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This has more to do with the production of the show or the lack of any intelligent production, not lag, stream etc. Also it's nothing new, these complaints have been issued since the very first SC2 mlg.
Chill Edit: Please just use this thread for all feedback.
overall I personally found the production level extremely poor, i can't imagine why someone would pay 10 dollars to mlg for their poorly ran events
1. Put two extra computers on the main stage and have the next players prepare on them.
If you guys watch good tournaments like GSL they have the next set of players set up their equipment ahead of time and ready to go to keep games flowing faster. Example: Naniwa vs Kiwakaki delayed by mouse problems
solution: extra set of computers on main stage and next match's player(s) can get their settings correct well ahead of time.
2. Winners ceremony, interviews, etc.
Have them in a little more detail. You have 30 minutes downtime between games but don't bother to interview players much or have a winning ceremony / interview past a tired guy handing a guy a trophy real fast.
3. Immediately cut to players faces after the match.
Again a GSL thing if you watch a real tournament you can pick up things like this. So many times it seems so delayed to cut to players. Just cut immediately after the GG and get the reactions/emotions, and go in straight for an interview.
4. Replays inbetween matches. Instead of downtime fast forward through a non televised game, giving a quick recap of a game the stream missed.
If anyone knows anything about proleague, in long downtimes they sometimes feel it with a "quick recap" where they quickly skip through the last game's replay and go over some things. Simply quickly load up those replays inbetween games and if there is a downtime for whatever reason, go over said replay quickly or a good game that wasnt shown.
5. Be able to cut into other games if mainstage game is over and there is dead time.
Have 2-3 feeds you can cut to and check in on..
Here is a quick overview of some goals you might want to adopt:
Show games whenever possible
Keep things moving with decent setups (take some things from GSL like 2 sets of computers on mainstage so next player can tweak settings. No excuse for a game you know is coming up to be delayed because the players all have to share one computer.
Utilize replays / interviews / cuts to players instead of day9/djwheat talking about tekken to fill time.
I don't understand how the simplest changes/improvements never happen and MLG stays with a 75% talking head to game ratio.
52,000,000 dollars of funding and literally any small lan could put on a better production.
Sundance if you read this, fire everyone involved in SC2 production because they are just taking your money.
Examples
MLG currently:
"Up next is Kiwikaki vs Naniwa, naniwa has a problem with his mouse, he's been sitting around waiting to play for 2 hours but unfortunately all the players use one set of computers on main stage so we will have to wait 40 minutes for it to be resolved / him warm up"
10 minutes of DJwheat/day9 talking about random shit
20 minutes of screen "be back momentarily"
Cut to commercials
10 minutes of djwheat/day9 talking
match starts
What MLG should be if they where competent:
Up next is Kiwikaki vs Naniwa, because we plan ahead / have competent employees naniwa had a problem with his mouse, but since we have extra computers beside a single set for main stage he fixed it during the 2 hours he was waiting to play, now lets go to the preview for this matchup -
queue quick interview snippets from both players / info about their team, their records of people they beat / lost to so far in the tournament, and the starting map + current brackets
Match starts
Match finishes
5 minutes later next match starts.
What will happen:
"you guys have no idea, our vans are too jam packed to fit in a camera to make interview videos or the insane budget it would require to move an extra set of computers to mainstage so we don't have 40 minute waits between matches. You have to realize our care level or competence level for SC2 is just about "uhh it gets a lot of viewers and sponsors like that... just put them up here on these ghetto decorated tables".
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Yea, even if stream was working, I think way more games should be streamed. Games should have priority over mindless commentator banter
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number 3 is a good suggestion
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Yeah all of the above would have really helped this event, MLG will either bomb or slowly learn that we aren't console kids that act like cattle and are willing to turn up to events poorly managed like this and be okay with it
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The ratio of Talking heads : Games was terrible - even if it meant casting from more replayed games, there neede to be more games cast.
There were times when I was reading a twitter feed on high caliber games going on (ie: idra vs TLO) and we were stuck watching day9 and djwheat trying to waste time.
Extremely disappointed with the amount of live games cast.
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i enjoy day9, DJwheat and JP talking as much as the next person, but i hardly think it fair on the audience OR them to have to endure so much downtime between games, definitely should be adding some replays in between proper games.
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Naniwa did an awesome reaction to winning, jumping up, shouting with a double fist-pump - but we could only see it in the tiny interface overlay.
Would be nice to have a skilled producer who can capture things like this.
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I would be happy if the tournament was a little less structured in the broadcasting schedule. The loser's bracket wasn't seen until third day when there were a lot of interesting matchups in it the first 2 days. There was a ton of time between matches, so it shouldn't be that hard to fit in a couple.
Possibly implement a feature where the viewers are able to put input into what match to broadcast next. Given that there are already polls in the live blog, this seems like it would be simple to implement. Only negative is that if you exactly follow this, we might get only like 10 idra games. But it should be easy to give a choice between 3 matchups occasionally and then broadcast the one with most votes.
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1. When a player wins/loses a match, when we want to their emotion, not the casters. MLG can definitely do this better.
2. During delays, have pre-setup interviews or filler content. I love Wheat and Day9, but they was made to ramble on for hours on end to fill time.
3. The winners ceremony HAS to be better. Naniwa only got a one question interview from a shoddy camera angle; where the sound cut out. The guy just went 26-2, there should be confetti, girls, flashing lights, medals etc.
4. Near the end of the day, i believe all the casters went to have lunch, and we missed some vital games. I guess there needs to be a caster rotation so they don't all go awol at the same time. After the debacle which was Day 1 & 2, this came at a really bad time.
To sum it up, less time having casters ramble between games, and more content.
There was a hell of a lot of mouse/hardware delays too. Like 30-40mins, it got absurd.
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you guys do know that streams was only 1 problem of 100 right? the local area's internet crapped out witch slowed everything down.
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On April 04 2011 10:46 ki11z0ne wrote:
you guys do know that streams was only 1 problem of 100 right? the local area's internet crapped out witch slowed everything down.
this is just in general, like even past MLGs have these problems
and having everyone use one set of computers for main stage is just a bad idea, regardless of latency.
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Its been like this for the past few seasons with WoW and now with SC2. Its pretty bad the production quality, but yet, they have the technology to do stuff listed above. How hard would it be for them to press a bottom to go to the camera on the stage after the game instead of going to the casters faces? Like, anyone with a brain would do that.
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On April 04 2011 10:50 PrimeTimey wrote:
Its been like this for the past few seasons with WoW and now with SC2. Its pretty bad the production quality, but yet, they have the technology to do stuff listed above. How hard would it be for them to press a bottom to go to the camera on the stage after the game instead of going to the casters faces? Like, anyone with a brain would do that.
coinciding with responses to other feedback
"this is just how MLG does it and you don't know how much room we got on our trucks, maybe next season when we have more than 52 million dollars of funding"
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It looks like MLG got better from a player perspective since Raleigh, but from an entertainment perspective Raleigh was hands down the best show, more games, more background stuff, more casters, more interviews.
Everything is going downhill since.
Interviews are rushed and the questions are for the most part terrible and doesn't any kind of get good quotes from players. No pre game interviews like it happened in Raleigh, as the OP said, no focus on players after the games, last year they did a much better job, this year there was nothing at all.
Downtime kills as well. At all cost try to avoid it, there's no better way to lose viewers than have a screen saying stream will be back momentarily or stream will be back at 5 ET when it's 4:15. It was somewhat an issue last year and I know there's been shit happening this year, but the downtime was simply pathetic. Put anything on stream, but put something FFS.
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So your suggestions weren't that bad but ending on insulting mlg wasn't really the way i think you should go about it.
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1. Get booths and put em on the stage. If Dreamhack can do it, so can you.
2. Provide players with ear plugs(I only saw headsets).
3. Put the casters up on the stage.
4. Keep harassing Blizzard for LAN or a save feature.
5. Fix the quality of the stream. I hope that 240p wasn't intentional.
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Stream more games! Please! I may not have been glued to the stream 24/7, but I watched from 2 pm till the end today and I never saw a single game of the 4th place finisher!
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Look at a sport like football, while the game is happening, you almost NEVER see the caster's faces. This is how it should be at MLG, especially since there are so many games going on at once. I remember I watched Wheat and Day9 fill time for 20 minutes while Select and Naniwa got ready. Meanwhile, TLO and iNcontrol were having a great set of games that I had to watch a twitter feed for. Unacceptable.
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The spectators also couldn't hear the casters. That's pretty bad on it's own.
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Just get into games all the fucking time. I CANNOT understand why it has to be so incredible carefully planned each time they enter a game. It was announced years ahead each time we where about to get into somthing, then 5 commercials and hype x10. First two days it ended there and we didnt even get to see the games.
There where some games inbetween matches they 100% could have casted game 2 or 3 etc, but they just ignored it and reported the results while talking about it....G e t into the games, and frigging cast them. When incontrol and TLO played an extreamly important series, n o t h i n g was happening. They liturally had a break and then a Twitter talk about what was going on. Get a grip guys.
Stage area/player area whatever looked so amateur that I would thought it was some random school LAN. Im gonna end it there cause I dont have any positive feedback exept when the casting first was going on , it was good( Thats mostly due to day9 though).
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I thought they were going to be "uploading VODs asap".
Well there's still nothing there. GSL and TSL have their VODs up a few hours after the matches.
Sigh, really, really disappointed with MLG.
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I would just put casters on the stage and then have the players play from the PC area. Then you don't have to worry about player booths and the audience can listen to the commentators.
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On April 04 2011 11:29 Subversion wrote:
I thought they were going to be "uploading VODs asap".
Well there's still nothing there. GSL and TSL have their VODs up a few hours after the matches.
Sigh, really, really disappointed with MLG.
I wouldnt hold my breath. With wow it took atleast couple of months before vods where up.
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You could have one high production stream featuring Day[9] and Wheat, and one low production stream featuring JP + friend. It would solve some issues. I don't know how viable this would be, but it would help because there's 200+ players.
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The production side can only get better as they do more of it, the really concrete thing to come out of this weekend is that Wheat, JP and Day9 are fucking heroes. MLG seriously showed off how professional they are - I can't even imagine how difficult it would be for me to fill that much airtime.
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Seriously, get new people to work on the SC2 side. So much money going into this and so little production value. It can GREATLY improve by having someone who knows the SC2 community.
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On April 04 2011 11:48 vict1019 wrote:
Seriously, get new people to work on the SC2 side. So much money going into this and so little production value. It can GREATLY improve by having someone who knows the SC2 community.
MLG has their heads in the sands related to this and think they are somehow actually running it decently. It's very clear they are doing a horrible job though and the quality is really bad. Their focus with SC2 is completely lacking in every way, it's obvious to everyone they have 0 passion for it anywhere. From sundance saying he plays Marines to the general quality of production, they just do the barely mandatory to not crash and burn (but fail anyway)
every MLG so far has had 30 minutes to 1 hour waits between matches and horrible production. It's not "we are improving" thing, it's just that they are terrible.
hire anyone from teamliquid (the site admins) and you would see improvements by about 500%, hell anyone that actually spends any intelligent analysis on it for a second.
Instead they dump day9 / wheat with 30-60 minutes of time to fill while naniwa fixes his mouse
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On April 04 2011 11:55 dacthehork wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 11:48 vict1019 wrote:
Seriously, get new people to work on the SC2 side. So much money going into this and so little production value. It can GREATLY improve by having someone who knows the SC2 community. MLG has their heads in the sands related to this and think they are somehow actually running it decently every MLG so far has had 30 minutes to 1 hour waits between matches and horrible production. It's not "we are improving" thing, it's just that they are terrible.
you know its kinda funny cause i use to play Halo 2 competitively, and I went to come MLG events, and made top 32 am bracket twice. The production and schedule for the Halo tournament was handled 10x better than what we saw this weekend.... Also, back then I remember the forums had a starcraft:bw section and ppl talked about how MLG should pick up PC gaming. So Puckett actually got on the forums and bashed PC gaming, and saying that MLG will always be a console ONLY league.. So from my experience with MLG in the past they have only cared about their main event which is Halo. I figure the reason they have expanded to PC, and other games is because of the possible money to be made. Until MLG gets somebody running the SC2 who understands the community I'm afraid they won't live up to expectations.
my 2 cents :D
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I agree with OP -- MLG should hire a proper TV producer. These so much content they can produce in between games like interviews, analysis, highlights, recap. The players that people want to see are all there at the venue, MLG is practically sitting on a goldmine but they don't even know it. I mean just look at the MLG content that is produced by Mr. Bitter, Edwardstarcraft etc...
The saddest part about this is they have been running these events for a while now and they still don't have the slightest clue. There is no excuse.
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I find the biggest problem aside from the whole internet fiasco was the way they planned what games were to be casted and when and the refuse to jump into mid games when a set ends quickly or there is down time. Even during these "breaks" they just put the camera on the middle of the crowd when they could just as easily turned the camera to a current game on the big screens since games were still being played.
TLDR - Decrease downtime, jump into running games if needed to fill a void
Also multiple streams with different sets of commentators and games going on at the same time would be great.
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They really need to look at having a 2nd casting team backstage doing what the NASL will be doing for the online portion of their league.
If they picked one match each round of the tournament(for the 2nd casting team) they would have those VODs to broadcast during the downtime.
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yeah the op is absolutely right, this was amateur like production... and im not talking about stream/lag issues...
it's quite a shame for mlg, to not be able to host a good tournament... no content, endless commentating, endless ads... idk extremly disappointing
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0. Stream and game stability. We need LAN and better venues/infrastructure or another solution.
1. "We will be back momentarily" Should happen as little as humanly possible. It is hugely aggravating. Especially when this time stretches on for 30+ minutes. People are watching from all over the world and if you are trying to stay up late at night you have no chance staying awake.
2. More games less downtime/filler. Casters did an awesome job filling time but they shouldn't have to.
3. Greater emphasis on players. Specifically interviews/reactions. Obviously if english is not their native tongue it can be difficult but they can definitely do better.
4. Winners ceremony. See any other event for inspiration. MLG's was god awful.
I've paid for every GSL season and GSTL because they deliver. MLG has a long way to go before they get my money. I realize the tournament setup is completely different but some core areas such as those above are no brainers. MLG has been at this for along time so they have no excuse.
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On April 04 2011 11:39 Brad wrote:
You could have one high production stream featuring Day[9] and Wheat, and one low production stream featuring JP + friend. It would solve some issues. I don't know how viable this would be, but it would help because there's 200+ players.
Yep yep yep!
IMO they should be running about 4 casting teams at all times just to handle the sheer volume of games constantly (theoretically) going on at the event. They don't have to retain the same level of production value of the "Main" (read: DJWheat+Day[9]) stream, but whenever DJ[9] runs out of games to cast or interviews to do, producers can just fade out into another game being cast by others. Hell, they could be audio-only commentary for all I care. Whether each team would get a dedicated stream or they would all just feed into one main SC2 stream is a more logistical concern, and I can't answer whether it would be feasible.
1. This gives us a break from JP, D9 and DJW. Hey, I love the guys as much as anyone else (and if you don't, you deserve a severe whomping), but hearing a different set of voices cast even just one game here and there would be a nice break. I'm a religious D9Daily viewer, and I can only take so much Sean in one day before I start predicting his jokes, etc. I will say, his mini-daily with replay analysis of the 3gate robo PvT game (can't remember who it was... vs. SeleCT maybe?) was a nice break, so more of that would be great.
2. This allows newer, less acclaimed casters to participate in a major eSporting event. We have to have this continuous injection of fresh talent into the SC2 spotlight, or else we'll be screwed when JP and Wheat both catch mono the day before Columbus (hopefully not a Nostradamus prediction there).
3. We get to see more games! I heard it on stream today (D3) when Day9 received notice through his earpiece (or otherwise) that the SC2 stream was being featured on the main MLG "summary' stream (whatever it's called - clearly I didn't leave the SC2 channel all day), and thus we suddenly were being aired to Halo and CoD viewers. Similarly, he could be notified when a major event is happening in a non-featured game and segway into that other commentating team's stream, even if just to see a proxy-pylon in-base 4gate happen or something. If it's a major or controversial event, everyone is going to want to see it over seeing Wheat and JP twiddle their thumbs while Naniwa stalls by setting up his mouse (hah).
My question for those of you who were lucky enough to attend the event live (Columbus is only an hour away from me, yet I booked a vacation the week before I heard about it T.T ) is: how was the live production value for people who actually attended? What was on the main screen for the hours whilst my secondary monitor showed a CrowdCam, promising "The stream will resume momentarily," and such?
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Even if a series is midway through they should just cut right in to that game. Even if they aren't observer it would be much better than just waiting for the next match to be streamed. I wish that they could just do that. It'd be much more work for the casters but isn't it that why they're there for is to cast and to non stop cast the shit as much starcraft 2 games they can until they cannot even speak. It's really dissapointing how the lack of games were casted. It really didn't get me in to the spirit of watching some MLG.
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On April 04 2011 11:19 Brad wrote:
The spectators also couldn't hear the casters. That's pretty bad on it's own.
That was a band-aid to fix the day1 issue where the players could hear the casters tell them what their opponent was doing, so they muted the casters in the area.
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illsick
United States1770 Posts
I completely agree with everything the OP said
this scene deserves better, just sloppy production
but good choice on the casters, day9 and djwheat
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I also have some suggestions.
1: Bring in Husky and HD (or any other commentators for that matter) and have them broadcast the games that are not being broadcast by the main casting duo (day9+wheat). Have these games go on either a secondary stream or the pro circuit stream.
2: Have JP do all of the on-the-floor stuff, more interviews, talking to the crowd, etc. AKA less time with day and wheat babbling and perhaps JP could get the crowd involved.
3: Booths are necessary. Simple as that.
4: Occasional bracket recaps (with a bracket graphic). This could be done in between games, and would help people realize who is still in and out.
5: 2 sets of booths on the stage so that games can alternate. While the gamers play in one set, whoever is up next can set up in the second set, and it will flow much more smoothly.
6: MAKE SURE THAT YOUR STREAM IS EQUIPPED TO HANDLE GODZILLA BREAKING APART THE FUCKING STADIUM.
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On April 04 2011 11:04 Novalisk wrote:
1. Get booths and put em on the stage. If Dreamhack can do it, so can you.
2. Provide players with ear plugs(I only saw headsets).
3. Put the casters up on the stage.
4. Keep harassing Blizzard for LAN or a save feature.
5. Fix the quality of the stream. I hope that 240p wasn't intentional.
240p was intentional, you have to pay for the high quality stream
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One thing I really missed from this event that previous mlg events had were the little side group productions, where they would just go around interviewing players or just walking around the arena chatting was good for killing down time and just made the events seem so much bigger and exciting to be at.
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i agree with OP but sadly nothing wil be changed because MLG doesn't care about SC they care about Halo and COD... and sadly i think JP is the only MLG employee that actually visits TL so pretty much he is the one gateway to MLG... i suggest submitting the OP to JP in the form of a SOTG question or topic and maybe we could make something happen... otherwise all of the criticism falls on ears that are too buys listening to Halo bull shit.
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On April 04 2011 10:58 Kammalleri wrote:
It looks like MLG got better from a player perspective since Raleigh, but from an entertainment perspective Raleigh was hands down the best show, more games, more background stuff, more casters, more interviews.
Everything is going downhill since.
Interviews are rushed and the questions are for the most part terrible and doesn't any kind of get good quotes from players. No pre game interviews like it happened in Raleigh, as the OP said, no focus on players after the games, last year they did a much better job, this year there was nothing at all.
Downtime kills as well. At all cost try to avoid it, there's no better way to lose viewers than have a screen saying stream will be back momentarily or stream will be back at 5 ET when it's 4:15. It was somewhat an issue last year and I know there's been shit happening this year, but the downtime was simply pathetic. Put anything on stream, but put something FFS.
Don't you think it's a bit early to be feeling nostalgic for that event? Raleigh was just as bad and while the stream was working more often there was little coordination on which games were casted (rectified with pool play). There was plenty of talking heads during raleigh. While the OP was waaay more whining than necessary, a second set of computers would be helpful to move things along. Also the casters took a lunch which added more down time. What happened to rotating out? I know at Raleigh they had 2 pairings and here they have 3 people. I don't think it would hurt if one has to solo cast, it's better than nothing.
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I just hope i wont have to hear Sundance going on about "well the budget this.. the budget that..", because guess what. If you dont get this together i have a feeling you wont need to worry about a next seasons budget at all.
1. How hard can it be to put together a booth for a player?
2. Atleast entertain the people who actually went to the event, no commentators for them? is this a joke?
3. Put the commentators on the stage, you know: real interaction.
4. Prize ceremony........
5. Think i saw one pre-recorded interview before a game, and it was probably recorded in a cellar with a cellphone.
Never seen such a failure of epic proportions.
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If you watch something like the Olympics, they juggle the multiple different events by cutting into them while they're in progress, or through time-shifting. Although they can't join a game already in progress, they certainly can join a series already in progress.
Rather than waiting until the next series goes up on the main stage, they can look at all the ongoing series as well as those about to start and just jump in, e.g. "Wow, what an exciting match between oGsMC and Pumpf_Prime, now let's join up with TSL_Uniden, who currently is up 1-0 in his series with SixJax_Artosis".
And if there isn't a great high-profile series going on, they can cast matches from replays, or do the usual analysis, or highlights from earlier series, etc. Casting any game from replay is better than casters being forced to fill an hour of time, unscripted, while somebody's trying to install left-handed mouse drivers on a right-handed computer.
It also means a lot less waiting around for the players.
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Suggestion: Watch GSL, copy.
Real interviews with players.
Better winner's ceremony, that piss poor excuse of a trophy presentation is NOT acceptable.
Casters for the crowd that are there. There is no excuse for the people who paid money and traveled to that venue to have to watch main stage games without being able to hear the commentary.
Real sound proofing. Related to the above problem. There is no excuse for the players being able to hear the casters.
Give Day9 and DJWheat a MASSIVE pay increase. They saved this shitty tournament.
Stream more games. 30-40 minutes of dead time while games are actually being played? People don't pay to sit and watch a black screen.
Better quality stream. Even when the stream finally got working, its quality was absolute shit, worse than the worst youtube video quality. No excuse for this when other tournaments' free streams are miles ahead in quality.
Tech issues. Agreed with OP, get multiple computers set up so people are ready to go and hardware issues are fixed while the previous game is being played. Actually know that there are a shit ton of people who will watch SC2 and prepare for that traffic by getting quality hardware and making damn sure the venue that is chosen can handle everything. No excuse for 7+ hours of severe problems multiple days in a row.
Lastly, realize that COD and Halo are complete shit compared to SC2. SC2 is the future and already brings in WAAAAAAAAAY more viewers than the other two games combined. Allocate resources appropriately.
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I think the GSL has spoiled us in terms of what we expect, I know I expected a lot of more from this MLG, I couldn't even watch the few games casted because the stream kept dying on me. There's too much down time and too little actual casting IMO. Overall it didn't flow nicely, but understandable because of all the technical problems.
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On April 04 2011 12:49 Nausea wrote:
I just hope i wont have to hear Sundance going on about "well the budget this.. the budget that..", because guess what. If you dont get this together i have a feeling you wont need to worry about a next seasons budget at all.
1. How hard can it be to put together a booth for a player? two soundproof booths with the necessary bells and whistles would run around 20k, so yes, it is hard
it's absolutely necessary though. trying to play competitive starcraft without soundproof booths is like trying to play basketball without a court. i'm hoping with the mistakes at this event that they will see WHY it is necessary now.
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Good suggestions. Especially the last one.
Sundance if you read this, fire everyone involved in SC2 production because they are just taking your money.
How hard can i be, really? There are thousands of starcraft leagues/lans etc, why not just mimic them if you don't have a clue what you are doing? There are no excuse for this third rate production.
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The big thing was the downtime between matches. Ideally we would have three minutes or so of downtime unless there was something really exciting going on.
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On April 04 2011 11:19 Brad wrote:
The spectators also couldn't hear the casters. That's pretty bad on it's own.
That's because the players could hear the casters on the main stage.
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To be fair, GSL has it's own talking heads syndrome too. I know most of that is due to Tasteless and Artosis having to wait on the Korean casters (just what ARE they talking about for 17 minutes when the game itself was 7 minutes?)
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MLG is really, really cheapo tourney, sucks we can't have quality tournaments with such quality players, so disappointed.
And in 3 days how many games have they streamed ? 20 ? Wow
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I agree with a lot of this, however, if it is not put in a more constructive way then I believe it will just be viewed as trolling/hate and not be taken seriously.
I understand that the GSL has it's own studio and has month long tournaments as opposed to a weekend, but a majority of the suggestions are very doable. I appreciate the fact that they are trying, but with prior examples to follow/copy (i.e. GSL) I find it unacceptable that this was so poorly executed. I definitely will be tuning in for MLG Columbus, but with NASL around the corner and GSL being so well done, it will be hard for me to tune in again if Columbus is the same as Dallas.
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We need Sundance's contact info... I'm pretty sure he made his email address public in one of the state of the games, I can't remember which one. I know for a fact he cares about Starcraft 2 ALOT so I don't know how he could have let such a debacle of a presentation happen. I also know he will do everything in is power to make it better as long as we tell him about it. That said, we need to find a way to get him to read this thread, or email him personally.
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Ask yourself, if Blizzard produced the event, would it look MLG Dallas? Why Blizzard continues to let MLG have this franchise, is beyond me.
An earlier poster made the comment to get a real TV producer, I have to agree. They also need a technical director.
Someone had to be in charge of the production, someone had to "design" the "set" and "look". A white backgound? Really?
Learn from the mistakes of others and don't repeat them.
White table cloth on banquet tables for the gamers? Really?
Camera angles, Camera Angles
Replays? Like real replays,"Lets look at the replay from Player A v Player B at the 5 min mark..."
How about an interview with Team coaches? or a fan? How about a "guest panelist" to talk about the matchup? Say the player that just lost one of the players? or another team mate?
A team standings graphic?
Any graphic that wasn't a "Web page"
Openings for the games? Not hard to make, can even be made on the fly with a good production team.
Bottom line "ticker updates" inbetween games. Instead of the hosts trying to get info ...
Better stop now, blood pressure getting too high
It interesting that the only one taking blame, is Sundance. He is wrong in saying that the blame is his, it is noble, but it is not only his fault.
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On April 04 2011 10:35 dacthehork wrote:
This has more to do with the production of the show or the lack of any intelligent production, not lag, stream etc.
overall I personally found the production level extremely poor, i can't imagine why someone would pay 10 dollars to mlg for their poorly ran events
1. Put two extra computers on the main stage and have the next players prepare on them.
If you guys watch good tournaments like GSL they have the next set of players set up their equipment ahead of time and ready to go to keep games flowing faster. Example: Naniwa vs Kiwakaki delayed by mouse problems
solution: extra set of computers on main stage and next match's player(s) can get their settings correct well ahead of time.
Yes... the delay between games was unbearable at times. The solution listed doesn't have to be the only one. Filling time with prerecorded interviews or live interviews with the player who just won would be a nice alternative as well. Fast forwarding through an exciting game that wasn't streamed would be another good option.
2. Winners ceremony, interviews, etc.
Have them in a little more detail. You have 30 minutes downtime between games but don't bother to interview players much or have a winning ceremony / interview past a tired guy handing a guy a trophy real fast.
I pretty much addressed this above. The one thing I want to say is that while there are so many cool players there, we never get to really hear from them. Plenty of people would love to see interviews from players like Destiny or HuK as they are fighting through the open bracket, since we didn't get any direct coverage of day 1 to begin with. It would have been nice to hear from them about what they thought of it.
Also, of course interviews with players in the championship pool is appreciated as well. I liked hearing the brief words with Kiwi and iNcontroL. There were probably more because I didn't watch the whole event, but despite having that as a plus, there still wasn't enough to fill the gaps.
3. Immediately cut to players faces after the match.
Again a GSL thing if you watch a real tournament you can pick up things like this. So many times it seems so delayed to cut to players. Just cut immediately after the GG and get the reactions/emotions, and go in straight for an interview.
Yes... this is important. So many times I would see the reactions of the players for a brief moment while still in game, and then they would cut to the casters before I could fully see their reactions. As mentioned... look at the GSL to see what they do. They cut between both players so we can see their expressions.
I remember when iNcontroL beat TLO he stood up and cheered but we only got to see a small part of that in a small window. On the other hand, seeing Machine's ceremony after Tyler was awesome and I felt it added more to the match, showing that it is important to cut to the players.
4. Replays inbetween matches. Instead of downtime fast forward through a non televised game, giving a quick recap of a game the stream missed.
If anyone knows anything about proleague, in long downtimes they sometimes feel it with a "quick recap" where they quickly skip through the last game's replay and go over some things. Simply quickly load up those replays inbetween games and if there is a downtime for whatever reason, go over said replay quickly or a good game that wasnt shown.
Ya, this is pretty much the same thing as number 1, and possibly 2.
5. Be able to cut into other games if mainstage game is over and there is dead time.
Have 2-3 feeds you can cut to and check in on..
This would definitely be nice, but I don't think it would be necessary. Some other things could fill the dead time which are easier to do.
Here is a quick overview of some goals you might want to adopt:
Show games whenever possible
Keep things moving with decent setups (take some things from GSL like 2 sets of computers on mainstage so next player can tweak settings. No excuse for a game you know is coming up to be delayed because the players all have to share one computer.
Utilize replays / interviews / cuts to players instead of day9/djwheat talking about tekken to fill time.
I don't understand how the simplest changes/improvements never happen and MLG stays with a 75% talking head to game ratio.
52,000,000 dollars of funding and literally any small lan could put on a better production.
Sundance if you read this, fire everyone involved in SC2 production because they are just taking your money.
Ya I agree with most of that... though I personally feel a bit of free time for the casters to talk (not as much as we saw) is a good thing and adds a bit to the experience... at least with these casters who we know and love.
There were some nice improvements, and some glaring problems... but there are also the small details like some of the ones that the OP mentioned that I feel can easily be addressed to greatly improve the quality of the tournament.
I'm really hoping the next MLG works out well... and I believe it will run relatively smoothly. The previous MLGs didn't have such large problems like this, so despite people saying MLG was always terrible in terms of quality... I disagree. Again, there were still many problems here and there for previous events, but most things ran smoothly and the event overall was enjoyable. Some unexcusable mistakes were made this time around, but I do feel confident they will make sure to improve upon them... and I feel MLG really will become a great event for SC2. Let's hope so... 
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MLG has basically churned out crap for starcraft 2, please do yourselves a favour and watch the halo reach stream for a while. The production value is DAY AND NIGHT compared with the starcraft stream. They have player profiles, montages, 3 commentators, players faces during the game depending on whose camera the observer is on (this one is amazing, you can see the reactions of the players to the different events in the game), player microphones on instead of commentator audio (not applicable for sc2 but still a feature),no delay between games, map introductions that don't sound like they come from mars, replays for key moments, interviews, even the commentator's booth is prettier..
MLG is giving us starcraft fans a large steaming turd, and giving the champaigne out in their other games.
I am seriously offended after watching the other stream...
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I think it would be short-sighted if the only lesson learned this weekend were related to the technical issues (i.e. lag, DCs and a broken, poor-qualty stream.) The whole production was terrible.
There really should be more content then there is air-time, so that there's always something to cast. If there's some delay in some main event, there should be something to fall back on. Like, if the ice at the curling rink is melted or something, they can show you highlights from snowboarding or whatever. If Naniwa's mouse is busted, just cast a replay until it's fixed - any replay is better than dead air.
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I touched upon this in another thread but I wish they had showed more games. We didn't even get to see 70% of the games played. IT's all from LR and Their Blog. They should figure out a way to show more of the games even if they are not casted. We spent more time watching Commercials, Listening to the Commentators fill time, Then watching starcraft. I know the technical difficulties were bad but they could have casted Replays or anything just show games. IMO it was a train wreck. I am worried for MLG cause I am not really feeling hyped/excited for any of the future events :\
EDIT: This is actually only a small portion of some of the things wrong. I will edit more in later... MLG you let me down T____T go go go TSL/NASL for the foreigner events...
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Although I still think that LAN support is a must for these type of events, I'm pretty much in agreement that the entire production this weekend was way off par from what I expected. Maybe I expected too much, but I sort of had this idea that streams would be consistently going every few minutes and the downtime between games would be negligible.. Maybe just enough to get some interesting remarks/comments from DJwheat and Day9. Instead we sat waiting sometimes hours on end for something, anything. I know alot of that had to do with the connection BS, but still even today when games were being played and the connections seemed fine there was just way too much downtime between matches. Overall, I give MLG credit for trying to bring esports to the masses, but I'm not going to give them credit for much more than that.
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I was a bit disappointed by JP's standardized "question" to each player ... "XXX tell us about your games" ... and then not following it up with at least one more question if the player proves not to be very talkative. It all sounded rather rushed ...
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Hate to say it but I honestly feel that they just picked up SC2 because, and only because, of the hype that it was getting from the community. It just feels like they're cashing in on it, to me at least. And to further that point it just feels like the SC section isn't being run by people into SC. Instead it feels that they think the viewers can be entertained by a kitten tugging at a string, which isn't the case. This isn't the Halo crowd. You know, the 14 year old kids that go on their toys and scream obscenities at people over the internet. Some of the guys that play this game are hitting 30. Some of the guys that watch this game are in their 30's. They will expect and demand more.
Yeah sure, another tournament for players. Great. But when you're streaming it to spectators and there are issues like 30 minutes of downtime between matches there is a serious problem. I love WHEAT, Day[J], JP, etc. as casters, but I love them as CASTERS. Stream issues happen. I can accept that. Players hearing commentators and then commentators not being heard by the live audience is absolutely terrible though.
I remember on the SOTG that the guy that runs MLG was on he said for people to, "Remember to buy shirts." I won't be buying any shirts or anything else, stream included, until they get their act together.
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I agree that there were severe Flaws in the MLG Production, apart from the Stream working....not good.
There was that Lan in Italy this Weekend, UGC, were they had quite a big Tourney, and the Production was amazing. It was casted by Apollo and TB, they had non-stop Game Broadcasts for the most time, only breaking for (real) caster breaks to eat, or scheduled interruptions for the finals of their other tourneys.
It was a real Blast to watch, and they did most off the Stuff you mentioned, cutting directly to Players after a game, seeing their cheers or disappointment. Really well done there.
I surely was disappointed by MLG, the pauses between Games were super annoying, they could have shown anything in these breaks, watching the audience for 40 minutes was....boring to say the least.
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I agree with all those stated, there were a lot of easy ways to cut down on downtime, all of which you suggested, that would make it possible to stream a lot more games. One thing I do like is that they put up all the replays, but still there's a lot to be improved.
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Production Value is the quality of what was actually produced.
The games that were streamed were done very well as well as the interviews.
1. Fix stream (it blows 100%)
2. Get more casters and have 2 streams for SC2 (at the least)
3. No down time if possible.
4. Then improve the rest of the streaming capabilities. You're arguing for good stuff, but the others are actually more important.
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Summary:
MajorLackGaming
Day1 we just pray,
wanted something to see,
Get a 9-hour-wait,
viewing ads for a fee.
Day2 were more fails
and reasonable hating.
We get 1.5 games
after eight hours waiting.
Day3 stream was up,
but strenghten your faith.
MLG showed the hall
while the top-games were played.
Day4 i`m still stunned
maybe it will get fine,
but i have my doubts,
it will be `till day[9].
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On April 04 2011 12:59 Moonwrath wrote:
Lastly, realize that COD and Halo are complete shit compared to SC2. SC2 is the future and already brings in WAAAAAAAAAY more viewers than the other two games combined. Allocate resources appropriately.
Where do you get your numbers from?
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United States22883 Posts
MLG has a lot of problems that other events have figured out how to handle, and these address a lot of them.
Just to reiterate, even without all the technical difficulties, MLG broadcasts are notorious for downtime rather than gameplay. The ratio of downtime (either commcericals, fan shots or casters buying time) to the amount of game footage is extremely low for a major event. To make a sports analogy, MLG is about 2-3x worse than the Superbowl when it comes to actually showing games (for foreign users, the Superbowl is probably the worst professional sporting event in this regard.)
I think they could also bring on other players briefly as guest commentators or just for short interviews and thoughts during a game. Professional sports does this all the time, with other sports stars or retired players.
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I also don't understand why the person they cast has to be on the main stage. It made sense for Halo when it's LAN and so they can't, but since SC2 is all online anyway there's no reason they couldn't fit in a game or two while people are getting ready on the main stage or something.
On April 04 2011 14:47 LagT_T wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 12:59 Moonwrath wrote:
Lastly, realize that COD and Halo are complete shit compared to SC2. SC2 is the future and already brings in WAAAAAAAAAY more viewers than the other two games combined. Allocate resources appropriately. Where do you get your numbers from?
Seriously. Since MLG pretty much has a monopoly on competitive console games, especially Halo, I think that the stream numbers would be comparable considering MLG is the only event to watch for Halo players, and MLG is pretty well known among them since Bungie granted them their own Matchmaking playlist, so their name shows up everytime anyone who owns the game goes into the multiplayer menus.
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Make showing games on the stream the #1 priority, instead of not a priority at all.
It's amazing you had any viewers at all when the majority of the broadcast was a black screen.
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As others have said, getting more time actually on the games needs to be the #1 priority. I'm not sure about the feasibility of actually hiring more employees though. Yes they might have the money for it, but hiring people is always really expensive and there are a bunch of things they could do even with the current setup before they need to resort to hiring more crew. A few suggestions from easiest to hardest.
1. Longer interviews. There's time between matches anyway, why not ask the players around 10 questions. Sometimes you get a really great gem of an answer.
2. Keep a bunch of saved replays as the event goes on. Any time there is waiting, the casters can just start casting replays from one of the previous matches.
3. Switching between multiple ongoing games. This would be awesome, but I think it might be harder to do than just pressing a button. You would either need multiple accounts running on a single computer or multiple computers available for the casters. Or you could have another team of casters.
4. Better standardization for the computers they used. Kiwikaki had already played a ton of games. There's no reason any computer should have been causing him mouse problems, the setup should have been practically instant. A better but more expensive fallback is to have multiple computers on stage, as people have suggested.
5. More casters, possibly a few pros that aren't competing or even allow upcoming amateur casters in the open bracket matches. Tough part here is how do get attention onto these additional casters? Where do you need to put cameras and extra computers, where can these extra casters set up? Basically, it's an extra logistics challenge.
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Cutting to the player reactions after a win is something I love. In the grand finals when Naniwa won you could see him get up and cheer for split second before they cut to Day9 and djWheat.
Those emotional moments after putting in all that work, especially after he went through the longest possible way to get there was something that should of been shown! Just like in any sport.
I don't know how the production for the other games are handled but I think it would be very educational for MLG's production staff if they looked over VoDs of other tournaments like the GSL to get an idea of what they can implement or could do. Because right now it's almost as if they're treating it like Day9/djWheat/JP are casting replays: load game, show game, cut back to casters. They don't seem to be implementing anything that includes the crowd (no sound, people can't even hear them so they can't interact with them -- more of a sound proofing problem since the crowd and probably casters would be heard.) or players other than the little boxes that show them during the game. Those post game reactions are something you can't get from replays and add a lot. Think of all those "no, no, no" finger wags, the thumbs down, etc that get people riled up and excited.
With the GSL having games ready in advance I don't think it's fair to compare them having games ready so fast when they know exactly who is going to play when while the MLG is doing it on the fly. One thing that they should be doing is jumping into existing games more often (as Day9 was trying to do at least once that I saw). With so many going on, I don't see how they can't fill time between main stage games by jumping into another high profile one since all it takes is an invite to obs. Now the hard part would be if you leave that series midway to cast a main stage game or do you finish out casting the rest? But either way the games would continue to flow.
Could they set up where refs or some other MLG staff joins other high profile games as observers then if needed that computer's control could be switched over to the casters? sorta like a back up stream if they need to fill time. They could flow directly from a finished game into another. I don't know how feasible that is but it's the 21st century, there must be some way to work that out! hahah
On their problems next time there can't be any excuses about unexpected amount of viewers/traffic since they know what to expect but I'm not sure what they can do if the venues internet is trash like it was in Dallas.
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I'll admit as much as the next guy that the quality of the MLG broadcast was disappointing.
I'm confident that a lot of the networking issues will be worked out for Columbus.
What needs to happen is someone needs to take better control of SC2. Someone with passion needs to step up and take control - it has to be someone different than the team that does everything else and doesn't give a damn about anything other than it being "good enough".
There were tons of opportunities for this to be a phenominal event.
1 Canon XF-300 in the crowd, with an energetic host interviewing random people / players would cost literally 500$ to rent all the equipment for the weekend with full integration into the existing system. When there absolutely has to be downtime, cut to that guy. Fill some time with something other than DJWheat and Day9 telling stories. Hell, get 3 or 4 cameras out there. For a couple thousand bucks, you just quadroupled the amount of content that you can deliver to people watching the stream.
What they lack for Starcraft 2 is effort. Sundance says that he cares about SC2, and maybe he thinks he does. If they gave control of the SC2 production to someone who loves the game as much as most of us do, he would see what passion really is.
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The production for the whole weekend was absolutely pathetic. I don't know how many viewers were just like me, sitting with the stream open for hours while day9 and djwheat talked about twinkies and babies or looked at the mlg venue while the stream said it would be back "momentarily". Do they know what momentarily means? It doesn't mean in an hour or two. So many games that were not shown that couldve been and so much time was wasted with pointless bullllshit. Hell they dont even need casters for all the games - just throw an observer into the game, set it to one players pov and go get a coffee. I would watch that over the guy in the crowd with the mystarcraftclan.com sign jumping up and down for 30 minutes. How they think anyone will pay 10$ for a HQ stream of this quality is beyond me.
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im all for esports but sadly this is all true  MLG has kind of been dropping the ball. As much as i enjoy day9 and crew they just can not make all that downtime interesting.
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On April 04 2011 15:28 FaZe wrote:
For a couple thousand bucks,
You do realize that MLG is a business who has to make a profit to make it worthwile and to increase the quality next time around? "A couple thousand bucks" may be nothing to you, but companies like these (and their sponsors) are usually nitpicking about every cent ... a penny saved is a penny earned and a few more cameras might improve the quality for the viewer, but lack of these cameras will NOT make people stop watching the event. We are addicted after all and used to these things and the whining adds enough emotion to keep it "interesting" even though some games might not be worth watching. So people will watch, regardless of the quality.
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It was pathetic that Day9 and DJWheat had to go to a third-party twitter account to get updates on games taking place in the tournament they were supposed to be casting. If MLG plans to stick with the model of "blitz through a huge tournament in one weekend" they need to stick observer dummy accounts in 4-5 games simultaneously. Ideally this would allow them to switch from one game to another when one series wraps up. With so many games taking place over the weekend there is 0 reason to have any downtime at all.
An even more lofty goal would be to hire people to work the "camera" on a half dozen games or so that are not being casted and allow users to watch them without sound. I know a lot of people wanted to watch destiny's run through the open bracket but where unable to; this would solve that issue.
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On April 04 2011 15:40 Rabiator wrote:You do realize that MLG is a business who has to make a profit to make it worthwile and to increase the quality next time around? "A couple thousand bucks" may be nothing to you, but companies like these (and their sponsors) are usually nitpicking about every cent ... a penny saved is a penny earned and a few more cameras might improve the quality for the viewer, but lack of these cameras will NOT make people stop watching the event. We are addicted after all and used to these things and the whining adds enough emotion to keep it "interesting" even though some games might not be worth watching. So people will watch, regardless of the quality.
Wow. You do not know much about Branding, do you?
My own summary: This pathetic excuse of an e-sports tournament does NOTHING for the future of SC2 or e-sports in general. Lets just hope that someone picks this ball up and get it rolling again.
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On April 04 2011 15:40 Rabiator wrote:You do realize that MLG is a business who has to make a profit to make it worthwile and to increase the quality next time around? "A couple thousand bucks" may be nothing to you, but companies like these (and their sponsors) are usually nitpicking about every cent ... a penny saved is a penny earned and a few more cameras might improve the quality for the viewer, but lack of these cameras will NOT make people stop watching the event. We are addicted after all and used to these things and the whining adds enough emotion to keep it "interesting" even though some games might not be worth watching. So people will watch, regardless of the quality.
Ya, I totally agree, you can speak for every person that has ever tuned into a SC2 stream with one broad generalization. I know I turned the stream off multiple times because watching a crowd of people isn't my version of enjoyable. I did turn back in to see iNcontroL play but I'm absolutely POSITIVE that they had to of lost quite a large amount of spectators when they had absolutely no content playing for hours at a time.
This event was honestly embarrassing as a fan of esports. I tried to watch it with my girlfriend on day 2 and I'm going to say I don't think she'll ever be done for trying to watch another sc2 game for the rest of her life. The entire I had the stream open there were no games casted despite the fact that games were being played. I legitimately get mad about how badly MLG is going about running a sc2 tourny.
We all want this year to be the year for esports in NA. There is no way in hell that is going to happen when events go this insanely badly. Anyone that had a friend tune in is surely put off from the game, people that watch Halo or CoD that tuned in will most likely never do so again. It's a fucking travesty for the growth of esports and Sundance and crew should be absolutely, unequivocally ashamed of the complete shit show they put on.
If the next MLG isn't all sorts of beyond fucking amazing there is noway in hell I will ever make time to watch it again. I am a huge fan of esports, I've competed in WCG Canada for cs 1.6, I've been playing star2 consistently since the beta, I've paid for lesson from iNcontroL and I've paid for multiple seasons of GSL. But what MLG tried to call entertainment was just plain brutal.
I can't even imagine how this event could have been any worse. Dismissing all of the technical difficulties the event was still pure crap from a spectator perspective. I hope they are sick about how badly they preformed their jobs. At least 90% of my information about what was going on at the event came through twitter and I had no idea who is in or out of the tournament for the first 2 days. I really want MLG to do better but with their track record I'm about out of hope
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I don't see where the problem should be with a "second caster team"? Just give 2 Casetr's the permission to cast this event from their home and join the non broadcastet games. What do you have to loose? I guess soo many people would have loved to watch tlo-incontrol or just some of the missed games and to find casters would be easy i guess.
The last IEM Global finals showed really what you can do. There were like 10 streams... okay sometimes the same games just in a different language but their overall production value was just so much better. With the stage interviews etc etc.
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On April 04 2011 14:41 SweetenemY wrote:
Summary:
MajorLackGaming
Day1 we just pray,
wanted something to see,
Get a 9-hour-wait,
viewing ads for a fee.
Day2 were more fails
and reasonable hating.
We get 1.5 games
after eight hours waiting.
Day3 stream was up,
but strenghten your faith.
MLG showed the hall
while the top-games were played.
Day4 i`m still stunned
maybe it will get fine,
but i have my doubts,
it will be `till day[9].
This <3
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On April 04 2011 15:57 SpinmovE wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 15:40 Rabiator wrote:On April 04 2011 15:28 FaZe wrote:
For a couple thousand bucks, You do realize that MLG is a business who has to make a profit to make it worthwile and to increase the quality next time around? "A couple thousand bucks" may be nothing to you, but companies like these (and their sponsors) are usually nitpicking about every cent ... a penny saved is a penny earned and a few more cameras might improve the quality for the viewer, but lack of these cameras will NOT make people stop watching the event. We are addicted after all and used to these things and the whining adds enough emotion to keep it "interesting" even though some games might not be worth watching. So people will watch, regardless of the quality. Ya, I totally agree, you can speak for every person that has ever tuned into a SC2 stream with one broad generalization. I know I turned the stream off multiple times because watching a crowd of people isn't my version of enjoyable. I did turn back in to see iNcontroL play but I'm absolutely POSITIVE that they had to of lost quite a large amount of spectators when they had absolutely no content playing for hours at a time. This event was honestly embarrassing as a fan of esports. I tried to watch it with my girlfriend on day 2 and I'm going to say I don't think she'll ever be done for trying to watch another sc2 game for the rest of her life. The entire I had the stream open there were no games casted despite the fact that games were being played. I legitimately get mad about how badly MLG is going about running a sc2 tourny. We all want this year to be the year for esports in NA. There is no way in hell that is going to happen when events go this insanely badly. Anyone that had a friend tune in is surely put off from the game, people that watch Halo or CoD that tuned in will most likely never do so again. It's a fucking travesty for the growth of esports and Sundance and crew should be absolutely, unequivocally ashamed of the complete shit show they put on. If the next MLG isn't all sorts of beyond fucking amazing there is noway in hell I will ever make time to watch it again. I am a huge fan of esports, I've competed in WCG Canada for cs 1.6, I've been playing star2 consistently since the beta, I've paid for lesson from iNcontroL and I've paid for multiple seasons of GSL. But what MLG tried to call entertainment was just plain brutal. I can't even imagine how this event could have been any worse. Dismissing all of the technical difficulties the event was still pure crap from a spectator perspective. I hope they are sick about how badly they preformed their jobs. At least 90% of my information about what was going on at the event came through twitter and I had no idea who is in or out of the tournament for the first 2 days. I really want MLG to do better but with their track record I'm about out of hope
+1
I have high hopes that some other major player (NASL, IGN, or maybe a US shoot-off of GOM) will begin seriously competing with MLG and will eventually take over as the main American vehicle of SC2 as an esport.
Honestly, I think MLG is hurting the growth of SC2 as an esport, not helping it. As you said, anyone who told friends who are new to SC2 to tune into MLG is likely to have an extremely tough time ever convincing those friends to watch SC2 again.
There are a lot of examples of industries where having a big established player that is incompetent can really lower the quality of a product (eg microsoft) by discouraging competition because they are the "status quo" despite being completely incompetent as a company and I really hope MLG doesn't do that to SC2.
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I'm glad that the stream stability was addressed for today, otherwise the whole event would have been a wash for those of us at home.
With technical issues aside, the main thing that annoyed me was the downtime. I have to accept that we can't see every match because of the size of the tournament and the short weekend time frame, but we could have seen a lot more Starcraft than we did.
Also, it seemed like communication to Wheat and Day9 was mostly non existent, and they were reading tourney news from Twitter. I'd work on having them better informed and on getting them more replays with which to fill downtime.
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On April 04 2011 14:32 Sceptor87 wrote:
This isn't the Halo crowd. You know, the 14 year old kids that go on their toys and scream obscenities at people over the internet. Some of the guys that play this game are hitting 30. Some of the guys that watch this game are in their 30's. They will expect and demand more.
I got the impression from being on the ground at MLG that their target audience is a much lower age range as well. Even the booth babes were under age, not anywhere near the age of the gogo dancing razer girls from IEM. I can see how that works when most of the attendies are 12-15, but doesn't exactly work with the older crowd unless it's full of Chesters. In fact, it's borderline gross having 15 year olds in tight skirts running around trying to get 30 year olds to play at their booth. There were no sponsors targeting the older demographics, so MLG really must not understand the demographics of the SC2 crowd. I'm not sure the Halo and SC2 crowds mix all that well. Let's hope something like NASL takes off and gives us a decent tournament to attend.
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On April 04 2011 14:41 SweetenemY wrote:
Summary:
MajorLackGaming
Day1 we just pray,
wanted something to see,
Get a 9-hour-wait,
viewing ads for a fee.
Day2 were more fails
and reasonable hating.
We get 1.5 games
after eight hours waiting.
Day3 stream was up,
but strenghten your faith.
MLG showed the hall
while the top-games were played.
Day4 i`m still stunned
maybe it will get fine,
but i have my doubts,
it will be `till day[9].
lol, nice one
i wasn't home until yesterday, but i'm almost glad, hearing all the problems there was the first 2 days and the long delays day 3, hopefully MLG fixes all of this next time
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On April 04 2011 15:57 SpinmovE wrote:Ya, I totally agree, you can speak for every person that has ever tuned into a SC2 stream with one broad generalization. I know I turned the stream off multiple times because watching a crowd of people isn't my version of enjoyable. I did turn back in to see iNcontroL play but I'm absolutely POSITIVE that they had to of lost quite a large amount of spectators when they had absolutely no content playing for hours at a time. This event was honestly embarrassing as a fan of esports. I tried to watch it with my girlfriend on day 2 and I'm going to say I don't think she'll ever be done for trying to watch another sc2 game for the rest of her life. The entire I had the stream open there were no games casted despite the fact that games were being played. I legitimately get mad about how badly MLG is going about running a sc2 tourny. We all want this year to be the year for esports in NA. There is no way in hell that is going to happen when events go this insanely badly. Anyone that had a friend tune in is surely put off from the game, people that watch Halo or CoD that tuned in will most likely never do so again. It's a fucking travesty for the growth of esports and Sundance and crew should be absolutely, unequivocally ashamed of the complete shit show they put on. If the next MLG isn't all sorts of beyond fucking amazing there is noway in hell I will ever make time to watch it again. I am a huge fan of esports, I've competed in WCG Canada for cs 1.6, I've been playing star2 consistently since the beta, I've paid for lesson from iNcontroL and I've paid for multiple seasons of GSL. But what MLG tried to call entertainment was just plain brutal. I can't even imagine how this event could have been any worse. Dismissing all of the technical difficulties the event was still pure crap from a spectator perspective. I hope they are sick about how badly they preformed their jobs. At least 90% of my information about what was going on at the event came through twitter and I had no idea who is in or out of the tournament for the first 2 days. I really want MLG to do better but with their track record I'm about out of hope
Wow. Good post that REALLY puts the tournament in perspective.
I hope MLG reads this. As SC2 fans, we can sugarcoat MLG Dallas and it's broadcast all we want, but at the end of the day, the overall product is horrible and intolerable to anyone but hardcore fans.
You know a product SUCKS when you're embarassed to share it with your friends, or can't even defend your own interest to other people.
I've seen professional Darts on TV handled with more sophistication.
I also hope the NASL learns from MLG and their mistakes.
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Number 1 is exactly what i was thinking. How hard would it have been to have 4 stations on the stage. Some players took 20+ minutes to set up and were having issues and we just had to sit and wait.
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On April 04 2011 13:25 Drock wrote:
I agree with a lot of this, however, if it is not put in a more constructive way then I believe it will just be viewed as trolling/hate and not be taken seriously.
If it's not taken seriously then I believe MLG officials and producers are just plain ignorant/incompetent and no one will pay ten bucks for an HQ stream.
For me the tip of the iceberg yesterday was when Wheat/Day9 had to "cast" (lol) incontrol - TLO from a twitter feed. Now THAT'S where it's ME who feels he's getting trolled (and if MLG has the stones to feel trolled by me and others who hate on the piss poor massive fail abortion of an Event that they tried to SELL us the past three days, well then fuck them).
If it weren't so sad one could almost think it's funny. Imagine an NFL postseason game being cast by the commentators from a twitter feed while they are sitting in the very fucking stadium that the game is played in. IF E-Sports wants to live up to this word (sports) then the major tournament organizers need to put some effort into trying to present it like any other sport on TV is presented.
- Pre-game shows with replays of the two competitors prepared and readys to showcase their playing style.
- Pre and postgame interviews and analysis.
- A tournament structure and brackets that I can understand without being fucking Jean-François Champollion. Also ever heard of this crazy concept of having a brackets graphic showing once in a while? Apparently they never hesitated a second to show us the infamous "momentarily" graphic, but brackets? Who needs those? Let's just "hide them in a super tiny link somewhere on the right side of the page.
- etc etc. I could go on and on and make more suggestions, but they all would be so incredibly standard that a monkey with half a brain could come up with them if he elected to use a quarter of it (yes, that's a monkey using 1/8 of his brain ffs!, yet none of those have crossed MLG's minds.
They are invited to feel trolled by this post and then go fuck themselves.
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United States7483 Posts
I think the production values felt worse than they actually were as a result of a lot of the internet connectivity issues that were going on. It's fairly difficult to separate how much of it was due to them having problems in general and how much of it was due to poor preparation and planning with regards to just production value.
I do however think that MLG definitely needs to step up and figure out what they need to do to make these events SMOOTH. And by that, I mean get more accurate information on venues and make sure they can handle it well before the event is ready to go. You shouldn't be showing up at the venue only to find out that the internet connection can't handle the event, if that's a local problem: don't hold MLG events there. Yeah, it's nice that they go all over the country, but if you can't get good enough of a connection in Dallas, don't hold the event there until LAN support is put in, at least.
As a rule of thumb, if you expect X amount of people to stream your event, make sure you have the stream set up to handle 2*X people, with the ability to easily increase it if necessary. If you don't, you might have lower costs, and if you only get X people, you're fine. If you get more than X, you're boned, your event is badly hurt, your reputation goes down the shitter, and everyone hates you. If you go for 2*X, your costs are a bit higher, and if you get X, you wasted some funds, but if you get more than X, you don't have to deal with losing tons of potential high quality stream customers in the future, and you get a sterling reputation.
GO FOR THE BIGGER STREAM DAMMIT
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I shouldn't have to wake up and not know I play in an hour
or go to the last day of the event with nothing and be told I have consolation matches
les go MLG !
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All MLG has to do is figure out a way to broadcast as many of the games of possible in a timely, organized fashion.
As much as I like DJ Wheat and Day 9, people aren't planning their entire weekend around watching them kill time and talk about Starcraft 2.
Even if they played replays without commentary in their downtime, people would be less frustrated.
There's something fundamentally wrong with MLG's priorities, if they think a blank screen, commentators, or ridiculously complex brackets is more important than broadcasting actual games. This is one of the few instances in my life where a product I was interested in actually made me feel stupid for caring. It's like waiting for your favorite band to get on stage at a concert, and not do they start the show four hours late, they only play a 15 minute set.
It's why I have high hopes for the NASL. If they just broadcast a high quality games, on schedule, in a timely and efficient manner, they will be a step ahead of MLG.
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On April 04 2011 16:46 KawaiiRice wrote:
I shouldn't have to wake up and not know I play in an hour
or go to the last day of the event with nothing and be told I have consolation matches
les go MLG !
Wow. Seriously?
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Of which production value are people actually speaking here (for the viewers)?
They had 2/3 Commentators which weared Jackets and sat behind a Table. Was there anything else that looked like they put some effort into it?
The interviews after the games? A joke.
Interviews before the games or just anything else? Non existant.
Coverage of the games? Non existant.
Shown the important games? R O F L
Day9/Wheat could have castet this from their homes and the only diffrence would have been, that they don't sit next to each other (and probably wouldn't just vanish for nearly an hour for reasons no one knows)... Oh, and they could cast Replay... Actually it would have been way better...
Damn this was SO bad... Artosis just walking around with his Hand-Camera and showing games from behind the player brings better coverage than this full event...
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Yet another MLG that Day9 has saved, because he can commentate his ass out of any hole.
He really should be getting paid big bucks for this shit.
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Just cancel all the SC2 events that they planned for this year.
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Someone mentioned something I'd like to see is a "current bracket" chart, showing everyone exactly where everyone stands. I was lucky enough to be reading a forum where someone posted a version of the bracket and was updating it themself, but I would imagine most people in their heads had no clue what was going on as far as tournament structure and who was playing when.
Other than that I agree what everyone else was saying.
In order of importance:
-multiple stations on the main stage to reduce downtime
-have MLG officials joining non-mainstage games so that if something happens, the casters can jump in to those games.
-PRESSURE BLIZZARD FOR LAN SUPPORT. I understand why you wouldn't publicly do so, but for christ's sake give them a call and complain about it. So many major tournaments have lag issues.
-sound proof booths so the spectators can listen to the commentators, and so the players can't hear fans cheering for hidden buildings and such
-better interviews during the tournament, and especially afterwards
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I agree with the awesome posts quoted multiple times above.
Downtime kills interest and viewers. I suggest they take a book out of IEM's way of casting ( or Khaldor's). Follow the example of German's efficiency.
Have a few computers join all the different games so you can follow one game after the other. Do not try to cast 2 games at the same time as they did though. But Khaldor / IEM had practically zero downtime and that was a single person casting. Stick to the schedule if you want. But let's say yesterday.
After Idra vs Huk was done. One computer could have joined TLO vs IdrA while the other on standby to join Naniwa Select as scheduled. You can cast the TLO vs IdrA and when the Naniwa Select is starting, join the game with the other computer. Then switch to Naniwa Select immediately after TLO IdrA is done.
That said, despite the mess up that MLG made, i think it is a good chance for us ( the fans) to show what we have always been known for, that Starcraft fans are fiercely loyal. If we can show that in the next MLG, we are willing to give MLG another chance ( and of course MLG also needs to buck up and reciprocate) , we can show the sponsors how safe their investments are and the potential of SC because of its loyal fans.
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On April 04 2011 14:21 teamrocket1 wrote:
Although I still think that LAN support is a must for these type of events, I'm pretty much in agreement that the entire production this weekend was way off par from what I expected. Maybe I expected too much, but I sort of had this idea that streams would be consistently going every few minutes and the downtime between games would be negligible.. Maybe just enough to get some interesting remarks/comments from DJwheat and Day9. Instead we sat waiting sometimes hours on end for something, anything. I know alot of that had to do with the connection BS, but still even today when games were being played and the connections seemed fine there was just way too much downtime between matches. Overall, I give MLG credit for trying to bring esports to the masses, but I'm not going to give them credit for much more than that.
They're trying alright, but that's pretty much it. I had some spare time last evening and said to myself "hey, let's have a look at the MLG". Saw some cool games initially, but after those: 45min down time. Well, that's annoying. Next I hear that some really good games are apparently not going to get casted, for reasons unbeknowst to everyone.. I basically followed Idra vs. TLO via twitter..
Thing is, MLG is mainly a Xbox360-event. MLG got big on HALO, a game where the top players have about as much skill as incredibly average PC FPS gamers, due to controler limitations. It's not a Starcraft-exclusive event like the GSL. The guys at mlg have to spread their focus to different things at the same time.
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I don't mind Day9 filling time. Hell it was better than some of the matches. What I do mind is the "Stream will be available momentarily" garbage or worse yet the crowd shot.
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On April 04 2011 18:56 maartendq wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 14:21 teamrocket1 wrote:
Although I still think that LAN support is a must for these type of events, I'm pretty much in agreement that the entire production this weekend was way off par from what I expected. Maybe I expected too much, but I sort of had this idea that streams would be consistently going every few minutes and the downtime between games would be negligible.. Maybe just enough to get some interesting remarks/comments from DJwheat and Day9. Instead we sat waiting sometimes hours on end for something, anything. I know alot of that had to do with the connection BS, but still even today when games were being played and the connections seemed fine there was just way too much downtime between matches. Overall, I give MLG credit for trying to bring esports to the masses, but I'm not going to give them credit for much more than that. They're trying alright, but that's pretty much it. I had some spare time last evening and said to myself "hey, let's have a look at the MLG". Saw some cool games initially, but after those: 45min down time. Well, that's annoying. Next I hear that some really good games are apparently not going to get casted, for reasons unbeknowst to everyone.. I basically followed Idra vs. TLO via twitter.. Thing is, MLG is mainly a Xbox360-event. MLG got big on HALO, a game where the top players have about as much skill as incredibly average PC FPS gamers, due to controler limitations. It's not a Starcraft-exclusive event like the GSL. The guys at mlg have to spread their focus to different things at the same time.
That's not an excuse when I guarantee you more than half their views AND spectators were for SC2.
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United Kingdom12022 Posts
On April 04 2011 18:21 Ethic wrote:
Yet another MLG that Day9 has saved, because he can commentate his ass out of any hole.
He really should be getting paid big bucks for this shit.
For me personally, Day9 saved MLG for me. DJ Wheat and JP did there best too and I really enjoyed their commenating, but Day9 just seems to know how to keep me interested.
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I thoguht the production level and professionalism were just fine. From our point of view on the other side of the stream it's hard to see how much is going on over there. I feel like during the caster breaks, which are warranted and justified, we could be still shown stuff that's going on.
There's so many casters out there who'd love to play 'backup' to the main guys. I feel like they could be doing constant casting of all the games and during the main breaks, jump to their commentary. So much time during the stream I was just sitting around not watching anything, when there was plenty going on.
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I think the number one thing they need is an additional caster and have that person + JP casting other available games on a 2nd stream. There was some serious down time in addition to great games that everyone had to follow on Twitter that were happening at the same time as the casted games.
Clearly there were games going on during many stretches of dead stream... why not catch those games with an additional pair of casters on a 2nd stream?
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I could not agree more with your entire post, That's exactly how it should have been! Great thread dude!
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Actually, I would have liked it if there was a second stream even without casters. Just being able to watch games in between, without downtime would have been really good.
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On April 04 2011 19:14 Piledriver wrote:
Actually, I would have liked it if there was a second stream even without casters. Just being able to watch games in between, without downtime would have been really good.
Considering they can't keep one stream running, I find that a bit of a stretch. If theres that much stress on the venue ISP, then they need to change their system somehow to make it work.
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outside of the stream/gamelag issues i was just hugely dissapointed by the very very small number of games casted.
granted i didnt camp infront of my pc the entire weekend but i saw maybe 3 or 4 series? given that i still spend like 12 hours watching over the weekend thats just not acceptable. if it wasnt for the at times very funny LR thread ( sadly also huge amounts of pure idiocy in there...) i wouldve just turned off.
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United Kingdom36156 Posts
Yep, so few games casted it was shocking.
So many times through the weekend I clicked on the stream and on only one occasion was a game actually being shown.
I'd not seen any MLGs before, and this one left a sad impression :/
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On April 04 2011 18:56 maartendq wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 14:21 teamrocket1 wrote:
Although I still think that LAN support is a must for these type of events, I'm pretty much in agreement that the entire production this weekend was way off par from what I expected. Maybe I expected too much, but I sort of had this idea that streams would be consistently going every few minutes and the downtime between games would be negligible.. Maybe just enough to get some interesting remarks/comments from DJwheat and Day9. Instead we sat waiting sometimes hours on end for something, anything. I know alot of that had to do with the connection BS, but still even today when games were being played and the connections seemed fine there was just way too much downtime between matches. Overall, I give MLG credit for trying to bring esports to the masses, but I'm not going to give them credit for much more than that. They're trying alright, but that's pretty much it. I had some spare time last evening and said to myself "hey, let's have a look at the MLG". Saw some cool games initially, but after those: 45min down time. Well, that's annoying. Next I hear that some really good games are apparently not going to get casted, for reasons unbeknowst to everyone.. I basically followed Idra vs. TLO via twitter.. Thing is, MLG is mainly a Xbox360-event. MLG got big on HALO, a game where the top players have about as much skill as incredibly average PC FPS gamers, due to controler limitations. It's not a Starcraft-exclusive event like the GSL. The guys at mlg have to spread their focus to different things at the same time.
The problem is that they're not spreading their focus equally, nor are they even trying to do so. As people have pointed out in this thread, the difference in production value between Reach/Black Ops and SC2 is mind blowing. They have a bigger budget and more sponsor backing than most smaller LANs put together, and yet they fail to deliver content of even half the quality. The only excuse is lack of effort.
On April 04 2011 16:46 KawaiiRice wrote:
I shouldn't have to wake up and not know I play in an hour
or go to the last day of the event with nothing and be told I have consolation matches
les go MLG ! I... I have no words. :|
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And to think, I was actually jealous before this Dallas event started. I went to the one last year and was happy sitting on my ass watching the games in a crowded area.
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I agree with most of the OP, but his first point is the most important along with the goal of showing games all the time. It should be fairly obvious that it should be match, 5-10min commentator banter+commercials (total), next match.
If it's extremely difficult to get that schedule to work out or something (i can't imagine it would be, but if) then just give wheat day9 and jp some replays and have then commentate that while waiting. Another alternative is having some pre made interviews. Especially after each day of play ask players about the whole field etc etc.
I assume the lag/connection stuff will be fixed for next time, but this is almost as important. SHOW ME THE GAMES PRETTY PLEASE!
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Slop3, from the swedish esports taboid rakaka, was crazy angry in his videoblog today. He pointed out every production and tech miss MLG did, and said that he as a newcomer to SC2 can't understand what the fuck is going on. To bad he doesn't do his videos in english, MLG should see it, now they only can see how pissed and red in the face he is.
They should fly him in and sit down and talk with him, many years in streamin production, is in LA and doing film production studies or something. MLG, you need people that know what they are talking about, now!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&
Edit:
PS. Stop those plans on trying to sell this kind of production in europe before the production value is much better.
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Well because everybody has been saying basically the same thing about stream and lag.
I just wanted to say that it would be really if they had a graphic showing the updated brackets.
because a lot of times i just did not know what was going and if the player that just lost was out or what.
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Many excellent suggestions in this thread, allow me to chuck in 2 random unstructured comments:
1. I've had a good think and have decided to love the tournament structure, at least the way the championship losers' bracket works and the way a coherent and exciting story could be generated (first you must overcome the people who came 5th in their pools... then the people who came 4th... then the people who came 3rd... etc, until you reach the END BOSS).
The production team need to help the commentators get this across with some graphics and some match reports. It's so so bush league for Day[9] to be alt-tabbing to a monochrome graphic somewhere on the Internet and reading from @TeamLiquid to help explain what's going on. Given the amount of downtime to fill between the rounds (only 1 game broadcast per round, remember), there needs to be at bare minimum a summary match report for the commentators to access (or a roving reporter to deliver - JP, what's happening in the other matches?). I watched a small fraction of Sheth's journey and that was done pretty well given the resources available to the commentators, but there are 4 separate stories going on at once during the championship bracket and they're all worthy of coverage.
2. Do an experiment with me. Pretend you don't know anything about what happened over the last 3 days. Try as hard as you can to not use your existing knowledge of which links on the MLG website go where. Google "MLG" and try to work out what happened in the Starcraft 2 tournament.
I'd love to know the fraction of people who end up here:
+ Show Spoiler +
Suppose you came to this page as an outsider... what on Earth does it mean?
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The guy doing the TL twitter did a better job with updates, interviews, reactions and information than any MLG staffmember I saw. Maybe hire him to replace what was probably 3-4 backend staff working on your live feed / pro circuit desk / whatever.
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This thread is amazing. There are some great ideas/suggestions in here.
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Agree 100% The organization of the games being broadcasted seems to have noone.
I like listening to Day9 and Wheat usually but this tournament for the first time i just had to mute them it felt like 10% games 90% desperately thinking of stuff to fill the void.
and the casting booth was the tackiest thing i have seen in years that looked like some home studio must have been a 2 for 1 deal on the monitors and the polished aluminium with strange patterns in it looked horrendous the lights made it look like some cheap american daytime soap. Not that i want any money to be spent on the background the Sc2 poster from last season would do nicely.
I still could have stomached everything else if the games were well organised
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On April 04 2011 20:17 Mr Mauve wrote:2. Do an experiment with me. Pretend you don't know anything about what happened over the last 3 days. Try as hard as you can to not use your existing knowledge of which links on the MLG website go where. Google "MLG" and try to work out what happened in the Starcraft 2 tournament. I'd love to know the fraction of people who end up here: + Show Spoiler +Suppose you came to this page as an outsider... what on Earth does it mean?
I'm not an outsider, have been trying to use MLGs site plenty of times, I still don't get it. I don't know how many times I have tried to find a fking bracket and just ended up here in the LR thread trying to find the link.
A newcomer to SC2 is going to give up in a minute and just continue to watch Halo.
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On April 04 2011 20:50 Jiddra wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 20:17 Mr Mauve wrote:2. Do an experiment with me. Pretend you don't know anything about what happened over the last 3 days. Try as hard as you can to not use your existing knowledge of which links on the MLG website go where. Google "MLG" and try to work out what happened in the Starcraft 2 tournament. I'd love to know the fraction of people who end up here: + Show Spoiler +Suppose you came to this page as an outsider... what on Earth does it mean? I'm not an outsider, have been trying to use MLGs site plenty of times, I still don't get it. I don't know how many times I have tried to find a fking bracket and just ended up here in the LR thread trying to find the link. Good to know I'm not alone in that regard. =/
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i really do hate mlg they are just so bad compared to just about every other tournaments out there.
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I said this in a different thread, and it's along the lines that some have suggested here, but they need to get an MLG observer account in EVERY SINGLE GAME BEING PLAYED. Then, you use that account to stream via something like JustinTV. You don't need a commentator.You just need someone to move the observer camera. This could be a referee working the tournament, or could even be a volunteer from home.
They should have a way for members of the community to sign up, especially in the early open brackets.
I would have been more than happy to stream a random open bracket game from home. You name all of these streams something like this:
MLG A
MLG B
MLG C
MLG D
MLG E
etc.
Then, on the bracket schedule on MLG's website, it lists the streaming channel that the match is being played on--ideally there would be a link. So if I want to watch two scrubs playing in round one of the open bracket, I just click on the link on the MLG bracket website, and I'm taken to the JustinTV channel where the games are being streamed.
What's cool about this is that the main casters like Day9 and DJ Wheat could just tune into these channels if their scheduled casted games were already done. e.g. "Well folks, since TLO knocked out IdrA so quickly there, we're going to take you to MLG channel D where we have a game in progress between. . . "
You get the idea. Any reason this can't be done?
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1) More games, less talk. I can understand that there are schedule problems, nearly every big event (and even small ones) has them, but this could be avoided with more computers on the stage.
Yesterday Naniwa had some problems with his mouse and because he just arrived on the mainstage, it took ages to fix while we were waiting for the game. With just two extra computers the players who are supposed to play next could prepare and the chance that the match actually starts on time rises.
2) Extended series. I don't like this system at all. If a player won against the other during the previous stages he had enough of an advantage because of the seeding / he did not have to play that many games. Also it gets less exciting when a player starts with a 2:0 or 2:1 lead.
3) More casters / streams. If the game is not broadcasted on the main mlg stream then authorized casters should be able to show the other games that are played. There were many examples why this but be better during the weekend, several times games were played that were not casted, sometimes even though the stream was "free" and not showing anything.
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I would really like a easy to find link of a bracket on the MLGPro.com website, one that also shows where people end up if they get kicked out of the winner bracket.
I've had the hardest time figuring out who was still in the tournament, and where.
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Just to reiterate, even without all the technical difficulties, MLG broadcasts are notorious for downtime rather than gameplay. The ratio of downtime (either commcericals, fan shots or casters buying time) to the amount of game footage is extremely low for a major event. To make a sports analogy, MLG is about 2-3x worse than the Superbowl when it comes to actually showing games (for foreign users, the Superbowl is probably the worst professional sporting event in this regard.)
This is by far the biggest the biggest problem. I had to reinstall Baldurs Gate just to have something to do between games.
Even if I was extremely disappointed with MLG they still have such great games and I love following the tournament. It's such a shame we get to see so little due to technical issues or simply lack of coverage.
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I think MLG needs a third person constantly watching the non televised games and compiling the results/report on each one. They can even interview some of the players after the game to fill some down time. The reason I say this is that frankly the casters are given the wrong results and nearly always there seems to be a delay. I will give an example from this MLG
Incontrol Vs TLO the second series. JP was on air checking Team liquids site and another site for twitter updates, while watching battlenet to see if the game had ended. Why at your own event is the information about your results/game status/progress so poorly transfered to the casters, that they chose to basically ask the spectators for updates.
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On April 04 2011 15:57 SpinmovE wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 15:40 Rabiator wrote:On April 04 2011 15:28 FaZe wrote:
For a couple thousand bucks, You do realize that MLG is a business who has to make a profit to make it worthwile and to increase the quality next time around? "A couple thousand bucks" may be nothing to you, but companies like these (and their sponsors) are usually nitpicking about every cent ... a penny saved is a penny earned and a few more cameras might improve the quality for the viewer, but lack of these cameras will NOT make people stop watching the event. We are addicted after all and used to these things and the whining adds enough emotion to keep it "interesting" even though some games might not be worth watching. So people will watch, regardless of the quality. Ya, I totally agree, you can speak for every person that has ever tuned into a SC2 stream with one broad generalization. I know I turned the stream off multiple times because watching a crowd of people isn't my version of enjoyable. I did turn back in to see iNcontroL play but I'm absolutely POSITIVE that they had to of lost quite a large amount of spectators when they had absolutely no content playing for hours at a time. This event was honestly embarrassing as a fan of esports. I tried to watch it with my girlfriend on day 2 and I'm going to say I don't think she'll ever be done for trying to watch another sc2 game for the rest of her life. The entire I had the stream open there were no games casted despite the fact that games were being played. I legitimately get mad about how badly MLG is going about running a sc2 tourny. We all want this year to be the year for esports in NA. There is no way in hell that is going to happen when events go this insanely badly. Anyone that had a friend tune in is surely put off from the game, people that watch Halo or CoD that tuned in will most likely never do so again. It's a fucking travesty for the growth of esports and Sundance and crew should be absolutely, unequivocally ashamed of the complete shit show they put on. If the next MLG isn't all sorts of beyond fucking amazing there is noway in hell I will ever make time to watch it again. I am a huge fan of esports, I've competed in WCG Canada for cs 1.6, I've been playing star2 consistently since the beta, I've paid for lesson from iNcontroL and I've paid for multiple seasons of GSL. But what MLG tried to call entertainment was just plain brutal. I can't even imagine how this event could have been any worse. Dismissing all of the technical difficulties the event was still pure crap from a spectator perspective. I hope they are sick about how badly they preformed their jobs. At least 90% of my information about what was going on at the event came through twitter and I had no idea who is in or out of the tournament for the first 2 days. I really want MLG to do better but with their track record I'm about out of hope
I think we all agree that the Dallas event wasnt organized perfectly, but do you really think that a camera showing the fans for 20 minutes (and they sometimes did show the "hall camera" where some nerds played "look there is a camera, so lets act stupid") will help make it more popular. That is what I commented about and which would cost "a couple of thousands" for no real gain.
The real crux was their broadcasting schedule, which was horrible and rigid (the same problem is true for the IEM events). With the amount of time spent on talking over the course of three days (the casters have to talk off camera a lot as well I would say) you have to be careful or really hurt their voices. Having three casters is a good start, but more might be a better if they loosen up their broadcasting schedule. The stupid "we only cast games from the main stage and dont cast anything if the players are quick about it" has to go ... far far away. MLG (and IEM) need "game scouts" who are looking for games to cast in the next 30-60 minutes and to talk to players about it. Obviously MLGs funky bracket doesnt help with that, but casting games from replays is a great idea for breaks.
So to return to your sarcastic part ... would your girlfriend understand and be inclined to watch another tournament if there were long periods of nerds who are standing around (*1) or acting stupid OR would she be more inclined to watch if they showed more games without pause? I think the second one is much easier.
I should not have cut the quote in such a way, because "a couple of thousands for a few cameras to show the fans" was the point I was arguing about ...
Investing into "crowd cameras" ... NO
Investing into "showing more games" ... YES
That was what I should have said more or less. Here is the uncut quote ...
+ Show Spoiler +On April 04 2011 15:28 FaZe wrote:
I'll admit as much as the next guy that the quality of the MLG broadcast was disappointing.
I'm confident that a lot of the networking issues will be worked out for Columbus.
What needs to happen is someone needs to take better control of SC2. Someone with passion needs to step up and take control - it has to be someone different than the team that does everything else and doesn't give a damn about anything other than it being "good enough".
There were tons of opportunities for this to be a phenominal event.
1 Canon XF-300 in the crowd, with an energetic host interviewing random people / players would cost literally 500$ to rent all the equipment for the weekend with full integration into the existing system. When there absolutely has to be downtime, cut to that guy. Fill some time with something other than DJWheat and Day9 telling stories. Hell, get 3 or 4 cameras out there. For a couple thousand bucks, you just quadroupled the amount of content that you can deliver to people watching the stream.
What they lack for Starcraft 2 is effort. Sundance says that he cares about SC2, and maybe he thinks he does. If they gave control of the SC2 production to someone who loves the game as much as most of us do, he would see what passion really is.
(*1) Fans are only excited when something is happening and if we dont get games from the main stage they wont have much to be excited about either ... so renting a few cameras to show the fans is stupid when you arent exciting the fans ... and even if they get excited during a break YOU have no connection to the reason for that excitement either, so it would just be bad for the viewer at home.
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Get cameras behind the players when, there`s a problem thats very entertaining in compare the face of day9 and other intelectual midgets
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those suggestions are right on the spot.
I'm sure i wasnt the only one who got totally bored of waiting and watching either black screens, 'stream will continue momentarily', djwheat and day9 talking about tekken and USB ports, having a 1h camera which is showing the crowd.
My god if i think back, i literally found the LR thread more exciting than MLG itself. With cat crossing the stream pics and eagles stream.
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Dont forget the story about lil wheat, which was very important to know.
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Hire TheGunRun and TheBeard.
Problem solved
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Set a partnerstream up like every big event out there. Of course you cant stream 3 games at once and of course the caster need a break after 3-4 games... Thats just how it is.
Let the partnerstream cover every game that is not covered by the mainstream and most of the problems are solved...
Even tho the level of production was pretty low, the downtimes were the REAL problem. I mean after two days of fails I started raging like a fat little kid when I realized that they made a break for 40mins while TLO was playing Idra!!!
Get Real MLG!
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A "live" view of the problems, http://pro.majorleaguegaming.com/live/starcraft_2
Even the rebroadcast is filled with downtime and crowd shots. How hard can it be to cut this video into game VODs and stream?
I think that when dreamhack goes live 12 april in Stockholm they will show how a good production can be done. This year they have real sponsors for SC2 and the people behind the events love SC2 and esports.
Sundance, book a flight, take Lee in the ear and drag him to stockholm to studie how things should be done.
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1. An extra pair of casters to be able to cast two games simultaneously --> or at least just to have more games casted and less time with no games at all.
2. Extra pair of computers on stage so the next match can be setup to decrease downtime between casted matches.
3. Easier homepage to navigate. Tbh. the current homepage is a maze compared to many other sites --> I had problems finding out when the event started and who was playing who (no direct button to the brackets afaik). And on that note, please state when the events starts in different timezones CET, KST etc.
4. Keep the brackets updated! It was hard to keep up with who beat who, and what games were up next.
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Well the schedule problems at IEM were not realy the fault of the sc2 players or esl, most of the time it had to do with counterstrike teams not showing up (delayed the start of day1 for several hours) or going into overtime.
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On April 04 2011 22:00 Jocoma wrote:
1. An extra pair of casters to be able to cast two games simultaneously --> or at least just to have more games casted and less time with no games at all.
2. Extra pair of computers on stage so the next match can be setup to decrease downtime between casted matches.
3. Easier homepage to navigate. Tbh. the current homepage is a maze compared to many other sites --> I had problems finding out when the event started and who was playing who (no direct button to the brackets afaik). And on that note, please state when the events starts in different timezones CET, KST etc.
4. Keep the brackets updated! It was hard to keep up with who beat who, and what games were up next.
How do you find the brackets while browsing the site? I have never found it
Could someone make a click by click to the bracket? Brackets should be max 3 clicks from the main page.
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Good to see this thread full of constructive suggestions instead of just whining. I hope someone from MLG reads it.
My own suggestion - on the website when you click ProCircuit -> Dallas 2011, there should be links to the brackets, the stream, and any other info about it that is on your website. I still don't know what you are supposed to click on on the MLG site to find the brackets, I viewed them from TeamLiquid links.
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So the prime audience of the MLG is gamers, and people watching the streams. You had more downtime than up.... need i say more?
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100% agree with OP and a lot of other Posts made in this Thread.
It was a sad Event ):
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I don't pretend to understand the mechanics of running and event like this, but they should really spit ball some ideas of how to get more games and less talking on stream. Just anything, even only streaming the 2nd game of a bo3 and not the others, is better than not streaming anything.
Maybe something similar to the way that they cover the offline prelims from MSL or OSL if anyone remembers them? They would just drop into the games being played and it gave a great feeling of constant movement and excitement with games constantly happening.
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My standards for this were not that high, I know snags and glitches happen in esports and I've been a patient fan/player for many years. But really, the worst part was the "well guys there's a really epic game going on right now, and there was a pretty epic one already as well, but after this 30 minute break we are going to just chill and tell stories instead." I mean c'mon now, it was almost like a bad joke, I felt like I was listening to baseball games on the radio in 1920. Except even worse since it was just a line of text that said who won and described the game in maybe one sentence.
I realize a LOT of games were played and not all of them can be covered. But to have so much downtime when games are being played is just beyond my comprehension... and no disrespect to Day, Wheat or JP, they did an excellent job and made the thing worth watching, and I could tell they were frustrated at times too.
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1. Badger the fucking shit out of Blizzard for a LAN edition of SC2. They don't listen to their community, but maybe they'll listen to a corporation. This shit has to stop, it's so aggravating to watch one of the most competitive and up-and-coming games of all time get stifled constantly by a problem solved decades ago.
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1. I definitely want to see the players' reactions after the game! Smugness, sorrow, fist pumps, etc.
2. They should consider the possibilities of future technical difficulties and have set-ups that account for those problems. What should we do in case X happens? Plan accordingly.
Anyone know how the Colombus venue is supposed to be (for the next MLG event)? I'm thinking about going, since it's only an eight hour drive from my house in New Jersey.
I'd really love to go a live tournament (and there aren't many huge ones in the northeast), but if the production value is going to be as poor as the previous ones...
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Never have i wanted so badly to go back to the days of HLTV. Livestreaming is all fine and well but i want to be able to choose which game i watch from time-to-time, especially in an event like MLG where some of the player hold no interest for me whatsoever. I realise this is more about Blizzard than MLG but there's not much more to say about MLG that hasn't been said in the previous 8 pages.
Not that it should come as a surprise, i suppose. WoW never got a public spectator tool in 4 years of arenas despite Blizzard supposedly pushing it as an esport. Even WC3 only got 3rd party spectator tools like GGClient and WaaaghTV.
It's kinda like if football was available on TV but you weren't allowd to watch your local team in the park because the FA didn't support it.
P.S. Local Area Network.
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Brackets!
I'd love some kind of graphic with the bracket that gets updated after the games. Obviously this is pretty hard when the bracket is still huge, but maybe when we get down the the final 32 or 16 or something.
I imagine something like this:
DJWheat:
"Alright, that was a great game from KIWIKAKI and that puts him through to the next round, lets take a look at where that leaves us"
*Screen is now a bracket, updated with Kiwi's win.*
Day[9]:
"Right you are Wheat! It looks like that means Kiwikaki is going to be facing SelecT in the next round. Thats going to be a great match, where we're going to be show casing Kiwis strong style against SelecTs fantastic tactics and harass. As you can see up there on the screen, the winner of this series is going up against Naniwa in the final!"
While (when the stream worked), I got a nice string of good matchups, I just had the most difficult time of keeping up with where we actually were in the tournament. Who was still alive, who was out, how many players were left. That is all stuff that helps me get "in" to the tournament, but the MLG broadcast does a poor job of communicating this information in my opinion. Day9 shouldn't have to scour people's match history to try and figure out who is winning matches.
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52 million sponsorinship? seriously that's their budget?
And all I've heard about MLG is bad things about their production... starting to become a standing joke.
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I would love a new management that does not allow for this kind of frackups.
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When Sundance was on SotG, he sounded enthusiastic. I had no doubt that this MLG would be amazing. I was disappointed to say the least. He also said Octoshape was the only option, they could not afford to have a satelite truck come to broadcast the games. Honestly im not sure exactly what the technical problem was, seems like its just a blame game.
When someone appologizes for destroying a weekend of content, i expect it to not be read of a cue card. Its like Sundance didnt even care. Emotionless, fumblin-over-word appology that just made me shake my head.
O and thank god for Day9. He can turn a turd into gold or in this case, something tolerable.
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There was way too much down time between broadcasted matches. What made it even worse was there was always matches being played! Why do I have to get second hand updates from Twitter when MLG could be casting the games?!
(On that note, thank you to TL for always keeping me up to date with the matches via Twitter lol)
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MLG Dallas was one of the worst events in a spectator point in a LONG time. It's not the first time NA events fail to deliver with all the hype, I've seen it before in ESPORTS. This is not the way to promote esports for the wider audience, they just burned them self and the spectators.
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Stream quality is another huge issue for me. TSL, Dreamhack, Assembly, ESL all offer free HQ, meanwhile MLG charges $10? (correct me if im wrong) for an "hq" stream that apparently isn't really hq, which really speaks for the low quality stream. I feel charging for something like this for a 3 day event (with 1 day of games that actually matter...and big downtime between the games) to be silly in the first place, but $10 is kinda ridiculous. I can buy a GSL season pass with way better production and stream quality for that much money...
On April 04 2011 22:17 Rampager wrote:
1. Badger the fucking shit out of Blizzard for a LAN edition of SC2. They don't listen to their community, but maybe they'll listen to a corporation. This shit has to stop, it's so aggravating to watch one of the most competitive and up-and-coming games of all time get stifled constantly by a problem solved decades ago.
No thanks, that would delay the release of twitter integration and more replay interface tweaks
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If there is for example 4 games running at once, one being cast on the main stage the other 3 isnt, then they should have people in them as spectators/referees and should the mainstage game end and there's gonna be a gap they should have a system in place(mouse+keyboard+screen swtiching) so that the commentators on the stage can take control over the spectator in that game and jump straight streaming, day9 etc, is extremly capable and could easily get people watching settled in the new game by explaining whats going on. Dead airtime kills the enjoyment i think.
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Another thought: What I'm about to say... is based on a realistic improvement for the immediate future (Columbus). It would be great to say, "Next time make everything perfect! Spend twice as much money if you have to!" But here's a simple, easy to implement idea and it's basically free:
One of the biggest surprises spectating this event was to find out that I followed almost as many games through Twitter as I did through the official stream. Why not integrate twitter on the spectator page? Get a couple bodies on the ground following the games that aren't casted. Make them official MLG Twitter feeds. Get the embed code from the Twitter site and integrate that feed next to the streaming window. This way, as a spectator, the stream would be in it's usual box, maybe farther off to the side and right next to it would be a pair of official MLG Twitter feeds updating the games that aren't casted as they happen.
There would be no more need spamming the TL threads with Twitter posts from multiple sources (TL, EG, iNcontroL's girlfriend, etc.). Many of the spectators were dual following the stream and all of the feeds anyway. Why not make it official?
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On April 04 2011 22:24 Zechs wrote:
Never have i wanted so badly to go back to the days of HLTV. Livestreaming is all fine and well but i want to be able to choose which game i watch from time-to-time, especially in an event like MLG where some of the player hold no interest for me whatsoever. I realise this is more about Blizzard than MLG but there's not much more to say about MLG that hasn't been said in the previous 8 pages.
Not that it should come as a surprise, i suppose. WoW never got a public spectator tool in 4 years of arenas despite Blizzard supposedly pushing it as an esport. Even WC3 only got 3rd party spectator tools like GGClient and WaaaghTV.
It's kinda like if football was available on TV but you weren't allowd to watch your local team in the park because the FA didn't support it.
P.S. Local Area Network.
This. HLTV was the one of the main reasons CS became the biggest eSport in the West. You can watch whatever game you want, at the quality that your pc can handle. You can also watch the main event stream if you wanted, but the choice is always there. I don't know how HLTV would work with SC2 because of no dedicated server support, but CS will remain one of the best eSports spectator sports ever because of HLTV. I remeber watching EYE vs. NoA with 50,000 people on the main HLTV, it was great.
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Keep an observer in interesting games and cut to them, even if you can't broadcast it on the mainstage. Having more than 10-15 minute breaks without game just is way to long. Like we get out of the Naniwa Select game and cut directly into G5 TLO incontrol.
Make a rule about setting up, you have a set amount of time to get set up Naniwa took forever (40 minutes twice), and have two sets of playing computers up to set up the next game to cut down on downtime.
While I wasn't at the event it sounds like the mainstage spectating experience was worse than the stream. Not having any caster sounds is really just lame. So booths!!!!!!
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This criticism about seeing the players reactions is just pure nitpicking bull shit. I don't give a shit if the nerd fist pumps and jumps when he wins. What is criminal however is the delay and the lack of games. Lets not get sidetracked by stupid production tweaks that would have little to no actual effect on stream quality.
Just get your shit straightened out MLG, no one really even cares that much about the quality. Just show the god damn games.
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The best "stream" and way to stay informed about the event was thank god by TL Twitter. If it wasn't for that I wouldn't have had a clue what was going on. Says enough about mlg.
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On April 04 2011 23:02 SlipperySnake wrote:
This criticism about seeing the players reactions is just pure nitpicking bull shit. I don't give a shit if the nerd fist pumps and jumps when he wins. What is criminal however is the delay and the lack of games. Lets not get sidetracked by stupid production tweaks that would have little to no actual effect on stream quality.
Just get your shit straightened out MLG, no one really even cares that much about the quality. Just show the god damn games.
This. All we need is games, no stupid 40min breaks while a great series is going on.
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United States22883 Posts
On April 04 2011 22:53 loveeholicce wrote:
Stream quality is another huge issue for me. TSL, Dreamhack, Assembly, ESL all offer free HQ, meanwhile MLG charges $10? (correct me if im wrong) for an "hq" stream that apparently isn't really hq, which really speaks for the low quality stream. I feel charging for something like this for a 3 day event (with 1 day of games that actually matter...and big downtime between the games) to be silly in the first place, but $10 is kinda ridiculous. I can buy a GSL season pass with way better production and stream quality for that much money...
Whatever they're using to encode with is simply not good. Everyone knows part of the problem is the 360p/480p streams, but on top of that, they have a ton of bandwidth for streams of that size and the image quality is still extremely poor.
You could take any commercial encoder like FMLE/Xplit, give it the same parameters (360p, 550bitrate) and come out with a nicer looking stream than MLG's.
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On April 04 2011 23:07 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 22:53 loveeholicce wrote:
Stream quality is another huge issue for me. TSL, Dreamhack, Assembly, ESL all offer free HQ, meanwhile MLG charges $10? (correct me if im wrong) for an "hq" stream that apparently isn't really hq, which really speaks for the low quality stream. I feel charging for something like this for a 3 day event (with 1 day of games that actually matter...and big downtime between the games) to be silly in the first place, but $10 is kinda ridiculous. I can buy a GSL season pass with way better production and stream quality for that much money...
Whatever they're using to encode with is simply not good. Everyone knows part of the problem is the 360p/480p streams, but on top of that, they have a ton of bandwidth for streams of that size and the image quality is still extremely poor. You could take any commercial encoder like FMLE/Xplit, give it the same parameters (360p, 550bitrate) and come out with a nicer looking stream than MLG's.
One thing is the extreme change of quality between ingame and studio/caster feed. It seems like the ingame feed is lacking greatly in quality.
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I've been trying to come up with a good description of what I'd have liked to have seen from Dallas, and the closest comparison I can think of is the big tennis tournaments (Wimbledon etc.). The situation is pretty similar: many more games being played than can be shown live, a limited number of show courts (equivalent of games on the main stage), significant down-time between games on a given court, potential for major 'technical' delays (rain). I would love to see MLG being produced just like one of these major tennis tournaments (though without the tennis of course).
1) Make sure you're showing something all the time. Live games are obviously best, but feel free to fill in with replays. Just casters talking is bad.
2) The casters need to be better informed as to what's happening with the wider tournament. The TL twitter shouldn't be the fastest source of results. Between series, or even between games within a series, we should be updated on all the major results. As someone mentioned an up-to-date bracket graphic is 100% necessary, especially with the complicated (but actually quite enjoyable) bracket system. This is the best way to fill in short periods of down time.
3) Highlights. You don't have to cast every game, but if something epic happens off-stream it would be amazing to see it. Don't show the entire game, just pick out a 5 minute highlight section and have the casters talk about that. This is a great way of filling in medium-length periods of down time. To accomplish this in a practical way have referees highlight games they consider to be 'epic' with maybe a one-line description and a time of when the cool stuff went down. Pass all this along to a couple of guys who can review a few segments, pick out the interesting one(s) and let the casters know exactly when the highlight occurs and in which replay. It would require a tiny bit of effort from the referees/observers and a couple of extra guys.
4) Don't be so rigid about the schedules. Just because a series isn't in the schedule doesn't mean it can't be cast. Just because there isn't time to cast an entire series (or a series has already started) doesn't mean a game or two can't be cast. Even cast the first game, then jump to the scheduled series instead and just update us on the results in between games. Maybe prepare a highlights segment to show after the scheduled game? Don't be afraid to delay a scheduled game by a few minutes if one of these scheduled games is close to finishing, but also don't be afraid to just leave a game if necessary. I would 100% rather see half a game and be left in suspense as to what happened than see no games and just listen to the casters.
5) Aim for something like >75% of stream time to consist of SC2 footage. Pre- and post-game stuff is ok, but between the first match of the day starting and the end of the last match we really want to see as much SC2 footage as possible.
tl:dr version - just make sure SC2 is on the stream as much as possible, which needs to be a lot more than it was on Day 3.
[Edit: Things I don't care about (so much):
- stream quality could be better (well, a lot better), but it was good enough to follow the games so this really doesn't need to be a priority
- player reactions aren't that important to me. I thought the embedded player cams worked well enough
- PC gamers just don't give great interviews. More in depth interviews would be nice, but to be honest, no matter how good your interviewer is if you're talking to a hardcore gamer who's native language isn't English the interview is never going to be that riveting. Don't waste effort trying to improve this until everything else is working
- commentary for the crowd. At live sporting events the crowd literally never get commentary. The atmosphere of actually being there more than makes up for this. I actually liked MLGs solution of having commentary for the crowd between games but muting it during games.]
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On April 04 2011 22:57 MrSexington wrote:
Another thought: What I'm about to say... is based on a realistic improvement for the immediate future (Columbus). It would be great to say, "Next time make everything perfect! Spend twice as much money if you have to!" But here's a simple, easy to implement idea and it's basically free:
One of the biggest surprises spectating this event was to find out that I followed almost as many games through Twitter as I did through the official stream. Why not integrate twitter on the spectator page? Get a couple bodies on the ground following the games that aren't casted. Make them official MLG Twitter feeds. Get the embed code from the Twitter site and integrate that feed next to the streaming window. This way, as a spectator, the stream would be in it's usual box, maybe farther off to the side and right next to it would be a pair of official MLG Twitter feeds updating the games that aren't casted as they happen.
There would be no more need spamming the TL threads with Twitter posts from multiple sources (TL, EG, iNcontroL's girlfriend, etc.). Many of the spectators were dual following the stream and all of the feeds anyway. Why not make it official?
Just to add on to this:
Why not just collaborate with Team Liquid and use their Twitter embed code to do this? iNcontroL's girlfriend is already employed by MLG, correct? Why not use her as the 2nd Twitter. This way it would literally be free and is a realistic improvement in time for Columbus.
TL;DR - On the MLG stream page, display 3 things:
1) The Stream Window
2) TL's Twitter Feed
3) iNcontroL's Girlfriend's Twitter Feed
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On April 04 2011 23:22 MrSexington wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 22:57 MrSexington wrote:
Another thought: What I'm about to say... is based on a realistic improvement for the immediate future (Columbus). It would be great to say, "Next time make everything perfect! Spend twice as much money if you have to!" But here's a simple, easy to implement idea and it's basically free:
One of the biggest surprises spectating this event was to find out that I followed almost as many games through Twitter as I did through the official stream. Why not integrate twitter on the spectator page? Get a couple bodies on the ground following the games that aren't casted. Make them official MLG Twitter feeds. Get the embed code from the Twitter site and integrate that feed next to the streaming window. This way, as a spectator, the stream would be in it's usual box, maybe farther off to the side and right next to it would be a pair of official MLG Twitter feeds updating the games that aren't casted as they happen.
There would be no more need spamming the TL threads with Twitter posts from multiple sources (TL, EG, iNcontroL's girlfriend, etc.). Many of the spectators were dual following the stream and all of the feeds anyway. Why not make it official? Just to add on to this: Why not just collaborate with Team Liquid and use their Twitter embed code to do this? iNcontroL's girlfriend is already employed by MLG, correct? Why not use her as the 2nd Twitter. This way it would literally be free and is a realistic improvement in time for Columbus. TL;DR - On the MLG stream page, display 3 things: 1) The Stream Window 2) TL's Twitter Feed 3) iNcontroL's Girlfriend's Twitter Feed
Surely this is what the MLG live blog should be doing? I'm not saying that they shouldn't replace the live blog with a live twitter feed, which might well be better. But they do already have a mechanism in place for text updates about games in progress. Maybe they could integrate the live blog to also include updates from some twitter feeds?
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On April 04 2011 23:34 Silkath wrote:Show nested quote +On April 04 2011 23:22 MrSexington wrote:On April 04 2011 22:57 MrSexington wrote:
Another thought: What I'm about to say... is based on a realistic improvement for the immediate future (Columbus). It would be great to say, "Next time make everything perfect! Spend twice as much money if you have to!" But here's a simple, easy to implement idea and it's basically free:
One of the biggest surprises spectating this event was to find out that I followed almost as many games through Twitter as I did through the official stream. Why not integrate twitter on the spectator page? Get a couple bodies on the ground following the games that aren't casted. Make them official MLG Twitter feeds. Get the embed code from the Twitter site and integrate that feed next to the streaming window. This way, as a spectator, the stream would be in it's usual box, maybe farther off to the side and right next to it would be a pair of official MLG Twitter feeds updating the games that aren't casted as they happen.
There would be no more need spamming the TL threads with Twitter posts from multiple sources (TL, EG, iNcontroL's girlfriend, etc.). Many of the spectators were dual following the stream and all of the feeds anyway. Why not make it official? Just to add on to this: Why not just collaborate with Team Liquid and use their Twitter embed code to do this? iNcontroL's girlfriend is already employed by MLG, correct? Why not use her as the 2nd Twitter. This way it would literally be free and is a realistic improvement in time for Columbus. TL;DR - On the MLG stream page, display 3 things: 1) The Stream Window 2) TL's Twitter Feed 3) iNcontroL's Girlfriend's Twitter Feed Surely this is what the MLG live blog should be doing? I'm not saying that they shouldn't replace the live blog with a live twitter feed, which might well be better. But they do already have a mechanism in place for text updates about games in progress. Maybe they could integrate the live blog to also include updates from some twitter feeds?
It's funny you mention the live blog. I completely for got about it... that's how much of an impression it made on me. Let's just say it was lacking. But yeah, whatever gets the job done. It's just silly that I get an equal amount of information from the MLG stream versus the TL Twitter.
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All this stuff about Twitter and keeping up to date with results...
Hey, remember when MLG bought GotFrag? Remember when GotFrag was the biggest English-language esports coverage site in the world? (not sure about compared to TL now, but TL is basically a huge forum) Seems like maybe not gutting their budget completely and then abandoning the site for dead might have been a good idea...
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it will be interesting to see how the NASL will do
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On April 04 2011 11:19 Brad wrote:
The spectators also couldn't hear the casters. That's pretty bad on it's own.
THIS. OMG THIS.
WTF, the only people who could *not* hear Day9 and DJWheat livecast the games were the people who shelled out money and traveled to be there.
I was one of said people. Seriously? like 70% of the reason I was there was to hear day9 shoutcast games and you take that away from me? I can watch the games w/o on replay later *by myself*. I came (and PAID) to hear the casters livecast the games with likeminded people around me.
They should have put the casters in front of the audience and had the players in the back with cameras on them instead of vice versa. geez.
That's a simple, extremely cost effective fix.
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I was thinking of planning a trip to MLG Columbus, but the lack of commentary seems really odd. It's almost like you get a better viewing experience at home on your couch without having to drive 6 hours.
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@OP
1. I like the first idea of OP, but all that hustle and bustle could distract the two players while they're playing, unless the next set of players are doing their 'setup" between sets. That said you could set up while a match is going on IF THERE WERE BOOTHS.
Solution? Get booths.
3. They did have the player cams down at the bottom right, but I agree, instead of cutting solely to the casters after a match, maybe a split between casters/players.
Whoever was running the TL Twitter did a better job updating than anyone at MLG.
Mine:
1. Don't blame DFW area network issues on the lack of your infrastructure. There was no lag in Dallas. Sundance is quick to point the blame. The short story is that was a massive amount of failure that could have been prevented. MLG through all the tribulations previous had the opportunity to start the year off right and the ball was dropped. GSL and Dreamhack had ways to work with no LAN, crying about not having lan isn't a solution.
2. It's obvious SC2, with the right about of care, is going to be the big cash cow for MLG. Halo is cool for a small pool of population for the states, but just glancing at TL you see people outside of the united states staying up till 3am just to get "we're having technical difficulties". Now what does that have to do with it? It's easy to compare the money invested in, while the 3 share the main stage there is an obvious level of care that goes into Halo, the "main stream" had it most of the time (except a very short/rare glimpse of geoff), the prize, the screens on stage etc...
Ya know what, it doesn't even matter any more. It just doesn't, Sundance doesn't care. The only thing related to SC2 that he cares about is expanding into a foreign market outside of the US and he will never do that with CoD:BO and Halo alone. That's fine, i'll just watch NASL/GSL and a half dozen other leagues who can properly put on a show.
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There were a whole lot of bad and wrong going on. I'll just list a few that bothered me personally the most:
The casters were "casting" twitter updates to us about the amazing games going on here. Offensive doesn't even begin describing it.
The waiting times were absolutely horrible. I'm stunned at the lack of planning/competence.
Bring in a good looking girl to apologize and then disappear? Tactless and spineless to say the least.
That combined with a lot of other bad stuff actually made this the worst tournament production and quality wise I've ever seen. The casters were good but without any games to cast what can you actually do? Why not load a replay and cast that? Argh I'm so sad and so mad.
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On April 04 2011 16:46 KawaiiRice wrote:
I shouldn't have to wake up and not know I play in an hour
or go to the last day of the event with nothing and be told I have consolation matches
les go MLG !
Lol yeah. Day 2, I got thereat 10:00AM thinking I would be playing. Game didn't start until 12:00...WHAT?
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You know, I usually don't comment on stuff like this, but I agree almost whole heartedly with the OP. I think he did have some really great ideas on ways to fill time. Going to interview snip-its before a match, maybe talk about their tournament thus far, highlight key wins/losses in earlier brackets, maybe show highlights of said games.
Now, all that would require probably one or two guys dedicated to pulling replays and feeding information to the casters, but I think for the quality that you would get out of it, it would be more than worth it. Hell, I'll even volunteer to be part of that team, just foot my bill to get there and I'll do it for free haha.
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Coming from someone who played, there were quite a few problems obviously. They never resolved my mouse driver issue. It was fun trying to play with a foreign feel to my mouse. The lag issue where games had to be paused mid game 3-4 times each game was fantastic as well.
For the first two days (I didn't go day3 because of MLG failures) the amount of games that were seen on the main stage was so low it was more worthwhile to just watch games from behind players.
It's complete bullshit that the spectators who drove up there and payed $20 to come watch didn't even get to hear commentary. After like 8 hours of nothing they finally started putting up replays on the main screen, I guess that's good MLG.
Oh and get some real food there. $8.00 reheated microwaved pizza as the only option at the venue was pretty lame. Is it that hard for them to find a business that wants to cater decent food and make a killing.
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On April 04 2011 10:35 dacthehork wrote:
1. Put two extra computers on the main stage and have the next players prepare on them.
3. Immediately cut to players faces after the match.
4. Replays inbetween matches. Instead of downtime fast forward through a non televised game, giving a quick recap of a game the stream missed.
5. Be able to cut into other games if mainstage game is over and there is dead time.
Here is a quick overview of some goals you might want to adopt:
Show games whenever possible
Utilize replays / interviews / cuts to players instead of day9/djwheat talking about tekken to fill time.
Cutting out the useless insults that hurt your position much more than they help, and we're actually left with some good advice.
Reduce downtime by having more than one game the casters can join into, or even have a setup where the casters can cut to another screen (with a dedicated "joiner") with their computer. Hell, if Khaldor manages to follow two different games on his own, switching screens when appropriate, so can MLG. Having replays on hand the casters can quickly go through instead of filling time through talking is also a suitable solution.
Capture the emotions of the players. Good job on having the player's faces on screen when big battles happen, but why oh why is MLG cutting away to the casters when the gg happens? There's a camera pointed towards the players anyway, cut to that instead!
Obviously, these changes are only relevant for the last day, which did not have as much of the technical issues that plagued the first two (where the highest priority isn't any of the above stuff, but "get things working" instead). But I think these changes would make for a much smoother and more engaging viewer experience.
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What is the fallout for such a lame event? I won't be buying another HQ pass for sure but I wonder what level of repercussion they feel for putting out such a lame product. Are they aware of how the SC2 community feels?
I personally feel that MLG is doing us a disservice by involving itself with SC2 and I wish another organization (NASL, TSL, IGN) would become the torch bearer for SC2 in NA. Given an off-season and a big pile of money to get it right, MLG had their shot and failed. They don't appear competent enough to pull it off. Further, when watching TSL or GSL, I get the feeling that the people behind the event 'get it' and have a genuine connection with the community and how we want things done. When watching MLG I don't get this same vibe. If we assume Sundance is running the show and his familiarity with SC2 and it's community extends to 'liking the marines' the best (see SOTG Sundance interview) then I think we will see more of the same from MLG.
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1) Stream stability was bad, we know this
2) The set behind the casters looked like something I could do with a quick trip to home depot - the whole player and caster surroundings looked amateurish
3) The dead air with the casters scrambling to fill time while we miss the entire TLO vs incontrol series was unacceptable - its ok you can join the series at game 2, we don't mind!!!
4) Booths would be awesome, but I don't believe its a deal breaker. Too many different crowds watching different games to really use the noise as an advantage
5) Show the players reactions immediately following every match
6) Interviews/ceremonies seemed to be non-existent and/or very short
I don't know what kind of budget they have to work with, but the whole experience just seemed amateurish. Here hoping for massive improvement next MLG!
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On April 05 2011 01:26 RevRich wrote:
4) Booths would be awesome, but I don't believe its a deal breaker. Too many different crowds watching different games to really use the noise as an advantage
I believe the booth issue stems from the fact they had to cut the commentary audio to the audience because the players could hear the casters as well.
It also affected commentary during the pauses where Day [9] woudl begin to analyze the game and then realize he had to stop because the players could hear him again (since they turned the audio back on tot he audience during the delay).
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I think booths (real soundproof ones) would solve some of the bigger concerns people are having, with the no live cast due to players hearing the commentators business....
I really can't be that much of an expense can it?
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What can I say. Everything's been said already. If anything, I'd like to post my opinion on:
In the past few days nearly everybody wrote:
We need LAN and better venues/infrastructure or another solution.
We don't need LAN. Dreamhack was fine without LAN. Blizzcon was fine without LAN. The various cups each and every day of the week do fine without LAN.
Being better prepared for the possibility of a fuckup is what we (as players, spectators, producers and hosts) need. MLG Dallas was worse than what some would call amateur. It was a hideous waste of time. I sincerely hope the organizers have the balls to realize it.
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I agree with all you said, but props to Day9 and djwheat for being able to delay and entertain for so long. It must've been hard for them, and it's not their fault because it's not like they had the authority to just jump into games and cast (I'm sure they would've liked to). But this MLG was disappointing
Edit: Agree with the soundproof booths. I'm sure MLG makes enough to afford them, and they would help the experience IMMENSELY.
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On April 05 2011 01:37 N3rV[Green] wrote:
I think booths (real soundproof ones) would solve some of the bigger concerns people are having, with the no live cast due to players hearing the commentators business....
I really can't be that much of an expense can it?
The problem would be how much space the booths use on the trucks they use to travel with their equipment to the event sites. The space for equipment was their reasoning for not providing seating for the SC2 spectator area in last year events.
Naniwa looked like he used in-ear headphones plus construction site ear protectors for the noise. That would be the cheapest solution. Make sure to notify every competitor that they should be prepared to use in-ear headphones for when they have to play on stage.
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Xeris made great points in his post.
I would like to add a few things that would speed up the tournament and improve the experience more:
- 4 sound proof booths on the main stage. That way players can already start to prep and arrange their setup prior to their match while another is going on the mainstage. The 2 booths being preps should have minimum lighting as not to disturb the players and spectators on the ongoing match.
- Entrance music/player intros where they can walk down the aisles and acknowledge their fans before playing on the mainstage.
That's only a few suggestions.
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illsick
United States1770 Posts
On April 05 2011 01:48 Ropid wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2011 01:37 N3rV[Green] wrote:
I think booths (real soundproof ones) would solve some of the bigger concerns people are having, with the no live cast due to players hearing the commentators business....
I really can't be that much of an expense can it? The problem would be how much space the booths use on the trucks they use to travel with their equipment to the event sites. The space for equipment was their reasoning for not providing seating for the SC2 spectator area in last year events. Naniwa looked like he used in-ear headphones plus construction site ear protectors for the noise. That would be the cheapest solution. Make sure to notify every competitor that they should be prepared to use in-ear headphones for when they have to play on stage.
Rent another truck for them? lol
You make it sound like MLG is some small company. They weren't able to have space for equipment last year but they do this year (it's an excuse btw).
MLG can afford both in-ear headphones and the booths, they are not some basement lan.
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very nice points, I agree with the OP 100% on this.
MLG needs to seriously reorganize itself if it plans to be involved in the e-sports scene, otherwise there will come bigger and better tournaments.
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I like all of the ideas from OP, especially extra 2 computers so they don't have down time to set up.
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On April 05 2011 02:12 hitman133 wrote:
I like all of the ideas from OP, especially extra 2 computers so they don't have down time to set up.
well that shouldnt be a problem seeing how they decided to put in like 100+ alienware pc's for the event itself
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On April 05 2011 02:10 illsick wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2011 01:48 Ropid wrote:On April 05 2011 01:37 N3rV[Green] wrote:
I think booths (real soundproof ones) would solve some of the bigger concerns people are having, with the no live cast due to players hearing the commentators business....
I really can't be that much of an expense can it? The problem would be how much space the booths use on the trucks they use to travel with their equipment to the event sites. The space for equipment was their reasoning for not providing seating for the SC2 spectator area in last year events. Naniwa looked like he used in-ear headphones plus construction site ear protectors for the noise. That would be the cheapest solution. Make sure to notify every competitor that they should be prepared to use in-ear headphones for when they have to play on stage. Rent another truck for them? lol You make it sound like MLG is some small company. They weren't able to have space for equipment last year but they do this year (it's an excuse btw). MLG can afford both in-ear headphones and the booths, they are not some basement lan.
That was what Mr. Sundance said when he was on SotG last year (the space problem). It does not mean I approve of their decision making. It's just that they know of the booth suggestion and I'm guessing there is zero chance they will implement it. 
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MLG is notorious for cutting corners and delays. For any of you who followed MLG WoW tournaments they were plagued with similar problems and always started hours late. The problem is despite the many issues MLG had they always managed to put out just enough content that the majority of people were not up in arms and disgusted. It was only a matter of time until the shit hit the fan, everyone following WoW and into last years SC2 tournaments knew it.
- Start on time. Nobody gives a shit if your 5 minutes late but starting broadcasts habitually hours late just shows that YOU don't give a shit; for anyone that forgot not a single MLG SC2 tournament last year actually started streaming on time.
- 40+ minute breaks need to go. We had these all through WoW and people complained, last year in SC2 people complained. Seems like no effort was made, even in day 3 when the stream was fine for the most part you just managed to fill it with dead air or casters bullshitting (I like to hear day9 bullshit as much as the next guy but hours of it start to get to me).
-Show that you care. Putting a good-looking woman out to give a trite apology and the half-assed award ceremony (well it was pretty much full-assed) looked terrible. I realize Sundance apologized in person on day 3 but even that apology sounded like it was read straight off a script card. Do those things really matter in the grand scheme of things? No, but they show that you really don't give a shit.
-Why was getting proper internet (a sat truck) too expensive but then all of a sudden it was feasible once shit really hit the fan in day 2? Are we trying to give the viewers the best experience possible like you say or cut corners?
-Why was it acceptable for people not to be offered refunds at the end of a terrible day 1 but then after day 2 being even worse you decided to? Is 2 out 3 days of ok broadcasting par for the course and only when we sink below even that we apologize and offer refunds? Notice how in day 1 there was no apology for the several hour delay in starting, only when things hit rock bottom is anything said.
-Do you realize how it makes you look when players come out in interviews and plainly say they heard what the other guy was doing? GSL was embarrassed and took multiple immediate steps to correct this as soon as it was brought to light along with publicly acknowledging and apologizing for the issue. Instead MLG said nothing, and did hardly anything, and the one thing they did do was not giving the audience audio of the casters, people who paid to get into the event.
-For people saying Sundance is not to blame I have to disagree. He hired the people who ran the event. He also knows what their past performances and problems have been like. Well personally he may not be to blame for the many problems he has allowed a culture of incompetence and letting things slip to persist first in WoW and now in SC2 and unless he takes a really good look at his staff and makes some painful decisions things may very well continue down this path for him.
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I agree with the sane few in this thread that LAN is not required in order to host a decent tournament. What IS required is a proper network that can handle video streaming, along with a reliable ISP. From others based in Dallas the ISP wasn't the issue, it was MLG's network setup that was the cause of the lag, delays, etc.
Sure LAN would be nice, but let's not harp on that as the only solution. There have been enough GSLs, IEMs and DreamHacks held since SC2's release to show that it is more than possible to run a tournament without the catastrophic results that seem to plague MLG events.
With the NASL and IGN leagues soon to set sail, we can only hope that their productions are noteworthy for all the reasons MLG's production should have been.
If there is one positive to take from MLG: Dallas, it's how awesome the SC community is - video provided by Mr. Bitter and hotbit provided great insight into the tourney from the player's pov. And of course this site provided minute-by-minute results from the tourney that MLG couldn't seem to provide on their own site.
MLG: I still cannot find on your site a completed bracket showing where all the SC2 players finished. 
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Sound proofing should not be that difficult or expensive--just make the players wear in-
ear headphones with these over them:
http://www.amazon.com/Bilsom-1010924-Leightning-Headband-Earmuffs/dp/B003MOVQ0Y
A cheap and effective way to prevent the players from hearing the casts. I also think they need to have big screen TVs over a third of the player area instead of just two stations and the main stage. There are so many good games to watch.
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On April 05 2011 02:31 Duravi wrote:
MLG is notorious for cutting corners and delays. For any of you who followed MLG WoW tournaments they were plagued with similar problems and always started hours late. The problem is despite the many issues MLG had they always managed to put out just enough content that the majority of people were not up in arms and disgusted. It was only a matter of time until the shit hit the fan, everyone following WoW and into last years SC2 tournaments knew it.
- Start on time. Nobody gives a shit if your 5 minutes late but starting broadcasts habitually hours late just shows that YOU don't give a shit; for anyone that forgot not a single MLG SC2 tournament last year actually started streaming on time.
- 40+ minute breaks need to go. We had these all through WoW and people complained, last year in SC2 people complained. Seems like no effort was made, even in day 3 when the stream was fine for the most part you just managed to fill it with dead air or casters bullshitting (I like to hear day9 bullshit as much as the next guy but hours of it start to get to me).
-Show that you care. Putting a good-looking woman out to give a trite apology and the half-assed award ceremony (well it was pretty much full-assed) looked terrible. I realize Sundance apologized in person on day 3 but even that apology sounded like it was read straight off a script card. Do those things really matter in the grand scheme of things? No, but they show that you really don't give a shit.
-Why was getting proper internet (a sat truck) too expensive but then all of a sudden it was feasible once shit really hit the fan in day 2?
-Why was it acceptable for people not to be offered refunds at the end of a terrible day 1 but then after day 2 being even worse you decided to? Is 2 out 3 days of ok broadcasting par for the course and only when we sink below even that we apologize and offer refunds? Notice how in day 1 there was no apology for the several hour delay in starting, only when things hit rock bottom is anything said.
-Do you realize how it makes you look when players come out in interviews and plainly say they heard what the other guy was doing? GSL was embarrassed and took multiple immediate steps to correct this as soon as it was brought to light along with publicly acknowledging and apologizing for the issue. Instead MLG said nothing, and did hardly anything, and the one thing they did do was not giving the audience audio of the casters, people who paid to get into the event.
-For people saying Sundance is not to blame I have to disagree. He hired the people who ran the event. He also knows what their past performances and problems have been like. Well personally he may not be to blame for the many problems he has allowed a culture of incompetence and letting things slip to persist first in WoW and now in SC2 and unless he takes a really good look at his staff and makes some painful decisions things may very well continue down this path for him.
Thanks for typing that out for me ^_^ was typing up a response that looked a lot like this. Looks like you said most of what I had wanted too. It's really sad and imo bad for e-sports to have MLG being the only large NA SC2 event that is not played completely/mostly on the internet. I feel so bad for first time viewers and the people who were blatantly ripped off and fed a scripted apology only after 2 days of complete and utter failure. Thanks MLG for setting E-sports back in NA.... again...
Maybe after MLG pulls their collective heads out their butt's and starts taking this seriously, ie; get a tech crew who knows what they are doing , allocate resources accordingly (it took not even a full MLG tour for SC2 to over-shadow EVERY GAME IN MLG), and lastly ...
DONT PISS IN OUR POCKET AND TELL US ITS RAINING! its not B.net or not having LAN its MLG's epic failure that they consider a "Live event" that discusting POS.
Just remember that in a couple months we will be able to ACTUALLY watch the MLG Dallas 2011 games on VoD's when the Youtube'rs start casting them.
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Heres my feedback:
The stream wouldnt work for me when I tried.
The Replays are hard to find.
Its monday, I wanted to watch the Sheth vs QXC match. Its not available.
Not much of a fan of MLG now.
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I think that companies like MLG should really pressure Blizzard more to implement LAN-support... Those disc's in the middle of a 15+ Minute-Game are really ridiculous and not only hurt SC2, but also MLG!
Besides that and of course the Stream going down all the time, the Tournament was quite good... Kinda sad to see a Top-4 of 3 Toss and 1 Terran, although there were very good Zergs like Idra, Ret, Haypro, Machine etc.
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It would be nice if the bracket on the site used known player IDs instead of MLG forum names. Makes following the tourney easier and is something I think would be simple to do.
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On April 05 2011 02:57 MapleFractal wrote:
Thanks for typing that out for me ^_^ was typing up a response that looked a lot like this. Looks like you said most of what I had wanted too. It's really sad and imo bad for e-sports to have MLG being the only large NA SC2 event that is not played completely/mostly on the internet. I feel so bad for first time viewers and the people who were blatantly ripped off and fed a scripted apology only after 2 days of complete and utter failure. Thanks MLG for setting E-sports back in NA.... again...
Why are people so upset by the 'scripted' apology. If you want to see Sundance's emotional response to the problems check out his Twitter. Writing down what he wanted to say first makes perfect sense, there'd have been even more of an outcry if he'd somehow messed up his live, unscripted apology.
On April 05 2011 02:57 MapleFractal wrote:
Just remember that in a couple months we will be able to ACTUALLY watch the MLG Dallas 2011 games on VoD's when the Youtube'rs start casting them.
iCCuptv will be casting 4 hours of MLG replays tonight, and same again each Monday for the next few weeks. So rather than a couple of months it will have taken about 24 hours...
What is it about a feedback thread people don't get? Stop shitting on MLG (they already know it was a bad event) and offer concrete suggestions as to what they can do to improve the next event.
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This list is almost exactly what I was writing up myself. Nice! If only they would listen.
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I'm too lazy to read the entire thread, but aside from the major lists -- something that has been bugging me about a LOT of American coverage is the colors.
The games are always so dark, and it makes it much more difficult for me to watch. GSL has it 100% right, keeping everything bright and clear.
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I feel so stupid when I realise how much money MLG most likely makes and how they treat the gaming community.
- 70$ fee for the players, 70*200=14k, so the player already pay the pricepool
- prob. 5-10k SC2 viewers who pay for HQ: 50-100k (i know there is a refund now, but that was the plan)
- tons of Ads
I honestly feel that players and viewers should boycott MLG and support organizations who treat players and viewers more fairly and just don't try make as much money as possible no matter what the effects are.
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Basically MLG was DJwheat and Day9 talking to each other for 3 days after showing 2 games total. Nice 3 day day9 daily.... -_-
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I was thinkin about making a thread about this. Great to see I wasn't the only one.
One thing I like to add as a idea:
in between games I wanna see some more of the tournament.
for example:
Give a cheapskate compact camera to a pro (Best if a player is out of the tournament, so hes relaxed). Let him walk around the tournament area with it. he shows where the TL team is chilling in between games he takes a little interview with a random visitor about his thoughts... Asks a HALO dude what he thinks of starcraft 2, asks the tournament director what game he liked most. He shows what drink Naniwa has.. etc, etc!
IMO, content like this would be super easy to fix but would add a TON to the offline/lan feeling for the guys on stream.
Discus!
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Does your bnet profile save your settings? because if it doesn't i really think it should be added. It would help with the downtime in between games.
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1) Sound proofing - Honestly MLG you set up a stage and you tested the audio. Did anyone stand on the stage and get the audio to be used to check if players can hear the commentators? If not, why? If you did then you realised the problem and still went ahead with day 1. Then after it is reported the players can hear the commentators the fix is to just rob the live audience of the commentators. (Though on a side note I did find it funny when Day9 would say "lets make some noise for player x! and there would be silence because they couldn't hear him) I can imagine how much enjoyment for the live fans that killed. After all this time that is the solution? To turn off the commentating for the live audience?
2) Results - People want them and at your own tournament there should be no one better for people to get them off. Put a bar that scrolls across on the bottom like NFL does if you want. Though I'm not sure how readable that would be. - See stream quality. Update your twitter more and give quality information instantly to your casters so they can update the viewers. Ideally you want people to watch your stream as it is giving them entertaitnment and results. Not browse other sites to get updates.
3) Games - Show them. Interviews, replays/highlights something. Having your casters chat about inane stuff as you are giving them no content and they are trying their hardest to tread water is unprofessional. MLG you forgot the actual sport in Esport.
4) Stream - I'm confused you moved to a venue and area where you have no real knowledge really on how good or bad it is at high load. Then you wonder why the local ISP exchange fails? Wouldn't it be better to stream your stuff back to a central point, then distribute it on stable and fixed infastructure? Lessening the amount you tax the local infastructure as well as the possible downfall of the things you lug around the country or chances of it being set up poorly/damaged?
5) Highlights - This was an excellent idea. It ties in with point 2. Why not have a 5 min recap of a series. Get someone to watch it and pick up key build orders and the fights. Give that info to the casters then do the pre cut video of the game to show the viewers roughly what went down. You don't have to do this for every game. But high interest and later games in the tournament is a must almost. Hell you can reuse/recap that kind of thing every hour or two, just add in some new verbal updates on the list. Commentators can even talk about these short series segments as a player is setting up to show them off. You just need one person who knows about the game to told to trim out the key parts and give a brief overview.
6) Cut to games - Why can't you put a spectator into each game that is started? Or even just 2 games or so at once. Then if the main game ends or has a downtime you can get someone to sit down and use the spectator to show the other game while the commentators cast it. No that isn't ideal as the commentators don't have full control but honestly it is better than them sitting there going "I wonder how the game with player x and y is doing"
I could go into showing the players more and interviews ect. But that is polishing a product that is already good. What we have with MLG currently is a product that is very poor and should focus on the content they are giving atm rather than trying to polish what they have to a spiffy shine.
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Why are people so upset by the 'scripted' apology. If you want to see Sundance's emotional response to the problems check out his Twitter. Writing down what he wanted to say first makes perfect sense, there'd have been even more of an outcry if he'd somehow messed up his live, unscripted apology.
By scripted I don't mean he wrote down what he wanted to say first; there is nothing wrong with that and anyone in his position would do that. By scripted I mean it sounded like it came from a template for corporate apologies and was not personalized or targeted to his audience in any way. However on the list of grievances about MLG I posted that is very very minor and I would prefer not to dwell on that point, if they didn't have so many screw ups there would be no need for an apology scripted or otherwise.
As far as being constructive I understand what you are saying but unless MLG tells us specifically why they habitually start broadcasts hours late and fill the majority of their stream time with dead air and casters bullshitting I can't offer them a solution only point out the issue and that they have made no discernible effort to correct it in years of broadcasting PC games (I don't watch the console stuff so I do not have a valid opinion on the production of those streams). Also I think the fact even with day 1 being terrible MLG did not offer refunds until day 2 was even worse speaks volumes and deserves a response.
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On April 05 2011 03:06 Silkath wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2011 02:57 MapleFractal wrote:
Thanks for typing that out for me ^_^ was typing up a response that looked a lot like this. Looks like you said most of what I had wanted too. It's really sad and imo bad for e-sports to have MLG being the only large NA SC2 event that is not played completely/mostly on the internet. I feel so bad for first time viewers and the people who were blatantly ripped off and fed a scripted apology only after 2 days of complete and utter failure. Thanks MLG for setting E-sports back in NA.... again...
Why are people so upset by the 'scripted' apology. If you want to see Sundance's emotional response to the problems check out his Twitter. Writing down what he wanted to say first makes perfect sense, there'd have been even more of an outcry if he'd somehow messed up his live, unscripted apology.
Because it took them two days to finally admit they are doing a piss poor job, Sundance couldnt event read a piece of paper without screwing it up (an apology that i garentee he didn't even write himself), MLG staff for 3 days straight NUKED their forums or any sort of criticism, constructive or not. If you have followed MLG for more then just this event and a few ones last year for SC2, you would know this is a common and almost standard of MLG to provide a shit service that they charge money for, dick it up and go "opps, dont worry were working on it .... " When i get my car washed and the guy doe's a piss poor job on it, do i pay him and say " hey good try but you need to wash my rims next time" and drive away ... absolutely not, I make the guy do his damn job. MLG deserves to get shit on from now until they get their act together. Give your head a shake Silkath and wake up. If you paid for that service you were ripped off and feed a line of crap to compensate.
MLG has been getting this sort of feed back from their viewers long before SC2 was ever on their line up, it's about time that a community is up in arms about it. Maybe it finally opens their eyes to the reputation they are getting/ have of being nothing but a sub-par traveling tournament, always second to IEM/GSL and hopefully NASL.
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Last year I watched a bunch of the Halo 3 broadcasts for one event (Columbus maybe?) and I remember noticing something really cool I've been disappointed not to see implemented since then for SC2: when the casters were taking a break the stream continued showing matches without commentary. This was asked for many many times in the TL LR thread; I get that showing players warming up isn't feasible. However, is it feasible to show player view for in-game? We're getting replays apparently anyway so it's not like this gives anything away... assuming we have some sort of booth/block so players can't eavesdrop.
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I cannt believe the people who payed money and travelled there didnt get to hear the commentators, just put the players in a different room or somewhere else! You dont need booths or noise cancelling headphones or whatnot, just separate them
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Most of the obvious flaws have already been fleshed out but I'd like to add..
Have information more readily available.
It's quite a joke that your commentators, you know the ones informing the public on the results and status of your tournament, have to wait around and get updates on the games via teamliquid's twitter. I mean that's just bad.
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As always with MLGs, an easy to find, regularly updated bracket/result page is all I ask. I followed most matches results through the TL twitter because it is impossible to find up to date results on the MLG page.
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I remember at one MLG there was a break where they were either intentionally or accidentally showing a shot that showed Tyler's screen as well as keyboard. It was a great way to fill the time between games.
If they aren't going to set up multiple computers for casting (a la Khaldor, per Jibba), they should absolutely do this so the SC2 community doesn't switch over entirely to Eagles. It's really a shame that for a tourney with so many games played, so few are broadcasted.
Also, their stream quality is pretty bad. LQ was filthy, HQ was rough around the edges...
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On April 05 2011 03:14 Woshie wrote:
4) Stream - I'm confused you moved to a venue and area where you have no real knowledge really on how good or bad it is at high load. Then you wonder why the local ISP exchange fails? Wouldn't it be better to stream your stuff back to a central point, then distribute it on stable and fixed infastructure? Lessening the amount you tax the local infastructure as well as the possible downfall of the things you lug around the country or chances of it being set up poorly/damaged?
Can anyone confirm this was actually the setup at MLG? As in, do they carry their streaming servers with them and hope to get enough bandwidth to stream to hundreds of thousands of people? This doesn't sound right, and if it is, whoever thought of that should get fired ASAP as they have no business in esports.
There are dozens of companies that are specialized in streaming video to hundreds of thousands of viewers, why do they not handle MLG's stream? The multicasting technology exists, it's fairly cheap (cheaper than using your own equipment/bandwidth) and it WORKS.
Streaming doesn't require that much bandwidth, there should have been plenty of backup options (many OTA options, satellite) to have 1 stream per game going to any streaming partner without taxing the local infrastructure.
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On April 05 2011 03:47 MasterJack wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2011 03:14 Woshie wrote:
4) Stream - I'm confused you moved to a venue and area where you have no real knowledge really on how good or bad it is at high load. Then you wonder why the local ISP exchange fails? Wouldn't it be better to stream your stuff back to a central point, then distribute it on stable and fixed infastructure? Lessening the amount you tax the local infastructure as well as the possible downfall of the things you lug around the country or chances of it being set up poorly/damaged?
Can anyone confirm this was actually the setup at MLG? As in, do they carry their streaming servers with them and hope to get enough bandwidth to stream to hundreds of thousands of people? This doesn't sound right, and if it is, whoever thought of that should get fired ASAP as they have no business in esports. There are dozens of companies that are specialized in streaming video to hundreds of thousands of viewers, why do they not handle MLG's stream? The multicasting technology exists, it's fairly cheap (cheaper than using your own equipment/bandwidth) and it WORKS. Streaming doesn't require that much bandwidth, there should have been plenty of backup options (many OTA options, satellite) to have 1 stream per game going to any streaming partner without taxing the local infrastructure.
From what I understand, half the issue was getting the feed OUT of the venue. Even with one of those streaming companies they need to get the feed
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On April 05 2011 03:47 MasterJack wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2011 03:14 Woshie wrote:
4) Stream - I'm confused you moved to a venue and area where you have no real knowledge really on how good or bad it is at high load. Then you wonder why the local ISP exchange fails? Wouldn't it be better to stream your stuff back to a central point, then distribute it on stable and fixed infastructure? Lessening the amount you tax the local infastructure as well as the possible downfall of the things you lug around the country or chances of it being set up poorly/damaged?
Can anyone confirm this was actually the setup at MLG? As in, do they carry their streaming servers with them and hope to get enough bandwidth to stream to hundreds of thousands of people? This doesn't sound right, and if it is, whoever thought of that should get fired ASAP as they have no business in esports.
I'm pretty sure they aren't bringing their own servers to the event. I recall Sundance mentioning on SOTG that the upstream on events is usually lousy, which would further imply that they are just streaming one stream out which is then relayed by Akamai.
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1. Scheduling: I've watched every MLG since SC was featured. I think that every single starting broadcast was delayed by at least an hour, with the majority being over an hour and a half late. This is a terrible way to start off a weekend event.
2. Planning: I find it hard to understand why MLG couldn't better anticipate the SC2 viewer numbers. They've partnered (at least somewhat) with GOMTV, who should be able to provide the numbers they get for their live broadcasts. The time zone difference certainly can cause some variance, but nothing that should be particularly surprising. If it was the Black Ops viewers showing up unexpectedly it might be more understandable, but I highly doubt that was the case. I'm guessing the Halo:Reach numbers weren't exponentially higher than they've always been for the Halo streams either.
3. In-house communication: Casters having to give updates they've recieved over twitter frorm fans in attendence of the event is pretty ridiculous. Get more staff (like you hired for your front desk, booths, etc), and get either people in the game observing, or at the very least in communication with the referees, and get updates to the hosts immediately.
4.. External communication: Give reasonable expectations to the viewers during the technical difficulties. The Stream will return momentarily lasting for 40 minutes is not reasonable. Update the brackets on the website with accurate information faster, and make them easier to find for viewers. Having some graphics explaining the bracket format on the live stream would be helpful as well for the more casual viewer.
5. Presentation: Booths would be great so commentary could be heard by the spectators that pay to get into the venue. Barring that, perhaps having two sets of PCs on the main stage so the set-up time wouldn't interrupt the gaming. Cast more games. Idle chit-chat by the hosts while entire series are being played is unacceptable. Casting off of a replay or two would be fine if there's a delay in the next "featured" game. You could then leave it even mid-game if it was to go to the next live match without much of an issue.
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TBH I think the main thing that would help the SC2 division of MLG would just be to hire some people on the production staff that both know something and give a fuck about Starcraft. When Sundance was on SotG he tried to make us think SC2 would be better this year because he was throwing more money at it, but in reality he knows nothing about the game or how to produce an entertaining tournament for SC2.
Seriously MLG, hire me (or any fucking TL user with a brain) and I would do a 100x better job producing the tournament than some guy from the Halo staff that drew the short straw and had to do SC2 for Dallas.
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On April 05 2011 03:55 svperstar wrote:Show nested quote +On April 05 2011 03:47 MasterJack wrote:On April 05 2011 03:14 Woshie wrote:
4) Stream - I'm confused you moved to a venue and area where you have no real knowledge really on how good or bad it is at high load. Then you wonder why the local ISP exchange fails? Wouldn't it be better to stream your stuff back to a central point, then distribute it on stable and fixed infastructure? Lessening the amount you tax the local infastructure as well as the possible downfall of the things you lug around the country or chances of it being set up poorly/damaged?
Can anyone confirm this was actually the setup at MLG? As in, do they carry their streaming servers with them and hope to get enough bandwidth to stream to hundreds of thousands of people? This doesn't sound right, and if it is, whoever thought of that should get fired ASAP as they have no business in esports. I'm pretty sure they aren't bringing their own servers to the event. I recall Sundance mentioning on SOTG that the upstream on events is usually lousy, which would further imply that they are just streaming one stream out which is then relayed by Akamai.
With 2 megabits of upload bandwidth you can get a decent stream going. Of course there are multiple streams and other things using the network, but I have a hard time believing a convention center can't bring even bandwidth for 250 games of SC2 and 5-6 streams.
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On April 05 2011 03:44 Johnny Yen wrote:
I remember at one MLG there was a break where they were either intentionally or accidentally showing a shot that showed Tyler's screen as well as keyboard. It was a great way to fill the time between games.
That was great. You get to see more games and how players physically play which can be quite interesting for us noobs. :D
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I watched each MLG event last year and purchased the HD stream each time. I can't say I had a tremendous amount of complaints from the home viewer experience last year however it does look like they did absolutely nothing to improve on it for this season.
I wholeheartedly agree with the OP and I am glad he took the time to write it. dacthehork, great job. I'd like to throw in my 2 cents about this as well. Whether it's nitpicking or not the guys at MLG should want to hear any criticism on ways to improve so I hope they take what I say from a professional perspective. You will never get more valuable feedback on your event than from this very thread. We are your core audience and we care tremendously about how our game is displayed. Note: none of what I'm about to say has anything to do with the stream issues.
1) Throughout the entire event I had no idea who was still in it and who was knocked out. Tournaments need real time scoreboards that are constantly being shown to the viewers. From what I read, the in person experience wasn't any better. I had my iPad next to me on my couch the entire time to track what was going on from Twitter (which the casters did too...ugh). All MLG does is run tournaments and they haven't figured this out yet? What they need is a freaking huge Karate Kid (1980's version) style bracket so that the fans at the event know what's going on in real time, and that they can flash to the home viewers so we can also be kept in the loop. If it wasn't for Anna Prosser's twitter updates I would have been completely lost.
+ Show Spoiler +
2) MLG's website is a complete mismash of confusion. The only thing you could actually do easily on the site was find the stream (which I said I'd leave alone). This is more on my first point, but why isn't the bracket easier to find? I had to come to TL to get the bracket link...utter fail. They can just copy ESPN.com's NCAA tournament website for an example of how easily this is done?
+ Show Spoiler +
(Side Note: It's actually hilarious that they don't own the domain MLG.com (which is some cheesy law firm in New York who's traffic I'm sure goes through the roof any time there is an MLG event). This is besides the point but how much would it really cost to buy that domain from them? Hmmmm, that gives me an idea )
3) Why not have a portable camera crew constantly going around the event showcasing what was going on? All we got were static shots of the crowd from a distance (looking very bored) There are enough breaks in the action for this to be done. Show the sponsors booths, talk to attendees, interview players, show the non-featured gaming area with live games going on...something. Blizzcon does this well. Hire Anna Prosser for god sake http://t.co/632zjRY
4) The commercials...so annoying. I'm not talking about the fact that they aren't in the least bit entertaining...they're played waaaaaaay too much. Every time I refresh the screen, new commercial. In between games, more commercials, before a new match series is about to start, more commercials. (Nitpicking here, but 2 screens behind the casters showing the sponsors...) I'm seriously considering boycotting all of the MLG sponsors simply based on the fact that they are so frustrating. I get it, they sponsor the event, but holy shit reel them in a bit.
5) Starting on time. I realize that there were issues this go round when it came to the stream but I remember last year it never started on time either. Have a schedule and stick to it please.
6) Sound Proof the freaking players booths. Its been brought up before so I won't well on this...but if you're going to complain that Blizzard isn't going to implement LAN all the while you won't implement a glaring issue in your production then you need to take a hard look in the mirror.
7) This is my personal opinion here but JP McDaniel does not belong on stage with DJ Wheat and/or Day9...ever. Husky and HD were great last year, why weren't they included? Wheat and Day9 did an amazing job of BSing through all the downtime, game drops and freezes, but the second you put JP up there the mood changes from fun to meh. Wheat is a professional broadcaster and Sean is semi-pro (student) with the skills and experience of a professional. JP is an awkward podcast host who looks more uncomfortable and unconfident on camera than he does transitioning from one topic to the next on SOTG. If you can't afford Anna to do the portable camera crew work then just make it JP's full time duty if you absolutely must keep him as an employee.
I'm going to MLG Columbus, and I hope to god they fix some of these, along with the other suggestions.
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Alright, now that I have had time to let my rage cool off I will try to post something constructive in this thread but first i have a question. Who is paying the people who post in the mlg feedback thread?
"I really don't understand the huge uproar over this. People calling the event a failure because the stream went down; are you serious? MLG is in the business of running video game tournaments and they do a great job of it. They go above and beyond by allowing those who want to to watch the tournament streamed online for free. They make no money off the free streams, and very little I'm sure for the HQ stream but they do it anyway to try and please their fans. The streams are in essence the cherry on top.
So they aren't working this tournament, so what. Those that paid money will get it refunded, and the rest have no out of pocket cost to speak of. MLG gains nothing and the community loses nothing other than wasting an afternoon sitting in front of your computer watching a tournament that will be put online game by game in a couple weeks/months.
Stop complaining, get on with your lives."
from http://forums.majorleaguegaming.com/topic/221649-mlg-addresses-site-stability-issues/page__st__160
Is this really what the halo community thinks? No wonder our communities don't mesh well.
Now onto the contructive part:
1. In my opinion they need to dump octoshape and partner with JTV who has proven they are really into esports or ustream or something reliable and find some other solution for running their ads.
2. Fire everyone in your production department. I am not joking. Whoever was in charge of the SC2 production should never have a job in esports or god forbid real sports ever. JP does better work from his room with SC center.
3. Ask for help! There are tons of people out there who want this to go right. I am pretty sure all you have to do is swallow your pride and get some quality people to help.
4. Booths. Make it 4 so that people can get ready before it is their turn to play.
5. Be flexible. We don't want to sit and wait 45 minutes because one game finished early and another is going long for the next "scheduled match"
6. Be competitive. 10 dollars for one weekend with less games and less production value than any other sc tournament with equal or less funding is an embarrassing joke.
7. Realize who we are. The Starcraft community is not the console FPS community. We are older. We are more demanding. We know what good tournaments look like and thus we have higher expectations. We bring more diversity more exposure and more money than the other games you host. Plan accordingly.
8. Realize you have competition that is going to destroy you if your next event doesn't run like a well oiled machine. You have set the bar very low for NASL as well as IPL. You will not only lose viewers but also players to these leagues with another sub par showing.
tl;dr MLG's monopoly on NA SC2 is about to end and if they don't get it perfect for their next event they might as well drop SC2 from their circuit.
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On April 05 2011 03:21 Duravi wrote:Show nested quote +Why are people so upset by the 'scripted' apology. If you want to see Sundance's emotional response to the problems check out his Twitter. Writing down what he wanted to say first makes perfect sense, there'd have been even more of an outcry if he'd somehow messed up his live, unscripted apology. By scripted I don't mean he wrote down what he wanted to say first; there is nothing wrong with that and anyone in his position would do that. By scripted I mean it sounded like it came from a template for corporate apologies and was not personalized or targeted to his audience in any way. However on the list of grievances about MLG I posted that is very very minor and I would prefer not to dwell on that point, if they didn't have so many screw ups there would be no need for an apology scripted or otherwise.
By scripted apology do you mean this one? Because I actually think this sounds good..
As for changes - obviously the stream was awful but that has been addressed over and over.
-The need for sound proofing is unbelievable, the casters do a great job and the live audience deserve to be able to hear them. I saw Naniwa wearing huge industrial looking ear defenders in the final, why was this not done throughout? Especially inControl who was clearly using ear buds so he could hear the crowd while on the mainstage. Booths would obviously be the best, but I don't think we can expect those any time soon.
-To all of you calling out JP, I actually think he is very good at what he does. He was especially good at the interviews of the players afterwards, I wish they had done more of those because not only would it have killed time between players setting up on the mainstage but it brings really interesting insight into the players mindset and ideas throughout the game. IEM did it, MLG can do it.
-Quicker updates. I understand we can't see all the games but it would be great to be updated, or atleast mentions in the live blog that round X had been updated on the bracket.
These are the most pressing ones for me. I have no doubt that they will get sorted in some way however. MLG proved that they are listening to the community this year with the setup for the first event, if only it had gone to plan.
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I'm not going to list all of my irritations, mainly because they've all been listed already. I will just ring in and agree, so hopefully somebody at MLG understands that the quality of this tournament, and I'm not talking about the stream up/down issues, was totally unacceptable. If you don't know what you need to do, I would strongly advise you to either go watch the GSL or any TV broadcast sporting event and take notes.
Also, I was planning to order an HQ stream until I found out that Octoshape is required. This is a non-starter for me and quite a few others, and frankly, there's no reason for it. Yes, I know it's really awesome to force your paying customers into a P2P service and all, but there are plenty of streaming services out there that can handle 100k+ viewers, in HQ, without forcing me to install software on my computer or use my upstream bandwidth.
Honestly hope somebody takes all this seriously and the next MLG is badass (and without octoshape so I can order an HD stream).
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Honestly, I was pretty happy initially with what changes MLG had made and if the event's excecution had been good I think I would have been pretty happy overall.
The one serious gripe I would have (well maybe 2) is the information problem mentioned earlier. Your commentators should have a better sense or atleast be able to give us a better summary about the games from time to time and there should be a way to jump into some series. Understandably, the commentators need small breaks between games and it's not profession to randomly jump into series usually, but some matches such as TLO incontrol are highlight events.
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As others have said, downtime between games needs to be minimized.
1) Player profiles and settings should be stored centrally. Setup on 1 computer and you should be set for all computers.
2)Have streams available for more games. Casters that just do replays of non-main stage games works, and you can have these uploaded into a stream. Have a stream that does VOD with commercials played inbetween each game. That way sponsors get more air time and we get to see more games.
EDIT: I expect the technical aspects to be dealt with. There's no mystery there, just straight forward network engineering.
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I dont think its fair to ever compare MLG to GSL because the experience level of the talent and crew in Starcraft productions and e-sports in general is like night and day. I know everyone feels entitled to an incredible experience after hearing about MLG's budget and SC2 on the main stage, but realistically, they won't produce a product of superior quality to other major lans anytime soon.
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On April 04 2011 10:36 oo inflame oo wrote:
Yea, even if stream was working, I think way more games should be streamed. Games should have priority over mindless commentator banter
Well to be Fair the commentators had to do something. The Camera is on their faces and they have to entertain the Stream since there were so many technical difficulties.
To the OP great post, I did feel a little robbed as a someone watching from home as I couldn't get the stream working correctly tell Sunday. which on sunday I think i watched 4 games in 8 hours? or something ridiculous like that. They should have a camera crew with a stream walking around the Convention floor interviewing/Talking to everyone If not showing replays like you suggested. I think they did cast some replays during the Internet outage at MLG Dallas 2010.
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everything i feel has already been said
oh except add cs 1.6 to the roster of games so we have something actually good to watch inbetween :p
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Not to repeat anything, I agree. Horrible experience.
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Patience. They've never done a starcraft tournament of this scale with this BRAND NEW tournament production. I've attended MLG's since 2005, they've come a long way since then, and they catch on fast. Look at the HUGE improvements from last season to this season. They'll catch on and get into a better rhythm for future events. You had some good constructive criticisms, but towards the end it got a little heated. Everything's a learning process, be supportive instead of subjective.
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Why are there such long waits?
1) First off, there were only 34 play stations, and the main stage. That's 70 computers for 256 players. Having so few computers for such a large number of players is insanely impractical. As a result, you have to split the early rounds into different "heats" (4 for the first 2 rounds or something ridiculous).
What's the problem with that?
a) They don't release the bracket until about 10 minutes before the matches start, so even though you're supposed to start at 5:30pm, if you're in Heat 4 of Round 1, you won't actually start until about 9pm. If you have a BYE first round, you may not even start until about 10pm.
This really screws with you. You show up to the event and have no idea when you need to play. You end up waiting around for hours, there's no computers for you to warm up on either, and it totally screws your rhythm up, plus you're bored out of your mind.
b) It shouldn't take 5 hours to finish the first round of a tournament -- 2-3-4 rounds could be played in that time if it is used effectively.
2) Secondly, why do you wait for every match in one heat to finish before starting the next? This created many situations in which there are 50+ computers empty, and players sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting for 4 people to finish playing. This delays the tournament. Maybe if this was done better, we would have gotten home before 2AM on Saturday morning. Especially if you know your next opponent, and there are computers available, what's the problem with letting them play it? Wouldn't you rather have 20 players who finish their matches early waiting around as opposed to 100 players who HAVE to wait for no reason whatsoever.
Besides, some people who lose early in MLG like to leave, some people like to do other stuff, etc... making them wait around for hours on end doing nothing sucks the life out of the crowd, the players, and everyone involved.
3) Make format more efficient and fair for all players. What do I mean by this? It was hard to tell what was going on and where. Pool play was mixed into the open tournament matches and it was confusing. Pool play finished, and the seeded players were doing nothing. Open Tournament players had to play for hours on end, only to go to the Championship bracket to play well rested seeded players. This gives an unfair advantage in my opinion to the seeded players. If the Open matches take place all of Friday, then the Top 16 group matches and the second half of the Open take place Saturday morning -- then by Saturday evening when the Championship Bracket starts, all players are equally tired and pissed off.
4) Why do you start SO LATE on Friday? There's no reason to play until 2am, especially when you have to wake up at 9am the same day, rush to the venue, and start playing. If the tournament started at a reasonable time -- 1/2pm or so, then we could finish at a reasonable time, 10-12, barring any hiccups, and players could get enough time to sleep and be ready for the following day's matches. Shouldn't the event be ready to go BY FRIDAY?
It felt like MLG was scrambling to do everything (the actual games started 1 hour late) at the last minute rather than being prepared from the opening buzzer.
Anyways, those are my 4 biggest gripes with MLG -- from this perspective it was by far the worst of the MLG events I have attended. I understand a lot of the production stuff / lag issues were out of their control, but this is something that can easily be fixed. I can bet that any player who played at MLG this past weekend will agree that these changes will make the tournament run more smoothly, finish faster, and allow more time for focus to be put on stage matches and casted games, ultimately making MLG a much better experience for both players and spectators alike
(Seriously, if you're a fan, what's more frustrating than going to watch games and then seeing 60 empty computers and a bunch of gamers sitting on the floor doing nothing).
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=208949
Xerix feedback from the player side of the event, the thread got closed.
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To be honest, all I can say is that this is my first time buying an MLG HQ pass and I'm really glad it's getting refunded -__-. My money will be going back to GOM. I can understand them having problems and unlike GSL, SC2 isn't the main focus of MLG. However even on a basic level, everything was beyond awful. I probably watched about an hour of starcraft total.... then spent maybe 3 hours watching "we will be resuming momentarily", video of the venue, wheat and day talking etc... Really really amateur stuff but hopefully they'll learn and improve. And extended series is still so stupid.
P.S: how much did people pay to actually see the event in person? They should get refunds as well.
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Great post, pretty much sums up my feelings on how MLG Dallas went. Even with the tech problems aside, it was still rather disappointing. Honestly the should add another caster too. Sure the interviews were nice after a win, but I feel like the downtime would have been much less if they had two complete sets of casters. That way they would be able to cast more games without burning the casters out.
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Ok, I don't think this has been mentioned yet regarding the brackets. I think its horrible that they used whatever username the player registered under instead of using there Team and username. I'm assuming that most players don't know this when there signing up to the tournament and I guess its MLG's fault. So I think the following format should be followed to make this process easier for MLG and new players.
EXAMPLE
"The following values will be displayed in the bracket section"
1 - Username: Jinro
2 - Clan/Team: Liquid'
3 - (This section should auto generate the values filled in for 1 and 2) This way the player can choose in what order they want these values to be displayed in the brackets which would be:
A - Liquid'Jinro
B - JinroLiquid'
And for players who aren't in a Clan/Team. The values for part 3 would just default to there username.
As for players that are already registered, like Huk, slush, kiwikaki, qxc, select, etc.. it should be mandatory that they update these values for the next tournament. And for players who joined a new team like qxc, these players should also have access to change there team/clan name which in his case would be FXO and not ROOT.
This would make the brackets look alot better with a better sense of who is on who's team. I cant remember off the top of my head who belongs to what team and I'm pretty sure that anyone who knows less than me would have a horrible time looking at these brackets. Take a look at all the NAMES that were used for this tournament.. Its just horrible... lol
Make sure to click on the "losers" bracket link on the left side when opening up this link as well. This way you can see how its hard to know what teams EVERYONE from the championship loser bracket belongs to. Doing this would also make it easier for people to know what team seems to be DOMINATING the upper portions of the brackets and it would look way more professional.
Championship Bracket
Open Bracket
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It's also possible that, between the Super Bowl fiasco and this, we've really just discovered that Dallas is a terrible place for hosting events.
If that's the case then MLG really just needs to put more thought/effort into scoping sites out before the fact.
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Only feedback i would give is the way the pool play and tournament style is set up. Pool play should be decided to set up seeding like it was. Only issue I had is that after the pool play was over, if people had to play each other again.. they were given a handicap if they win or lose, Either being up 2-0 or 2-1 or vice versa.
When it goes to Tournament style it should all reset. The championship match for instance should have been a best out of 7 with it being 0-0 instead of 2-0 in nani's favor. That way everyone gets a fair chance at winning no matter if they lost before. Pool Play should be separated from going into Tournament mode. Just like NCAA does it. Pool play should be meant for ranking in seeds to set up who faces who. not to rank and give a handicap like that.
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On April 05 2011 07:18 Pittski wrote:
Only feedback i would give is the way the pool play and tournament style is set up. Pool play should be decided to set up seeding like it was. Only issue I had is that after the pool play was over, if people had to play each other again.. they were given a handicap if they win or lose, Either being up 2-0 or 2-1 or vice versa.
When it goes to Tournament style it should all reset. The championship match for instance should have been a best out of 7 with it being 0-0 instead of 2-0 in nani's favor. That way everyone gets a fair chance at winning no matter if they lost before. Pool Play should be separated from going into Tournament mode. Just like NCAA does it. Pool play should be meant for ranking in seeds to set up who faces who. not to rank and give a handicap like that.
I agree with this.
I hated the carrying over rule.
It was kind of ridiculous to expect the already underdog coming from the loser brackets, to start 2 games down in a best of 7. Make it a fresh best of 5 or a fresh best of 7. I didn't like this rule at all because it put players on tilt be4 their fresh matches even started.
For instance in the finals we might have seen a COMPLETELY different series between Naniwa and KiwiKaki. Kiwikaki took 2!!!!! games off of Naniwa... and was still down a game. Naniwa was allowed to brasically GIVE away 3 games with extreme coinflip strategies and even if all 3 failed, he could resort to standard (whatever that might be in pvp atm lol) and still win.
I cant imagine watching a super bowl where one of the teams started with 14 points and the other had 0, or something to that nature.
In the finals it was 2-2 if there was no carry over, and it was Nani, Kiwi, Kiwi, Nani. In a fresh Bo3 Kiwi wins, in a fresh Bo5 or Bo7 it isn't nearly as clear how it would have ended.
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i feel like MLG could have capitalized on the fact that there were so many games going on a lot better than they actually did. They had 270ish player in the whole tournament with tons of games going on at a time, yet on the live stream we would see single matches spread out in time.
In the NCAA tournament first rounds, they have games constantly going on and they create "madness" with the switching back and forth between games. It gives the tournament its charm, and an event like MLG could create something similar by having very limited face time for the casters.
The way they presented it you would assume that only a small amount of games were happening at a time like in a GSL type event. If they could have presented that in the right way they could have had a crazy, fast paced tournament style that not many other starcraft tournaments have. (that i recall, i may be very wrong about that)
I really hope that the SC2 organizers take a look at some of these threads, because the product they showed this weekend was very poorly done.
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ive decided i wont be staying up late to watch the next mlg after my experience last weekend.. sry mlg, you had your chance.
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Good points by everyone. I hope this information gets to sundance as I'm not sure he browses TL all the time. Maybe someone should collect the feedback and send it to him after a couple weeks ?
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I need to endorse the OP's no. 5, though he doesn't elaborate much in the way of prescriptions. I feel that MLG should consider being more flexible with its online broadcast schedule. Specifically, they could allow some quick, decisive authority on the ground, be it a caster or whoever, to fill filibuster time not just with talking, but also with games cast from replays at their discretion. Such a contingency would've done so much in terms of keeping the show going while delays were underway. Indeed replay casts were implemented sometime last weekend after several hours of delays, and viewers latched onto them just as easily as live games. They really just want to see the great games being played, whatever the form.
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On April 05 2011 05:04 tetrash0t wrote:
Patience. They've never done a starcraft tournament of this scale with this BRAND NEW tournament production. I've attended MLG's since 2005, they've come a long way since then, and they catch on fast. Look at the HUGE improvements from last season to this season. They'll catch on and get into a better rhythm for future events. You had some good constructive criticisms, but towards the end it got a little heated. Everything's a learning process, be supportive instead of subjective.
I agree with everything you said. I'm a big fan of MLG for most of their games (even WoW, afk shunning myself). But I don't think you can look at MLG Dallas 2011 and note the "HUGE improvements" from last season
I'm sure it will be much better next time.
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I could not agree more with the OP's comments. I'm a viewer, not a player (to old, don't want to do the work) but I buy every stream I see on SC now and MLG was a waste of my money. I feel that I'm a desirable demographic for them, I bring strangers to the scene (my wife, my friends) and this weekend the wife and I just gave up on it and went fishing instead. Anyways, my feedback:
I won't even comment on the ineptitude of the communications and lag. I guarantee you that if funded properly this is not a problem, and while 'tournament LAN mode' might be a solution, it's not a requirement. They simply did not do their homework, testing properly.
I like the whole concert styled event idea, I think its neat but it was grossly under-realized in this event. There just has to be a ton more coverage of games, players, social interactions, showing the crowd, and living off the whole event, otherwise the streamed replay format (ala TSL) is just superior.
Why are there not multiple stream casters, covering games. While the whole news-anchor thing is clever, I'd trade my budget dollars for 4 casters covering 4 different games and letting me the viewer pick the stream I want to follow.
Drama is a big part of sports, and while I appreciate GOM and other organizations trying to make the sport 'professional' things like the Skins game in golf, the face off in boxing, and the trash talk before a Nascar race PUMP up the subscriber base and make them want to watch more. These should be encouraged not discouraged. Now I'm not saying let folks start blasting out Nigger and other stupid shit, but I for one rather enjoy seeing a little smak talk in my sports.
Then there is another thing, why isnt anyone making a big deal about the fact that in players can hear what the commentators are saying. I've seen comments on this issue for nearly every live event (including GSL with their stupid looking cockpits) Professional chess players have been looking for a solution to this problem for a long time, and while its complicated without a solution they are killing the game, its competitive nature, and the drama by not fixing it.
Overall they missed out on a chance to put on an epic event, and probably did more to hurt the esports scene then to help it. It will take some serious hype and good PR work from them to get my dollars again.
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I'm aware that I might be in a minority here but I thought I'd say it anyway. I really dislke DJWheat as a caster. His game knowledge is very low and he often talks about stuff not shown to the viewer as if it is being shown to the viewer.
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One thing I will say was excellent, was on day 3 when Day 9 loaded up a replay from his computer and started some analysis right there between games. THIS is the kinda thing that can be done to break up talking heads.
reviewing. analyzing of key moments.
talking to the players, pre-recorded or otherwise
talking to some of the more well adjusted fans, perhaps
insights into some of the OTHER sc2 activities going on. For example the TLO signings at the Sony Ericsson booth where he was more popular than the Halo folks (as he discusses in his TL interview with hotbid)
\Do you know how epic a recap vid would have been before Huk/IdrA II? not just with the Halluc, but with some of the series they played in DC?
also, I really have to support everyone who said your break planning was poor. Idra/TLO and TLO/incontrol play.. 3 of the biggest names in the esport in the county (and if it were not for one game, all three GSL Code S participants) and you cut to a 45 minute shot of the crowd and we have to get updates through twitter?
Bring back Husky. he;s shown how well he can play with Wheat and Day 9 in the TSL, use him to bolster the team, and use more of a rotation system to get the casters breaks, rather than costing us, the fans, the chance to see these Titans Clash.
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4. Replays inbetween matches. Instead of downtime fast forward through a non televised game, giving a quick recap of a game the stream missed.
If anyone knows anything about proleague, in long downtimes they sometimes feel it with a "quick recap" where they quickly skip through the last game's replay and go over some things. Simply quickly load up those replays inbetween games and if there is a downtime for whatever reason, go over said replay quickly or a good game that wasnt shown.
The solution I would use is have a second tier shout-cast team, maybe some lesser known casters, on a secondary stream just jumping into any game (set) that they are able to find. You can cut to these games anytime you have down-time on the main stream.
1. Put two extra computers on the main stage and have the next players prepare on them.
Of course not have a total of 4 (or even 6) on the main stage is just amateurism. It seems like MLG is trying to reinvent the wheel, do it their way, and ignore what is common practice in a SC tournament.
My advice here: It's better to "steal" a good concept, then to invent a bad one.
To end on a positive note.. I liked the Map-Pool.
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The worst part by far is that you have very few games casted. And once everything accually works during day 3. MLG decides to take breaks and show a camera shot of the crowd for 55 minutes while Idra plays TLO. Even the following match TLO vs InControl didnt get casted. It is simply 100% unacceptable to have the Ro16 not being broadcast. And to add insult to injury you cut back to a very happy day9 and DJwheat to read the results from your own live chat....
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Oh ya, and what MLG needs to do is actually HOST A PROPER TOURNAMENT. what is this joke prize pool? its like first place gets 50 bucks and a bestbuy giftcard, its a joke. presentation needs to be better right now it just looks cliche and lame like most American things. take a page from the koreans host a PROPER tourney.
"LAWLS WE HAVE CHAIRS THIS YEAR"
Is a joke. MLG stop being a joke.
OH YA. "lets watch replays and commericals for 12 hrs in a row!" is not how a tournamnet is supposed to be run.
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I totally agree with OP.
I love SC2 E-sports and try to watch all the high level matches and tournaments. MLG is a joke compared even to small stuff like HD World Tournament. At least you can watch it.
Another thing is that MLG website is impossible to navigate on. Its 2011 and I cant find brackets, games (replays/vods) or any info at all come on!
Never again for me! My fate now lies with NASL.
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I don't really think there's much to add on the subject but this weekend was so disappointing and annoying from a European perspective having to stay up till 3/4am I think just to see a game, I really hope they can get their act together. There's absolutely no excuse to have a working stream (finally) then cut to a 30min break to watch the crowd while games are being played.
Wheat/day9/JP should of been giving a huge bag of money because they had to work at least 5 times more than they should of :d Lets just hope NASL can hit the nail on the head because again the Starcraft community seems yet again very underwhelmed by MLG.
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I agree with(pretty much) everything that has been said.. especially in Europe, like noezke said,
it was painful to stay awake and have no content..
JP even had to read the teamliquid twitter to know what incontrol was doing vs TLO...
this is so ridiculus
just have 2-3 pcs that observe matches and change to them when there is downtime or sth..
what about 5k prize money?? it's not enough.
Overall (MLG+BlizznoLan+DallasInternet)
this was the biggest SC2 fail yet.
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I've been watching MLG try it's hand at PC Games (first WoW, now SC2) for a while now and the main problem has honestly not been adressed or improved upon at all:
You show no games.
Every single MLG has been this way and it's the reason why I will never buy a HQ pass. There are games going on continously throughout the entire weekend yet what we get to see is 1 series, followed by 10minutes of commercials (understandable, you need to give your sponsors some exposure of course) and then at least 30 minutes of absolutely nothing.
I don't really care how you do it, get at least one more observer into a second series that you can cut to when the first one ends or get a few additional "lesser" casters and let us choose between multiple streams or have more computers set up on the mainstage so that 2 guys can warm up while the previous match is cast.
Just do ANYTHING to let us do what we tune into your stream for: Watch some games.
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I totally agree with this so far. MLG was absolutely terrible to watch. I'm in Europe, so I didn't watch too many games: I went to bed because it was just plain awful to sit there and wait while NOTHING showed, despite some great matches happening.
For a huge tournament with a lot of publicity and a worldwide reputation the prize pool is ridiculously small. Now if instead all that money saved on prizes went into the production value, I would understand, but the setup was amateuristic.
Extended series with pool games counting in the knockout stage is really really stupid. Having double elimination makes for a rather boring finals (2 BoX instead of 1), but having an extended series in the final makes it even worse. If you want this to be an event spectators are excited to watch (and pay for the HQ stream), at least make sure the interesting matches are shown and the finals are exciting!
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On April 05 2011 13:46 Slin wrote:
I'm aware that I might be in a minority here but I thought I'd say it anyway. I really dislke DJWheat as a caster. His game knowledge is very low and he often talks about stuff not shown to the viewer as if it is being shown to the viewer.
I'm not a big fan of wheat as a caster either. His voice is too weasely, his laugh unbearable and as you said his in-game knowledge not any deeper than that of a Husky or HD. Though not my fave, Husky is more engaging to listen to than wheat.
I prefer wheat on shows like weapons of choice.
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MLG was pathetic, I felt like a sucker for attending. Games were going on non-stop and there was very little use of the main screen for various reasons. Did they even test the setup at all? No, probably not. They play the first set of games with casting and then Idra says "Oh, I can hear the casters", they pull casting for the rest of the weekend. Will not go back, complete waste of money.
Trying taking someone who is skeptical of enjoying SC to this kind of debacle and they will be completely bored out of their mind. MLG Dallas was BAD for SC2, that's how awful it was. You don't try to run a show if you aren't even going to run a fucking show. Literally almost nothing happened on the main stage the second day, and on the days it was working, no smooth transitions, no explanation for technical difficulty, no semblance of an attempt to stick to the schedule, just sit around and wait all day hoping a game might pop up on the screen. Complete waste of time and money. Think of all the ads and product whoring of a NBA event and take away the actual event, just a weekend of product whoring and games on tiny screens.
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The two biggest issues for me were the stream/lag issues (obviously) and the lack of casted games. I agree with dacthehork's suggestion:
1. Put two extra computers on the main stage and have the next players prepare on them.
If you guys watch good tournaments like GSL they have the next set of players set up their equipment ahead of time and ready to go to keep games flowing faster. Example: Naniwa vs Kiwakaki delayed by mouse problems
solution: extra set of computers on main stage and next match's player(s) can get their settings correct well ahead of time.
Please, please do this.
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@MLG_Sundance
Sundance DiGiovanni
I'm taking suggestions from folks who were in Dallas or tried to watch online for our Cbus event. Plase email me SD@mlgpro.com thanks
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Where are the VODs??? Wouldn't have been hard to chop up a stream into VOD-sized chunks if they planned ahead. GOM has theirs up in hours.
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On April 09 2011 00:45 Brandus wrote:
Where are the VODs??? Wouldn't have been hard to chop up a stream into VOD-sized chunks if they planned ahead. GOM has theirs up in hours.
http://tv.majorleaguegaming.com/
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Loosen the leash of the casters from the "professional stance" and let them enjoy it more and have them interact with the audience. It should be fun watching, day9 etc can be extremly entertaining but I felt that he was to guarded at the MLG dallas event
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It would be pretty cool if the audience was mic'd or something so people on the stream could hear crowd reactions instead of just the game and casters.
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The huge delays were the most annoying thing besides the obvious biggie. When a game being streamed is near finishing, couldn't the officials just ask players in a big name game that hasn't started quite yet to wait for 10 minutes so the stream can jump straight into their game instead of leaving the stream hanging for an hour? And learning that players could hear the commentary was a post-MLG buzzkill. How about MLG getting in half a dozen of the best soundproof headphones and earbuds they can get and forcing them to be used for streamed games?
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the interview with naniwa at the end of last mlg was terrible. i know hes not talkative but the guy doing it wasnt one of the sc2 casters so he didnt know what to say. he asked 4 questions, of which 2 were actually the same
get day9 to talk more in depth with the winner, we want to hear their opinions.
similarly to this id love to see if you could get a few players in to guest cast 1 game each. i think everyone loved incontrol coming up to talk a bit while nothing was going on, but having a few players sit with day9 and cast a match, obviously one they are familiar with, would make a nice change.
not wanting to hate on the casters you have, they are fine, but variety is nice, and it would be unreasonable to ask for you to have like 10 casters on staff
now correct me if im wrong, but it seemed like sc2 blew away everything else at mlg in terms of popularity. then you still try and force the mlg talking heads, and that farouq(?) guy on us. now i have nothing against them personally, but 1, they dont fit starcraft and 2, they made no effort in the offseason to get to know about the games.
these people are on full time contracts for you (correct me if im wrong with that) but they seem to be taking the offseason as a 3 month holiday. with all these claims of you doing a better job with sc2, why are so many of your staff, who will be talking about multiple games, not getting familiar with their work material, kinda childish.
even if they do get some sc2 knowledge their presentation style is the american football of halo, compared to the tennis or golf that is sc2, so they either need to understand their change of audience when they are on for starcraft 2, or you need sc2 specific staff for things like the stage work and pro circuit stream
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Adding 1 or 2 POV observer channels would be an awesome addition to the HD pass experience if it wouldn't eat too much into your bandwidth. It shouldn't be too hard to just get somebody to join awesome games on a few accounts and set the view on a player or switch between both of them
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