Why not 4 booths on the one stage, seems to work great for GSL every day of the week
Because GSL is a multi-million dollar company that can afford to do that?
2 more booths than the 2 you already have is going to break your bank? doesn't sound like a sustainable business venture
GSL can afford to put 1+ million into prize pool alone in a year. We're not at the level where we can do that yet, sorry.
It's one thing if you just can't afford the two more booths. But what you said before is that they wouldn't help even if you had them... which is just wrong.
Given our stage layout, having 2 more booths wouldn't help. It would help if we had a bigger stage, but we don't.
Well what bout the fact that the players didn't start to setup their stuff until after all the preview videos were over, you could have knocked an hour or so off the cast if they were in there getting there settings done while that stuff was playing and it wouldn't have made the downtime seem as bad.
We actually plugged in all their gear while the videos were going on, except Moon, who refused to let anyone touch his mouse+keyboard.
We had several lame problems later in the day, for example... Boxer accidentally hit the power cord with his foot and shut the computer off... MC wanted a long cord for his headphones, Moon mandated that he set his stuff up himself, aLive lost internet briefly on the computer because he accidentally unplugged the ethernet cable, DarkForcE was trying to install some very specific mouse driver and was having problems, White-Ra had a broken headphone and couldn't get sound so we had to change for a new one...
You guys don't know what goes on behind the scenes
Pretty sure at least half of those problems are because the booths are the size of a coffin. :/
We're well aware of the booth size, we'll fix that for the next event :D
Why do you need your own booths? Can't you just rent the booths from MLG? I mean MLG isn't using the booths, so it would benefit them to rent them out to others to make some extra cash and renting would probably be a lot cheaper than buying your own.
The audio issues were the most baffling. Don't you have someone in the venue listening to the stream to hear what the viewers are hearing? I mean the audio issues were so blatantly obvious that they should have been fixed much faster than they were if anyone in the venue knew about them.
Map pool like others mentioned was also weird. Every game on the same 3 maps gets boring after a while.
I think most people would agree, though, that for all the issues good PR would have gone a long way to at least mitigating the anger and annoyance. For me, just knowing when the games were going to start would've helped. When Ret vs. Puma didn't start, I didn't know if it was going to be 10 minutes or 2 hours, and wanted to see the games.
More than anything, NASL, Xeris, or whoever is reading this, communicate better. You talk about how MLG Dallas had it's issues, and it did, but Sundance was EVERYWHERE afterwords trying to explain, he gave away free HD for Dallas, and they made a big deal about communicating with those who were mad. You guys so far have shown indifference at best, and sometimes have been annoyed that people aren't automatically in love with your product.
You aren't providing a free service, this isn't a charity. You're running a business and we're your customers. Start acting like it. Indignation over someone not loving your product is not how to keep customers.
Why do the booths look so bland? MLG had to design their booth to be disassembled and travel across the country. The NASL does not have to worry about that, yet it still looks worse than MLG and is smaller. As someone already said, it looks like a coffin.
On July 09 2011 17:26 kalany wrote: You can't blame it all on NASL. The crowd seemed tired and dead. NASL's gotta focus on a better venue and production crew. That computer making that sponsored them was probably in charge and they didn't necessarily do a good job.
It is on NASL. The problems exhibited at the Grand Final have been characteristic of NASL all season long.
I'll start with the venue, since I knew this was going to be a problem just from seeing the pictures several days in advance.
You chose a big airy ballroom with seating for 720 people. That's honestly not a lot of people and you would've been much better served to use a more intimate setting such as a highschool or college auditorium. Reasons:
1. Anyone who's ever been to a club knows that it's better for the club to run out of space than to have vacancies. You say, "Oh, we'll fix that next time but hey everyone, we were overflowing with demand." Even if your crowd was full (it did not look like it was from pre/post-event photographs and first hand accounts), the ballroom was probably only 60-70% filled which just makes it look unpopular. 2. Price. Renting out an auditorium is going to be cheaper than an event center ball room. Your internet requirements are minimal, so that shouldn't be an issue. 3. Knowing your product. It seems like you're trying to emulate an OSL Grand Final in every way you can, but that's not the product you're selling. A smaller, more intimate venue feels better for the live audience, and it looks better at those types of numbers. It also reinforces the idea that this is a home grown product, the way DH Invitational looks. 4. Equipment (I'll touch more on it later.) A lot of it would already been in place and you wouldn't have to bring everything of your own. 5. Audience. Ontario, California is far from everything. No one actually wants to travel there. If you get a campus auditorium, you're not only more centrally located, but you're centrally located for your core audience- young people.
Now onto equipment. You have too much of it. Your event makes me think of a rich kid learning to play guitar, who buys an expensive Fender, amps and effects units before actually knowing how to pluck a string. That soundboard, the lights and the stage are overkill. 1. The soundboard doesn't fit your needs. I don't know who recommended it, but it was a terrible recommendation and you're obviously having a difficult time handling all of the features it provides. 2. Choose a better venue and you don't need that fuckton of lights. The amount you have is seriously absurd and again, it makes lighting harder to manage. 3. Screens. We know you had projector problems, but you still didn't set them up properly for the live viewers. You know this, so I won't touch on it that much but I'll bring up something you might not realize. You don't need 3 screens. 2 would be perfect, 1 would even be passable. The audience isn't spread out enough to really need that much screen coverage and it can actually be distracting from the single screen, the way that watching a panel of TVs at Best Buy is. Again, in a venue with theater style seating, this is even more true.
Staff problems. 1. Your audio people are not good at their job. This has been a problem all season long. They might be nice people, but they don't deserve anyone's slack. 2. Your cameramen are not good at their job. The job of a well-trained cameraman is not a difficult one. I assume yours aren't, so I hope they're at least volunteers. It's actually not the shakiness or losing focus that suggest that the most. It's that they don't know how to center their shots. You learn that on like the first day of class. 3. Your graphics people are not good at their jobs. I don't mean the CGI, that stuff is fine. But the NASL graphics/logo have always been ugly and that overlay needs to be scrapped. Again, I hope no one was paid to make it because that's just the lowest of the low of Photoshop know-how. A bar with a gradient filter, half cutting off the nice overlay that Blizzard built into the game. Who thought that would be a good idea, any why didn't anyone see that and say "turn that off"? 4. The set looks shoddy. The job of set design is an iffy one and I can understand if they were limited by time or resources, but it really just doesn't look good. On top of that, the design is tacky. I'll go back to an earlier point and say you need to tone it down. You don't need a huge stage like that. Give your people less to work on, and they'll do a better job on the fewer tasks they have. This was a problem during the NASL regular season as well. The set design was poor, with very bad colors/shades.
Overall these are a few of the things you need to fix, but these are all symptomatic of the bigger problems NASL has had all season long. You shouldn't have to learn all this stuff over again and go through growing pains. ESPORTS has been going on on a major scale for over 10 years now. There are staff from WCG/IEM/DH/CPL/ESEA/MLG/Blizzcon/ESL/etc. who already know how to put this type of production together. You should've hired them, at least to direct things, than do it entirely yourself. Just think about these two sets of events: NASL regular season/EG Master's Cup and NASL Grand Finals/Day9 Beta Countdown. When you're a business, it being your first time is not a valid excuse.
A lot of these aren't major issues and they don't detract from the game viewing experience, but they highlight a bigger and more serious issue: the director is not doing their job. Running things is a terrifically difficult job, but it falls on them to see the product and say, "that part isn't right, fix it." There have been so many little things continually not right about NASL, and no one noticed it until the fans pointed it out. And I don't mean big, complex things that are difficult to fix. I'm talking about stuff that could be fixed within an instant, and should have been noticed on the first pass through. That "noticer" has been absent. You need to hire a dedicated director, who simply understands how a finished viewing event should look.
EDIT: Also, your tournament format is not very fair to most of the players. I don't mean in a "omg extended series is dumb!" kind of way. I mean that people chocked up a lot of money to fly to the middle of nowhere, play two games and then be out. "But they had the chance to win $50,000!" doesn't matter. Either make it a double elimination bracket (then you set up an extra set of competitor computers backstage) OR make the ro16/ro8 online. Paying $3,000 for a plane ticket and being done in 15 minutes is an awful, souring experience.
This post deserves to be quoted on every page of this thread. It is a fantastic summary of the issues NASL had/is having.
It is on NASL. The problems exhibited at the Grand Final have been characteristic of NASL all season long.
I'll start with the venue, since I knew this was going to be a problem just from seeing the pictures several days in advance.
You chose a big airy ballroom with seating for 720 people. That's honestly not a lot of people and you would've been much better served to use a more intimate setting such as a highschool or college auditorium. Reasons:
1. Anyone who's ever been to a club knows that it's better for the club to run out of space than to have vacancies. You say, "Oh, we'll fix that next time but hey everyone, we were overflowing with demand." Even if your crowd was full (it did not look like it was from pre/post-event photographs and first hand accounts), the ballroom was probably only 60-70% filled which just makes it look unpopular. 2. Price. Renting out an auditorium is going to be cheaper than an event center ball room. Your internet requirements are minimal, so that shouldn't be an issue. 3. Knowing your product. It seems like you're trying to emulate an OSL Grand Final in every way you can, but that's not the product you're selling. A smaller, more intimate venue feels better for the live audience, and it looks better at those types of numbers. It also reinforces the idea that this is a home grown product, the way DH Invitational looks. 4. Equipment (I'll touch more on it later.) A lot of it would already been in place and you wouldn't have to bring everything of your own. 5. Audience. Ontario, California is far from everything. No one actually wants to travel there. If you get a campus auditorium, you're not only more centrally located, but you're centrally located for your core audience- young people.
Now onto equipment. You have too much of it. Your event makes me think of a rich kid learning to play guitar, who buys an expensive Fender, amps and effects units before actually knowing how to pluck a string. That soundboard, the lights and the stage are overkill. 1. The soundboard doesn't fit your needs. I don't know who recommended it, but it was a terrible recommendation and you're obviously having a difficult time handling all of the features it provides. 2. Choose a better venue and you don't need that fuckton of lights. The amount you have is seriously absurd and again, it makes lighting harder to manage. 3. Screens. We know you had projector problems, but you still didn't set them up properly for the live viewers. You know this, so I won't touch on it that much but I'll bring up something you might not realize. You don't need 3 screens. 2 would be perfect, 1 would even be passable. The audience isn't spread out enough to really need that much screen coverage and it can actually be distracting from the single screen, the way that watching a panel of TVs at Best Buy is. Again, in a venue with theater style seating, this is even more true.
Staff problems. 1. Your audio people are not good at their job. This has been a problem all season long. They might be nice people, but they don't deserve anyone's slack. 2. Your cameramen are not good at their job. The job of a well-trained cameraman is not a difficult one. I assume yours aren't, so I hope they're at least volunteers. It's actually not the shakiness or losing focus that suggest that the most. It's that they don't know how to center their shots. You learn that on like the first day of class. 3. Your graphics people are not good at their jobs. I don't mean the CGI, that stuff is fine. But the NASL graphics/logo have always been ugly and that overlay needs to be scrapped. Again, I hope no one was paid to make it because that's just the lowest of the low of Photoshop know-how. A bar with a gradient filter, half cutting off the nice overlay that Blizzard built into the game. Who thought that would be a good idea, any why didn't anyone see that and say "turn that off"? 4. The set looks shoddy. The job of set design is an iffy one and I can understand if they were limited by time or resources, but it really just doesn't look good. On top of that, the design is tacky. I'll go back to an earlier point and say you need to tone it down. You don't need a huge stage like that. Give your people less to work on, and they'll do a better job on the fewer tasks they have. This was a problem during the NASL regular season as well. The set design was poor, with very bad colors/shades.
Overall these are a few of the things you need to fix, but these are all symptomatic of the bigger problems NASL has had all season long. You shouldn't have to learn all this stuff over again and go through growing pains. ESPORTS has been going on on a major scale for over 10 years now. There are staff from WCG/IEM/DH/CPL/ESEA/MLG/Blizzcon/ESL/etc. who already know how to put this type of production together. You should've hired them, at least to direct things, than do it entirely yourself. Just think about these two sets of events: NASL regular season/EG Master's Cup and NASL Grand Finals/Day9 Beta Countdown. When you're a business, it being your first time is not a valid excuse.
A lot of these aren't major issues and they don't detract from the game viewing experience, but they highlight a bigger and more serious issue: the director is not doing their job. Running things is a terrifically difficult job, but it falls on them to see the product and say, "that part isn't right, fix it." There have been so many little things continually not right about NASL, and no one noticed it until the fans pointed it out. And I don't mean big, complex things that are difficult to fix. I'm talking about stuff that could be fixed within an instant, and should have been noticed on the first pass through. That "noticer" has been absent. You need to hire a dedicated director, who simply understands how a finished viewing event should look.
EDIT: Also, your tournament format is not very fair to most of the players. I don't mean in a "omg extended series is dumb!" kind of way. I mean that people chocked up a lot of money to fly to the middle of nowhere, play two games and then be out. "But they had the chance to win $50,000!" doesn't matter. Either make it a double elimination bracket (then you set up an extra set of competitor computers backstage) OR make the ro16/ro8 online. Paying $3,000 for a plane ticket and being done in 15 minutes is an awful, souring experience.
Quoted for truth.
Really this guy sums up all you guys should've done I think and I've worked behind the scenes at Dreamhack.
Please learn from this and use this next time because else I think you guys will have to concede defeat, because not even people like us who paid for it and still have the decency to try and argue on what we think should be better would give a shit if the NASL keeps repeating these mistakes...
-good stream, seemed reliable and good during the event - Casters did a good job - all the stuff if im not writing on my next list
Negative
- No communication. I tuned in to the stream and had no idea what was going on, no idea if games would start in 5,10,20,45 mins etc, basically forcing me to stay at the computer just waiting. - No timefiller content. 2 hours of downtime, no commentators talking, no interviews, no tours of the place no nothing. -sound was at times bad -first interviews were a bit weird, camerawork and so on
- Way way way too much time between the games. -White-ra lost
thats about it so far, hoping for a smoother run today
Fixing everything in real time can be hard, the technical problems happens, I'm not angry toward nasl because of this. The real problem were the downtimes, this was way too long (I wanted to not sleep and watch everything, ended up going to bed at the one hour break) and the maps. I have nothing against xelnaga and crossfire, but when you only see those 2 maps during 12 hours, the audience gets bored. I don't understand how such a decision could be made, it's like no one in the nasl staff is gifted with common sense. I mean, I imagine the reunion where this was decided, and can't believe that no one stood up to say it was a terrible decision. (exactly like when nasl used ladder, close position enabled maps in their first weeks)
Anyway, some "problems" here are very nitpicky. When your solution to a problem is "put more money", you know that your solution is not good (for instance the "you can JUST add 2 booths". This "just" is what, 2000$ ?). There's already a lot of room for improvement with what they already have, asking them to spend more money is not the way to go imo.
On July 10 2011 01:32 29 fps wrote: if players fly all the way across the world just to play one bo3, lose, then go home, i don't think they'll want to participate again in the future. (which means less growth for esports)
Dreamhack Stockholm invitational had 8 people fly to Sweden and compete, and you could have someone play 2 BO3 and win nothing. WhiteRa won 2 BO3 and lost the finals and got no prize money, just an invite to Dreamhack Summer.
Meanwhile, NASL gives $500 to lose in RO16 and $1500 to lose in RO8.
It's not only about the prize money, and NASL is one of the few tournaments I've seen so far that doesn't have a ridiculously top heavy prize pool(another thing people complain about with GSL).
There are however other issues in NASL that have been well written in this thread that'd make players overlook the 500 dollars for a first round loss, and instead would choose a Dreamhack invitational over it.
On July 10 2011 01:13 Drlemur wrote: Everybody who appeared on camera did the expected great job: day9 was a particularly good emcee and all the casters: gretorp, incontrol, tasteless & artosis. The interviews were a little choppy, but generally good. It's hard to get used to interviewing shy nerds in a another language.
It felt like there wasn't enough behind-the-scenes staff holding things together. You need solid, ideally experienced people, running every little detail from sound, video, player management, environment management (set design, lighting design), streaming, etc. Obviously this is tough if you're working on a limited budget, but my guess was you'd need 3x-4x the staff that seemed to be there.
I think some attention to on-site entertainment would have been helpful. I think you really need an emcee who holds together the whole event. Music (e.g., a DJ) to play into and out of the games, videos, breaks. Some sense of excitement and an event on the ground. All season long, I've thought it funny that there is no "face" to NASL. I thought it was Incontrol for awhile, or maybe Gretorp? MLG has Sundance. Who is NASL? If the person generally running things doesn't like to be on camera -- find somebody who can.
I watch a lot of GSL and they really commit to production and looking like an event. That H.S. gymnasium isn't always packed, but on stream, you always feel like it's special. MLG does that awesomely. Homestory also achieved that in a different way (and was very sharp on technical elements). Dreamhack was a little less so, but NASL Season #1 didn't really even make it onto the map as an event.
It's going to take money to throw an event and it's tough because you need sponsors. I think somebody may have to gamble with borrowing money to put on something more awesome for Season #2 and hope that the sponsors follow. But that's the way the entertainment business works: big risks and big rewards.
Companies have to start somewhere. We will improve with every day that goes on. Next event will be better. Look at the first ever GSL and the first ever MLG, and the first ever any major LAN. You guys are expecting us to start off and be the same as GSL, which is backed by a company that has been running Starcraft events in Korea for years, and MLG, which has been around for years.
We've only been around for less than 6 months. Anyway, it's okay if you guys don't like us. We still <3 everyone.
The thing is, most companies have a product ready for market when they are asking money for it.
I find it strange that anyone would be willing to pay to watch people struggling with the very basics, when you could have just hired experienced and talented people from the start.
I don't pay someone to work on my car when they are not an auto mechanic with the expectation they will eventually learn how to be an auto mechanic by working on my car.
I just have some complains related to the format/schedule/organization. I'm not gonna talk about the sound or technical issues because they're fairly obvious and should be fixed with more experience/the right people.
1. If you're going to have a bracket of 16 players spanned over the course of 3 days, you better have something else going on.
Showmatches would be great. You could have: a) team match of Korea v World b) some 2v2/3v3/4v4/FFAs in which the progamers would play people from the audience (BoxeR/random person 1 VS White-Ra/random person 2 would be hilarious) c) SC2BW showmatches between progamers that were pro in Brood War d) showmatches between casters. e) showmatches between Blizzard employees (since you've said there were many in the audience)
Interviews with the players about their SC2 history would be awesome. Planned interviews are always interesting to watch, it gives more proximity to the players, and won't give poor, improvised answers.
Instead, when there weren't any games we got mainly the NASL title card, random shots of the people in the venue, or the far-too-long player introductions. I liked the idea of the introductions a lot (I loved it back in the TSL3 finals), but you really don't need to show every match they've won, and you especially DON'T need to show matches they've lost. Just show like 4 or 5 highlights of the best games they've played, with some quotes of the casters from those moments ("Wow, player X played beastly!", you've done some of that) and you're good. And please cut the application videos, they're obviously really shitty quality-wise and no one really cares.
The point is, people will watch NASL for the players and the live matches. Anything that doesn't involve the players or the live SC2 matches shouldn't happen, or should be minimized.
2. Please don't make the players fly from their countries just to lose two games in 20 minutes and be out of the tournament. It's really unfair to the amount of preparation involved.
Given that the first round of the tournament was a group stage, I wouldn't like to see that again in the finals. Instead, just make a loser's bracket. I'm fine with bo3s as long as you have some kind of second try to the players that lose. We all know how easy it is to lose two games just because you're not in the right mindset. Also, a loser's bracket is a lot better in creating epic comeback stories that people like to hear and talk about. As it is now, it's just a one way road to the first place.
All in all, a loser's bracket is fairer to the players, funnier to watch for the viewers, and better for the tournament. It gives you guys more content to broadcast and more quality games on your tournament for people to talk about.
3. Make some kind of map choice system for the matches. I'm not talking about this because I feel some of the maps are imbalanced for certain races, I don't and that shouldn't be relevant. What's important is to give the players some kind of choice over where they'll play the two matches that decide whether they stay in the tournament or not. All players just feel more comfortable in some maps than others. Having some kind of map veto in the beginning, and giving the map choice to the loser in the subsequent matches would be a lot fairer, if not only more interesting to watch, given that the viewers so far have watched 8 matches and only could see 3 maps.
This system is especially important if the finals are with single elimination, but it's also good to have with some kind of double elimination. Having people lose, and be eliminated automatically no less, just because they've felt less comfortable on a certain map than their opponent is not that fun to watch as a viewer and I can certainly understand why wouldn't be fun for the players.
The point is, when you have a $100,000 pool prize, players should be cut some slack, because they've already proven they deserve to be in the finals by beating some of the best players in the world in the group stages. Having some flexibility will help the players to perform better and to have much more interesting matches.
One note about what I really liked so far:
- That intro with all the players and their names is absolutely amazing. I can imagine you did that from the moment the players arrived at the venue, which gives very little time to film, edit, put the graphics, put the sound and stream it. That proves you can to absolutely awesome work in a little amount of time and under pressure. That was a really positive point. On a side note, please use the graphics designer that made that video on the rest of the stuff, like the graphics of the scores, the players cards (which were really subpar, with that Powerpoint-made steel pseudo-futuristic style that felt amateur), the posters, the venue, etc. It was truly amazing work and should not pass unnoticed. Also, that segment with the battlecruiser throwing that light ball thingamajig was also really cool. - The casters have been really great. Either at presenting the players, wasting some time that needs to be wasted in between matches, and of course at casting the games. Only Gretorp has been on a lower level, but he always was not that fluent so I didn't except the guy to improve substantially just like that. But overall, you've been great. But you can't really go wrong with Tastosis, can you
---
That's all I have for now. If I remember something else, I'll edit this post.
That's not what he said, though. He is talking about the time it takes for every player to set up in the booth. If they could do that while the first match is still going on, there would be much less downtime.
Though I'm not sure that's why you had so much downtime. Honestly, I have no idea why.
The only real solution to that is having dedicated computers for each player. They tried that at Blizzcon and still got a lot of downtime. There's always downtime. There's downtime at MLG too.
No, 4 computers would be enough for a substantial speed increase. It means that the players for match 3 set up their equipment during match 2. That means less transition time. (Of course, that assumes that the player equipment setup was a limiting factor, and that there weren't other production issues that required a long wait anyway.) Yes, there will still be downtime, but it'd be substantially reduced. (Having 4 booths might not at all be reasonable expense-wise, but if you don't think it would give some speedup, you're not understanding something. And as long as it's just one match being played at a time, you don't really need a computer per player, just the 4 booths plus whatever warmup computers are needed off stage.)
4 computers wouldn't help. How do you envision this working?
2 sets of booths? What are we supposed to roll the first set of booths off the stage and roll on the next set right after so we can start immediately? Are we supposed to have 2 stages, each with booths so that we can just cut to the next stage? Do you have any idea how much it would cost to get a venue big enough and build 2 stages just for the purpose?
4 computers with 1 set of booths? We're supposed to take the first set of computers out of the booths (that takes probably 5-10 minutes), and set up another set of computers in the booths that have the next players' settings already set up? Do you have any idea how long that process would take. It would take even longer than what we do.
Did you watch Blizzcon? Were you there? Because they tried that and it didn't work.
Why not 4 booths on the one stage, seems to work great for GSL every day of the week
Because GSL is a multi-million dollar company that can afford to do that?
2 more booths than the 2 you already have is going to break your bank? doesn't sound like a sustainable business venture
GSL can afford to put 1+ million into prize pool alone in a year. We're not at the level where we can do that yet, sorry.
He was talking about two additional cabinets.
Getting 2 more booths would be about $10,000 in additional cost. Those things are expensive and money doesn't grow on trees and we don't have unlimited money.
You are so defensive...
The additional $10k would be an investment that would be worth it. It would make your tournament run more smoothly thus attracting more spectators and possible sponsors. It's already bad for the people watching on stream but I feel worse for the people at the venue having to sit there. But with being so defensive and how you are replying, it makes it seem like there's nothing you can do and that this is the NASL standard.
So if you want to come out to the next NASL finals, there's going to be still delays between games with un-efficient scheduling because "those things are expensive and money doesn't grow on trees". Just acknowledge the faults and realize some of the people criticizing and giving some feedback are not out to hurt NASL and hate on you guys but just like to see it improve.
On July 10 2011 01:13 Drlemur wrote: Everybody who appeared on camera did the expected great job: day9 was a particularly good emcee and all the casters: gretorp, incontrol, tasteless & artosis. The interviews were a little choppy, but generally good. It's hard to get used to interviewing shy nerds in a another language.
It felt like there wasn't enough behind-the-scenes staff holding things together. You need solid, ideally experienced people, running every little detail from sound, video, player management, environment management (set design, lighting design), streaming, etc. Obviously this is tough if you're working on a limited budget, but my guess was you'd need 3x-4x the staff that seemed to be there.
I think some attention to on-site entertainment would have been helpful. I think you really need an emcee who holds together the whole event. Music (e.g., a DJ) to play into and out of the games, videos, breaks. Some sense of excitement and an event on the ground. All season long, I've thought it funny that there is no "face" to NASL. I thought it was Incontrol for awhile, or maybe Gretorp? MLG has Sundance. Who is NASL? If the person generally running things doesn't like to be on camera -- find somebody who can.
I watch a lot of GSL and they really commit to production and looking like an event. That H.S. gymnasium isn't always packed, but on stream, you always feel like it's special. MLG does that awesomely. Homestory also achieved that in a different way (and was very sharp on technical elements). Dreamhack was a little less so, but NASL Season #1 didn't really even make it onto the map as an event.
It's going to take money to throw an event and it's tough because you need sponsors. I think somebody may have to gamble with borrowing money to put on something more awesome for Season #2 and hope that the sponsors follow. But that's the way the entertainment business works: big risks and big rewards.
Companies have to start somewhere. We will improve with every day that goes on. Next event will be better. Look at the first ever GSL and the first ever MLG, and the first ever any major LAN. You guys are expecting us to start off and be the same as GSL, which is backed by a company that has been running Starcraft events in Korea for years, and MLG, which has been around for years.
We've only been around for less than 6 months. Anyway, it's okay if you guys don't like us. We still <3 everyone.
The thing is, most companies have a product ready for market when they are asking money for it.
I find it strange that anyone would be willing to pay to watch people struggling with the very basics, when you could have just hired experienced and talented people from the start.
I don't pay someone to work on my car when they are not an auto mechanic with the expectation they will eventually learn how to be an auto mechanic by working on my car.
This is such a damn good post. Its up to NASL to fire the people behind this years production, and re-hire people willing to do the job correctly. If the IPL is more worth while, with a lesser player base, and a lesser prize pool, you know something is seriously wrong with the CEOs of the business.
On July 10 2011 01:13 Drlemur wrote: Everybody who appeared on camera did the expected great job: day9 was a particularly good emcee and all the casters: gretorp, incontrol, tasteless & artosis. The interviews were a little choppy, but generally good. It's hard to get used to interviewing shy nerds in a another language.
It felt like there wasn't enough behind-the-scenes staff holding things together. You need solid, ideally experienced people, running every little detail from sound, video, player management, environment management (set design, lighting design), streaming, etc. Obviously this is tough if you're working on a limited budget, but my guess was you'd need 3x-4x the staff that seemed to be there.
I think some attention to on-site entertainment would have been helpful. I think you really need an emcee who holds together the whole event. Music (e.g., a DJ) to play into and out of the games, videos, breaks. Some sense of excitement and an event on the ground. All season long, I've thought it funny that there is no "face" to NASL. I thought it was Incontrol for awhile, or maybe Gretorp? MLG has Sundance. Who is NASL? If the person generally running things doesn't like to be on camera -- find somebody who can.
I watch a lot of GSL and they really commit to production and looking like an event. That H.S. gymnasium isn't always packed, but on stream, you always feel like it's special. MLG does that awesomely. Homestory also achieved that in a different way (and was very sharp on technical elements). Dreamhack was a little less so, but NASL Season #1 didn't really even make it onto the map as an event.
It's going to take money to throw an event and it's tough because you need sponsors. I think somebody may have to gamble with borrowing money to put on something more awesome for Season #2 and hope that the sponsors follow. But that's the way the entertainment business works: big risks and big rewards.
Companies have to start somewhere. We will improve with every day that goes on. Next event will be better. Look at the first ever GSL and the first ever MLG, and the first ever any major LAN. You guys are expecting us to start off and be the same as GSL, which is backed by a company that has been running Starcraft events in Korea for years, and MLG, which has been around for years.
We've only been around for less than 6 months. Anyway, it's okay if you guys don't like us. We still <3 everyone.
The thing is, most companies have a product ready for market when they are asking money for it.
I find it strange that anyone would be willing to pay to watch people struggling with the very basics, when you could have just hired experienced and talented people from the start.
I don't pay someone to work on my car when they are not an auto mechanic with the expectation they will eventually learn how to be an auto mechanic by working on my car.
This is such a damn good post. Its up to NASL to fire the people behind this years production, and re-hire people willing to do the job correctly. If the IPL is more worth while, with a lesser player base, and a lesser prize pool, you know something is seriously wrong with the CEOs of the business.
and hire a PR guy... Xeris is so aggressive on the forums
On July 10 2011 02:21 Gurblechev wrote: The thing is, most companies have a product ready for market when they are asking money for it.
I find it strange that anyone would be willing to pay to watch people struggling with the very basics, when you could have just hired experienced and talented people from the start.
I don't pay someone to work on my car when they are not an auto mechanic with the expectation they will eventually learn how to be an auto mechanic by working on my car.
This is it exactly. When I paid my $25 for the NASL season 1 pass, it wasn't a training fee, or a donation to the education of the NASL. It was money paid for services offered.
On July 10 2011 02:04 FLuE wrote: I know to this day incontrol must just regret ever having been excited and express his excitement about the league. That has been held against him, and the NASL by all the haters from day one. "BUT INCONTROL SAID THIS WAS GOING TO BE AWESOME!!!!" Ya, he's also said Pizza is awesome, so what. You've never talked up anything in your life? Regardless of the hype I had reasonable expectations just knowing the fact that they were basically running a 3 hour daily TV show for 9 weeks, and basically building it up from the ground level. That is not an easy task, long hours, little pay, all to try to do something cool. I never fault people when I know the effort is there. If they were lazy or didn't care it is one thing, but CLEARLY this isn't the case.
So now, to conclude my long post because I'm tired of reading about complaints the last 24 hours,stating things over and over that we all agree with, NASL agrees with and recognizes(They have listened to the viewers and their comments EVERY STEP OF THE WAY, they aren't ignoring the fans), and that I personally also hope they improve on as well, I'm going to type out a list of stuff I liked about the NASL this season :
1 - I like the league setup and the weekly games. It reminds me of a regular season of a sporting event. I could tune in when I wanted to see my favorite players or chose to not watch that day. They were generally always on time, and I feel the longer format really allowed the cream to rise to the top. I liked that if I had something to do or missed games I could see that player the next week or tune in the next day. A more relaxed viewer approach than say an MLG weekend where I'm trying to sit around the computer for 48 straight hours.
2 - I liked that the longer format allowed me to get to know some players throughout the league. There are players I became a fan of because it was fun to watch them do well week after week and hear the interviews right after. You don't get that in online tournaments or quick weekend LAN events all the time, and it was cool. I also thought the long format allowed talented players to rise to the top, and the players that knew how to prepare each week for their opponents did well and that was cool to see and hear how players prepared each week(some a lot, some not at all).
3 - I liked the pregame they did before the matches when there were players involved I wanted to hear about. It was cool to do a "pregame" event just like they do for other sports. Some people hated this, I never understood why people didn't just tune in 30 minutes after the "start" time. Everything the NASL does tries to mimic what is done in an ACTUAL sports league, if people didn't pick up on that.
4 - The last 2 weeks of the league following the playoff scenarios, who was trying to get in for next year, who was on the bubble of getting knocked out was all really cool. It made each game that didn't seem as important really matter, and again reminded me of any other sports league.
5 - I like that the playoffs is a very cutthroat winner take all system. Sorry, I don't want to see Double Elimination all the time. I want to see win and move on, lose and go home. Whether it should be BO3/5/7 etc, that is up for debate and I think has a lot to do with working within time constraints that exist. But I'm sorry, the BS over double elimination... just don't lose and it doesn't matter. How many other sports do double elimination playoffs? World cup? NFL? NBA? NHL? Maybe a cricket league somewhere? I don't feel bad for the players either who get to take an awesome trip to California, play video games, sign autographs, and chill with other pro gamers. If you were to tell me I could get a $500 stipend, have a chance to play for $50k, and go to California I'm there but I might have to put up a bit of my own cash.... Hell I'd go to that if it was a single elimination BO1 rock/paper/scissor contest.
I ALWAYS FIND IT IRONIC WHEN FANS CALL SOMETHING UNFAIR THAT THE PLAYERS KNOW ABOUT AND DON'T COMPLAIN ABOUT BEING UNFAIR. The players knew the format and have no issues with it, I think people need to get a better understanding of what unfair actually is. Unfair would be all zergs have to win 1 game to win the series, and protoss and terran have to win 3.
6 - Things they did right at the finals so far : Although the game booths need some decoration, they at least have them. Remember MLG without them? "That's just Halo..." The casters are great and there is a variety of them. Mixing up all of them that are there is great, and it was awesome they got tastosis[9] involved and didn't get lazy and just have gretorp/incontrol on stage but brought in the big hitters. I think once the mic's were fixed Anna's interviews are good, kindof reminds me of the halftime NFL sideline reporter interviews. I liked the hype-up videos before each match including their youtube entry to get into the league(SEN LOL), perhaps just cut them down a bit but the idea is pretty cool and I liked being reminded of how the players got there and who they beat throughout the league. Again this is no different than how other sports do it, where you spend the week before the finals of a sporting event hearing about who the teams beat to get there. The Darkforce games were as entertaining as any SC2 I've seen to date. Those complaining about Double Elimination, that series was as epic as it was because you knew it was a foreign player trying to send a Korean home, not just to the losers bracket. Thought that was great. It's funny because most of the BO3/Single Elimination complaint are coming from the viewers, yet the players aren't complaining about it at all. Music they had going throughout was great.
Do I think there is plenty to work on? Sure. Just go read the last pages of this thread and the first 500 of NASL Day 1. But I also think the people who are doing this are working hard, they are trying to put together something great for eSports, they have assembled great players from around the world with a sick prize pool that is there for 3 more seasons, and at some point I think just crapping on someone over and over especially when they know about it is pointless. There is good here with this league and potential, sometimes you just have to step back, take a deep breath, and be reminded of what did go well and was enjoyable because there was plenty of it. If you had the option of taking the NASL as it was over the past few months or not having it at all I know I'd rather have enjoyed watching great games, some really funny moments, and an organization that wouldn't be doing this if they didn't want to try to add to SC2 and eSports.
Just wanted to try to sprinkle some positive in the middle of everything else.
/rant
Great post pretty much agree with everything you said. Not to mention a lot of people are complaining about stupid shit like too many Koreans...as if its the NASL's fault that foreigners suck and can't even beat mediocre Koreans? People complain about the format as if NASL is the only tourney in history to do single elim (which is the better format IMO). The only one who has a right to complain is Ret who had to face Puma in the first round. People keep bringing up MLG as if every one of their events up to Columbus wasn't pretty much a shitfest. This one boggles my mind the most...not to mention the NASL is actually giving players a damn good prize purse which no one seems to bring up yet is probably the most important point to the players themselves. 50k for first place compared to the pennies u get at MLG? Yea I think they'll take NASL's crappier production values and single elim format. They still have a lot to improve on but it was nowhere near the worst tourney in history like people are making it out to be and I'm looking forward to see how they improve in season 2.
On July 10 2011 01:13 Drlemur wrote: Everybody who appeared on camera did the expected great job: day9 was a particularly good emcee and all the casters: gretorp, incontrol, tasteless & artosis. The interviews were a little choppy, but generally good. It's hard to get used to interviewing shy nerds in a another language.
It felt like there wasn't enough behind-the-scenes staff holding things together. You need solid, ideally experienced people, running every little detail from sound, video, player management, environment management (set design, lighting design), streaming, etc. Obviously this is tough if you're working on a limited budget, but my guess was you'd need 3x-4x the staff that seemed to be there.
I think some attention to on-site entertainment would have been helpful. I think you really need an emcee who holds together the whole event. Music (e.g., a DJ) to play into and out of the games, videos, breaks. Some sense of excitement and an event on the ground. All season long, I've thought it funny that there is no "face" to NASL. I thought it was Incontrol for awhile, or maybe Gretorp? MLG has Sundance. Who is NASL? If the person generally running things doesn't like to be on camera -- find somebody who can.
I watch a lot of GSL and they really commit to production and looking like an event. That H.S. gymnasium isn't always packed, but on stream, you always feel like it's special. MLG does that awesomely. Homestory also achieved that in a different way (and was very sharp on technical elements). Dreamhack was a little less so, but NASL Season #1 didn't really even make it onto the map as an event.
It's going to take money to throw an event and it's tough because you need sponsors. I think somebody may have to gamble with borrowing money to put on something more awesome for Season #2 and hope that the sponsors follow. But that's the way the entertainment business works: big risks and big rewards.
Companies have to start somewhere. We will improve with every day that goes on. Next event will be better. Look at the first ever GSL and the first ever MLG, and the first ever any major LAN. You guys are expecting us to start off and be the same as GSL, which is backed by a company that has been running Starcraft events in Korea for years, and MLG, which has been around for years.
We've only been around for less than 6 months. Anyway, it's okay if you guys don't like us. We still <3 everyone.
The thing is, most companies have a product ready for market when they are asking money for it.
I find it strange that anyone would be willing to pay to watch people struggling with the very basics, when you could have just hired experienced and talented people from the start.
I don't pay someone to work on my car when they are not an auto mechanic with the expectation they will eventually learn how to be an auto mechanic by working on my car.
This is such a damn good post. Its up to NASL to fire the people behind this years production, and re-hire people willing to do the job correctly. If the IPL is more worth while, with a lesser player base, and a lesser prize pool, you know something is seriously wrong with the CEOs of the business.
and hire a PR guy... Xeris is so aggressive on the forums
Well, in his defense, I'd be aggressive too if I was worried about keeping my job, and was specifically in the public hot seat, even if he isnt the person to blame, he will still be the one to be blamed.
Why do you, as a consumer care about the prize pool? Players get salaried, and the top ones get enough from salaries and endorsements so as not to require much prize money whatsoever(Idra said this on SOTG or ITG, can't recall). I'm not ever going to be competing for the prize money, so it's of no impact to me.
I care about the player pool, which yes, can be impacted by the prize pool. However, DreamHack, MLG and HomeStory all had great player pools with much smaller prize pools.
I care about value for my dollar, which I don't feel I've had. Yesterday from a consumer standpoint was unacceptable.
On July 10 2011 02:31 Holcan wrote: Well, in his defense, I'd be aggressive too if I was worried about keeping my job, and was specifically in the public hot seat, even if he isnt the person to blame, he will still be the one to be blamed.
That just means you shouldn't be in charge of PR for anything either. That's not how PR works, you can't be aggressive towards your target audience, not even if they're being dicks, and especially not when they have legitimate concerns.
On July 10 2011 02:04 FLuE wrote: I know to this day incontrol must just regret ever having been excited and express his excitement about the league. That has been held against him, and the NASL by all the haters from day one. "BUT INCONTROL SAID THIS WAS GOING TO BE AWESOME!!!!" Ya, he's also said Pizza is awesome, so what. You've never talked up anything in your life? Regardless of the hype I had reasonable expectations just knowing the fact that they were basically running a 3 hour daily TV show for 9 weeks, and basically building it up from the ground level. That is not an easy task, long hours, little pay, all to try to do something cool. I never fault people when I know the effort is there. If they were lazy or didn't care it is one thing, but CLEARLY this isn't the case.
So now, to conclude my long post because I'm tired of reading about complaints the last 24 hours,stating things over and over that we all agree with, NASL agrees with and recognizes(They have listened to the viewers and their comments EVERY STEP OF THE WAY, they aren't ignoring the fans), and that I personally also hope they improve on as well, I'm going to type out a list of stuff I liked about the NASL this season :
1 - I like the league setup and the weekly games. It reminds me of a regular season of a sporting event. I could tune in when I wanted to see my favorite players or chose to not watch that day. They were generally always on time, and I feel the longer format really allowed the cream to rise to the top. I liked that if I had something to do or missed games I could see that player the next week or tune in the next day. A more relaxed viewer approach than say an MLG weekend where I'm trying to sit around the computer for 48 straight hours.
2 - I liked that the longer format allowed me to get to know some players throughout the league. There are players I became a fan of because it was fun to watch them do well week after week and hear the interviews right after. You don't get that in online tournaments or quick weekend LAN events all the time, and it was cool. I also thought the long format allowed talented players to rise to the top, and the players that knew how to prepare each week for their opponents did well and that was cool to see and hear how players prepared each week(some a lot, some not at all).
3 - I liked the pregame they did before the matches when there were players involved I wanted to hear about. It was cool to do a "pregame" event just like they do for other sports. Some people hated this, I never understood why people didn't just tune in 30 minutes after the "start" time. Everything the NASL does tries to mimic what is done in an ACTUAL sports league, if people didn't pick up on that.
4 - The last 2 weeks of the league following the playoff scenarios, who was trying to get in for next year, who was on the bubble of getting knocked out was all really cool. It made each game that didn't seem as important really matter, and again reminded me of any other sports league.
5 - I like that the playoffs is a very cutthroat winner take all system. Sorry, I don't want to see Double Elimination all the time. I want to see win and move on, lose and go home. Whether it should be BO3/5/7 etc, that is up for debate and I think has a lot to do with working within time constraints that exist. But I'm sorry, the BS over double elimination... just don't lose and it doesn't matter. How many other sports do double elimination playoffs? World cup? NFL? NBA? NHL? Maybe a cricket league somewhere? I don't feel bad for the players either who get to take an awesome trip to California, play video games, sign autographs, and chill with other pro gamers. If you were to tell me I could get a $500 stipend, have a chance to play for $50k, and go to California I'm there but I might have to put up a bit of my own cash.... Hell I'd go to that if it was a single elimination BO1 rock/paper/scissor contest.
I ALWAYS FIND IT IRONIC WHEN FANS CALL SOMETHING UNFAIR THAT THE PLAYERS KNOW ABOUT AND DON'T COMPLAIN ABOUT BEING UNFAIR. The players knew the format and have no issues with it, I think people need to get a better understanding of what unfair actually is. Unfair would be all zergs have to win 1 game to win the series, and protoss and terran have to win 3.
6 - Things they did right at the finals so far : Although the game booths need some decoration, they at least have them. Remember MLG without them? "That's just Halo..." The casters are great and there is a variety of them. Mixing up all of them that are there is great, and it was awesome they got tastosis[9] involved and didn't get lazy and just have gretorp/incontrol on stage but brought in the big hitters. I think once the mic's were fixed Anna's interviews are good, kindof reminds me of the halftime NFL sideline reporter interviews. I liked the hype-up videos before each match including their youtube entry to get into the league(SEN LOL), perhaps just cut them down a bit but the idea is pretty cool and I liked being reminded of how the players got there and who they beat throughout the league. Again this is no different than how other sports do it, where you spend the week before the finals of a sporting event hearing about who the teams beat to get there. The Darkforce games were as entertaining as any SC2 I've seen to date. Those complaining about Double Elimination, that series was as epic as it was because you knew it was a foreign player trying to send a Korean home, not just to the losers bracket. Thought that was great. It's funny because most of the BO3/Single Elimination complaint are coming from the viewers, yet the players aren't complaining about it at all. Music they had going throughout was great.
Do I think there is plenty to work on? Sure. Just go read the last pages of this thread and the first 500 of NASL Day 1. But I also think the people who are doing this are working hard, they are trying to put together something great for eSports, they have assembled great players from around the world with a sick prize pool that is there for 3 more seasons, and at some point I think just crapping on someone over and over especially when they know about it is pointless. There is good here with this league and potential, sometimes you just have to step back, take a deep breath, and be reminded of what did go well and was enjoyable because there was plenty of it. If you had the option of taking the NASL as it was over the past few months or not having it at all I know I'd rather have enjoyed watching great games, some really funny moments, and an organization that wouldn't be doing this if they didn't want to try to add to SC2 and eSports.
Just wanted to try to sprinkle some positive in the middle of everything else.
/rant
Great post pretty much agree with everything you said. Not to mention a lot of people are complaining about stupid shit like too many Koreans...as if its the NASL's fault that foreigners suck and can't even beat mediocre Koreans? People complain about the format as if NASL is the only tourney in history to do single elim (which is the better format IMO). The only one who has a right to complain is Ret who had to face Puma in the first round. People keep bringing up MLG as if every one of their events up to Columbus wasn't pretty much a shitfest. This one boggles my mind the most...not to mention the NASL is actually giving players a damn good prize purse which no one seems to bring up yet is probably the most important point to the players themselves. 50k for first place compared to the pennies u get at MLG? Yea I think they'll take NASL's crappier production values and single elim format. They still have a lot to improve on but it was nowhere near the worst tourney in history like people are making it out to be and I'm looking forward to see how they improve in season 2.
Yeah I don't get the Koreans complaint either. They've played well, so they absolutely deserve to be here. Although to be honest there was a bit of bad luck on how the brackets turned out, placing every foreigner against a Korean. I'm sure that won't happen next time, I mean what are the odds?
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Af7oD.jpg)
