EPTNASL Finals Stuff - Page 2
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Izaku
Korea (South)127 Posts
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slicknav
1409 Posts
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tsuxiit
1305 Posts
Also, saying things like "I feel great right now  " really isn't the way you guys should be comporting yourselves. You're a business, not just some guy. Dissatisfied stream viewer #21,456 doesn't care how you feel.edit: I feel like Milkis below me made a few great points as well. | ||
Milkis
5003 Posts
As far as the delays go -- this was fairly standard for almost every LAN event, but luckily Saturday went MUCH more smoothly. Some delay problems were caused by (to name a few): Moon refusing to let our staff touch his mouse/keyboard and plug them in for him... Boxer accidentally tripping a power cord and shutting off his computer, DarkForcE changing the computer language into German and trying to install some obscure logitech mouse drivers, etc. I don't think the delays you listed accounts for even 1/100th of the delays that were on the streams. I don't understand why any progamer setting up his own gear causes delays at all. In fact, a lot of progamers are actually sensitive about this issue and always would prefer to set things up themselves. I also don't think "Boxer tripping over power cord" also accounts any significant portion of the delay issues. If you're keeping the same format for next time: figure out what drivers each progamers are using for their equipment and preinstall them, and have them set up and warm up while the intro videos are going on... there was a lot of downtime and you guys could have utilized it better and I think a lot of people will agree with that. Anyway, what prompted me to respond mostly was that remark. It disturbs me that you're more willing to bring out the external factors that were a minimal contribution to whatever delays are out there to dodge the issue... especially since you're "blaming" the progamers for the issue. I don't like this one bit. Maybe it wasn't your intention but yeah. This really was meant to be a show rather than a LAN event that most people are accustomed to seeing. The problem, as I see it, is that it didn't translate well to the stream viewer. The people on the stream didn't get to be involved in meet and greets, autograph/signing sessions, raffles, and HoN activities. Almost in between every match we had signings with pro players at different booths. Other spectators were watching players play in the warm up area, etc. There was a lot of stuff going on that really didn't get captured and put up on stream -- so the event, from a stream viewer's perspective, might have seemed a bit silly to go so long with so few games. This is something that we are planning to think about and address for Season 2, in order to make the viewing experience great not just for the live spectators, but for the stream audience as well! Nearly every event has this... I don't see why this is anything unique to NASL at all. The other major problem was the sound (although I was way too busy handling the tournament at that point and wasn't worrying about tech problems myself), which TheGunrun from Justin.tv knew how to fix. The only way to solve the problem was to turn off the stream, change some settings, and start it back. We made a conscious decision to wait until the break (halfway through the Ro16) to do that. In retrospect, it might have been a better idea to fix that immediately. How about Sound Tech Issues? They lasted until the end of the entire series I compare NASL to SC2 when it first came out. There were a lot of criticisms and there were many ways to defend what it was. People said "oh well, it's new, give it some time... BW was bad when it first came out". To a certain extent that is correct, but to another extent... 10 years of BW taught people how to play RTS games in a highly competitive setting -- just because it's a different event, it's not like people have to completely relearn how to think about these games. Just like that, while NASL is new -- being new doesn't excuse it from all troubles, since it's not like NASL couldn't learn from other events, or just any experience of putting a show together. It honestly felt like SC2 with 2001 BW macro level. The point is BW taught people what macro was all about, and it was immediately known in SC2. This is why I don't think being "new" excuses everything as you might have said and I kind of dislike how it sort of feels like you're skirting around the issue. A lot of mistakes in NASL I believe could have been avoided... the Projector bit was unfortunate and we can't blame you guys for it just like we can't really blame MLG for stream lag in Columbus thanks to the weather. Those are things that are unforeseeable and you guys get a clean slate for that. The foreseeable stuff, well... I love the fact that you guys put in the effort to improve tremendously from Day 1 to Day 3, but to an extent how much you guys improved from Day 1 to Day 3 shows that you guys could have been a bit more prepared for what was coming up. I think most of the non projector related issues could have easily been foreseen. I think there are many churches that have better sound tech than that. Either way, whether it be dealing with Sound, Camerawork, to even interview questions... these are something that I think could have been went over before the event started. Good show overall, though. I hope you guys don't think I'm just blindly criticizing since I did stay at home to watch all the event (although I missed most of the last day because you guys changed the schedule last minute and I didn't see a notice anywhere ~___~ you guys should have been a lot more public about that I think) and I enjoyed watching it. But to a certain extent I have a feeling you guys lucked out A LOT thanks to the players and the casters who were fantastic. Make sure to be thankful for that and please do your best in the future... I haven't told you the biggest reason why I compared NASL to SC2. That's also because SC2 game quality improved tremendously since the beginning and you are correct in that a lot of it has to do with more experience. There's definitely a lot of potential and I do hope that the experience here will improve the show next time for sure. Best of luck. | ||
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ClysmiC
United States2192 Posts
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Phaded
Australia579 Posts
that haven't been addressed On July 09 2011 21:25 kmh wrote: Looking at the NASL production from a viewpoint of having some experience in event production, the entire thing makes me feel kind of sad. I can see the NASL guys doing the same kinds of mistakes people with lack of experience always do. I do not wish to rip into the guys doing it, because I know they are in over their heads and they are mostly putting out fires at this point and don't need people to lay into them, so I will try to give some constructive feedback instead. First of all, set design for video and stage design are two different beasts. The stage looks quite good from a stage design viewpoint. I'm sure it looks good in person. However, it does not work all that well as a tv set. The pure black backdrop makes it harder to get good shots. Which brings us to the point of camera angles. The main cameras were mounted way too far away, an they were mounted on a wobbly platform. The end result is that the cameras shook every time someone walked by, leading to a seasick impression much of the time. The alternate side-ways camera angle was nice as an effect, but should not be overused. The cameras also suffered from exposure and white balance issues. Due to the black background, it is easy to overexpose the image unless you control the exposure manually. Ditto the tungstedn WB stage lights need to be compensated for as well, lest you end up with the commentators looking oddly like the cast from Jersey Shore. The interviews should have been filmed as close as possible, or off on a different set (e.g. a corner with a sofa). The far-away camera, combined with the tri of interviewer/interviewee/interpreter not hitting their marks, led to an impression of a high school play being filmed with a camcorder, with the cameraman desperately trying to pan around to fix what is a problem with blocking. Then there's the audio. The audio production suffered from a multitude of issues. Ground loops plagued the audio the entire day. The caster mics sounding to me like they were out of phase with each others (i.e. one of them had flipped polarity), which lead to comb filtering effects and sudden volume fades. This luckily got fixed during the day. For the interviews, you would like one mic per person - you do not want mics to be passed around. Finally, it was fairly obvious that there was no compression being used. Now, my strength is really in audio production, and it saddens me to notice these issues. Ground loops, phase problems and things like compression are things that are easy to set up, easy to fix and easy to test for if you have the experience. However, you need to do all of that beforehand. If you end up trying to find ground loops while the show is un, you are in a very uncomfortable position as an audio engineer. The final impression I got was that the production was done by a group of talented amateurs/volunteers who were in over their heads. Having experienced staff on hand would have helped tons. Again, this is just my humble impression: I shall not presume to know what the actual situation was like. Here's hoping the issued get fixed, and that the next finals will be a stellar production. What will be done about the camera work and the stage design? Also, apart from the issues of getting the audio streams to play nice after day 1, will there be any usage of compression for the audio so that our heads don't explode when day9 talks, and we don't have to turn our volume way up to hear the shy players? | ||
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Wren
United States745 Posts
On July 12 2011 14:16 tsuxiit wrote: Especially because Mr. Bitter is going to cast full-time Season 2 Did I miss an official annoucement? What's your source? | ||
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Phaded
Australia579 Posts
Introduce the players first, then show the intro vid while the players set up their drivers and equipment. There should be no reason for the players to be waiting on the side for 5 minutes to be introduced while they can be doing things inside the booth | ||
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tsuxiit
1305 Posts
On July 12 2011 14:23 Wren wrote: Did I miss an official annoucement? What's your source? It's all circumstantial. During the MLG July 4th broadcast, when asked if he was going to do more casting, he said he wasn't sure he could talk about anything yet but he was definitely going to do more casting in the future, considered the event a warm-up, and that he was "grateful for certain opportunities that had been afforded to him." He's guest casted for the NASL numerous times via internet and in-studio so he's obviously quite well-known to the NASL crew. I'd be highly surprised if he was not their pick. | ||
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StaplerPhone
United States813 Posts
Edit: Stuff I forgot to mention -Intro videos, it'd be nice if they were only a minute, especially since some are shown multiple times as players advance through the tournament. -First seeded player vs. Open Tournament winner, something needs to be done with this match up, its pretty much a punishment for being first seeded for the season and having to play someone who fought through a super tough open bracket. | ||
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Executor1
1353 Posts
On July 12 2011 13:48 Leo702 wrote: I was able to attend this event, and from attending other big conventions such as Blizzcon and PAX, this turned out to be an amazing event. I think we got really excellent games because of the big prize pool incentive and the players did not have to play many games in a row like in other tournaments, giving them more time to rest and hide their strategies. NASL Finals > Every GSL Finals (GSL is awesome but NASL finals win) Keep up the good work and continue to improve. Im assuming you have never attended a GSL finals and that is why your view is this way. NASL finals had no special flair like the GSL does, i guess they did have a musical performance but its nothing like the GSL finals where they have pop stars that have songs that top the charts performing. I dunno the games were fricking amazing so if your going just based off of that i agree (although most players did come from korea and play in the GSL in some form or another) if your talking about the actual production its like freaking night and day, NASL in general has been very bland throughout the regular season and the finals. The studio before the green screen was just a grey backdrop and a grey desk with nothing on it (really bland). The finals reminded me of a blown up version of their studio, it was mostly grey and black with nothing on the caster desk except an ibuypower banner and nothing really to catch your eye. At GSL finals there is Flames fireworks , epic epic player intro's (did you see the intro's for the super tournament? OMG) its not even worth comparing pretty much thats mainly because GSL probably invested close to 10x more money in their finals then NASL did and thats only for 1 match so i guess NASL finals did okay (aside from the first day) with what they had. | ||
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MrBorto
United States17 Posts
For season 2 I would love to see you take $40k from the finals and put that into the regular season. $50 per game OR $4k for division winners $3k for runner ups and $2k for playoff winners. Make it meaningful. | ||
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Defacer
Canada5052 Posts
On July 12 2011 14:19 Milkis wrote: I don't think the delays you listed accounts for even 1/100th of the delays that were on the streams. I don't understand why any progamer setting up his own gear causes delays at all. In fact, a lot of progamers are actually sensitive about this issue and always would prefer to set things up themselves. I also don't think "Boxer tripping over power cord" also accounts any significant portion of the delay issues. If you're keeping the same format for next time: figure out what drivers each progamers are using for their equipment and preinstall them, and have them set up and warm up while the intro videos are going on... there was a lot of downtime and you guys could have utilized it better and I think a lot of people will agree with that. Anyway, what prompted me to respond mostly was that remark. It disturbs me that you're more willing to bring out the external factors that were a minimal contribution to whatever delays are out there to dodge the issue... especially since you're "blaming" the progamers for the issue. I don't like this one bit. Maybe it wasn't your intention but yeah. First of all Milkis, your response is so baller and on point I just wanted to acknowledge it. On July 12 2011 14:19 Milkis wrote: The foreseeable stuff, well... I love the fact that you guys put in the effort to improve tremendously from Day 1 to Day 3, but to an extent how much you guys improved from Day 1 to Day 3 shows that you guys could have been a bit more prepared for what was coming up. I think most of the non projector related issues could have easily been foreseen. I think there are many churches that have better sound tech than that. Either way, whether it be dealing with Sound, Camerawork, to even interview questions... these are something that I think could have been went over before the event started. I must say, I've been to weddings with better sound and overall production design. It's not enough to have a graphic artist/video production guy. Expecting one person to build quality graphic assets, composite and animate them, in the context a cohesive vision for the design and brand of the NASL overall is a little unrealistic. From a spectator standpoint, it doesn't feel like the NASL has any form of design expertise or leadership on staff. It's part of the reason why the NASL feels less like a professional, coherent product and experience, and more like a group of hardworking, earnest people accepting whatever services or work their friends are willing to provide. My best recommendation for the NASL is to take some down time and really reevaluate the design of every aspect of production. | ||
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Phaded
Australia579 Posts
Besides, GSL can't do anything when one player in the finals decides to choke and turns it into a 0-4 stomping | ||
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hmunkey
United Kingdom1973 Posts
Hire someone to mix the audio. Hire someone to operate the camera. Hire someone to create the stage/set. It should be pretty obvious that a tournament with a prize pool like NASL's shouldn't end up looking like a middle school project. | ||
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Serek
United Kingdom459 Posts
Long league season that became less interesting as the rounds were played and the walk-overs increased, just to be made pointless by having the winner of the open tournament win the whole thing. Having "risk players" was an irresponsible move and shouldn't have been allowed in the first place since it creates false expectations for both players and audience. You have a policy, stick to it; that's why it's there. Underhanded move, and AFAIK unexplained, decreasing the quality of the free stream from 480 to 360. If you want to increase revenue you'd better improve your product, not create artificial scarcity (in this case, of a higher quality stream you were offering for free already). Production flaws that were persistent across the whole season, up to the last day, despite of all the feedback/comments/hate. Makes me question the ability of the NASL team to actually learn from their mistakes. Most likely I won't bother watching season 2 until the main bracket starts. There are a lot of other quality tournaments to be watched which are less aggravating on the audience. | ||
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tsuxiit
1305 Posts
1. They were all an identical format. There was zero care or consideration given to the player that made you actually want to watch them or care about them. And if you don't care about the video you just made, why should I watch it? I'm pretty sure your thought process there was "Fill 15 minutes before every match with videos." That may not have been how you said it, but it sure as hell was how it ended up. 2. You showed the player losses for no reason that the viewer could discern. I understand the perspective that the videos were meant to show a player's success as well as his trials and tribulations on the way to the finals, but when you watch the video that's just not how you feel. There's no variance in the soundtrack, no textual context or voiceover, no direction. Again, it felt like you guys didn't give a shit about how these things ended up. You just needed to pump out this video. 3. There were numerous glaring inaccuracies. When you showed the highlight of Boxer's game against Zenio where he dropped marines on the little platforms on the bugged version of Tal'Darim Altar, you flashed a big "WIN" graphic over the video. Boxer lost that game. I can't even begin to express how annoying that is to a viewer. It's borderline deceitful. You aren't even telling us what happened during the season. Maybe what you were trying to say in some weird backhanded, way was that Boxer showed this absolutely incredible tactic that amazed thousands of Starcraft fans who may have doubted Boxer's ingenuity in a new game. Say THAT instead of forcing it into a context of repetitive, bland "game highlights" that really don't even offer a genuine perspective on the season (especially when it's not even factually accurate, LOL). And beyond that it goes without saying that repeating them doesn't help matters. It just shows that you don't have enough content that you thought was suitable to display in front of a live audience. Maybe you would rebut this post by saying you guys were working on a deadline and are understaffed and that's why you had to follow this bland formula for your league retrospective. If that's the case, then you need to take a shitload of money out of your prize pool, and put it into more league staff to fix shit like this. Right now. If you aren't even capable of creating the meaningful retrospective on your league's player's journeys that you intended, it seriously detracts from your league's identity. It makes it seem like everyone at the NASL is staring out the window all day not giving a shit about what they're doing (which I'm forced to believe is not far from the truth). The NASL is coming out of this apparently still understaffed with only this, vague nebulous of a Season 1 to work off of for the future. You have zero content base and frankly zero meaningful stories. I wasn't drawn into the league at all, despite your "it's a LEAGUE, not a tournament!" selling point. Frankly you didn't do a good job doing the one thing you said you would be good at. And if it's because your spread too thin and understaffed, fix it now because otherwise you basically have no reason to exist other than throwing money at players. /rant | ||
Jibba
United States22883 Posts
For instance with set design, you began the NASL with a black desk, black backdrop, black monitors, grey sign and iNc/Gretorp wearing black sports jackets and grey shirts. Anyone that's worked on a TV show or set design for anything besides the Vagina Monologues should've told you that was a mistake. You corrected part of it by midway and had iNc/Gretorp wearing colorful shirts and you set up the green screen with the blue SC2 image. Then we get to the Grand Finals and it's the exact same thing as before, only compounded with poor lighting. Of course this seems nitpicky but that should be even more reason to admit a mistake was made. Your post reads like there's tiers of explanations and 3. Poor decision/mistake... comes after 1. External problems (players irresponsible...) and 2. We've learned/We're new... Like, the sound was not fixed by the end of the finals. It was at least on, but the levels were shifting constantly (I probably adjusted the volume slider about 20-30x on the last day) and the balance didn't sound set up well. | ||
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ApBuLLet
United States604 Posts
The vision of having a true StarCraft 2 League in North America is amazing and is something that would really take eSports a huge step forward in terms of making it more stable and "legitimized" as people like to say. So far, I don't think that this vision has been fully achieved, and I'm sure you guys feel the same way, however, towards the end of the season it definitely started to have the feeling of a true sports league and after one season I think that is a huge accomplishment in itself. Personally, on many week nights I would log into StarCraft with many of my buddies from VPGamers and we would all just hang in the chat channel or on vent and just watch NASL and talk about it. We would root for our favorite players, talk about the games, trash talk each other when someone's favorite player got demolished, and overall just have fun watching StarCraft with each other. No matter how many editing problems, stream crashes, and technical difficulties there was throughout the season, being able to bring people together to enjoy something they love week in and week out is the ultimate goal of a league like NASL in my opinion. Feedback One thing that I did not like about NASL is that it was hard to follow consistently, especially if you do not pay for VODs, which personally I think should not be necessary just to follow the league, but more of an extra thing for the more die hard people. Like you said, it's hard to watch every single game in an entire season of basketball, and the same goes for the NASL. That's all well and good, not everybody needs to watch every single game of such a long tournament (compared to what we are used to), however, many of us would like to be able to follow the league closely even though we may not have time to watch all of the games. For example, you do not need to watch every single NBA basketball game in order to know the results of matches, the standings in each division, which players are injured, what happened in the highlight games/series' each week, etc. With the NASL, you really DO need to watch all of the games to get this type of information. Yeah I can go to the NASL site and look at the standings, but that doesn't tell me what went on during the games at all, and that's what I want to know. So here is my suggestion, keep in mind that I have no idea what is feasible for you guys to do, so this is assuming that time, resources, and labor are not an issue (which very likely is not the case  ). You guys have a vision of what you want to NASL to be and this is nothing more then a vision of mine.My suggestion is to have a weekly (roughly) ESPN-type recap on what happened in the NASL during that week. Have set topics, even if they are just a rundown of the highlight matches of the week, and have the casters, players, etc, talk about them briefly. Just a few ideas of what you could talk about are trends going on within match ups that may be changing a bit at that time, trends going on between players (something like "IdrA's ZvT has been awesome lately because he has adopted this playstyle that is just a little bit different from what he is doing before and this is why it is so good), highlight matches such as July vs MC or something like that, big upsets, funny/interesting games (KiWiKaKi on Terminus RE, Artosis vs. Grubby, that kind of stuff ), etc. I'm sure there would be plenty of topics to talk about for an hour or so each week.I know Day[9] isn't really a part of NASL other then casting at the finals, but I could totally see him doing a job like this full time for NASL. Not necessarily spending an hour analyzing something like he does in his daily, but just brief, pre-planned analysis of games to convey the general idea of what happened in a game. You could even bring players on as guests through skype or something sometimes (as you did for interviews) and have them talk about a game they played, or a game someone else played. These players don't necessarily need to be in the league either, just people who are knowledgeable about the game. Lastly, I think something like this would need to be a free thing that everyone has access to, otherwise it is rather pointless. My main problem is that it is hard to follow without having VOD access because there is no other way to see any of the games to even get a general idea of what is going on. This makes people not want to buy the VODs because there is no way for them to get into it really. An hour long show once a week would be an awesome way to keep people interested who do not subscribe, and hopefully it will be enough to make want to see the stuff they are missing by not subscribing. Anyway, I am really looking forward to NASL season two and I am excited to see what you guys can do with a year of experience under your belt, I'm sure it will be awesome! P.S. Sorry if this is super long and rather incoherent, I am exhausted at the moment lol. | ||
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Joseph123
Bulgaria1144 Posts
You want NASL to be unique but at the same time you say the format is like other tournaments so its fine.. Dunno why didnt you excuse to the viewers for flying Tastosis and Day9 and not letting them cast all the games?.. You think its ok to get the best casters in the world and let them watch the finals in the audience? You didn't say anything about the long intros which were really boring for 97% of the people.. and no - progamers can't be an excuse for the delays nobody is believing that | ||
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