In the weeks leading up to our inaugural event, the IPL1 we'll be posting interviews and other media from our weekend with the pros and casters that we announced a few weeks ago. Stay tuned to see interviews from incontrol, CatZ, SelecT, Spades, Sheth, Axslav, PainUser, HDStarCraft and the IPL Staff!
As always, we'd love to hear your comments and feedback on what we've put in place for the community. Feel free to post questions/comments in this thread or our official IPL Season 1 thread here
And shout-outs to Alexandre 'kaplOw' Misson for the art above, wellplayed.org for collaborating with us for this whole production! And HotBid for being such an upstanding citizen.
I like how everything is so uniform and clean with this league just like TSL. One of the problems I have with NASL is that they just put random pictures of the players on their website instead of doing something nice like this. Looking forward to seeing this league grow and blossom into something great. :D
Holy hell. That's just brilliant. Loving the cartoons. For some reason they managed to infuse them with respective players "scene personality". Except for InControl. He looks more like Kingpin (the Marvel comics guy) than himself.
Oh. And I see the Leather Gracket is there. Hell yeah.
Didn't watch them all yet, just watched PainUser. Do they all have the clips of the gamer surrounded in blue light nodding/turning his head/staring at the camera interspersed through the interview?
On April 16 2011 02:08 Tschis wrote: No interview with IdrA? :{
Unfortunately Mr. Gregory Fields was too busy to make the trip out to San Francisco, but we hope to see him sometime soon and have him sign our pro player wall at the office!
On April 16 2011 02:22 L3gendary wrote: I hope you guys put a link on the ign homepage when this league starts up. Would get a lot more exposure that way.
If you go to IGN.com you'll see our link at the top right!
HD is casting? interesting.... I dunno about it though. Has he done any major casts other than the HDH during the beta days?
painuser should be good, always nice to have a pro player announcing the games, especially when there's a Terran matchup, should give helpful insight, and deeper analysis of the meta-game.
Very impressed so far, I've watched just about every IPL video that's up right now and I'm really looking forward to seeing more as we get closer to the start-up.
Great work guys, please keep it up.
Also, I would once again like to suggest considering a team league down the line as I feel like there is a lot of potential there and it would be an interesting way to lead in a different avenue here in the west.
On April 16 2011 02:49 wei2coolman wrote: HD is casting? interesting.... I dunno about it though. Has he done any major casts other than the HDH during the beta days?
painuser should be good, always nice to have a pro player announcing the games, especially when there's a Terran matchup, should give helpful insight, and deeper analysis of the meta-game.
HD has a youtube channel and has been putting out casts consistently. MLG? Where have you been?
Just put some fairly quite generic music over the silent background, i feel its the quality of interview you'd get on sports channels.
Edit: So the first interview i watched was Sheth's (cause hes a baller) and it had no music. However it fliped it self to HD's interview and it did. So maybe there even more on top of this generic music than i thought.
On April 16 2011 02:49 wei2coolman wrote: HD is casting? interesting.... I dunno about it though. Has he done any major casts other than the HDH during the beta days?
painuser should be good, always nice to have a pro player announcing the games, especially when there's a Terran matchup, should give helpful insight, and deeper analysis of the meta-game.
He cast at MLG Raleigh, with Husky. However thats about it as far as i know.
Wow every just looks weird in those portraits. But I guess they're not supposed to be accurate and more like caricatures. But I still think it's very cool though. Like the TSL portraits.
Just noticed there seems to be some affiliation with SCRanks? Links on IGN point to them and scranks profile have a special "Pro Gamer" tag. Awesome job on that!
IPL is so exciting. It's not a huge competition now, but if they see it being successful it could grow at an enormous rate. IGN has the type of influence that can bring non-SC2 players into the game streams. Very, very exciting stuff. Thanks Edward! ^^
The pictures are awesome (though anyone notice some people seem to have gone on a diet in their portraits?) but the random shots during the interviews? It's pretty cheesy feeling and doesn't feel like it really works. Some of the shots are okay when they're normal looking shots (like TT1 staring at the camera or the NA players standing together) but the dramatic turns (axslav during Sheth interview) and smoke screens kinda detract from the experience for me. Anyone agree?
Again, otherwise I think it's all pretty awesome and I'm very much looking forward to what IGN can do.
On April 16 2011 05:36 rickybobby wrote: i hope this doesnt get overshadowed by nasl. also strange choice in casters...
You don't like HD? In my opinion he's the most professional of any casters I've seen except for maybe Artosis. PainUser is just meh though, don't know why they picked him...
I gotta say, for some reason i disliked Incontrol while coming into sc2, i cant remember why. After seeing what a great guy he is im falling in love with him. Your a beast inc!
On April 16 2011 04:25 Mikilatov wrote: Very cool. I'm really digging the comic book type artwork.
Idra looks like an evil genius... Ohwait.
Haha! That was the point, this was my first try at making him look like a true evil genius, but I think that was a little too much: http://d.pr/lLwa
Too much? No no, it was perfect. While he himself probably don't care what people think, the SC2 scene needs it's personalities, and you really nailed it with that picture. Although I do think I prefer the second/selected one. Kinda..looks cooler. Hum.
Great work either way, hope to see more of your work in the future. :D
On April 16 2011 04:25 Mikilatov wrote: Very cool. I'm really digging the comic book type artwork.
Idra looks like an evil genius... Ohwait.
Haha! That was the point, this was my first try at making him look like a true evil genius, but I think that was a little too much: http://d.pr/lLwa
Too much? No no, it was perfect. While he himself probably don't care what people think, the SC2 scene needs it's personalities, and you really nailed it with that picture. Although I do think I prefer the second/selected one. Kinda..looks cooler. Hum.
Great work either way, hope to see more of your work in the future. :D
That one doesn't have the leather gracket . Haha thanks dude.
I will be totally frank with you IGN. I love the production of this in general. It is close to that of the GSL. I hope NASL will be as good as IGN soon as they obtain experience :O
In the Incontrol interview why exactly are they equating cheesiness with general BM? Weird little back and forth there.
Edit: Watched the other interviews..... Those cheese questions.. god were they annoying. Really hate over-simplifications of styles like that. Reminds me of calling someone a "macro" player..... Just silly to state things in such binary terms.
lol @ TT1...paraphrasing here.. "Cheating strangers was ok, but once I got to know the people I was cheating, it became an issue." "Cheating a friend would be a lot more serious."
Interviews are top notch and solid questions asked. Well done. I will be tuning in (and turning off my ad blocker) and hopefully the IPL1 will be a success which in turn will lead to stud Euro and Korean players added in future tournaments! IGN has stated they will re-invest a portion of revenue back into their e-sports initiative and they have the financial backing and seemingly the passion to grow e-sports in NA. Please give them a chance guys and spread the word! Don't allow NASL hype (as good as it's been so far) overshadow these guys!
maybe I'm a little late but I never knew incontrol (and kiwi) were THAT close to being the GSL. In his interview incontrol said him kiwi and huk failed last round to qualify (which means it was GSL3 right?). I didn't know if that was already out there but still
On April 16 2011 11:33 chipmonklord17 wrote: maybe I'm a little late but I never knew incontrol (and kiwi) were THAT close to being the GSL. In his interview incontrol said him kiwi and huk failed last round to qualify (which means it was GSL3 right?). I didn't know if that was already out there but still
I believe Huk, select and incontrol all went 1-2 in GSL3 qualifiers for the final round. I don't know if Kiwi also was 1-2 or 0-2 (I just know he lost to Junwi).
On April 16 2011 11:33 chipmonklord17 wrote: maybe I'm a little late but I never knew incontrol (and kiwi) were THAT close to being the GSL. In his interview incontrol said him kiwi and huk failed last round to qualify (which means it was GSL3 right?). I didn't know if that was already out there but still
I believe Huk, select and incontrol all went 1-2 in GSL3 qualifiers for the final round. I don't know if Kiwi also was 1-2 or 0-2 (I just know he lost to Junwi).
Thanks, I knew Inc tried to qualify I didn't know how far he got. Seems weird that the community REALLY hyped the fact that HuK lost the last round when select inc and kiwi were there too
On April 16 2011 11:33 chipmonklord17 wrote: maybe I'm a little late but I never knew incontrol (and kiwi) were THAT close to being the GSL. In his interview incontrol said him kiwi and huk failed last round to qualify (which means it was GSL3 right?). I didn't know if that was already out there but still
I believe Huk, select and incontrol all went 1-2 in GSL3 qualifiers for the final round. I don't know if Kiwi also was 1-2 or 0-2 (I just know he lost to Junwi).
kiwi lost to the final of the groupe vs junwi but yea we dont know the score :/
I'm loving the production on this. They put a lot if attitude into the fog posing haha. Giving e-sports a hipper image I think is important for it's growth, so nice steps there with that marketting. Painuser though? c'mon
edit: I forgot to say those portraits could be a little better too like how TSL did it. The quality on them seems lower than the rest of this.
"In fact, that sort of anecdote doesn’t seem too rare when it comes to the new league. The league’s newest caster, Kevin “CatsPajamas” Knocke, got his job after IGN employees heard him analyzing MLG Dallas games in the audience while the official commentary was muted. IGN liked him, quickly told him so and he had the job before the event was through."
"In fact, that sort of anecdote doesn’t seem too rare when it comes to the new league. The league’s newest caster, Kevin “CatsPajamas” Knocke, got his job after IGN employees heard him analyzing MLG Dallas games in the audience while the official commentary was muted. IGN liked him, quickly told him so and he had the job before the event was through."
Must've made quite the impression.
:D
Definitely looking forward to casting this. Great players and an incredible production team. Should be really fun!
On April 16 2011 01:53 iNcontroL wrote: I really hate that picture of me lol
Take it like the roman legions (cf. Asterix the Legionary) ... they had bad food to make the legionnaires angry so they would fight better. Let it be a motivation and say to yourself "I will show them ... RAWR".
it's cool, all the players are drawn and its nice and neat.
the tournament itself sounds fun. not the best player pool, but that's okay. this kind of pool might be able to help someone who is really good but not a tournament winner (like catz) win.
wow this is awesome, and i love the promo lol!! Also great interviews!! i love how most of the ppl are naming Catz to be teh cheesyest player!! lol Anyways im really looking forward to this!! ZERGS FIGHTING!!!!!!!!!!!!
The production of the interviews and intro are awesome! I hope the actual games and commentary will be good aswell. I have quite a hard time to listen to HD, but I hope he leaves his youtubeish commentary act behind when doing this because else I will likely not enjoy it (I have nothing against him, just ye.. Think people know what I mean.)
Thanks for some really nice interviews. Slightly blown away by the production quality. The promos are way, way, way over the top though. Less is more guys, less is more.
Some of you guys need to realize that they will be inviting Europeans and Koreans in future IPL's. IPL1 is their test run so to speak. Furthermore, I spoke to Edward from IGN"s eSports division (http://www.wellplayed.org/forum/86/thread/2925/show) and he admitted that they tried to hire Day9 as a caster but they couldn't come to an agreement due to Day9's current full plate but will be applying the full court press on him for IPL2!
If you want Europeans and Koreans competing in a future lucrative NA tournament then you need to support IPL and watch IPL1 tournament (spread the word) and turn off your ad block while you watch it next week! Rome wasn't built in a day! IGN has expressed the plan to take the revenue and re-invest into their eSports division and the company does have the financial wherewithal to help grow eSports in NA.
This league seems like it's doing everything right.
Promo vids.. player pictures.. presentation.
My only problem is that IGN has a real chance of advertising to a more mainstream audience, and it doesn't help the stigma against pro gamers when your promo videos feature 3 fat dudes and then a "nerdy" Asian...
Just being honest here, but I'm sure it doesn't matter that much.
On April 17 2011 05:23 SovSov wrote: This league seems like it's doing everything right.
Promo vids.. player pictures.. presentation.
My only problem is that IGN has a real chance of advertising to a more mainstream audience, and it doesn't help the stigma against pro gamers when your promo videos feature 3 fat dudes and then a "nerdy" Asian...
Just being honest here, but I'm sure it doesn't matter that much.
The mainstream audience it's broadcasting too also consists of fat dudes and the occasional nerdy Asian. This is IGN we're talking about here.
On April 17 2011 05:23 SovSov wrote: This league seems like it's doing everything right.
Promo vids.. player pictures.. presentation.
My only problem is that IGN has a real chance of advertising to a more mainstream audience, and it doesn't help the stigma against pro gamers when your promo videos feature 3 fat dudes and then a "nerdy" Asian...
Just being honest here, but I'm sure it doesn't matter that much.
The mainstream audience it's broadcasting too also consists of fat dudes and the occasional nerdy Asian. This is IGN we're talking about here.
I really like the interviews so far because of the high quality. The players are well spoken and avoid the awkward stereotype that is generally associated with gamers.
On April 17 2011 15:03 Drock wrote: I wonder why there are so few players? Anyone have insight to this?
Its a trial run. They want to get everything in place on the production side before they start hitting the big time. Check their website for plans on the next season. Its gonna be huge. Basically, if enough people watch it, the prize pool for next season will get even bigger than the 50k already promised and it will be open to all players I think (although top 4 from this tournament get a guaranteed place or summat)
On April 18 2011 01:38 tezul wrote: this looks better than the nasl
The Quality of the Stream will make ALL the difference. I Hope NASL learns from their actual "failure" to have streams working properly... now imagine NASL being LIVE. MLG had issues... Dreamhack.... Flawless. I dont know if the throttling factor is in for something, but I know for a fact EU internet is much more "free" than America. they have unlimited bandwidth monthly and a Basic cable/dsl connection over there is at least 20mbps, while the FCC defines "broadband" at 5mbps, europeans have much more bandwidth than us. Could that affect Streams going from US ? im not a genius on how connectyions are routed through national backbones, but ISPs should do something about it, were WAY behind... its not normal for me to be in America and watch a KR stream with no lag, and then watch a US stream lagging every 2 secs, not to mention NASL and past MLGs....
Those portraits... are mildly disturbing. I wouldn't advertise with those unless I wanted to create a mental link between SC2 players and pedophiles XDDDD (jk, of course, but seriously. Some of those portraits are really creepy...)
On April 19 2011 21:11 Mordiford wrote: The TT1 interview just takes me to the pledge video, is this a linking error?
I've looked around on the site as well, perhaps the same video was uploaded for the TT1 interview as well by accident.
Hey, thanks for letting us know! It appears to be a bug with the IGN video player right now for this interview, as it plays the TTOne interview as soon as the promo video ends. It's supposed to be the opposite and we have people working on this right now. So as a quick workaround for now, fast forward to the end of the promo and it will autoload the TTOne interview!
Is it me, or is the only serious voice coming from Select? By serious i mean, i'm not laughing inside, or out, when i hear him talk. the rest i'm like. NERDDDDDSSSSSS.
Not hating, just wondering if anyone else thinks the same?
I really don't understand the interviewer's question @ 1:16. Is she actually asking if there are good players outside America ? Or if the americans can keep up with Europe/Korea ?
EPT![[image loading]](http://i51.tinypic.com/4rp6ol.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i54.tinypic.com/2r2up3m.jpg)
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![[image loading]](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/13698452/idra.jpg)
