While awaiting the Grand Finals to go live between oGsMC and Duckload-WhiteRA, i felt compelled to start an appreciation thread for how brilliant this stream has been. From the production quality, down the the current finals, this tournament has been spectacular.
I came into work an hour early to be sure to catch this tournament from the very start so i wouldn't miss it in traffic And boy, am i glad i did.
The host of the DHI is James '2GD' Harding. As Hot_Bid mentioned, this guy looks like Dexter. Nevertheless, he is amazing. I have never heard of him before today, but ill make it a point to follow him. His interviews were awesome, his jokes were very tactful, well timed, and very funny, poking fun at IdrA to Battlelosers. He made all the breaks awesome when the games went off.
The production of the DHI is amazing! Its the little things people, like when 2GD was interviewing WhiteRA, the put a picture to the right side of the screen that said: WhiteRA, He Cares within three seconds of WhiteRA saying that. There were only two issues that poped up. At the VERY first of the JTV stream, the sound was super loud, and was fixed in about two minutes. And in one of the semi-final games, the sound was disabled (which was the casters fault) was fixed right after the game, but 2GD kept it funny as soon as the game ended, so it was never an issue.
The casters are brilliant. EG_DeMusliM's casting skills are actually incredible. They were both very good at commentating the games, analyzing the games, and making well timed jokes when the games lulled.
The crowd was amazing. Fans cheering for everyone and treating the players like "Movie Stars" according to oGsMC.
Compared to all the other tournaments i watch (GSL, GSTL, TSL, MLG, IEM), the DHI is spot on, if not better then the GSL, which does this twice a month. Compared to the recent MLG, it is a nerds heaven. Everything that the MLG done good, the DHI done it better. Everything the MLG done wrong, DHI didn't. If the North American scene could put on a show of this caliber, it would gain so much attention. National attention. Im hoping that the NASL does this. I understand MLG had a lot to prepare for, and a massive player base, but come on... If Day[9] and djWHEAT/ItmeJP didn't to a brilliant job, i have a feeling they would of lost much more viewers then they did. They said it their-selves, it wasn't a Battle.net issue, it was the localized infrastructure at the event. If i had to bet, it was a handful of faulty switches or bad configuration. These are things you have to prepare for, and test the hell out of.
If the next MLG doesn't blow me away, i will not be paying to watch it. I will never pay for an IEM pass again. It was the worst experience yet. I don't think twice paying for the GSL/GSTL. As soon as Im able to, i paypal it. I would do the same for the TSL, and ill be sure to pay for ANY Dreamhack tournament in the upcoming future.
In the DHI thread (up to 480 pages, increasing about 5 pages every two minutes) I have noticed a lot of veiwers complaining about JTY (Justin.TV) lagging for them. I have watched from when the stream went live, and i have only had it lag for me for a total of maybe 1 minute streaming in 720p. Im not sure if the other stream is less intensive on your internet/computer, but i dont think it was a JTV issue. (which im on a 60MEG connection + Hexcore)
Im sure Im forgetting some awesome things the the tournament done, but thats what i have all of you for, so lets show some appreciation for the Dreamhack Invitational 2011!!!
Poll: Which "live" broadcasted event did you enjoy more?
Dreamhack Invitational (546)
75%
GSL/GSTL by GOMtv (171)
23%
IEM (7)
1%
MLG (7)
1%
731 total votes
Your vote: Which "live" broadcasted event did you enjoy more?
The production value of this event was off the hook. Intros, player interviewers before the matches and after, host "2gd", camera work and the stream (except JustinTV sometimes) just absolutely incredible work.
Only minus i have was the kinda huge overlay.
Easily the best event so far (after GSL obviously). Great job DH Team!
DHI has set the bar as far as events go, this is what all evens should be and more. Nice to see so many people appreciating 2GD, watch other games - Day9 although great, isn't so special when you put him next to all the other fantastic personalities in ESPORTS.
Really enjoyed (still enjoying atm ) Dreamhack. I got to be honest I didn't know a ton about this tournament until a few days ago but wow what a great tournament. Booths, $15k prize, great stream quality and uptime, surprisingly great casting - I knew apollo was pretty good but I was really impressed with demuslim, they both did a great job as did the production crew and everyone involved.
edit - Where is the white ra intro gif?! That makes me laugh everytime a new game starts! :p
I agree that DH has great production values but keep in mind it's pretty easy considering it's an 8 player 1 day tournament with a relatively small audience.
Yeah it's truly awesome. I havn't been doing anything at all but having my eyes glued to the screen since it started like 8 hours ago. I'm hungry, thirsy and I need to pee, but this is too good. AWESOMELY well made tournament. I love it.
I think it couldn't be any better except the commentators... They are not bad, but the production and stream quality are so high, there should be better casters to comment on these highlvl games.
And to think we thought GSL was good. Dreamhack has superior production, drama, player stories, fillers (pro-host, related commercials, interviews etc.). And HELLO MLG, games all the time, short breaks, with cool fillers like interviews and showing brackets.
And the atmosphere woah!
Edi: God, I forgot about the free high quality stream (actually HQ, not like MLG HQ) and no freaking stream/internet/computer problems! And its all free! Oh Golly.
Oh, and i forgot about the times in-between the matches, playing Huskies "Banelings" and "SCV Love Song", NASL, and other Starcraft 2 related videos. Top notch, and made me feel like we were all a group of friends who knew each other. Not sure how to explain it ^.^
It's been absolutely awesome. It's a shame a missed alot of the action due to work but I've been watching since I got home and this haven't only made my day, but my whole damn year.
I'm just so happy right now <3 Nerdgasms!
I'm proud to be living in this country right now, and that's one odd reason to be proud of your country =p
Thanks to Dreamhack, all the sponsors, the casters/host/players and TeamLiquid for giving me alot of laughs and enjoyment <3 I love you all!
This is how tournaments should be organised. Literally everything is on time, there were only some problems with stream at start but since then everything was perfect. I like the interviews after the matches which are pretty entertaining and in the end there are really high level games.
the tournaments and interviews and also the crowd was very nice and well organized. Some slight problems with the stream occured, but one major negative point was the inexpirience of the casters.
Ridiculously well organised tournament and a joy to watch, really WP everyone at Dreamhack. Hilarious presenter, good casters, great atmosphere, MC showing us hes all a baller, what more could you want?
The stream was almost flawless and the production quality was pretty exceptional.
My only minor complaints would be that there were a few issues with camera shots and camera guys bumping into each other or getting in each other's way, but if that's the only thing I can complain about, then that's fantastic. =)
Really amazing tournament!! Overall a perfect package. Thx for all who where organizing such an awesome event and thx to all players & casters!! Even the audience was very nice, and sweden really made a very good impression on me with that event!! :D
Hands down best quality. Hands down best production quality. Great relevant "commercials". Great casting. Great booths. Good players.
The production of this was simply amazing, this should be the minimum baseline to work with. Great transitions betweens games. I can go on and on about how amazing it was. They sold me and I'm sure dozens of thousands of others to always be sure to tune in for Dreamhack events now.
I mean really the only single problem I have with this? It's on a tuesday :D I hope MLG took down notes till their hands bled.
Big creds to Aftonbladet aswell. They have had the invitational really high up on their webpage promoting the event and starcraft. ALOT of people unaware of E-sports have been checking out the stream and im sure some of them got interested.
(Aftonbladet = the biggest online news site in sweden and the largest newspaper in sweden)
Makes me kinda proud to see there are people in this country who care enough (and pay enough) to make this sort of stuff happen. Would have been awesome to have been there, unfortunately I live in the northern reaches of Sweden...
Gotta say though, it is thoroughly unfair to compare this to MLG. MLG is on a completely different scale, with hundreds of players and games played in a very short timespan, alongside several other games in a huge event. This was a small, focused, well-executed event, with completely different conditions. They are very different, and are both great in their own ways.
Well scheduled Downtime filled well and a clear update as to when the next game was going to start Such energy from 2GD, having him MC and lead in and out the games really tied the event together Great casting synergy from Apollo and DemusliM Booths that allowed the crowd to properly let loose The interview sofa that brought the players properly on screen
+1@OP, great tournament and really high production value. Wish I could've been there, but sadly I 5 hours away from Stockholm, so a bit too long of a trip to undertake on a weekday :/
Great job. Everything proceeded smoothly and quickly! Which never happens in a SC2 tournament! Grand finals was the best PvP series I've seen so far, very tense and exciting, great comeback.
I wanna see the after party where they crack open that champagne. I don't know if everyone saw the interview where IdrA totally said the drama between him and Huk is mostly hyped up, and they were out together the day before. It'd be cool to see them interacting outside a game and the internet. Maybe some vids well focus some time in the future of the dreamhack afterparty ^_^
One of the best SC2 broadcasts since Day9's countdown party.
Everything was so awesome. I have a feeling with MLG getting sound proof booths that they can top this broadcast. DH just set the bar for future tournaments with only 8 players. I know MLG, NASL, Gom were all taking notes on this and if they weren't then what's the point in hosting anymore tournaments. This is what the fans want to see.
I completely agree, DHI showed what should be the standard for every major tournament out there that wants to be takes serious and the standard that e-sports needs if it wants to be taken serious. Awesome job DH and i can't wait till the summer event.
Also a special shout-out to 2GD, appolo and EG_DeMusliM for making the show fun to watch.
Can only thank the Dreamhack organization for such a well polished product that im sure provided some lessons for other organizers to take and take the next step towards what a quality production should be.
Noticed the stream peaking at 52.000 viewers wich is impressive and well deserved for the excellent event. Can only thank Swedish Dreamhack organization team for taking the production to this level and put the pressure on others to step up their game.
Btw, i lagged on several occasions but the organization had the solution that worked for me every time: there were 3 different streams running and when one was glitching a bit i would just jump to the next stream. Watched the whole event with no major problems so thank you so much for providing different streams.
Loved the casting team even not being a big fan of any of them, they worked perfectly fine as a team and were able to provide good enough dynamics to keep me interested the whole event.
Last but not least a shoutout to James "2GD" Harding who was hosting the event and even not being an avid SC2 player (Quake for him) did his taks brilliantly and provided a needed breath of fresh air to what we usually get from hosts on previous events. The fact that he didnt followed the "standart" / "by the book" hosting posture of others only made him better in my personal oppinion.
To whoever dont recognize the guy heres some intel:
This Dreamhack Invitational has been by far the most enjoyable Starcraft 2 tournament for me to date. Totally indistinguishable in production quality from watching pro sports on tv.
Thanks for all the hard work Dreamhack team. Hope this gets you a job for life.
extremely well run tournament which i thoroughly enjoyed. it felt extremely genuine and had a "labor of love" feeling to it which ive only ever got from the home story cup. hopefully 2good is the host for all future DH events as he really was entertaining in between the games. i think everyone on camera having pro gaming experience was a huge advantage in making the stream as good as it was.
On April 13 2011 04:50 Cluster wrote: Makes me kinda proud to see there are people in this country who care enough (and pay enough) to make this sort of stuff happen. Would have been awesome to have been there, unfortunately I live in the northern reaches of Sweden...
Gotta say though, it is thoroughly unfair to compare this to MLG. MLG is on a completely different scale, with hundreds of players and games played in a very short timespan, alongside several other games in a huge event. This was a small, focused, well-executed event, with completely different conditions. They are very different, and are both great in their own ways.
Still awesome though.
Agree, but MLG didn't have good interviews, a good experienced hosts doing them, sound-proof cabins and professional lighting and camera work... that could be done with 8 players or 100.
This was the absolute best tournament I've ever seen. Simply from start to finish the 6-7 hours I've seen of it. I want more, more of this absolute awesomness.
I justed jumped in my room. I laughed out loud, for real. I was happy, i was sad. I got angry and had great joy. That's what should be reached and Dreamhack did it best.
Stream had its fair share of problems. I think mostly for Eastern Europe though, especially after the viewers went over 30.000 it really started lagging.
So I hope they fix that as well, so far I'd say the matches were great and the production was very high, the casters were actually way better than I expected and I can say I really liked them even more than Tastosis. They brought out such an excitement in the games and it was really fun.
Again, they did have trouble with the stream and its absolutely 100% not my internet fault. I'm a tech guru and I know my internet, PC and ISP.
On a 10mbit connection and all tight and tidy, it was 100% problem from dreamhack.
In fact I don't think its justin.tv, as it doesn't lag at all when I watch TSL 3.
I can't wait for Dreamhack summer and see if they can keep it up. This was by far on of the most entertaining shows in SC2. I goto say I do love 2GD, he keeps it interesting and keeps you watching. First time I fist pumped the air when someone one and I think that has something to do with it being such a dam awsome event with a awsome live crowd. <3 Dreamhack
It was the best SC2 watching experience so far this year for me. The little downtime was filled with nice videos and only a few, not so annyoing commercials. Stream was unbelievable stable, quality perfect(and for free), 2GD the best Master of Ceremony I have experienced so far. Venue was small, but at least it was packed and the little room helped creating a good athmosphere.
On April 13 2011 05:00 thehitman wrote: Stream had its fair share of problems. I think mostly for Eastern Europe though, especially after the viewers went over 30.000 it really started lagging.
So I hope they fix that as well, so far I'd say the matches were great and the production was very high, the casters were actually way better than I expected and I can say I really liked them even more than Tastosis. They brought out such an excitement in the games and it was really fun.
Again, they did have trouble with the stream and its absolutely 100% not my internet fault. I'm a tech guru and I know my internet, PC and ISP.
On a 10mbit connection and all tight and tidy, it was 100% problem from dreamhack.
In fact I don't think its justin.tv, as it doesn't lag at all when I watch TSL 3.
TSL3 is on Youstream, unless there is another stream on justin.tv
On April 13 2011 05:00 thehitman wrote: Stream had its fair share of problems. I think mostly for Eastern Europe though, especially after the viewers went over 30.000 it really started lagging.
So I hope they fix that as well, so far I'd say the matches were great and the production was very high, the casters were actually way better than I expected and I can say I really liked them even more than Tastosis. They brought out such an excitement in the games and it was really fun.
Again, they did have trouble with the stream and its absolutely 100% not my internet fault. I'm a tech guru and I know my internet, PC and ISP.
On a 10mbit connection and all tight and tidy, it was 100% problem from dreamhack.
In fact I don't think its justin.tv, as it doesn't lag at all when I watch TSL 3.
Justin.tv had problems today, when the stream went down all justin.tv streams were down (and aftonbladet stream was still working). Don't compare an experience from another day with this one o_O TSL 3 is on ustream lol. I don't know how else to say it.. but you're wrong
I cannot wait for Dreamhack Summer if they keep up the same quality. They have now set the pedestal for tournaments that now have to increase there production to keep up.
Definitely the best production and crowd for any SC2 tournament thus far. I thought the host seemed too much like an awkward first time open mic comedian, and the casters weren't the greatest, but the games themselves were amazing. They were all high quality, even the cheeses. Previously I was in favor of open tournaments over invites, however because of the GSL world final and this dreamhack I may need to change my mind.
On April 13 2011 05:00 thehitman wrote: Stream had its fair share of problems. I think mostly for Eastern Europe though, especially after the viewers went over 30.000 it really started lagging.
So I hope they fix that as well, so far I'd say the matches were great and the production was very high, the casters were actually way better than I expected and I can say I really liked them even more than Tastosis. They brought out such an excitement in the games and it was really fun.
Again, they did have trouble with the stream and its absolutely 100% not my internet fault. I'm a tech guru and I know my internet, PC and ISP.
On a 10mbit connection and all tight and tidy, it was 100% problem from dreamhack.
In fact I don't think its justin.tv, as it doesn't lag at all when I watch TSL 3.
Not sure what was going on, but it wasn't an issue for me. It had to be related to JTV. Im not sure if they use mirrors or not. Im a network technician also ^.^ . It must be the difference between locations because a few of my friends in teamspeak out in Calli had light lagging issues, but my friends in TN/AL/FL didn't have any issues at all.
*edit* as other have said, the TSL isn't on jtv <3
Biggest problem today was a game without sound. ONE single game without sound. How amazing is that? No need for the vedicle of esports speech, no need to apologize for anything. Just clean cut awesome tournament.
Did the viewers who said it lagged try aftonbladets stream? That was not lagging at all for me all day, but the jtv stream lagged few times.
On April 13 2011 05:00 thehitman wrote: Stream had its fair share of problems. I think mostly for Eastern Europe though, especially after the viewers went over 30.000 it really started lagging.
So I hope they fix that as well, so far I'd say the matches were great and the production was very high, the casters were actually way better than I expected and I can say I really liked them even more than Tastosis. They brought out such an excitement in the games and it was really fun.
Again, they did have trouble with the stream and its absolutely 100% not my internet fault. I'm a tech guru and I know my internet, PC and ISP.
On a 10mbit connection and all tight and tidy, it was 100% problem from dreamhack.
In fact I don't think its justin.tv, as it doesn't lag at all when I watch TSL 3.
TSL use ustream, it's most likely justin.tv who doesn't have enough servers to support all viewers in Eastern Europe.
Great great tournament! Loved the crowd, host, commentators, stream and games. Everything was top notch! Also big props to the tech guys behind the scenes!
The best tourney so far in many ways. And btw: Somebody has to tell Sundance that soundproof booths is the only way to go.You just need a couple of carpenters..really, and some fairly cheep materials. Not only for soundproofing, but the booth is like a rink for sc!
It felt like they did just about everything right. It was overproduced, but the organizers realized that so they did it in a way that made fun of itself. Final Countdown + flames = awesome. On top of that, the hosting and casting were all extremely good and clever, which made the entire thing seem complete.
On April 13 2011 05:06 oRacLeGosu wrote: The best tourney so far in many ways. And btw: Somebody has to tell this Sundance guy that soundproof booths is the only way to go. You just need a couple of carpenters..really, and some fairly cheep materials.
On April 13 2011 05:06 oRacLeGosu wrote: The best tourney so far in many ways. And btw: Somebody has to tell this Sundance guy that soundproof booths is the only way to go. You just need a couple of carpenters..really, and some fairly cheep materials.
They announced that they will be having soundproof booths for MLG Columbus
On April 13 2011 05:00 thehitman wrote: Stream had its fair share of problems. I think mostly for Eastern Europe though, especially after the viewers went over 30.000 it really started lagging.
So I hope they fix that as well, so far I'd say the matches were great and the production was very high, the casters were actually way better than I expected and I can say I really liked them even more than Tastosis. They brought out such an excitement in the games and it was really fun.
Again, they did have trouble with the stream and its absolutely 100% not my internet fault. I'm a tech guru and I know my internet, PC and ISP.
On a 10mbit connection and all tight and tidy, it was 100% problem from dreamhack.
In fact I don't think its justin.tv, as it doesn't lag at all when I watch TSL 3.
Not sure if this might be usefull for you but it was for me. I had the ocasional lag issue and the stream would stop. But because Dreamhack actually provided 3 different streams i would just switch to the next one and kept watching untill the next glitch.
I ended up watching more of the event on the Swedish stream than on Justin.TV but they had the english cast rolling there aswell so it was all good.
Did you tried all streams? getting lag on all of them?
Still, great event, loved it and im ready to pay for this quality level.
i couldnt even listem to a sentence without haveing 40seconds of freeze amd audio.... dunno if it was my conection, but it seeing to me something like mlg... way toooooo much lag
Best production values ever. Great invites, great interviews, epic games, silky smooth stream. I can't ask for much more
PS: actually, if there is one thing that I'd like them to improve is a smoother observing (and don't keep box selecting everything on screen as if you are playing, it's annoying)
While I enjoyed watching this tourny, it is very unfair to compare it to massive endeavours like TSL, MLG, GSL, IEM etc. This tourny looked great for a few reasons:
1. The entire thing happened over the course of a few hours.
2. All of the players are top level. It's as if we skipped all the preliminary stuff in other tournies and jumped straight to the ro8.
3. Awesome crowd made everything more exciting.
Yes it seemed awesome, but objectively there is nothing that makes this tourny better than any others. 2nd place doesn't get anything... that is just bad imo. Yes the casting was fine, but it wasn't stellar. The obvs was almost "bad." I think a lot of people are looking at this with rose-colored glasses because they enjoyed the games and drama.
On April 13 2011 05:06 oRacLeGosu wrote: The best tourney so far in many ways. And btw: Somebody has to tell this Sundance guy that soundproof booths is the only way to go. You just need a couple of carpenters..really, and some fairly cheep materials.
On April 13 2011 05:10 On_Slaught wrote: While I enjoyed watching this tourny, it is very unfair to compare it to massive endeavours like TSL, MLG, GSL, IEM etc. This tourny looked great for a few reasons:
1. The entire thing happened over the course of a few hours.
2. All of the players are top level. It's as if we skipped all the preliminary stuff in other tournies and jumped straight to the ro8.
3. Awesome crowd made everything more exciting.
Yes it seemed awesome, but objectively there is nothing that makes this tourny better than any others. 2nd place doesn't get anything... that is just bad imo. Yes the casting was fine, but it wasn't stellar. The obvs was almost "bad." I think a lot of people are looking at this with rose-colored glasses because they enjoyed the games and drama.
I am pretty sure the actual Dreamhack LAN Events this year will have a similar production.
Fantastic tournament all-round, I didn't expect to stay glued to the stream and watch the whole thing but it was so damn entertaining that I couldn't help myself.
Also, ORGANIZERS TAKE NOTE, having 2 different streams is just brilliant. Whenever I had any issues with one I'd switch to the other and bam, smooth sailing again.
Also in case this was a test run or anything of the sort and DH plans to sell tickets for any future events they're hosting, they definitively won over a customer in me.
On April 13 2011 05:10 On_Slaught wrote: While I enjoyed watching this tourny, it is very unfair to compare it to massive endeavours like TSL, MLG, GSL, IEM etc. This tourny looked great for a few reasons:
1. The entire thing happened over the course of a few hours.
2. All of the players are top level. It's as if we skipped all the preliminary stuff in other tournies and jumped straight to the ro8.
3. Awesome crowd made everything more exciting.
Yes it seemed awesome, but objectively there is nothing that makes this tourny better than any others. 2nd place doesn't get anything... that is just bad imo.
Im not going to compare it to TSL since a live offlien tournament like dreamhack is very different. But it is vastly superior to IEM and MLG. 1. HD stream, both IEM and MLG streams were terrible. 2. Starting on time, no one game was delayed by a long time. 3. sound proof booth. 4. awesome host 5. Awesome interviews.
Dreamhack Invitational was amazing. High quality 720p stream, funny casters, great games, and the roar of the crowd. The production values were so high, and the most basic of elements present - crowd discourse and interaction, post-game couch interviews, ability to hear the crowd's reactions - made me seriously question why other tournaments haven't done these simple, common-sense things a long time ago. The GSL might have more money and a bigger studio, and the TSL had an awesome player pool, but from a stream watching experience, Dreamhack beat them all.
I heard almost 90,000 people tuned in. Sick figure aside, every single one of them got a great show, full of humour and great moments, run perfectly, with zero downtime (ahead of schedule, in fact) with very little stream lag. Sincerest thank-you's to everyone involved.
I hope they come hear and read this and the livereport thread as they both do Dreamhack justice, very little bad to say about it, and lots of good. It is more important, in a lot of ways, that the events are succesful than whether or not your favorite player wins or if x is exactly balanced vs. y (etc.) and I hope all the viewers, and the players, feel the same.
Somethng that Dreamhack has going for it is the location. The casters/host was not forced to be crazy PC and the swedish crowd don't care. Here we can say and do almost anything on TV, and people is used to it. They could have had naked casters if they wanted
Dreamhack also had swedens largest internet provider as a sponsor/partner, Telia. They have done this so many years so they know what to do. Dreamhack is a event produced by fans, for fans. The people behind this is hosting a swedish gaming show every week and follows SC2 with a passion.
Good work, can't wait for Dreamhack summer and dreamhack winter. It will be crazy, there was talk about getting a hockey arena for the finals this year.
PS. Justin.tv has issuies in europe, I think NA is more justin friendly. But then we had a feed from aftonbladet.se that also was streaming for free in HQ. The two streams was streaming to 80-90k viewers.
On April 13 2011 05:10 On_Slaught wrote: While I enjoyed watching this tourny, it is very unfair to compare it to massive endeavours like TSL, MLG, GSL, IEM etc. This tourny looked great for a few reasons:
1. The entire thing happened over the course of a few hours.
2. All of the players are top level. It's as if we skipped all the preliminary stuff in other tournies and jumped straight to the ro8.
3. Awesome crowd made everything more exciting.
Yes it seemed awesome, but objectively there is nothing that makes this tourny better than any others. 2nd place doesn't get anything... that is just bad imo.
Im not going to compare it to TSL since a live offlien tournament like dreamhack is very different. But it is vastly superior to IEM and MLG. 1. HD stream, both IEM and MLG streams were terrible. 2. Starting on time, no one game was delayed by a long time. 3. sound proof booth. 4. awesome host 5. Awesome interviews.
3. Was a combination of many things to make it sound proof 5. James was very entertaining but I wish he asked more potent questions like, "What were you thinking when your back was up against the wall?"
Other than that the production and quality was something other tournaments should strive for. It was very well done with very few delays.
I had issues with the stream in that the video stuttered every couple seconds. Strangely enough, almost exclusively in between games, during the interviews, commercials and stuff. I've seen other people complain about the same problem, and yet others said it was fine. I don't know if it's on Dreamhack's, Justin.tv's or on my end.
Everything else was great. Production, free HD stream, commentators, and the games didn't disappoint either. It was a pleasure to watch, and future events will have to be measured against this Dreamhack Invitational.
On April 13 2011 05:10 On_Slaught wrote: While I enjoyed watching this tourny, it is very unfair to compare it to massive endeavours like TSL, MLG, GSL, IEM etc. This tourny looked great for a few reasons:
1. The entire thing happened over the course of a few hours.
2. All of the players are top level. It's as if we skipped all the preliminary stuff in other tournies and jumped straight to the ro8.
3. Awesome crowd made everything more exciting.
Yes it seemed awesome, but objectively there is nothing that makes this tourny better than any others. 2nd place doesn't get anything... that is just bad imo.
1: The stream was up for right at 8.5 hours straight, which is longer then any of the TSL3 or GOM streams (not that i have a problem with them at all)
2: I agree that all the players are top level, but i dont think anyone here is complaining about the players, i think everyone here is complementing the overall DHI experience. Honest to god, if this was a three day event, i would of been glued to my laptop at work, my phone on the way home, and my computer at the house. I watch every second of SC2 at MLG Dallas that i was able to due to their faulty hardware/stream. Like i said, i think most of us are giving props to DHI about their awesome interviews, booths, quality, humor, performance, and stability where IEM and MLG failed.
3: Awesome crowds make everything awesome. It fuels everyone. Every event should have a crowd. Im hoping and praying that the NASL takes the US ESport community by storm, and they get to expand and have room for a big crowd :D
4: Second place gets you a wildcard in the Summer tourny. Plus, it makes the players play just that much harder :D
Ridiculously good! Particularly liked the couch interviews, and interactivity of the crowd.
I'm so glad I got up early to watch it... and now a 'lil nervous for NASL tonight! But I am willing to allow NASL some 'growing pains' as they get up to speed. Hopefully the way Dreamhack raised the bar on production values will eventually benefit us all.
I'm a guy who likes to complain about basically everything but wow, this event just blew my mind. The only things that come to mind is that JustinTV seemed to have some issues, this didn't bother me though, since i was watching the aftonbladet stream . Also, if the aftonbladet 1080p hadn't stopped working like halfway through the event or whatever, everything would have been fucking perfect. Great event.
I really enjoyed the crowds and the production, the games were great and I loved the players list (even when some of my favorites went down). Apparently there were a lot more interviews going on on the Swedish stream, where can I find those?
On April 13 2011 05:24 Jampackedeon wrote: I really enjoyed the crowds and the production, the games were great and I loved the players list (even when some of my favorites went down). Apparently there were a lot more interviews going on on the Swedish stream, where can I find those?
It was a behind the scenes, interviews with dreamhack and players. Perhaps aftonbladet will have it as clips on their web-TV, i guess they will find its way here then.
I posted so many times in the LR thread during the event just saying how impressed I was by the whole thing. I can't help but post here too, because these guys did an amazing job and I really gotta give them props. Undoubtedly the best tournament in SC2 so far. Everything was perfect, an amazing viewer experience. Just blown away. Thank you Dreamhack!
On April 13 2011 05:10 On_Slaught wrote: While I enjoyed watching this tourny, it is very unfair to compare it to massive endeavours like TSL, MLG, GSL, IEM etc. This tourny looked great for a few reasons:
1. The entire thing happened over the course of a few hours.
2. All of the players are top level. It's as if we skipped all the preliminary stuff in other tournies and jumped straight to the ro8.
3. Awesome crowd made everything more exciting.
Yes it seemed awesome, but objectively there is nothing that makes this tourny better than any others. 2nd place doesn't get anything... that is just bad imo. Yes the casting was fine, but it wasn't stellar. The obvs was almost "bad." I think a lot of people are looking at this with rose-colored glasses because they enjoyed the games and drama.
No this tournament actually had things that no other tournament had.
First the speed which the games were played was awesome. There were do dead time a la GSL, there were no 30 mins wait for a mouse to work. There were no CS 1.6, Quake Live or general dead time IEM. It was fast, smooth and awesome.
The production values in terms of overlays, interviews (both on swedish and english streams) were best, even better than GSL imo. Also the commercials werent as repetitive as MLG, and they actually mixed it with awesome songs and such.
While i do agree that the smaller scale defiently makes it easier, i think that with even a bigger staff(Which dreamhack Summer/winter has), we will hopefully se the same level of tournament from them again
I love how the casters tackled the no sound-issue with comments like "It's the most silent Pheonix harass ever". I like how they poked fun of themselves and kept transparent about the issue, instead of just trying to ignore it.
I also liked the intelligent use of minimap pinging. This is good when it's used in moderation, and i absolutely think that Artosis should start to use it to help their observer finding the small things on the map.
Although Dreamhack was amazing we can't forget the fact that they didn't have to deal with a multiple day production and did not have to deal with more than 8 players.
They did an amazing job but they didn't have to face some of the issues that the other tournaments have to deal with.
On April 13 2011 05:30 Aegeis wrote: Although Dreamhack was amazing we can't forget the fact that they didn't have to deal with a multiple day production and did not have to deal with more than 8 players.
They did an amazing job but they didn't have to face some of the issues that the other tournaments have to deal with.
That is not something that really has to do with stream production and content. And running a working lan, that is something dreamhack can do.
I loved this event. The casters really were brilliant, absolutely fantastic production and the dramas in the finals :D Best even since the start of beta in my opinion, TSL3 finals might very well get better but so far, DHI has been fantastic.
The only element of today's broadcast I don't think is possible with more players is such tight scheduling in the early stages of a tournament. All other production elements can be carried over, and with having a host/MC like 2GD who can improv any additional downtime with crowd interaction, interviews, talking to the casters and previewing the schedule for the rest of the day.
The philosophy in my opinion should be 'We are broadcasting the stage experience' not 'We are broadcasting individual games' and that's what really showed through today :-)
I Agree and I was actually planning to make a similar thread with a poll on which foreign tournament people enjoyed the most with me voting for Dreamhack or DHI as you put it.
*note: do a poll just to see how many others enjoyed DHI*
As you said James”2GD” Harding's jokes were hilarious, right after the match between Sjow vs Huk, he goes: So Sjow we invited you to play in our 1vs1 tournament, and you play a 2vs1 with a Banshee? It's not fair. + Show Spoiler +
people who saw the game will get the joke, those who didn't saw the game, pray there will be vods since you missed a lot of great games.
Also again after Sjow vs White-Ra, he goes: "So Battlecruisers .. more like Battleloosers." lol
The casters were also awesome, I was really impressed by DeMusliM when he showed us that Sjow didn't even knew where White-Ra spawned on Crevasse after like 20 minutes of game time.
Really, really great event. Hope to see more high end production like this in the future.
High-quality stream, well-planned, amazing host, great commentators and aswesome "sign-writer".
The only bad thing was the cameraman during the interwievs, since he couldn't hold the camera stable, MC's interpreter was also a bit shaky at times, but that is normal for a live show, (especially since didnt have any experience?)
On April 13 2011 05:30 Aegeis wrote: Although Dreamhack was amazing we can't forget the fact that they didn't have to deal with a multiple day production and did not have to deal with more than 8 players.
They did an amazing job but they didn't have to face some of the issues that the other tournaments have to deal with.
But i dont see that being a problem for DHI. The point is, they had the equipment, the talent, and the skill to do it. If DH Summer is this quality, it will go down in history.
100% agree with this. I was so impressed to see the overall quality of this tourney. I've watched the MLG GSL, Blizzcon, and looking forward to the NASL later today. The Dreamhack production value left them all wanting. Hopefully these other leagues can take a page from the DHI.
Nothing crashed, no delays, no lag, satisfying price ceremony, awesome commercials and songs/kpop, good and funny interviews, great casting and host, awesome crowd, a new john translator... umm, I can't think of more, it was "the" tournament for me.
On April 13 2011 05:33 Ohnoes92 wrote: It was the best i've ever seen soo far!
High-quality stream, well-planned, amazing host, great commentators and aswesome "sign-writer".
The only bad thing was the cameraman during the interwievs, since he couldn't hold the camera stable, MC's interpreter was also a bit shaky at times, but that is normal for a live show, (especially since didnt have any experience?)
Also as he's Swedish, he did an interview for aftonbladet with MC, and he spoke Swedish with no accent, so I suspect his English is a little shaky. I think he was there mostly for Swedish interviews, but what do I know.
I actually felt happy to share it with a few non Starcraft playing folks for once because there were no worries about massive downtime, no concerns about sub-par production, and any technical difficulties were swiftly resolved with on screen notification of what was going on.
The most professional event outside of Korea, and to top it all off it was a live production.
Hats off to all the guys at Dreamhack for putting on an amazing event, as well as to 2GD, Apollo, and Demuslim for an excellent job hosting/covering it.
On April 13 2011 05:10 On_Slaught wrote: While I enjoyed watching this tourny, it is very unfair to compare it to massive endeavours like TSL, MLG, GSL, IEM etc. This tourny looked great for a few reasons:
1. The entire thing happened over the course of a few hours.
2. All of the players are top level. It's as if we skipped all the preliminary stuff in other tournies and jumped straight to the ro8.
3. Awesome crowd made everything more exciting.
Yes it seemed awesome, but objectively there is nothing that makes this tourny better than any others. 2nd place doesn't get anything... that is just bad imo. Yes the casting was fine, but it wasn't stellar. The obvs was almost "bad." I think a lot of people are looking at this with rose-colored glasses because they enjoyed the games and drama.
Excactly.. There was close to none downtime, wich no event I've seen to date has accomplished.
Btw, whats with casters poring on the superlatives like its candy? Seems like apollo tried to one-up day-9 with "SUPER something" "SOOOO good" "UNBELIIIIVABLE etc", you get the point..
From the moment I first laid eyes on you I knew we had something special, the roar of your crowd sent chills down my spine, this was the start of something special. To my surprise you embraced me with your glorious hd stream, and warmed my heart with your soothing casting voice. Your sound proof booths were sound proof that you wanted our relationship to be long-term.Your Humour puts me in stitches and even when your not here you find the key to my heart in your absence, K-pop.
I just got home after watching this at a friends house, and i couldn't agree more. Amazing tournament, awesome casters and an even greater "host", which for me was a first in e-sports (actually having a good host talk between games). The production was insanely good, so i can only asume the rest of these events will be as good, or better. All in all i was blown away by this event, too bad i couldn't be there myself!
I've been glued to my screen for over 7 hours because of this. Everything with this has been brilliant: brilliant casters, brilliant host, great streaming quality (I've been on the 720p stream the entire day and only had 5 small hickups!) and good games. Great interviews and a wonderful crowd. Can't wait for Dreamhack Summer. I really enjoyed dApollo with day9 at last Dreamhack event, but demuslim did an awesome job as well. This sets a new standard for big SC2 tournaments around the world, even for GOM I believe, at least for the foreigner crowd. Thank you Dreamhack for a wonderful show.
Absolutley amazing event. Top notch. Really really hope we'll see more of this, but bigger! And totally free HQ stream all over the world. Just tune in and enjoy. That's how it is done. Only thing that made me sad was that Boxer had to cancel
On April 13 2011 04:55 bdictkam wrote: Anyone know if dreamhack will have VODS, i jsut got back from school and missed most of it!
Im quite sure there will be on other sites, probably even linked from TL.net own Event tracker. But Swedish Aftonbladet newspaper, covering this event, said they will have VOD's up on their website www.aftonbladet.se/spela
Its insane how great Dreamhack pulled this off. Also I love it that we are starting to generate storylines between the players because it brings so much more excitement like TLO vs Idra and WhiteRa vs MC rematches. Having seen all the previous matches it kinda extends the bo3 serie, meaning that the strategies played in the previous match play some roles in selecting current ones.
Only regret I have is that WhiteRa didn't win any money *sad panda*
This was so well produced and well done it almost makes me a little proud to be Swedish. I can hardly find any things at all to fault them for, pretty much all of it was spot on. The only small criticism I have really is the extremely top heavy prize pool, but I'm sure they had their reasons for doing it this way.
What I will really take away from this is the proper high quality free stream. It was incredibly refreshing having one of the highest quality streams to date, and it being free on top of that. I feel this is something that other tournaments will need to copy if they wish to continue growing. Quality matters to people, probably the new casual viewers more than the hardcore fans. The hardcore fans will either stand the grainy low quality streams other tournaments provide in order to enjoy the game, or be interested enough to be willing to spend some money on the higher quality streams. Someone who doesn't have that level of interest in starcraft probably wont bother watching a blurry low quality stream, much less pay for something they don't know if they'll enjoy.
So huge props to Dreamhack, setting standards for foreign tournament casting all across the board.
One important thing to point out when comparing DH to MLG is that they are completely different types of organizations. Of course it easier to run a 8 player invitational than a big ass open tournament but there was so many things in this production that was irrelevant of that, like the interviews and such. My point is that MLG is a financially driven company which tries/is forced to cut corners wherever it can while DH is in it's core ran by volunteers. As someone said, it's fans doing it for fans. This event and at this quality would have been impossible if everyone involved would have been on a regular salary. MLG to my knowledge doesn't have a huge volunteer movement behind it, DH does. I know the LANs does at least.
I mean free HD stream, only 450 spectators at 15$ each, barely any commercials and this top notch production...it shouldn't be possible - but is thanks to an army of unknown heroes behind the scene.
Yeah this was the most engrossing 6 or 7 hours I've had in a while. From 2GD to Demuslim to the crowd, to the technical backstage guys etc etc. Everything was awesome and I'm very impressed. Swedish SC2 fans should be proud they have DH because it was definitely the most fun I've had with a stream in many months.
I was there, this was so fucking awesome. loved everything, huge cred to 2GD! The atmosphere was truly incredible. Thanks for an amazing event, I feel anxious that it's over..
This was by far the greatest tournament I've watched, still it's easier doing an event in such a small scale. Great job however
Cant believe so few have heard of 2gd, he's a great entertainer, able to commentate basicly anygame (quake, bloodline champions, cs, wow, sc) I guess not so many people are into simply esports, but rather focus on one game(in this case starcraft 2)
On April 13 2011 05:59 Longshank wrote: One important thing to point out when comparing DH to MLG is that they are completely different types of organizations. Of course it easier to run a 8 player invitational than a big ass open tournament but there was so many things in this production that was irrelevant of that, like the interviews and such. My point is that MLG is a financially driven company which tries/is forced to cut corners wherever it can while DH is in it's core ran by volunteers. As someone said, it's fans doing it for fans. This event and at this quality would have been impossible if everyone involved would have been on a regular salary. MLG to my knowledge doesn't have a huge volunteer movement behind it, DH does. I know the LANs does at least.
I mean free HD stream, only 450 spectators at 15$ each, barely any commercials and this top notch production...it shouldn't be possible - but is thanks to an army of unknown heroes behind the scene.
Yes, I would not expect the exact same quality for the big tournament, but I am hoping it will be somewhat comparable.
I know the regular Dreamhacks are very heavily relying on volunteers, but was this one also this community driven? In that case, even more props to Dreamhack and the people behind it. Thank you.
Fantastic tournament. Very good production, good casters and 2GD owning it up with his brilliant humor and interviews. Amazing crowd,no delays, no lag. This is what every event should be like!
On April 13 2011 05:59 Longshank wrote: One important thing to point out when comparing DH to MLG is that they are completely different types of organizations. Of course it easier to run a 8 player invitational than a big ass open tournament but there was so many things in this production that was irrelevant of that, like the interviews and such. My point is that MLG is a financially driven company which tries/is forced to cut corners wherever it can while DH is in it's core ran by volunteers. As someone said, it's fans doing it for fans. This event and at this quality would have been impossible if everyone involved would have been on a regular salary. MLG to my knowledge doesn't have a huge volunteer movement behind it, DH does. I know the LANs does at least.
I mean free HD stream, only 450 spectators at 15$ each, barely any commercials and this top notch production...it shouldn't be possible - but is thanks to an army of unknown heroes behind the scene.
Yes, I would not expect the exact same quality for the big tournament, but I am hoping it will be somewhat comparable.
I know the regular Dreamhacks are very heavily relying on volunteers, but was this one also this community driven? In that case, even more props to Dreamhack and the people behind it. Thank you.
I don't think this was volunteer driven at all. They use them for their 11k people LAN, not for their 8-man invitational.
I was sitting on a vent server with 8 or so friends who were totally gripped by the action and production values of this event. Thanks for organising an event like this, i will keep following future events and in my next pc related purchase il support the companys who supported dreamhack.
On April 13 2011 05:59 Longshank wrote: One important thing to point out when comparing DH to MLG is that they are completely different types of organizations. Of course it easier to run a 8 player invitational than a big ass open tournament but there was so many things in this production that was irrelevant of that, like the interviews and such. My point is that MLG is a financially driven company which tries/is forced to cut corners wherever it can while DH is in it's core ran by volunteers. As someone said, it's fans doing it for fans. This event and at this quality would have been impossible if everyone involved would have been on a regular salary. MLG to my knowledge doesn't have a huge volunteer movement behind it, DH does. I know the LANs does at least.
I mean free HD stream, only 450 spectators at 15$ each, barely any commercials and this top notch production...it shouldn't be possible - but is thanks to an army of unknown heroes behind the scene.
Yes, I would not expect the exact same quality for the big tournament, but I am hoping it will be somewhat comparable.
I know the regular Dreamhacks are very heavily relying on volunteers, but was this one also this community driven? In that case, even more props to Dreamhack and the people behind it. Thank you.
I really don't know, DH is a professional organization - but is known to be backed by volunteers and esport/gaming fans. I can only assume that's how they were able to do this.
Alternatively they could have seen this event as an advert for their other projects like the LANs and didn't make a direct profit out of it. No idea.
Probably never been more proud of being a swede tbh. This was the best thing I have ever witnessed in sc2(I know I'm swedish and probably biased, but common, THIS is proffessionalism for you)
Makes me wonder why there isn't a Swedish StarLeague already? With the huge coverage this got from mainstream media it made me feel like I was living in Korea for a day, and I'm not even in Stockholm.
HUGE thanks to all the people involved in this! Please make a league now!!!
Anyone know if the whole 8 hours or whatever will be available to watch in one big VoD? I want to watch the whole thing whenever I get some free time. I don't want to just click on Vod for next matches, interviews etc and miss possible fun stage stuff from this 2GD that everyone is enjoying.
Or maybe make a page with every bit of content possible from this so I don't have to go back and forth finding stuffz.
sad working panda ='(
nice to hear it was a so good though, gj dreamhacks!
It was an amazing tournament , good job Dreamhack ! I think we're always here on the forum to complain when something goes wrong ( stream , delays , casters etc.) but this time everything was perfect. Thanks a lot ,looking forward Dreamhack summer!
I don't know about the stream quality because i was there, however i must say that they treated the audience Very Very Very well. There were free coca colas everywhere and they had "fan meetings" with all the player where you could get stuff signed and they even had computers set up for people wanting to play some. Also they had a snack shop with reasonable prices. All and All just a great event:D
Actually I experienced tons of lag in the stream, I think the Justin.tv just have bad streaming when it comes to the thousnds views. When i`m watching TSL the stream is fine in the higher P.
I was there at the tournament it was such a great experience.
It was the first tournament I've even been to live, and it really made me want to go to more live events in the future.
The crowd was great! I was at the event around 20 minutes before the ''event started'' and the line was already very long I'd say at the very least a 100 fans. I also was abit surprised to see that i was one of the youngest guys at the event with my 18 years. I'd say the average person to be around 20-25 years old ^^.
Anyway all the people i talked to seemed great, and i never had to feel ''lonely'' in anyway even though i went there alone.
And the event!! Saying it was awesome doesn't quite cut it. 8 great players, a casting duo that did a good job, way better then i first expected, and the host 2gd was great! He had such good humor, and he timed it just right.
And back to the games, they we're alot of really awesome ones.
Morrow Vs MC - Good games, really entertaining since Morrow managed to win a game making the series much closer than the last one they had ^^. Alot of support for Morrow from the crowd after the 2nd game ^^.
Idra Vs TLO. First game was really funny with TLO going with such a wacky build. I mean 7 RAX! xd. And then he managed to win with it (With some luck tho, i thought he was doomed after the 1st attack, guess most ppl did including IdrA ) And IdrA seemed really baffled when he got to hear that TLO had 4rax. Quoting IdrA, ''Can you even have that many!?''.
IdrA took the other two games convincingly tho, the last game it kinda felt like it was IdrA's from start to finish.
One thing was unfortunate was that the autograph signing with Jinro/HuK/SjoW/WhiteRa was at the same time as the matches. And then the other way around when they played themselves, but i guess they did it like that to make sure the tourney didn't go on to late into the night.
The HuK vs SjoW matches were good, even though i felt like HuK played much worse than he is capable of, still SjoW did some great micro. Who can forget his hero Banshee with 32 kills?
Awesome that 3 of the games went 2-1, really entertaining. (More matches ftw ^^)
Then WhiteRa managed to do the 1st 2-0 against Jinro which really made me sad, since i was hoping for Jinro to win it all xd, but then again WhiteRa is such a nice guy, he really deserved his wins playing so solid. I felt Jinro played good, especially in the 2nd game. But WhiteRa was just one step over him those games.
Then the quarter finals both went 2-0. The first IdrA vs MC game was entertaining, especially since we saw two comebacks, first from IdrA and then from MC. The only problem was that their was no sound in the first match, still they did the right thing by letting the match run on and it was still okay watching it without sound, we still had commentary . And then they fixed it pretty fast b4 the 2nd game. The 2nd game wasn't that fun though since IdrA basically threw it away, if he went for a 6 pool why didn't he bring his drones?
The seconds quarter was entertaining even though i really felt WhiteRa was the better player. In the first game it looked like SjoW could come back but then WhiteRa just walked right over him. The 2nd game was kinda interesting with SjoW going Banshees/Viking into BC's but i still never really though he could win.
Man when WhiteRa talked to 2gd b4 the finals i understood why so many people are calling him the nicest guy ever. I can't recall the exact words, but he basically said. ''I don't care about the money, i just want good games and entertain my fans''. Such a nice guy :D.
The finals we're pretty good for being a PvP ^^. Man when WhiteRa stood with 2-0 i was so happy, really hoping he could close it.
But when MC came back 3-2 was kinda disappointing, especially since the last game was so short. Still i guess it was smart play from MC.
Overall it was a really great tourney, really enjoyed it. The crowd was awesome, Even MC acknowledge this ^^. I can easily recommend this tourney if they have one again someday
On April 13 2011 06:24 OOAK wrote: Actually I experienced tons of lag in the stream, I think the Justin.tv just have bad streaming when it comes to the thousnds views. When i`m watching TSL the stream is fine in the higher P.
The aftonbladet stream was only swedish between the games, did you try it?
On April 13 2011 06:24 OOAK wrote: Actually I experienced tons of lag in the stream, I think the Justin.tv just have bad streaming when it comes to the thousnds views. When i`m watching TSL the stream is fine in the higher P.
Watching from europe? Justin.tv in europe is often a hell hole sadly, the second stream from aftonbladet.se was flawless.
On April 13 2011 06:24 OOAK wrote: Actually I experienced tons of lag in the stream, I think the Justin.tv just have bad streaming when it comes to the thousnds views. When i`m watching TSL the stream is fine in the higher P.
It was quite unfortunate that Team Liquid didn't add Aftonbladets HQ and LQ stream to the list. They ran perfectly the entire event. Justin stuttered and crashed a few times(not a BIG deal) for me and I'm in Sweden at 100/100mb, so it was definitely j.tv having issues.
James '2GD' Harding was great. He sounds a lot like day9's posh person impersonation. But that's not a bad thing. As far as the casters go tastosis are better, but that doesn't mean that they were bad; quite the contrary. I'm not really statisfied with justintv, it lags even on SD(i'm from central EU). Maybe they only have servers in the US?
Jtv was bad for me in the netherlands today, i guess to many watching the stream. But that also show the brilliance imo of dh, they had 2streams. I switched to aftonbladet one and it.was flawless!
On April 13 2011 06:36 Mithriel wrote: Jtv was bad for me in the netherlands today, i guess to many watching the stream. But that also show the brilliance imo of dh, they had 2streams. I switched to aftonbladet one and it.was flawless!
Crazy thing, having back up when the internet is involved.
It was such an amazing event! Perfect in every way. The Dreamhack guys really know how to host a tournament that's for sure.
Free stream with higher quality than MLG's $10 "HQ", everything on time, showed all games.. amazing casting and host, amazing production.. It was, well, perfect like I said.
Really raised the bar before tonight's NASL launch.
This was thoroughly run, nicely streamed, good matches and shows the esports community in stockholm and I was very impressed with how everything was smooth and even completely free(though it would be hard to justify having to pay for HD with justin.tv), and dreamhack deserves all the praise they can get for this. Why others aren't using justin.tv I dont know but it seems like a perfect idea
ps.I know TSL is using Ustream which is just as good(except for the small inconvenience of having a forced resolution)
Initially, I was concerned with their Bo3 Format, but as a result, we got to see all games from all players (in a digestible format - that did not end up being too draggy).
Unbelievably good tournament.. I'm amazed we get something like this in 2011, and I really hope all other tournaments take a long hard look at this and try to improve..
dreamhack was amazing only one thing could have made it better and without spoiling for anyone I think everyone that saw the event know what I'm talking about
Best day ever!!! More events like this please! :DD Must've drank like 4 liters of free coke zero so probably not going to be able to sleep for a while, LOL.
I remember 2GD back in ESL when he used to cast CS 1.6 with ESL-Joe, they were the perfect caster duo and both of them were hilarious, just like 2GD was today. I really wish to see 2GD more involved with the SC2 community after this, it would make the standard so much better and nothing bad can come out of that if we want esport/Sc2 to get more attention in the west. Also cool to see Aftonbladet reporting live on their frontpage and that got many people intrested, even if there is these typical haters calling us (the fan/community/we) and the players geeks and nerds they got shut down quickly. I hope to see more of this kind of stuff for sure.
Also good job with the casting and the entertainment, 3 brits on stage can't go wrong I guess... :D
On April 13 2011 06:24 OOAK wrote: Actually I experienced tons of lag in the stream, I think the Justin.tv just have bad streaming when it comes to the thousnds views. When i`m watching TSL the stream is fine in the higher P.
The aftonbladet stream was only swedish between the games, did you try it?
On April 13 2011 06:24 OOAK wrote: Actually I experienced tons of lag in the stream, I think the Justin.tv just have bad streaming when it comes to the thousnds views. When i`m watching TSL the stream is fine in the higher P.
Watching from europe? Justin.tv in europe is often a hell hole sadly, the second stream from aftonbladet.se was flawless.
ps. tsl stream with ustream, not justin.
Israel. I kniw the TSL is in ustream and I noticed that they stream pretty good all around, while I started watched players stream in justin tv and it keeps laggin.
Demuslim is actually good, I'm really surprise since he isn't familiar with the new maps . I think its the accent lol This is the difference between him and Kelly from Code A
On April 13 2011 04:58 Buffy wrote: This was the absolute best tournament I've ever seen. Simply from start to finish the 6-7 hours I've seen of it. I want more, more of this absolute awesomness.
Way to go DH!
#2
Best tournament ever.
I would trade more of this for the GSL or anything else any day whiteout a second of doubt.
Hell, i even think the casters were better than tastosis and by miles better than day9 + sidekick.
While I was watching the stream I was thinking to myself how great the production was, I'm glad lots of other people appreciated it as well! Really nicely put together, great studio great presentation.
One of the things that REALLY sold this tournament to me was the crowd, being able to hear them, not as a distant background noise when asked to cheer, like at MLG, but with microphones pointed at them and to hear the clapping and the cheers/sighs when dropships died etc made it so much more entertaining. I hope other tournaments pick up on this idea.
Also another shoutout to 2GD, what an awesome host.
I don't think it's fair to compare the GSL to dreamhack. For one, Dream Hack is an english driven production while GSL is a korean production with tastosis and then a few translators. Of course you're going to enjoy the dominated English production. Also, the layout of each is totally different. GSL is a slow build up while DreamHack is a one day tournament similar to MLG, so you watch it like a very LONG movie.
It was quite a show-off in good production and a very entertaining day well spent. I can't help but think that their mindset going into this was something like, instead of having the biggest tournament possible we make it small and simple, and then we produce the hell out of it.
They didn't do anything out of the ordinary, nothing really super fancy or revolutionary but they did it spot on and with very good sence of detail, getting everything just right. A few problems occured, Justin.tv lagged out for me early on before I switched to aftonbladdet for awhile. I switched back to Justin soon after though and it went smooth from then. Sound was off for a match but thats the kind of unforseen technicalities that you inevitebly run into at some point, and it was easily fixed.
Overall it was a very enjoyable experience and I hope that other tournaments like IEM and MLG will take note of all the things that went just right at Dreamhack.
On April 13 2011 07:10 Sporadic44 wrote: great show, great tournament. first time i've watched a lan event and felt like the crowd was really into the game.
Man the finals were awesome. People both cheering, standing up AND hammering their feet really shook the whole tournament arena.
I really dont think its fair to compare this DH invitational tournament to the others. It was an 8 player invitational of some of the best players in the world and in my opinion there would be no excuse to not have a great production. I gotta say that the tournament was incredible to watch and very entertaining, especially Mr "2gd" Harding and I'd love to see more of him, but I expected nothing less than what was delivered.
When people were shitting on MLG in the LR thread and comparing the tournaments I found it kinda silly considering the huge differences and the potential difficulties that might occur in the different tournaments are not even comparable. We get it, MLG did a lot of things wrong, but I am fairly sure that they could put up a similar show for an 8 player invitational tournament with the amount of preparations that DH had for theirs.
If they can deliver the same quality in the big summer tournament then I think its fair to compare the tournaments in the poll, but for now I think the GS(T)L has by far the best production if you consider the size of the tournaments.
On April 13 2011 07:14 Torumfroll wrote: I really dont think its fair to compare this DH invitational tournament to the others. It was an 8 player invitational of some of the best players in the world and in my opinion there would be no excuse to not have a great production. I gotta say that the tournament was incredible to watch and very entertaining, especially Mr "2gd" Harding and I'd love to see more of him, but I expected nothing less than what was delivered.
When people were shitting on MLG in the LR thread and comparing the tournaments I found it kinda silly considering the huge differences and the potential difficulties that might occur in the different tournaments are not even comparable. We get it, MLG did a lot of things wrong, but I am fairly sure that they could put up a similar show for an 8 player invitational tournament with the amount of preparations that DH had for theirs.
If they can deliver the same quality in the big summer tournament then I think its fair to compare the tournaments in the poll, but for now I think the GS(T)L has by far the best production if you consider the size of the tournaments.
The big summer tournament has been going on for several years now. Last year they had 10k + people playing together and they were streaming no problem. Production and punctuality was good too.
I extremely enjoyed the stream. Very cool matches overall, with the finals being truely epic... which is even more surprising considering the matchup.. More like this please! :D
The event was perfect, although justin.tv lagged a lot for me, but the second stream was ok. Also although both casters were very good, DeMuslim is now officially my favourite caster along with Day and Tastosis. I thought so already after Kiev, but this just makes it clear. And as after Kiev I would love to see DeMuslim/Day cast of some event.
love these captions under the players when they say stuff like that. really cracked me up when i saw that ;D james 2GD is such a great personality to have casting or involved in your games.
Big thx. Just got home from the event myself and i hope that you guys that watched the stream got atleast 10% of the awesome atmosphere that we who where there felt. Props to DHI for the best 1-day event i e-sports history so far that i know of.
When White-Ra won the second game in the finals i thought the roof was going to fall down. Even if the booths was 100% soundproof (witch i doubt) even a deaf man could hear the feet stomping and people going nuts all over the place.
I cant say in words how much i liked this event. And big props to the crowd who cheered for all players even if the home favorites got beat. Super well mannered ppl all around.
It was awesome. Freaking awesome. If NASL is half as good (and i bet it will) its a success.
On April 13 2011 07:23 BasedSwag wrote: I hope Dreamhack doesn't steal 2GD from Quake and have him host everything this summer, Joe and 2GD are like the Tastosis of Quake casting.
It ain't quake if it ain't quake world! (nerd pride)
On April 13 2011 07:29 DancingAlfred wrote: Big thx. Just got home from the event myself and i hope that you guys that watched the stream got atleast 10% of the awesome atmosphere that we who where there felt. Props to DHI for the best 1-day event i e-sports history so far that i know of.
When White-Ra won the second game in the finals i thought the roof was going to fall down. Even if the booths was 100% soundproof (witch i doubt) even a deaf man could hear the feet stomping and people going nuts all over the place.
I cant say in words how much i liked this event. And big props to the crowd who cheered for all players even if the home favorites got beat. Super well mannered ppl all around.
It was awesome. Freaking awesome. If NASL is half as good (and i bet it will) its a success.
This! Just got home from the event and it was amazing!
On April 13 2011 07:23 BasedSwag wrote: I hope Dreamhack doesn't steal 2GD from Quake and have him host everything this summer, Joe and 2GD are like the Tastosis of Quake casting.
2GD doesn't host any Quake tourneys anymore, at least not for IEM.
I have nothing but praise for dreamhack and their invitational they put on today. It was perfect in any which way. There was no down time, the problems they had got resolved quickly and most importantly of all it was all very entertaining. Heck even the ads were watchable :D
I dont think the poll is fair though since this is a one day event and as such the potential for problems occuring is much smaller than in other tourneys that go on for days. With that said though they've raised the bar for most other events in regards to production value and filling dead air time, even if it's just showing nerdy videos(scv song!! :D).
I just want to mention that Apollo and Demuslim make a great casting duo. The chemistry between them as well as their sense of humor make for some really entertaining casting, something that we don't see with people like Doa or Kelly casting at GSL.
On April 13 2011 07:42 Jacuzzi wrote: I just want to mention that Apollo and Demuslim make a great casting duo. The chemistry between them as well as their sense of humor make for some really entertaining casting, something that we don't see with people like Doa or Kelly casting at GSL.
Yeah, their chemistry was pretty decent. It might be the fact that they share a nationality. This simple fact often makes it easier to relate to someone and get in the same "rhythm".
I agree with pretty much everything the OP said. Unfortunately I missed the first round so I won't vote on whether it was better than the GSL, but I was impressed with every aspect of the tournament from an organizational standpoint. Hard to believe GSL and Dreamhack can be so far on the other side of the spectrum from IEM and MLG, but it's true. I don't know what 2GD does for a living or what his role in e-sports is, but we need more of him at SC2 tournaments.
Gotta chip in and say I was really amazed with this tournament's production value. I was planning to sit at my computer and do some programming and just half watching it...the day is over and I did not get a single bit of programming done (darn you!! ).
Alot of the things they did right is the small details you do not notice unless they fail. I did not feel like it was any delay between the matches, alternative streaming, quick response if anything happened, sound from the audience, hosting.
On April 13 2011 07:45 red4ce wrote: I agree with pretty much everything the OP said. Unfortunately I missed the first round so I won't vote on whether it was better than the GSL, but I was impressed with every aspect of the tournament from an organizational standpoint. Hard to believe GSL and Dreamhack can be so far on the other side of the spectrum from IEM and MLG, but it's true. I don't know what 2GD does for a living or what his role in e-sports is, but we need more of him at SC2 tournaments.
He's working for Stunlock Studios(Bloodline Champions) as their esport manager. Not sure if that's a full time job though.
On April 13 2011 07:45 red4ce wrote: I agree with pretty much everything the OP said. Unfortunately I missed the first round so I won't vote on whether it was better than the GSL, but I was impressed with every aspect of the tournament from an organizational standpoint. Hard to believe GSL and Dreamhack can be so far on the other side of the spectrum from IEM and MLG, but it's true. I don't know what 2GD does for a living or what his role in e-sports is, but we need more of him at SC2 tournaments.
lol how can u even compere MGL to IEM. IEM might have some flaws (its still damn good tourney) but its miles ahead of mlg
I missed the first two games of the event , I arrived when huk was playing. (as in being there in person) But yeah the production value, the host, the casters, the crowd and the level of the games, god it was sooo amazing!! In my eyes it could not have been better!! I am really looking forward to dreamhack summer now!
I was there and the production was spot on and the audience was awesome. I might be slightly deaf and loosing my voice, but I'm loving it. Don't know if it came across on stream but the audience was *SO* loud and everyone was in an awesome mood.
On April 13 2011 04:58 Buffy wrote: This was the absolute best tournament I've ever seen. Simply from start to finish the 6-7 hours I've seen of it. I want more, more of this absolute awesomness.
Way to go DH!
#2
Best tournament ever.
I would trade more of this for the GSL or anything else any day whiteout a second of doubt.
Hell, i even think the casters were better than tastosis and by miles better than day9 + sidekick.
at first i was about to be shocked but your actually pretty much right. if tasteless didint plug twitter and their sponsors every 5minutes i think tastosis would be better, but in many ways i would rather listen to demuslim/apollos less insightful commentary without being bothered by the casters plugging in such an annoying way. id agree they were easily as insightful as any combo without artosis and great overall casters. very clear voices and they make the audience feel the excitement of the games.
thinking for a sec i realised i never minded tasteless plugging handsomenerd for years but the twitter plugging makes me want to mute it every time. it basically lasts too long when they plug, it should take like 5 seconds and be completely done, they can talk about twitter for like 60-80 seconds. i dont mind goms sponsors that much either but when they cant even remember them it takes too long also.
On April 13 2011 07:55 svperstar wrote: Such an awesome event.
I was there and the production was spot on and the audience was awesome. I might be slightly deaf and loosing my voice I'm loving it. Don't know if it came across on stream but the audience was *SO* loud and everyone was in an awesome mood.
Mm, I didn't think it would be THAT loud. Didn't bring any way to protect my ears. My right ear feels kind of strange (I sat on the left side the entire event).
A great experience, having it all after each other with just enough time between to stretch, get something to eat and then it was on. That is something I like compared to the multi day events (like dreamhack winter was) where you have lunch breaks, dinner breaks, sleep breaks. Which means you have a boring time in each of those breaks.
Just keeping it rolling made the experience much better than if they had splitt it up. It made it so the earlier games built up the tension for the later games without having to hype it.
wow that host 2GD is really really good liked the whole style of the show it feels like a glimpse of the future of what I really want to see out of esports.
MC didn't dominate as much as people say he did hes probably one of the best koreans to play in these ternoments other then boxer
This is by far the best event I've ever experienced (Dreamhack) and I really look forward to future arrangements like this. Sure, I'm Swedish so I'm quite biased but it's still very smoothly done with everything from stream quality to awesome commercials!
Really enjoying this tournament, the host and commentators have been really good and the production top notch. Even down to the overlay guy with a sense of humor instantly reacting to whitera's comment. "he cares" lol. All add up to make an awesome showcase for e-sports and how fun it is to watch.
Omg, imagine if he didnt get sick. It couldn't get more epic then it was so my guess is that the world would have imploded. Ill leave the math up to you guys but it seems like a possibility.
So if Boxer comes to DH summer the world will end. But oh what a sweet end it will be!
I have to 100% agree to the OP. It was a great tournament with really nothing to complain about. The casters, interviews, stream quality overall.. it was really, really awesome.
Also thumbs up for the "whitera - he cares" thing, that was so damn cool.
Honestly, the only tournament that has ever, ever, ever held the scheduled times. I really want to give Dreamhack a big round of applause for this. I've watched countless of different e-sport tournaments and this one was definitely the best.
Criticism I have is that the overlay of the advertisements were pretty big, filled up a lot of screen space, but meh, real 720p for free... Complaining about slightly too big advertisements would be stupid. Also a dedicated observer would be cool.
9.5/10 is what I'd give Dreamhack for this tournament.
Oh wow those 2GD and Zalmah videos, they are amazing!
He was hilarious today, but I like him even more now He's got a Facebook fan page also
I think I've commented already in this thread, but I just realised that due to the miracle of Justin.tv I can watch the VOD's already and got to watch the first rounds of the tournament that I missed, within 6 hours of them being played (!). And they were just as good as the rest. Really a new benchmark for SC2 events. Just such a wonderful atmosphere.
For me too, this was the best sc2 tournament so far in terms of production/stream issues/entertainment. I still do think tasteosis cannot be beat by anyone else though, I dont care if they talk about twitter 30% of the time they are just a great time to watch.
I loved how one time during the stream 2GD made fun of someone complaining about lag on the stream it was hilarious.
I also loved how inbetween games they had great commercials for other games and interesting commercials/ music filler. "final countdown" played before the finals it was epic. They were very fresh commercials compared to the lame ones on the MLG stream.
Hi, I just got home (an hour or so maybe) from the event.
I must say it was AMAZINGLY well structured. Huge shoutouts to whoever planned this, and I feel bad for all of you who couldnt attend Ill upload videos i shot from the audience perspective later.
i have to say that dreamhack was amazing, so damn well done.. and that 2GD was so on the spot, really entertaining dude, totaly love the interviews and shit. i hope we se more of him.^^
So many thumps up to the dream hack folks and the people there, was a blast to follow online with my girlfriend, and I'm so jealous of the people who could go there (I had to leave Stockholm Sunday).
One of the coolest things was that aftonposten supported the event. Sweden truly is something special with regards to E-sports
Dreamhack was really well done, production value, casting, stream quality. Everything made it feel very professional and in between games I wasn't as bored as with MLG (ugh). For one day it was excellent and I hope dreamhack continues to throw their support behind the SC2 community.
With that said GSTL continues to bring drama, excitement, upsets, great games and casting together like I have not seen elsewhere in SC2. There is a reason Proleague is so successful and I feel like if GOM continues doing GSTL it can grow into it's own version for SC2.
Seeing Boxer build another team of (relatively) unknown individuals has so far been the greatest feeling as a spectator and fan.
The crowd made this event. I wish GSL put mics in the crowd, because that adds so much to everything, it is insanely energetic. Every live event should have mics in the crowd, in fact, that cheap and that add so much.
I usually never ever watch through an entire tourny since I get quite bored after a while but Dreamhack was really something else. Great commentary, great hosts, amazing settings/productions, and very very funny interviews. I have to tune in to the whole dreamhack summer and winter event now and so wish i can go to sweden just for that.
What impressed me most was the picture/video quality of the stream itself. I don't think there's been a single other tourney that had such crisp clear picture. It seemed better than both GSL and TSL3.
I still prefer tastosis over all other casting combinations by a long shot, but d.Apollo and DeMuslim did well.
On April 13 2011 09:21 MrCon wrote: The crowd made this event. I wish GSL put mics in the crowd, because that adds so much to everything, it is insanely energetic. Every live event should have mics in the crowd, in fact, that cheap and that add so much.
Seeing as how I just got home from this event, firstly, thank you, and secondly, I do not believe there were additional mikes at the audience. I believe every sound you heard were picked up by the commentators mikes who sat right at the main stage before the audience. So yeah, we were all really hyped. ^^
I have nothing negative to say about this event, it was pure awesomeness. Props to all who made this event possible, you guys kick ass!
I must say this was the best sc2 tournament I have watched so far, the games were good, 2GD was awesome, I found Apollo's and DeMuslim's commentating to be amazing and the crowd made me want to be there. I hope Dreamhack Summer will be just like this tournament cos that was brilliant to watch!
We are working hard to address many of the issues stated in this thread, including booths. If you have any other suggestions on how we can improve the SC2 stream and experience please email me ben at mlgpro dot com.
On April 13 2011 10:17 MLGrben wrote: We are working hard to address many of the issues stated in this thread, including booths. If you have any other suggestions on how we can improve the SC2 stream and experience please email me ben at mlgpro dot com.
Ben,
I think this is awesome that this thread has attracted staff at MLG. I hope many of the complements that all of us have gave the DHI could serve as possible suggestions for future MLG events! I think the biggest thing that impressed me (besides the quality and stability of the stream) was the "personable" effect of the broadcasted venue. Not being crazy professional, not being crazy lax. I felt like the event was produced by "us", the community, not a corporation. The breaks in-between, the videos and songs really topped it for me... But the number one thing to focus on, is the players. Make sure they are happy and took care of. ie Booths (we know their coming), and making the players feel like they are at a massive event, not a lan party. We want a venue, not fold out tables <3. After that, focus on all of us. Take your projected numbers for stream viewers, and double it, and prepare for it.
Dreamhack was amazing. Slightly better than the IEM events, which are very good as well. Those two, I'd say, are the best Western SC2 events. From production, to casting, to line-ups, to after-game interviews, to viewer experience, etc.
We would like to thank you all for your kind words shown in this thread. This gives us great satisfaction and it only motivates us even more to keep up and even better the standards for our next event.
Yes, we do listen and we do read your feedback/opinions, because White-Ra is not the only one that cares. Someone mentioned that this was a production made "by fans for fans" and that was a spot-on assesment. Volunteers represented most of the guys behind the scenes and we couldn't thank them enough for all their passion, hard work and commitment that contributed to the overall success of this event. Same thing goes for the admins, visitors, sponsors, partners and, of course...YOU.
Once again, a huge thank you for your kind words from the production crew:
On April 13 2011 10:17 MLGrben wrote: We are working hard to address many of the issues stated in this thread, including booths. If you have any other suggestions on how we can improve the SC2 stream and experience please email me ben at mlgpro dot com.
One cool thing they did beside the booths, the noice canceling headphones the static cameras at close angles, the casting on stage, the interviews on a couch taking it easy after the game, having a host /MC to fill the audience in on details, showing games every so often, having a awesome editing team especially the guy fixing the overlay signs like "Winner?" for Jinro's interview, and "He cares" for White-Ra and whatever that brain thing was for MC.
One thing they did for players to not have to set up their settings and stuff was to actually move the whole computer with a player, if they were playing they put it into the booth and connected it up. and when they were done I assume they brought the computers out to the practice room they had set up for the players. I do know you don't have to go that far and if you can't just have hard drives that you can move with each player, onto which the game is installed and they have all their settings fixed and stuff so they don't have to think about settings thing up beyond plugging their stuff in and the hard drive You then need computers with identical set-up and settings. And then they can go straight into warm up.
On April 13 2011 12:45 dreamhackTV wrote: We would like to thank you all for your kind words shown in this thread. This gives us great satisfaction and it only motivates us even more to keep up and even better the standards for our next event.
Yes, we do listen and we do read your feedback/opinions, because White-Ra is not the only one that cares. Someone mentioned that this was a production made "by fans for fans" and that was a spot-on assesment. Volunteers represented most of the guys behind the scenes and we couldn't thank them enough for all their passion, hard work and commitment that contributed to the overall success of this event. Same thing goes for the admins, visitors, sponsors, partners and, of course...YOU.
Once again, a huge thank you for your kind words from the production crew:
It's Dreamhack baby! (c) Robert Ohlén Dreamhack CEO
Not only am I impressed to get a direct response by the man himself, I feel honored, as the rest of us do. This is just another sweet sprinkle on-top of an already sweet experience today. If your summer event is as good as this one, it will attract world attention by ALL Starcraft 2 players, and hopefully everyone else. A showing like the one your organization did today will set the eSport scene ablaze.
Thanks for your amazing event that will go down in history.
Wow dreamhack can do no wrong; their production values and seamless execution was a pleasure to watch and then the MAN HIMSELF - Dreamhack CEO posts in this thread; TL.net your reach is impressive..
Seriously though - dreamhack was unbelievable; excellent games and really well done; It's also nice to see the MLG guys taking note and reading through this thread to understand the issues that need to be addressed.
I loved Dreamhack Inv. Excellent production, great casters, interesting games and I have to agree the crowd was fantastic. DH and GOM are the best tournaments by far. I hope NASL and the new IGN tournament would be this good. I enjoyed it a lot. Congratulations!
I wholeheartedly agree with the OP. Dreamhack was INCREDIBLE. Truth be told, I actually like their stage set-up more than GSL's. Guess the Swedes' love of beautiful design bleeds into their e-sports presentations. IEM and MLG need to step up their game.
In the DHI thread (up to 480 pages, increasing about 5 pages every two minutes) I have noticed a lot of veiwers complaining about JTY (Justin.TV) lagging for them. I have watched from when the stream went live, and i have only had it lag for me for a total of maybe 1 minute streaming in 720p. Im not sure if the other stream is less intensive on your internet/computer, but i dont think it was a JTV issue. (which im on a 60MEG connection + Hexcore)
If I can watch 1080p streams on a number of other sites smoothly, while 480p stream on JTV lags horribly, then yes, it's JTV issue. If you personally didn't have any problems with a stream it doesn't change the fact that many european viewers couldn't watch it.
DreamHack at least had alternative stream in 1080p. NASL doesn't have one
On April 13 2011 12:45 dreamhackTV wrote: We would like to thank you all for your kind words shown in this thread. This gives us great satisfaction and it only motivates us even more to keep up and even better the standards for our next event.
Yes, we do listen and we do read your feedback/opinions, because White-Ra is not the only one that cares. Someone mentioned that this was a production made "by fans for fans" and that was a spot-on assesment. Volunteers represented most of the guys behind the scenes and we couldn't thank them enough for all their passion, hard work and commitment that contributed to the overall success of this event. Same thing goes for the admins, visitors, sponsors, partners and, of course...YOU.
Once again, a huge thank you for your kind words from the production crew:
Little things that made the event even better than I could have imagined:
Overlay: WhiteRa - He cares Immediately correcting misspelling of Crevasse 'Make some noise!' As soon as there was sound troubles, overlay would pop up 'Fixing sound asap' For Jinro - 'Winner?'
2gd poking fun at MLG, lag complaints, hilarious jokes, fixing awkward situations without a hitch (ie. translator nervousness) 2gd and the married couple routine, so cute WhiteRa WINKING OH MY GOD Starcraft music video parodies in between games Directly game related ads, not like hot pockets and dr pepper but more like GSL, BL:C, Radeon and other awesome ads KPOP!? The Final Countdown song before the finals Streamed from two excellent high quality sources Great audience + atmosphere
It was very funny from the audience as well; it seems WhiteRa orchestrated it himself with the camera person. They gave a hint he was live and WhiteRa went for it. Hilarious :D
I have same feeling .... i was i mean , i didn't read this THREAD before , i didn't know a lot of you think the same but i was OUT OF MIND , i was just spamming the IRCes "this is awsome" "this is epic"
Seriously , commentators , serious , know when to joke, no headset problems(tasteless!!!!), they NEVER talked about offtopic, they never talked about sponsor or ads, they just NEVER acted like they're in a bar or what, it was really placed and just it was so freaking good organizations , the sponsor ads were non-flashy and non annoying, slow paced videos (none of those mainstream crap "BUY NOW DEAL EXTRA 599 + TOOTHFLASH") with great music, and commentators didn't REPEAT stuff 10 times over and over again ... [ex: Artosis: "We're back tasteless , were back , ... we're back tasteless , we're back , we're back , okay tasteless , hey tastelees, we're back" Tasteless: "Sorry about that headset problems , sorry about , so so sorry in the 1set about those headset coming off , sorr so sor really sorry about that A LITTLE technicalities problems before, so sorry sory , really soorry about headsets, oh why are always my headsets, sorry em soor sory really about it oh so sooory we're really sorry oh " OKAY I GOT IT THE FIRST TIME! ]
It is fenomenal, it was all high-quality feel , my body is warm from it , the energy is just unexplainable, to se something great ! Thanks to SC2 , PCs will rise again!
Actually, GomTV ain't that bad except the crappy stream quality, they're just american-style, which is a matter of personal taste(and i actually only exposed personality examles which might not be fair,sry), so i give thoses guys a pass (they obviously love it however) , but they need to STOP mouthtalking when there is epic korean announcing going on !!! Even if i don't understand , I CAN'T LISTEN TO BOTH! SO whatever artosis flaps at that time i just ignore it.
Tourney was pretty good overall. I just hate some decissions that players did ingame etc. I am just wondering why is idrA did even try to 6pool MC since it is so easy to block? Was it just because he was frustrated about protoss overall and he just made stupid decissions in game 1? Still would've wanted see idrA do something flashier than 6pool.
Congratulations on the enourmity of your success. Get 2GD on for every even, he is as charming as he is entertaining, wonderful stuff from him, the whole production was so cozy that I wanted to go there myself, Nerds made this event such a success, keep up the community feeling DH, and you will dominate ;~)
On April 13 2011 12:45 dreamhackTV wrote: We would like to thank you all for your kind words shown in this thread. This gives us great satisfaction and it only motivates us even more to keep up and even better the standards for our next event.
Yes, we do listen and we do read your feedback/opinions, because White-Ra is not the only one that cares. Someone mentioned that this was a production made "by fans for fans" and that was a spot-on assesment. Volunteers represented most of the guys behind the scenes and we couldn't thank them enough for all their passion, hard work and commitment that contributed to the overall success of this event. Same thing goes for the admins, visitors, sponsors, partners and, of course...YOU.
Once again, a huge thank you for your kind words from the production crew:
It's Dreamhack baby! (c) Robert Ohlén Dreamhack CEO
That is absolutely 100% why DHI was so effing amazing and it's the biggest problem I see with MLG. When Sundance was on State of the Game a while back I got the impression that he really doesn't give a shit about SC2. He just picked it up with his event so he could make money off it with a half-assed tournament that people would tune in for regardless of production quality. I really, REALLY hope that the folks at MLG step up their game and take a lesson from this amazing tournament we all witnessed today.
Dreamhack on the other hand, don't change a thing.
Yeah I really did enjoy this dream hack cast. good production and stream,nice casting and an awesome crowd too. I love theyway they were reacting to every single move in the game. And what was really nice was they were keeping quiet at one point in the last match in the finals..thinking the players might hear the cheers, was quite cute. And then a message pops up on the stream saying "Noize? Yes please", implying the booth was sound proof, and the crowd started cheering.
And loved the "white-ra cares" message at the bottom during his interview lol. Cool fighting poses before the match, and some players looking goofy added to the comic effect :D. Overall a well done cast good job guys!
Dreamhack is only better than gsl because there is a lively crowd so it doesnt feel like a ghost town, and the MC/interviewer WAS AWESOME. He needs to be EVERYWHERE.
As already mentioned - same as in your standard ladder game, it's the little things that matter. White Ra cares, MC's "good brain/train", the setup for the interviews after the game (YES, finally someone figured that it might make a good impression if you put something there where the people could sit), the message-box on the right with the random puns. Also the event was sometimes even ahead of schedule, something I wouldn't have believed to be even possible in the world of esports.
I still think the GSL is better overall, but Dreamhack did one heck of a job with the budget they had.
Dreamhack's justin.tv stream was too choppy, and while the commentary was good in a technical sense, it didn't have the chemistry or friendly banter of Tastosis. The cameras were a bit off as well; the player camera was much too dark. The sponsor "square" on the right side of the screen was too intrusive as well.
Also, do people not notice the video montages that GOM produces on a daily basis? It must be very difficult to do that with only a 1-2 day notice. It's all the surrounding things that make a casual viewer want to view live SC2 as an e-sport. TSL is okay but it still feels like two people casting a replay.
Nice after we had such a tough time on the MLG Dallas as a viewer, to see how an event actually can be runned..
Specially I wanna give thanks for the cool interviews.. With having the players just get right out of their booth and directly into an interview... Man, what a great idea! It made the whole event feel so comfortable, not only for viewers, but for players aswell.. Having couch interviews is pretty awesome man
Anyways, I hope alot of organizations learn from this.. DHI is most definetly the most succesful finished event so fare in 2011, without a doubt in my mind!
I think this is the first esports event I've watched where I actually thought to myself "wow I'd really want to be there". The atmospehere seemed great! Packed passionate crowd in not too big of a room so the noise had much more impact. It was like you're in a movie theater. Couches on the stage for interviews, chill MC and commentators who weren't afraid of interacting with the crowd and cursing here and there. Just looked very comfortable and laid back, really liked it!
ye this tournament was so SMOOTH, problems fixed immediately, AWESOME commentary, stream quality and stability (FOR FREE!!!), you really cant ask for me. Only thing i didnt like was the fact that 100% of prize money went to the winner which is very cruel and i think every player can tell you they prefer spliting the prize money, especially with only 8 players attending
On April 13 2011 05:10 On_Slaught wrote: While I enjoyed watching this tourny, it is very unfair to compare it to massive endeavours like TSL, MLG, GSL, IEM etc. This tourny looked great for a few reasons:
1. The entire thing happened over the course of a few hours.
2. All of the players are top level. It's as if we skipped all the preliminary stuff in other tournies and jumped straight to the ro8.
3. Awesome crowd made everything more exciting.
Yes it seemed awesome, but objectively there is nothing that makes this tourny better than any others. 2nd place doesn't get anything... that is just bad imo. Yes the casting was fine, but it wasn't stellar. The obvs was almost "bad." I think a lot of people are looking at this with rose-colored glasses because they enjoyed the games and drama.
You know that the main purpose of this event was to check the production live. We can clearly see increase of production value this year. Coin toss tournament was rather good but still had some hick ups production wise that were hammered down with this invitational. Oh and also about "massive" endeavours like MLG and IEM or even TSL... Dreamhack main tournaments have more players that all those combined and they dont have to wait for a free PC to play their matches like in certain MLG this year.
Still i hope that for Summer and Winter tournaments DH Crew would copy some of the IEM ideas like contracted off-site streamers streaming the games that arent played on SC2 main stage. I heard there was 3 streams to chose from this time but i hope they will have at least 4-5 english streams for the main events. Of course the main stream getting the best games and some stream admin coordinating other stream's matches.
I'm not really interested in attending regular LANs like the regular Dreamhack events, but now, the day after this amazing event, I feel like I want to go just to watch the SC2 tournament.
On April 13 2011 18:38 vrok wrote: I'm not really interested in attending regular LANs like the regular Dreamhack events, but now, the day after this amazing event, I feel like I want to go just to watch the SC2 tournament.
That's what I did last winter dreamhack, just went to watch sc2 and day9 though I'm from Netherlands its amazing, loved it.
The only thing I would like to suggest that was done differently is that the prize money was distributed more fairly between the players in first and second place, possibly second place getting 25% of the total prize amount? Yes, only getting paid if you win the entire thing does make it very intense finals but I felt so bad for WhiteRa in the end.
Even though WhiteRa said he didn't care about the money and all he wanted was the community support I felt after such a stunning run through the brackets he deserved and actually being able to put MinChul up against the fence some sort of compensation for his efforts would have been nice.
Also a play off for third / fourth place wouldn't go amiss and maybe a little incentive for coming third as well? I dunno maybe I am asking too much for such a small invitational here. ^^
On April 13 2011 18:31 yousaba wrote: For those of your praising the dreamhack CEO, please know that he is generally considered bad for dreamhack by the swedish fans.
I recommend you to read this article written about the "war of the throne" in the dreamhack management.
i really loved the fact that after a game the players would get on the couch in this "talkshow" setting with 2GD. Really great way for an interview, just because its so much less awkward as with GSL.. what i would like even more if they would let these interviews last longer, or have an evaluation with like 2GD as host and 2 pros, just analyzing what happened that game. (similair to what they do after a football match) imo that would be a good way to make this even better because dear god they sure nailed it this time
On April 13 2011 18:31 yousaba wrote: For those of your praising the dreamhack CEO, please know that he is generally considered bad for dreamhack by the swedish fans.
I recommend you to read this article written about the "war of the throne" in the dreamhack management.
Wonderful tournament, good casters though dapollo's observing was kind of shaky, 2GD was an amazing host, great players, and terrific production quality. I will definitely tune in to more events in the future!
I was there and i can tell you that the crowd was even louder than the vods show. The atmosphere was amazing and the whole event was flawless! I was blown away by how good dreamhack had organized the whole thing. My best sc2 experience so far
For anyone that was there during the event and sitting close enough to the top where the control room was, it was me (Max) and Marcus sitting there inside the booth handling all the production for the livestream and what was going on inside the actual venue. It was our first time ever attempting something like this so things got quite hectic from time to time and people at the top row seats could probably hear us shouting stuff frantically like "film the audience!" or "we need close up of player one!" all the time.
I was in charge of the overlay and video production (SC2 UI, Names, graphics, films, trailers) and Marcus was the camera director, making sure we had plenty of good angles to film from and directing the ground-crew back and forth.
We've been reading through ALL the comments and we'd like to say how heart warming it is to see such support and love for our work. We didn't have much training, and almost no knowledge in broadcast production, but we managed alright and we only had some minor hickups. Unfortunately for some people the stream wasn't optimal at all times (lag, sound glitches etc) but they seem to have been localized to certain areas of Europe and the Americas and as you probably already understand that was beyond our reach.
Right now it's all hands on deck for DreamHack Summer 2011 during the 18-21st of June and we're going to bring the same A-game there too!
From Max (Mulleboy) and Marcus (Lindmark) and everyone at DreamHack, one huge virtual high-five!
I realize that it may be much easier to set up than MLG seeing as there were only 8 players, but as far as the stream quality goes, compared to MLG... lol.
]On April 14 2011 08:17 Mulleboy wrote: Hey everyone, Mulleboy from DreamHack here.
For anyone that was there during the event and sitting close enough to the top where the control room was, it was me (Max) and Marcus sitting there inside the booth handling all the production for the livestream and what was going on inside the actual venue. It was our first time ever attempting something like this so things got quite hectic from time to time and people at the top row seats could probably hear us shouting stuff frantically like "film the audience!" or "we need close up of player one!" all the time.
I was in charge of the overlay and video production (SC2 UI, Names, graphics, films, trailers) and Marcus was the camera director, making sure we had plenty of good angles to film from and directing the ground-crew back and forth.
We've been reading through ALL the comments and we'd like to say how heart warming it is to see such support and love for our work. We didn't have much training, and almost no knowledge in broadcast production, but we managed alright and we only had some minor hickups. Unfortunately for some people the stream wasn't optimal at all times (lag, sound glitches etc) but they seem to have been localized to certain areas of Europe and the Americas and as you probably already understand that was beyond our reach.
Right now it's all hands on deck for DreamHack Summer 2011 during the 18-21st of June and we're going to bring the same A-game there too!
From Max (Mulleboy) and Marcus (Lindmark) and everyone at DreamHack, one huge virtual high-five!
.o/
// Mulleboy, DH
You guys did every little thing as good as it could have been done. You guys are the best, keep it up!
On April 14 2011 08:17 Mulleboy wrote: Hey everyone, Mulleboy from DreamHack here.
For anyone that was there during the event and sitting close enough to the top where the control room was, it was me (Max) and Marcus sitting there inside the booth handling all the production for the livestream and what was going on inside the actual venue. It was our first time ever attempting something like this so things got quite hectic from time to time and people at the top row seats could probably hear us shouting stuff frantically like "film the audience!" or "we need close up of player one!" all the time.
I was in charge of the overlay and video production (SC2 UI, Names, graphics, films, trailers) and Marcus was the camera director, making sure we had plenty of good angles to film from and directing the ground-crew back and forth.
We've been reading through ALL the comments and we'd like to say how heart warming it is to see such support and love for our work. We didn't have much training, and almost no knowledge in broadcast production, but we managed alright and we only had some minor hickups. Unfortunately for some people the stream wasn't optimal at all times (lag, sound glitches etc) but they seem to have been localized to certain areas of Europe and the Americas and as you probably already understand that was beyond our reach.
Right now it's all hands on deck for DreamHack Summer 2011 during the 18-21st of June and we're going to bring the same A-game there too!
From Max (Mulleboy) and Marcus (Lindmark) and everyone at DreamHack, one huge virtual high-five!
.o/
// Mulleboy, DH
Wow, are you trolling us with the "we were doing this for the first time" thing? :D It was too awesome for your first time :D
Who do we have to thank for the "White-Ra cares" overlay? Keep doing such awesome and fun stuff in the future. And if you could give some pointers to NASL production how to improve that would be a great boon for the sc2 community
On April 14 2011 08:17 Mulleboy wrote: We didn't have much training, and almost no knowledge in broadcast production, but we managed alright and we only had some minor hickups.
What!? Seriously? The event was one of the best SC2 tournaments so far (from a stream viewers perspective) and now you're telling us that you are new to this streaming and production stuff? I hope you just stay on that level. You don't even need to improve. Many other need to reach that level first.
I had problems with the stream too but it's justin.tv. Lot's of people have problems with their service. Besides you had this newspaper stream running simultaneous so this wasn't a big deal like it is/was for NASL, reddit open etc where they only rely on justin.tv.
Hey all, Everyone at DreamHack are just blown away by last Tuesday and the appreciation and L O V E you keep giving us. I give you my word, as a Swede and as a fellow eSports fan, that we will continue to give you all the awesomeness you are entitled to.
We may have been under the radar for a lot of you, but know that we have been "practicing" for the last 10 years with our small events DreamHack Summer and Winter.
Mulle is correct in that we never attempted what we did before, and that we're not pros....
We are DreamHack baby! /Robert Ohlén, genuis by association with DH team.
On April 16 2011 02:32 senex wrote: Hey all, Everyone at DreamHack are just blown away by last Tuesday and the appreciation and L O V E you keep giving us. I give you my word, as a Swede and as a fellow eSports fan, that we will continue to give you all the awesomeness you are entitled to.
We may have been under the radar for a lot of you, but know that we have been "practicing" for the last 10 years with our small events DreamHack Summer and Winter.
Mulle is correct in that we never attempted what we did before, and that we're not pros....
We are DreamHack baby! /Robert Ohlén, genuis by association with DH team.
Oh, the irony.
On a side note, awesome event, can't wait to see more from you guys!
On April 16 2011 02:32 senex wrote: Hey all, Everyone at DreamHack are just blown away by last Tuesday and the appreciation and L O V E you keep giving us. I give you my word, as a Swede and as a fellow eSports fan, that we will continue to give you all the awesomeness you are entitled to.
We may have been under the radar for a lot of you, but know that we have been "practicing" for the last 10 years with our small events DreamHack Summer and Winter.
Mulle is correct in that we never attempted what we did before, and that we're not pros....
We are DreamHack baby! /Robert Ohlén, genuis by association with DH team.
We cannot wait until summer LOL. Do another tournament before that one :D
Just wanted to pop in and add to the high-fives and other general praise. Was enjoyable, professional and fun from start to finish. I hear Aftonbladet broke records on their stream as well.
The event was such a great experience. I never would have believed in my wildest dreams that it would turn out so great. I'm now waiting for the DH summer. I do think this is a start of something new in Sweden.
On April 17 2011 18:37 Zombieling_Yami wrote: The event was such a great experience. I never would have believed in my wildest dreams that it would turn out so great. I'm now waiting for the DH summer. I do think this is a start of something new in Sweden.
DH keep up the awesome work! <3
//The one and only 'Zerg Girl' in the front row.
Loved the Zerg costume and also checked your cosplay, excellent work. Dreamhack Invitational was brilliant to watch on the livestream and can only thank everyone involved for the effort. The casting was good, 2GD hosting was a breath of fresh air, production was second to none and the crowd was alive and kicking!
Once again, thank you all for the memorable moments
1. 2gd was great, you need a presenter like this to keep everyone involved and entertained inbetween games when the 'casters' are having a break. it was a very professional display from 2gd, and his humour and improv was excellent.
2. booths! yes booths are pretty vital, as demonstrated by pretty much every successful pro gaming league/tournament in the past. the last thing you want is for the players to be able to hear the casters or crowd, you might as well be able to see the opponents screen. not to mention the noise being a distraction.
3. good tournament structure, yes it was an invitational - but i'm personally dead against this 'wtf' structure of MLG which is aimed at protecting the 'big' players, to ensure the most entertaining later stages have good contenders who weren't cheesed or lucked out to semi-pro/unknown players. group seeding is enough - after the seeding the good players should be on their own without all of these wildcards and second chances etc.
*plus the open brackets are pretty boring to watch if you turned out as a neutral and just want to see top players. when you watch the uefa champions league you don't necessarily want to sit through the early qualifying rounds.
Just so people know what dreamhack is: Dreamhack has existed since 1994 and have thus been doing this for over 15 years now.
They hold the world record for biggest computer festival when they had over 13.000 computers connected at the same time year 2010. They beat the former record at 10.000 computer which also was held by Dreamhack,
This year dreamhack had a 9.2 terrabit LAN connection. Dreamhack is not connected to the internet, it is the internet.
The crew of dreamhack consists of 350 people divided into groups for specific tasks. Everyone from the crew are volunteers. The teams takes care of everything that goes on in Dreamhack, this includes on the spot help IT support for the users attending the lan. They even have teams who's only task is to help and support the other teams.
Besides the lan itself there are 2 or 3 other big areas where additional thousands of people can hook up their computers and watch games and demo competitions. There is also DreamExpo where you can view and test the latest technology. There are also various halls there you can watch fireshows, do bungyjumps, play lastertag or gocart.
On April 17 2011 18:37 Zombieling_Yami wrote: The event was such a great experience. I never would have believed in my wildest dreams that it would turn out so great. I'm now waiting for the DH summer. I do think this is a start of something new in Sweden.
DH keep up the awesome work! <3
//The one and only 'Zerg Girl' in the front row.
Not sure if you saw it but TLO, Morrow and IdrA looked a little bit envious (and surprised) over the probe plushy.
EPT
And boy, am i glad i did.
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