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3) And most importantly ---- UPDATE YOUR GODDAMN TOURNAMENT WEBPAGE:
This is so true. The rules, the brackets, the start times, the winner, etc, should be posted on NASL.tv. Viewers should not have to go to TL to find out the latest on NASL.
Go to http://nasl.tv/ right now and what is shown?
- "Live Match in Progress" (lol)
- Finals bracket still incomplete (no winner show)
Where are the pics of the Finals? Where's Puma holding the over-sized check for $50,000? Right now the eSports spotlight is shining on NASL. And it is all going to waste.
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On July 12 2011 00:07 Hammurabio wrote:This is so true. The rules, the brackets, the start times, the winner, etc, should be posted on NASL.tv. Viewers should not have to go to TL to find out the latest on NASL. Go to http://nasl.tv/ right now and what is shown? - "Live Match in Progress" (lol) - Finals bracket still incomplete (no winner show) Where are the pics of the Finals? Where's Puma holding the over-sized check for $50,000? Right now the eSports spotlight is shining on NASL. And it is all going to waste.
I'm not sure they know how to edit their website.
If you look at the bottom of the page it is made by "Web Advanced", a company that slaps skins on one-size-fits-all aspx websites. They probably have to put in a request to them to get anything changed.
I can't believe people hire companies that slap their own advertisement on your site these days. Much less one who uses aspx and Microsoft Windows server...
They really desperately need in house web development considering they are a web based business. Either that or just remove the site entirely and make nasl.tv a redirect to their actual base of operations on justin.tv.
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Some points that have been probably mentioned, but this is how I felt.
- Boring stage. Might as well put both casters in a dark closet (like they did with the players! Bazinga!).
- Deaf audio engineer and observer who is having constant heart attacks.
- Be professional when it comes to actual entertainment/casting. Don't fly 3 popular casters to the event if you're not going to use them when it really matters. This isn't kindergarten anymore, you don't get a gold star for trying. Same thing goes for interviews/music by Incontrols gf. Despite what he might think, the super majority rather not hear her sing and have someone else do the interviews. Her questions weren't particularly interesting.
- Those player intros were really cool. Haha no, I'm just kidding.
- Considering for how long first two days went on (being european, I didn't get to hear Tastosis a single time), they had content to fill maybe 1/5 of that time. Considering you have 5 casters on the location, there's no excuse to wait hours between each 2-0 series.
- Fixed map pools and single elimination bo3 is a really, really bad idea.
Seeing what they did the entire season, I simply do not see where the money went. Not a single clue.
+ Show Spoiler +Probably skin care products for Puma.
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I wish they would do away with the open tournament for a spot in the finals. It really disenfranchises the long regular season. Is there a precedent where this occurs in any sport in the history of the world? I can't imagine. Poor ret places first seed and should have the easiest first round but with the format he gets arguably the hardest. The winner of that open bracket tournament is always going to be some boss mode Korean who is likely a hell of a lot better than the #16 NASL seed. Sucks to be first.
edit: also
better sound guy
better production staff
double elim for top16 bracket
more organization/schedule
etc.
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I was planning on walking into the Victory Cafe just in time to grab a beer and sit down for the finals. But by then the whole god-damned thing was over.
Stick to your posted schedules, dudes.
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I'd like to apologise for acting like a spoiled child when I found out Incontrol and Gretorp were casting the finals. I thought they both did a great job, Kudos to them both for making me eat humble pie.
What Hotbid said was right, there were a lot of problems with this tournament. But I will remember those finals forever, some fantastic entertainment.
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The final match was the first time when I got my wife (she does play SC2) to watch SC2 live with me. We are really happy that they destroyed the schedule, because it turned out to be in a good time for us (midnight to 2 AM) and I think was so good that it may have convinced her to watch more SC2. And that, my friends, that is good for ESPORTS!
But it was quite interesting from other viewpoint: as she basically never watched esports live, she considered a lot of stuff funny - even things I did not realize, or have become blind to. So i would like to bring you what I have observed from her reaction, so you can get a viewpoint of someone basically new to esports.
The main thing for sure was the casting language - "there will be no sort of ghost academy" or "he has no kind of high templars", that is just syntactially wrong. There are no sorts nor kinds of these things, they are pretty unique  And Inc+Gretorp do that a lot (together with other illogical sentences) and it distracted her from otherwise a quite good of a cast.
Nevertheles, I thnik she had a lot of fun looking at IncontroL in general - this is not bashing, it's just his looks and mainy hairstyle are ... different from what we usually see in TV (and we consider this basically a TV show), or around us in general. Overall I think she was quite surprised with the amateur looks of the production. I personally don't care too much as I just am a fan of the community and find it pretty cool that NASL even exists. But to and outside observer, who expects to see something like a sports event in TV, it is a little disappointing to see all sorts of little glitches, constantly inbalanced sound etc
On the other hand, I thnik she was quite caught in the story, when I explained her who MC is and how PuMa got into finals through the open tournament and all sorts of history around the whole NASL. I thnik that these things should have been repeated during the finals for new veiwers, so that they see the really thrilling backstory that is behind the current match. Because in this finals, there really was a lot to talk about.
I think we should all reflect on this and remember that things that we do not see may be much bigger to other people.
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The only way I knew when the NASL was coming on was coming to TL or hearing an announcement at the very end of the broadcast on day 1/2 which most people don't watch all the way until the end.... That shouldn't happen. The NASL website literally had nothing on start times or anything besides maybe the first day I think.
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I love nasl but I just have a few things to add to hopefully change for next season:
1. I purchased the vods but I could NEVER watch them. They are too high quality and the constant buffering made it impossible to watch. if I learn that lower quality vods are provided in season 2 I will purchase the ticket again.
... now that I think about it.. that is pretty much my only gripe.. though it is a big one.
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Im actually so shocked by the poll results with people wanting a ro16 group stage. You already have a HUGE group stage that seperates the top players. The grand finals are not a one off event where you just "turn up" from Europe and then lose and go home in 1 bo3, they are the culmination of the 9-10 weeks of play you already had.
The huge group stage of NASL already provides players with enough chances to play games, make a few slip ups and importantly to make sure their team name gets enough exposure to keep the sponsors happy for paying the bills to make the trips possible.
Sometimes I dont want more games, I just want games that mean something, and a single elimination bracket sure as anything gives you that in a way that a group play cant quite capture. At the end of the day a player might not be happy that they went out in the first round of a single elimination event. But you know what, they arnt going to be that happy going out in a group play either.
I can see the merits of a bo5 if time constraints allow, given the quoted "randomness" of the game as this retains the drama of single elimination. Still.. I do kinda love the randomness. Does no one else enjoy the tension/hope/excitement of a match where the outcome can feel so uncertain at the beginning. It may sound dumb, but if the best player always won, competition could get really boring!
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On July 12 2011 06:44 Schwang wrote:
I love nasl but I just have a few things to add to hopefully change for next season:
1. I purchased the vods but I could NEVER watch them. They are too high quality and the constant buffering made it impossible to watch. if I learn that lower quality vods are provided in season 2 I will purchase the ticket again.
... now that I think about it.. that is pretty much my only gripe.. though it is a big one.
Pretty sure lower quality vods ARE available even now. Im certain ive been watching them in 480p
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1. Hire a lighting designer. It looked like the stage was lit by brute force of a gazzilion lights. (both at the event and in the studio) More strategic placement of lights will vastly improve production value
2. Makeup. I'm not sure if the event had a dedicated makeup artist, but both the players and the casters would benefit from it. Because the stage lighting was so bright it made the lack of makeup/bad makeup even more obvious.
3. Write a script for the event. Plan in advance. There should be a stage manager that ushers both players and casters to and from the stage. There should be a director who decides which camera to follow and when to insert filler. Stuff like intro videos and historical reels should be prepared as filler, not slotted into the main event.
4. Rotate out the casters more frequently. It will keep the energy high and elevate the quality of casting. There were 5 casters there, at least 1 of them could be an obs at any given time.
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On July 12 2011 06:58 BigLighthouse wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2011 06:44 Schwang wrote:
I love nasl but I just have a few things to add to hopefully change for next season:
1. I purchased the vods but I could NEVER watch them. They are too high quality and the constant buffering made it impossible to watch. if I learn that lower quality vods are provided in season 2 I will purchase the ticket again.
... now that I think about it.. that is pretty much my only gripe.. though it is a big one.
Pretty sure lower quality vods ARE available even now. Im certain ive been watching them in 480p
Some DSL connections require 360 and under or it buffs.
If he is running a slower DSL in a secluded area, then he requires 360p or lower.
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I enjoyed the weekend. i had no time to watch the regular season everyday but i enjoyed the finals. Still there are pretty big issues that i'm sure you have heard 100000x but here we go.
1. The format, too many games to get to the finals imo, i had no time/interest to watch any of them. The european restream is great but still i lacked the interest. Even moreso now that we have seen you don't need to play the first 9 weeks to win the all thing.
2. The sound, ya get a new sound guy it was REALLY bad.
3. The Website, still not updated ? unacceptable.
4. Female interviewers ? no, just no. Look it's great having cute chicks up there, but their lack of sc2 knowledge or overall geekiness made it awkward. And most of the questions sucked. Why not have casters do the interviews?
5. Player videos, cool but too long. I know you wanted to use the content of the 9 previous weeks but it was too much.
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The games, and for the most part casting was great.
On the other hand production on all levels was horrible, NASL needs to hire professionals that know what they are doing, when the sound guy cant even keep the left and right channels balanced its time to replace them.
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United States7483 Posts
On July 11 2011 11:34 jmbthirteen wrote:Show nested quote +On July 11 2011 11:17 Whitewing wrote:On July 11 2011 10:52 Dantat wrote:On July 11 2011 09:55 Whitewing wrote:
Fix the open bracket issue, a lot of people don't like that a player can win the open bracket then get a fair shot at first place when all the league participants put in way more time and effort (even though it doesn't make it actually easier).
Maybe put the top 2 people in from each division and then the last spot, instead of going to an open bracket player goes to the person with the best record from the league play that didn't make the top 2 of his own division. I like the open bracket idea. It gives relatively unknown or unpopular players a chance to show their skill. If Puma would have applied via applications, I don't think he would have had even been considered to be put in the regular pool. And come on, it wasn't that bad for the regular players (except for the Koreans who had to wake up at absurd times). They didn't have to play every day, 8 hours a day, for 9 weeks as some people are making it sound. They played around once a week- in the comfort of their own home- in their underwear if they chose to. It's a league. There should be a good reason to participate in league play. There is less of a reason if someone can conceivably (and did!) show up to one open bracket tournament, win that, then win the whole 50 grand. It makes the 9 weeks of games less meaningful and significant, and thus detracts from the value of the entire event. But your chances at making the finals are much greater by playing in the 9 week season rather than the open tournament. You are able to drop games in the regular season, but if you do in the open tournament you are done. Darkforce and HasuObs both went 5-4 in the regular season, but still made the finals. Puma went like 8-0 in the open bracket and faced multiple Korean pro's on the way. The good reason to participate in league play is that you have a better chance at making the finals.
What matters more is that it gives a good reason for the viewers to want to watch the games. The more meaningful the games are, the more people would be interested in watching. It devalues the league itself, and encourages tuning in just for the finals themselves.
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Basically from what I've read the people who criticized the interviews also criticized that they were female. Not one or the other, but both. It's fine to criticize the questions they asked, but why also their gender?
I think the female interviewers were a good addition. Maybe they don't appeal to the hardcore/technical Starcraft fans, but they provided entertainment and appealed to a broader range of people who are casually into Starcraft/have not heard of it. It's also good for the people who attended the event live, as it added a little more hype and excitement among the crowd. (Everyone wanted interviews with Lindsey. I was one of the people interviewed.) Great games were the main reason the crowd was reactive, but she also put a lot of people in a good mood.
It might be a cultural thing in the US, but having attractive women in a show or form of media is an effective way of marketing anything in the country, and it's great that females are able to find a way to actively participate in a male dominant run tournament. All mainstream sports in America have some sort of sex appeal for both males and females. (Michael Phelps, Jeff Gordon, Labron, Tony Romo, Derek Jeter, Tastosis to name a few males) There are females who get into the sport because they see an attractive guy, and it works the same for males seeing attractive females.
So for the haters, hate the questions and personality or whatever, but there's no real reason on hating on their gender. I'm sure if the interviewer was male and asked the same questions there would be a lot less hater comments, because the questions were entertaining.
(The event was awesome live, I suggest anyone capable of going to the next season finals or MLG Anaheim later this month to attend. It is a totally different experience than watching it online. Obviously there were production issues, and hopefully they address and fix it all for next season.)
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EPT
