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Before you post, read the title of this thread slowly and out loud. |
On February 23 2011 20:07 Xeris wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2011 19:54 Buddhist wrote:
I don't see how GSL makes it hard for foreigners to compete other than the fact that it's in Korea. That may have been your only point, but GSL has actually taken many measures to make it as easy as possible for foreigners to participate as possible. Foreigners don't have to be top 172 or w/e in korean ladder, 4 of them get free spots in A, etc.
I'm not really saying anything about what NASL's policy should be, I'm just sayin'. Really? There are such insanely high barriers to entry into the GSL (I'm talking about Code S). First, if you're not one of the 4 lucky foreigners to be directly seeded into Code A you have to: - Go through 1 month at least to even get the chance to qualify for Code A, then another 1-2 months in Code A to get to Code S. It takes a minimum of a quarter of a year for a foreigner to get into Code S. On top of this, there's at least a 1-2 month adjustment period where you're adjusting to life in Korea and practicing. So really, you're looking at a 6 month minimum commitment of being in Korea to have a realistic shot at getting to Code S. This means: you need to pay for the flights and 6 months of living expense. This is such an INSANELY high barrier to entry, nobody outside of Liquid really can do this. Why have no other teams (even those with huge sponsors such as EG or Mouz) made the investment in Korea? Because it's unrealistic for foreigners to compete in this league, simple fact.
And yet, despite all of this, it will be many times easier for foreigners to compete in GSL than for koreans to compete in NASL. As i wrote before, Gretech has provided many services to smooth the transition for foreigners. All of the barriers that you wrote would apply for koreans coming here, and you cannot plan to provide no dedicated translators or anything for korean players and yet claim that it is easier for them to come to NASL than for the reverse to happen.
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^ Yah, on SotG they seemed to heavily emphasize personality and backstory, especially from the player; they'd definitely need to hire a Korean-speaking translator to make it work.
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Voting: The voting is a way to get involved. We're not picking the players directly based on voting, but it may factor into some of our choices.
Sad.
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On February 23 2011 20:23 m3rciless wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2011 20:07 Xeris wrote:On February 23 2011 19:54 Buddhist wrote:
I don't see how GSL makes it hard for foreigners to compete other than the fact that it's in Korea. That may have been your only point, but GSL has actually taken many measures to make it as easy as possible for foreigners to participate as possible. Foreigners don't have to be top 172 or w/e in korean ladder, 4 of them get free spots in A, etc.
I'm not really saying anything about what NASL's policy should be, I'm just sayin'. Really? There are such insanely high barriers to entry into the GSL (I'm talking about Code S). First, if you're not one of the 4 lucky foreigners to be directly seeded into Code A you have to: - Go through 1 month at least to even get the chance to qualify for Code A, then another 1-2 months in Code A to get to Code S. It takes a minimum of a quarter of a year for a foreigner to get into Code S. On top of this, there's at least a 1-2 month adjustment period where you're adjusting to life in Korea and practicing. So really, you're looking at a 6 month minimum commitment of being in Korea to have a realistic shot at getting to Code S. This means: you need to pay for the flights and 6 months of living expense. This is such an INSANELY high barrier to entry, nobody outside of Liquid really can do this. Why have no other teams (even those with huge sponsors such as EG or Mouz) made the investment in Korea? Because it's unrealistic for foreigners to compete in this league, simple fact. And yet, despite all of this, it will be many times easier for foreigners to compete in GSL than for koreans to compete in NASL. As i wrote before, Gretech has provided many services to smooth the transition for foreigners. All of the barriers that you wrote would apply for koreans coming here, and you cannot plan to provide no dedicated translators or anything for korean players and yet claim that it is easier for them to come to NASL than for the reverse to happen.
NASL will be mostly online and only final 16 offline so ye its easier for koreans they dont have to come to US for 6 months
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On February 23 2011 20:08 Xeris wrote:
If we were to do the show completely live, we would have to cut a lot of our transitional effects which give us the "wow" factor.
I can't really say without seeing all of this in a highly polished manner, however I've never personally been a fan of transitions. If they are done well and add to the experience then I suppose this would be a nice addition.
Additionally, a live broadcast does not allow smooth in-game camera cuts. Due to the level of our stream quality, which can be watched on a 72" widescreen TV, in-game camera cuts leave a "residue" of the previous shot.
I'm not quite sure what an in-game camera cut is. I can only assume this means there are multiple observers that you can switch between in order to better cover simultaneous drops for example much better than if you had a single observer live. Good use of multiple observers would be something I could really see as a good reason for delaying the stream. A good observer can compensate over time (it has taken the GSL a long time to get their observing going smoothly) however it still has troubles (Tasteless can't see anything right now for example) and it can be difficult for the observer to cover very hectic games.
Furthermore, a delayed broadcast allows us to involve Europeans without having them stay up until 5 in the morning to play their matches.
I'm not sure how it being completely live stops it from being recorded and re-streamed later for Europeans, however if for some reason this can't be done, I am certainly not for ostracizing Europeans.
So overall, we felt that a pre-record of the show gave an overall quality level that was worth the loss of immediacy.
A difficult call, I think it will entirely depend on if the product that comes out is appreciably better than if it was just done live. At this point, given that the showmatch was apparently not a good indicator of final quality, I cannot say either way on this will be true. All I know is that we've all done pretty well (and even the GSL has done very well) without needing to delay their broadcasts for quality reasons.
We never even thought we were being misleading. It is standard practice for film to state that a show is filmed live if it is performed as it is being filmed. Typically, "Live" means that they perform it with minimal retakes or with multi-camera work. We are sorry if you thought we were being deceptive; that was never our intention.
Totally understandable. However in television "Filmed Live" is clear that it is being filmed live. While "Cast Live" is very confusing due to the use of the word "cast" in terminology to generally include commentary and broadcasting, rather than just commentary on its own.
Let me say that the feedback is great, even if a little heated at times.
I appreciate that this is a huge undertaking and I am glad that I have this opportunity to voice concerns, I have tried to be constructive at all times. I know much of this can seem like nitpicking or pointless, I mostly bring any of it up because of the confusion I have seen around this forum and from talking to friends regarding the event.
If after all this info, you still think that doing the broadcast 100% live is worth it, let us know. Then we will know what you value more and we can adjust accordingly."
I look forward to the final product, until then I don't think anyone can state that your production values are not worth the delay, it will entirely depend on if the audience thinks it is getting better value through the delay than the value they see in it being truly live. Given the debate some people seem to care very strongly about it being truly live, while others don't care. It will depend on how people take to the first season.
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Xeris:
1 - If there are Koreans that are interested in coming over, is there any support that you would give them to do this?
2 - If there are Koreans who do want to come over no matter if there is a help or not, how would you decide which of them were eligable? Also, would these koreans be able to enter the league through the Open Tournys?
Pre-Thank you 
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On February 23 2011 20:27 GizmoPT wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2011 20:23 m3rciless wrote:On February 23 2011 20:07 Xeris wrote:On February 23 2011 19:54 Buddhist wrote:
I don't see how GSL makes it hard for foreigners to compete other than the fact that it's in Korea. That may have been your only point, but GSL has actually taken many measures to make it as easy as possible for foreigners to participate as possible. Foreigners don't have to be top 172 or w/e in korean ladder, 4 of them get free spots in A, etc.
I'm not really saying anything about what NASL's policy should be, I'm just sayin'. Really? There are such insanely high barriers to entry into the GSL (I'm talking about Code S). First, if you're not one of the 4 lucky foreigners to be directly seeded into Code A you have to: - Go through 1 month at least to even get the chance to qualify for Code A, then another 1-2 months in Code A to get to Code S. It takes a minimum of a quarter of a year for a foreigner to get into Code S. On top of this, there's at least a 1-2 month adjustment period where you're adjusting to life in Korea and practicing. So really, you're looking at a 6 month minimum commitment of being in Korea to have a realistic shot at getting to Code S. This means: you need to pay for the flights and 6 months of living expense. This is such an INSANELY high barrier to entry, nobody outside of Liquid really can do this. Why have no other teams (even those with huge sponsors such as EG or Mouz) made the investment in Korea? Because it's unrealistic for foreigners to compete in this league, simple fact. And yet, despite all of this, it will be many times easier for foreigners to compete in GSL than for koreans to compete in NASL. As i wrote before, Gretech has provided many services to smooth the transition for foreigners. All of the barriers that you wrote would apply for koreans coming here, and you cannot plan to provide no dedicated translators or anything for korean players and yet claim that it is easier for them to come to NASL than for the reverse to happen. NASL will be mostly online and only final 16 offline so ye its easier for koreans they dont have to come to US for 6 months
KR-US lag is probably not acceptable for such a high-profile tournament. It's not even acceptable for TSL.
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Furthermore, a delayed broadcast allows us to involve Europeans without having them stay up until 5 in the morning to play their matches.
Just a quick note--the people that have responded to the above have misunderstood it as far as I can tell. They're talking about players, not spectators. Notice "play their matches."
As far as I'm concerned, that alone is a very good reason for the delayed broadcast--and the only reason necessary (bonuses like better production quality is just icing on the cake.) That's what makes playing in the NASL different from the GSL--you aren't going to have to move to L.A. or even the U.S. to play in your NASL matches, but you definitely have to move to South Korea for the GSL.
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Show nested quote +
Furthermore, a delayed broadcast allows us to involve Europeans without having them stay up until 5 in the morning to play their matches
I'm not sure how it being completely live stops it from being recorded and re-streamed later for Europeans, however if for some reason this can't be done, I am certainly not for ostracizing Europeans.
He was speaking about Europeans players , not viewers. If the game were to be broadcoasted live european players would have to play at 5 am ,which is obiously a big disadvantage for europeans.
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All I'm really saying in my previous post is that the live broadcasting doesn't seem to actually have any more technical difficulty than broadcasting pre-rendered videos would. I just don't see how, if I can stream at home with livestream (extremely simple and uncustomizable software) with 0 artifacting and 1400x900 resolution, how it would be any more difficult for your studio to do the same.
I'm not here to bust your balls though, and I certainly don't know everything about the technical aspects. I never understood why GSL has artifacts either.
Edit: and nevermind about what I said about games being rebroadcast for Europeans, I misread. That is a very valid point; playing the games at a better time for Europeans will likely be very important indeed.
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On February 23 2011 20:05 Enzyme wrote:
NASL is trying to establish ESPORTS in the west, this will not happen with western audiences if everyone is Korean and can't speak English. The purpose of the back stories in NASL is to build rapport with the players and the audience in order to build up esports in the eyes of western audiences. At this point in time it actually hurts NASL's goals to allow it to become filled with Koreans even if they are technically the best players. Yes, this sounds racist and unfair, but if western audiences wanted to see Koreans play then the OSL would have been broadcast in America already.
I'm sure there are many other factors such as regions, timezones and differentiating their product from the GSL, however I think for esports to really get a foothold in the west they do need a strong non-korean player base.
Yes, I think this initiative is very nice for western esport. In my opinion the NASL should be restricted to north american players. There would be no more questions and suspicions (selection, lag, language, skill level, etc). With only charismatic english-speaking american players sc2 will become more and more broadcasted in Canada and in the US. And this is good for the entire starcraft2 scene.
I can only hope there will be soon such a league in Europe.
GSL in Korea
NASL in NA
EUSL in Europe?
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First of all, THANK YOU XERIS. Bunch of ungrateful critics in this thread, seriously. You guys are gonna do your best to make this awesome. Everyone complaining about the live/not-live thing obviously hasn't watched a TSL or is criticizing you for their perception of you being misleading -- either way that's their shit to deal with, not yours.
Anyway, I do have some questions/feedback.
Production quality
- In the recent showmatch, the lighting on the casters wasn't very good and the room itself seemed pretty dark. What are your plans for improving lighting? Is this on the list of "known things to work on"?
- The casters weren't wearing professional clothing, which seemed to cheapen the broadcast a good bit. Do you have plans to encourage the casters to wear particular clothing? :D
- There was no music or video for game intro/outro transitions. Are these being designed and in the works?
- The recent mention of "in-game camera cuts" was distressing to me as a major criticism of the showmatch was how they would cut during the game and show the casters. A popular theory was that these cuts were done to hide the attempts to sync the game. I was just hoping you would confirm that during the games, there will be no cutting away from the games to show the casters.
Player selection
I'm honestly a bit confused on this point. Players will be submitting video of themselves, you can vote for your favorite players, okay, all of that is fine... but uh, how are you determining which players to select? Who is making the selections? I mean, I'm guessing skill/rank/popularity all factor in quite significantly here, but the metrics are a little obscure. Is this basically a 50-man invitational?
I'm sure I'll think of more, but that's good for now.
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Another note as well, I would say that a psychological effect of live plays a part that is massive. For example. If i recoreded Scotland playing a football match, I wouldn't necessarily get a beer, couple of friends round, and enjoy it. dunno, but live makes a big deal to me in sporting matters, and esports is a sport afer all,,,
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Production quality
- In the recent showmatch, the lighting on the casters wasn't very good and the room itself seemed pretty dark. What are your plans for improving lighting? Is this on the list of "known things to work on"?
- The casters weren't wearing professional clothing, which seemed to cheapen the broadcast a good bit. Do you have plans to encourage the casters to wear particular clothing? :D
- There was no music or video for game intro/outro transitions. Are these being designed and in the works?
First, they said that the actualy showmatch had nothing to do with what the NASL was going to look like. It was just a show to announce what the announcement was. It has been said that it will be totally different come NASL time.
It has also been posted in this thread that the commentators will be proessional in appearance, by this i take it to mean something like suits, or professional gear from NASL.
Also, a couple of pages back, there was talke about the production cost as well. Again, i am jst srmising that some of that production cost must go into flashy things like video/sound... I hope
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will the final LAN event be broadcastet live as a real event or will this be aired 1 day after aswell?
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On February 23 2011 20:37 Jetaap wrote:Show nested quote +
Furthermore, a delayed broadcast allows us to involve Europeans without having them stay up until 5 in the morning to play their matches
I'm not sure how it being completely live stops it from being recorded and re-streamed later for Europeans, however if for some reason this can't be done, I am certainly not for ostracizing Europeans. He was speaking about Europeans players , not viewers. If the game were to be broadcoasted live european players would have to play at 5 am ,which is obiously a big disadvantage for europeans.
Ahh, I misread, thank you for that. That is definitely an upside.
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Hrm.. The way they presented this makes it sound like a disaster. It's as if they didn't really put a lot of effort into the planning and preparation for the announcement. All the details should be clear and simple.
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I'm curious as to why you feel like the open tournament should give a berth into the LAN finals. This massively undermines the importance of the league phase - which, by the way, is an excellent system - and undermines the legitimacy of the competition as a whole. For example, assuming the top two from each group qualify for the LAN, if i finished 3rd and missed out, then someone who didn't even play in the league qualifies for the finals, i'd be pretty upset. Also, what happens if that guy somehow ends up winning the finals. Does he automatically qualify for the next season, meaning there's 51 players? If not, how do you equalise it? Drop a random player, allow more players from the qualify? All of this is unclear, and seems poorly - if at all - thought out.
I like the open qualifier in general, but i feel like it should be a way to qualify for the league phase, not straight to the finals. That makes a lot more sense to me, although in that case i feel that it should allow more than just one slot. I think you mentioned somewhere that four players from the open will qualify for the next season? That seems a lot more reasonable, although some of these numbers feel a bit awkward. Four players qualifying for five groups?
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On February 23 2011 10:33 Xeris wrote:
Also I'd like to add a comment about our stream.
Note: the quality of GSL's high quality paid stream is 650 kb/sec .
Our free stream is going to be at 800 kb/sec, our paid stream will be 3 megabit / sec. We're offering much better stream quality than any other tournament can give you!
I have a question about this - if I pay for the high quality stream (and the VOD access), will there still be an option to watch the low quality stream instead? I'm lucky when I actually achieve a 2.5mbit connection, but at the same time it's nice to support esports. I'd hate to have to choose between paying and watching.
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EPT
