot about WoW have to do with the issue? There are tons of famous people that have no idea whether good SC players who can get results without cheating will cheat when given the opportunity. Narrowing famous people down to people who also know a lot about WoW doesn't help. Join date on TL implies that he was ignorant of all the evidence this community has accumulated that contradicts his judgment and it turned out to be true. He didn't know how ridiculous he sounded to any TL veteran. It'd be like some new politician rising up in America questioning why flight security is so high, saying "terrorists wouldn't target planes or use them as weapons."

I could have posted a timeline like
Prior to March 20, 2010: reports of good sc players cheating are on TL
March 20, 2010: totalbiscuit joins TL

Conclusion: totalbiscuit doesn't know that good sc players cheat.

I think that argument was fairly obvious. How you got to message board elitism based on join date is beyond me.

What research? Why even mention it if you aren't going to link it?

You can't use subjective, personal feelings in a debate like this. One person's 'it ruins the live experience' is anothers 'I see no actual difference'.

I don't think you've been reading what I've said up to this point.

Join date on TL implies ....,Joined TL.net Saturday, 20th of March 2010 You have some bold opinions for how little you know.

On February 09 2011 04:43 alonndo wrote:


You rly overdo the relevance of TL.

On February 09 2011 04:52 PepperoniPiZZa wrote:
How about somebody creates WaaaghTV or HLTV for sc2? ->problem solved

On February 08 2011 01:20 Bleak wrote:
His respect towards the competition and his opponent.

On February 08 2011 01:26 Liquid`Tyler wrote:

Joined TL.net Saturday, 20th of March 2010

I think that explains that! You have some bold opinions for how little you know.