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.
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.
Regardless of all the haters (even from prominent members of the community, which is pretty disappointing to me), we're going to keep plugging away. We won't lose faith or give up because all of us here believe in our vision. We started from nothing and put on a great show, especially considering that this was our first large scale event. I feel great right now
Sound was not fixed halfway through the round of 16. There were issues the entire weekend, whether it be that mics werent working, sound was only coming out from one side or terrible echo.
The delay was not by any means standard. 2 hours per bo3, especially with short games is pretty terrible, and then to try to blame it on the players is laughable. Especially since the players weren't in the booth setting up during the 20 minute intros. The intros are there to fill time I presume, if not get rid of them.
You have this terrible attitude that everyone who criticizes you wants to hurt you, and its pretty disgusting. Everyone, whether they be prominent members of the community or random scrubs, wants you to succeed. They want a big north american league to work so the community can grow. By dismissing the criticism as coming from "haters" you not only alienate potential supporters, but come across as arrogant and ignorant. There are lots of really obvious problems with the league. Single elimination, open tournament vs one seed, the map pool, the casters, the vods, the production, etc.
LISTEN TO THE INPUT. If a costumer tells you that something is wrong or should be improved then try to fix it. Don't just call them haters and take this "Holier than thou" attitude.
Look at MLG. Terrible debut at Dallas, but they took responsibility for it and gave refunds to their costumers as well as took dramatic steps to improve anything. You still haven't taken responsibility for what went wrong. You went so far as to insinuate that the delays were the players' faults. The players saved this tournament. You get another chance, you just better make it count.
Regarding the format, one thing that must be mentioned is that NASL got extremely lucky with the seeding, which made the format look better than it actually was. Imagine a scenario where MC is the #1 seed (completely plausible of course): he'd be playing PuMa in ro16 in a bo3. If the games played like the finals, MC loses 0-2 and is out after a very mediocre series.
On July 12 2011 17:16 leo23 wrote: Moletrap asked White-Ra about the NASL event and this is what he had to say:
"I like here, but I think NASL need to change rules. Because we have here single elimination. Maybe better make group stage and after [that] single elimination. Or [just] double elimination. Because community can see many games and player who lost can [have] second chance. Because I spent many time come here, played SelecT, I lost [vs] him but I not have second chance make comeback. And of course 1st place is good money but it's half of [the] prize pool and people who played 2 months spent many time nervous wake up 4 am 6 am and come here and not get big prize pool money. Just all money get 1st and 2nd place and I think it's not fair because all players spent many time for practice and they deserve more."
Here is the link of the youtube interview:
The question and answer go from 4:46 to 6:06
I think White-Ra has a point, having double elimination or group stages is way better for a LAN event since it provides the viewers much more games and entertainment. I'm sure the time that is needed for any of these formats exists. Just look at the hours of downtime during the tournament. It really hurts to see your favorite player come to this live event only to see him knocked out after a single series. And I can only imagine how would ret feel after being the #1 seed with such an impressive record and travel hundreds of miles just to play for 10 minutes and get eliminated.
I know that the NASL has a group stage as you mentioned but that is online... It is different very from LAN where there are so many different factors involved.
As for the prize money part I cannot comment on that since I don't exactly know what is a "fair" prize money distribution, but I think the most important part of this interview is about the entertainment value that the viewer can get from these different formats.
I disagree with the group stages. As you mentioned, NASL has already several month long group stages, it wouldn't make much sense to add more group stages. However, i agree that the pricepool should compensate players for going to the finals. Maybe make the total pricepool 10k smaller and pay for all flights, housing and food for all 16 players. Currently it's almost a "I pay money to fly there and i might not even get anything back" situation for the players.
Yeah, maybe not group stages but what about double elimination? I just don't think that the single elimination good for this tournament...
In response to Milkis, the biggest part I disagree with is the issue with delays - I witnessed some progamers taking quite a bit to set up and get their things in the right order. I think its just the fact they were given so much more time, some felt they would prefer a longer set up time. IMO it was much better to nail the live event with delays then to try to rush everything and potentially have even more critical errors.
This happens everywhere. If you watch Proleague, this is what the commercial time is used for and why the casters often fill up the time before the match actually begins. There are times where there are delays and the casters have to fill in more time etc. This will always be the case and of course we need to give them time to prepare.
My main issue is that even with this, most of the delays I think was caused by the sad use of time between the games. There were downtime after the matches, downtime while the intro was going... and then downtime after the intro... My point is that it could have just been more efficient.
In the end I think your experience is mostly formed by the fact that you were present at the event which will give you a different opinion because the energy at those events are intense. But the thing is that to an extent as someone who just watched at home I felt like they did not care whether we watched or not, given by how little communication there was, how little care there was to get the little stuff working properly from the sound to the camera to the delays... and some of the response actually worries me because it's "It's fine at the live event so hah!" almost as if the streams were an afterthought when the streams are the majority of the fan base.
NASL is just another event. Same experience applies everywhere and there's nothing unique about it that makes it free from blame on things that are under their control. It's not like NASL advertised themselves with "NEWBIE DRIVER: PLEASE BE GENTLE" with their logo or anything. They advertised and hyped themselves up to be professional and that is what we expected, which is why there's a lot of disappointment.
But because NASL is just another event, that means that it has the same potential as the other leagues. But in order for them to do that, they needed to be professional in terms of preparation and production and step it up quite a bit. It of course has a lot of potential and we all love watching these amazing 3 day events but as Koreans put it it was an event that really tested the patience of many people.
Xeris, you did a great job, but you really need to work on formatting your posts so that it doesn't sound like there's primarily "problems" with the league that you're working on fixing. Market your new guys and talk about the improvements you're making! You guys did a great job and put out a Starcraft II product that's similar in quality to the GSL, and has only really been matched in production value by the IPL on this side of the pacific, and your only mistake was not doing a few test runs in the beginning (or should I say, being too eager?) and not making iNControL and Andre shave before broadcasting.
This season you can only add on, and great luck to you! -Season Ticket Purchaser, Season 1 and Season 2
In response to Milkis, the biggest part I disagree with is the issue with delays - I witnessed some progamers taking quite a bit to set up and get their things in the right order. I think its just the fact they were given so much more time, some felt they would prefer a longer set up time. IMO it was much better to nail the live event with delays then to try to rush everything and potentially have even more critical errors.
This happens everywhere. If you watch Proleague, this is what the commercial time is used for and why the casters often fill up the time before the match actually begins. There are times where there are delays and the casters have to fill in more time etc. This will always be the case and of course we need to give them time to prepare.
My main issue is that even with this, most of the delays I think was caused by the sad use of time between the games. There were downtime after the matches, downtime while the intro was going... and then downtime after the intro... My point is that it could have just been more efficient.
In the end I think your experience is mostly formed by the fact that you were present at the event which will give you a different opinion because the energy at those events are intense. But the thing is that to an extent as someone who just watched at home I felt like they did not care whether we watched or not, given by how little communication there was, how little care there was to get the little stuff working properly from the sound to the camera to the delays... and some of the response actually worries me because it's "It's fine at the live event so hah!" almost as if the streams were an afterthought when the streams are the majority of the fan base.
NASL is just another event. Same experience applies everywhere and there's nothing unique about it that makes it free from blame on things that are under their control. It's not like NASL advertised themselves with "NEWBIE DRIVER: PLEASE BE GENTLE" with their logo or anything. They advertised and hyped themselves up to be professional and that is what we expected, which is why there's a lot of disappointment.
But because NASL is just another event, that means that it has the same potential as the other leagues. But in order for them to do that, they needed to be professional in terms of preparation and production and step it up quite a bit. It of course has a lot of potential and we all love watching these amazing 3 day events but as Koreans put it it was an event that really tested the patience of many people.
The DH Invitational had the best solution for this I think: the players had separate computers which they set up as they wished while the previous series was going on. During the downtime between the series, the staff simply swapped the towers in the booths. Total set-up time on stage was basically reduced to the time it takes to boot up the PCs.
There is already a thread on TL somewhere about this, but for a select amount of people, the JTV stream is unwatchable due to skipping frames/sound and lag in general, no matter the quality. I don't know the details exactly, but I have the problem and I couldn't really watch the finals. Sucks.
I like the format of having a ton of games. Being able to choose what matches I want to watch is great. I am a Zerg player who occasionally plays Terran. So starting with NASL I stopped watching PvP and TvP. It was great having so many games so I could just watch the match ups I enjoy.
In response to Milkis, the biggest part I disagree with is the issue with delays - I witnessed some progamers taking quite a bit to set up and get their things in the right order. I think its just the fact they were given so much more time, some felt they would prefer a longer set up time. IMO it was much better to nail the live event with delays then to try to rush everything and potentially have even more critical errors.
This happens everywhere. If you watch Proleague, this is what the commercial time is used for and why the casters often fill up the time before the match actually begins. There are times where there are delays and the casters have to fill in more time etc. This will always be the case and of course we need to give them time to prepare.
My main issue is that even with this, most of the delays I think was caused by the sad use of time between the games. There were downtime after the matches, downtime while the intro was going... and then downtime after the intro... My point is that it could have just been more efficient.
In the end I think your experience is mostly formed by the fact that you were present at the event which will give you a different opinion because the energy at those events are intense. But the thing is that to an extent as someone who just watched at home I felt like they did not care whether we watched or not, given by how little communication there was, how little care there was to get the little stuff working properly from the sound to the camera to the delays... and some of the response actually worries me because it's "It's fine at the live event so hah!" almost as if the streams were an afterthought when the streams are the majority of the fan base.
NASL is just another event. Same experience applies everywhere and there's nothing unique about it that makes it free from blame on things that are under their control. It's not like NASL advertised themselves with "NEWBIE DRIVER: PLEASE BE GENTLE" with their logo or anything. They advertised and hyped themselves up to be professional and that is what we expected, which is why there's a lot of disappointment.
But because NASL is just another event, that means that it has the same potential as the other leagues. But in order for them to do that, they needed to be professional in terms of preparation and production and step it up quite a bit. It of course has a lot of potential and we all love watching these amazing 3 day events but as Koreans put it it was an event that really tested the patience of many people.
The DH Invitational had the best solution for this I think: the players had separate computers which they set up as they wished while the previous series was going on. During the downtime between the series, the staff simply swapped the towers in the booths. Total set-up time on stage was basically reduced to the time it takes to boot up the PCs.
Yeah that is what happens in PL too except sometimes this takes a bit longer.
In response to Milkis, the biggest part I disagree with is the issue with delays - I witnessed some progamers taking quite a bit to set up and get their things in the right order. I think its just the fact they were given so much more time, some felt they would prefer a longer set up time. IMO it was much better to nail the live event with delays then to try to rush everything and potentially have even more critical errors.
This happens everywhere. If you watch Proleague, this is what the commercial time is used for and why the casters often fill up the time before the match actually begins. There are times where there are delays and the casters have to fill in more time etc. This will always be the case and of course we need to give them time to prepare.
My main issue is that even with this, most of the delays I think was caused by the sad use of time between the games. There were downtime after the matches, downtime while the intro was going... and then downtime after the intro... My point is that it could have just been more efficient.
In the end I think your experience is mostly formed by the fact that you were present at the event which will give you a different opinion because the energy at those events are intense. But the thing is that to an extent as someone who just watched at home I felt like they did not care whether we watched or not, given by how little communication there was, how little care there was to get the little stuff working properly from the sound to the camera to the delays... and some of the response actually worries me because it's "It's fine at the live event so hah!" almost as if the streams were an afterthought when the streams are the majority of the fan base.
NASL is just another event. Same experience applies everywhere and there's nothing unique about it that makes it free from blame on things that are under their control. It's not like NASL advertised themselves with "NEWBIE DRIVER: PLEASE BE GENTLE" with their logo or anything. They advertised and hyped themselves up to be professional and that is what we expected, which is why there's a lot of disappointment.
But because NASL is just another event, that means that it has the same potential as the other leagues. But in order for them to do that, they needed to be professional in terms of preparation and production and step it up quite a bit. It of course has a lot of potential and we all love watching these amazing 3 day events but as Koreans put it it was an event that really tested the patience of many people.
The DH Invitational had the best solution for this I think: the players had separate computers which they set up as they wished while the previous series was going on. During the downtime between the series, the staff simply swapped the towers in the booths. Total set-up time on stage was basically reduced to the time it takes to boot up the PCs.
Yeah that is what happens in PL too except sometimes this takes a bit longer.
In response to Milkis, the biggest part I disagree with is the issue with delays - I witnessed some progamers taking quite a bit to set up and get their things in the right order. I think its just the fact they were given so much more time, some felt they would prefer a longer set up time. IMO it was much better to nail the live event with delays then to try to rush everything and potentially have even more critical errors.
This happens everywhere. If you watch Proleague, this is what the commercial time is used for and why the casters often fill up the time before the match actually begins. There are times where there are delays and the casters have to fill in more time etc. This will always be the case and of course we need to give them time to prepare.
My main issue is that even with this, most of the delays I think was caused by the sad use of time between the games. There were downtime after the matches, downtime while the intro was going... and then downtime after the intro... My point is that it could have just been more efficient.
In the end I think your experience is mostly formed by the fact that you were present at the event which will give you a different opinion because the energy at those events are intense. But the thing is that to an extent as someone who just watched at home I felt like they did not care whether we watched or not, given by how little communication there was, how little care there was to get the little stuff working properly from the sound to the camera to the delays... and some of the response actually worries me because it's "It's fine at the live event so hah!" almost as if the streams were an afterthought when the streams are the majority of the fan base.
NASL is just another event. Same experience applies everywhere and there's nothing unique about it that makes it free from blame on things that are under their control. It's not like NASL advertised themselves with "NEWBIE DRIVER: PLEASE BE GENTLE" with their logo or anything. They advertised and hyped themselves up to be professional and that is what we expected, which is why there's a lot of disappointment.
But because NASL is just another event, that means that it has the same potential as the other leagues. But in order for them to do that, they needed to be professional in terms of preparation and production and step it up quite a bit. It of course has a lot of potential and we all love watching these amazing 3 day events but as Koreans put it it was an event that really tested the patience of many people.
The DH Invitational had the best solution for this I think: the players had separate computers which they set up as they wished while the previous series was going on. During the downtime between the series, the staff simply swapped the towers in the booths. Total set-up time on stage was basically reduced to the time it takes to boot up the PCs.
Yeah that is what happens in PL too except sometimes this takes a bit longer.
Gotta pull out the rulers to make it perfect
In Hana Daetoo they made Flash a customized booth. They set up from start to finish in 30 minutes flat.
On July 12 2011 15:00 Joseph123 wrote: What makes me sad is that you think your format is ok.. (example you think its fair for Ret to win everything in the open season and then to lose 2 games and its out) You want NASL to be unique but at the same time you say the format is like other tournaments so its fine..
I agree.
The format is RIDICULOUS.
It is absolutely unfair to Ret.
Xeris, alot of people have been slamming this (there is a specific thread regarding this). Have you discussed with your colleagues regarding this or asked friends for more input? I can't believe that people around you will okay this arrangement. Dare I say it is simply pure stubbornness to admit that the matchup was wrong?
Let's see the public opinion.
Poll: What do you think of Ret having to play against Open Winner?
Absolutely ridiculous. What a way to reward the best performer of divisional play. (74)
76%
Doesn't matter. They will meet eventually. (20)
21%
Don't care. I don't watch NASL anyway. (3)
3%
97 total votes
Your vote: What do you think of Ret having to play against Open Winner?
(Vote): Absolutely ridiculous. What a way to reward the best performer of divisional play. (Vote): Doesn't matter. They will meet eventually. (Vote): Don't care. I don't watch NASL anyway.
Right on the money.
I was watching only because I was interested in BoxeR and White-Ra games. I didn't watch after they got eliminated. It would be better if the event would be double elimination.
Am I the only one that tuned into the finals, thinking they would be partway through the first game, only to find the finals had been moved much earlier?
I tuned in just in time, literally, to see the last gg, and to have the entire finals ruined for me, now all the tension from the VODs is entirely lost.
I don't know how you notified people of the schedule change, but obviously it wasn't good enough, I spent all weekend watching NASL and had the finals entirely ruined. It works great for USA, you can watch all the pre-game stuff and catch the earlier start time, but for other timezones people have to set alarms to wake up and stuff, am I expected to get up 4 hours earlier next finals in case you move the most important match again?
There was so much wrong with NASL, but this just ruined the entire thing for me in the end. NASL has a lot to prove if they want me back as a viewer. MLG managed to win me over, lets hope NASL can perform similar magic for season 2.
I for one love the NASL format and what you're trying to do. You can truly see the improvements week on week in the regular season and then improvement day after day at the finals. That you're addressing all these problems and are aware of them should be enough for those that do nothing but senselessly bash the league because it didn't live up to expectation. And sure you promised a lot, but by the end of it you have delivered and I'm sure you will deliver yet again. And now that you have a great product to show off AND a season of viewing figures I'm sure it will be way easier to get sponsors to plaster all over the league.
Just echoing the fact that the sound issues lasted from the beginning of NASL up until the final game of the grand finals weekend.
I really hope you guys get it together for season 2, because it was irritating for half the games to have game music and the other half not have game music. It was irritating for the game sounds to be almost inaudible due to the volume of the commentators. It was especially irritating during the finals weekend to have the audio levels go all over the place every time you went from announcer to commentators to in game to interviews.
That part about blaming progamers on delays was pretty unnecessary -_-
As for the format: we feel like this format is okay. The big changes I believe we're looking into based on player feedback from the event is to make matches starting off be BO5, and introduce a veto system rather than all pre-set maps. In fact, player responses to the actual tournament finals were very positive from the people I talked to (<3 MorroW). To the people who say, "the finals shouldn't just be a single elimination!" I'd like to say: Dreamhack playoffs are single elimination, MLG's playoffs are single elimination (except for the 4 winners of pool play), WCG playoffs are single elimination... etc. The only difference is that since these are LAN events, the stages leading up to the playoffs are played on site, while ours are played online. Ret, for example... didn't fly out to the NASL, play his first matches, and get eliminated. He played for 9 weeks in the regular season. PuMa played multiple matches for every single day in the week, against some of the top level non Korean and Korean players in the Open Tournament (which was single elimination), and then played in the finals... etc. Try to look at the season as a whole rather than the Finals as an isolated event, and it makes a lot more sense.
So, Ret didn't fly out to the NASL, play his first matches, and get eliminated. He played for 9 weeks in the regular season, ... ... got the best results, and THEN he flew out to the NASL, play his first matches, and got eliminated. The playing for 9 weeks online prior to the event doesn't detract from the unfairnes of the matter, it actually adds to it.
The format is not good. At least in my opinion. It hurts the players as well as the fans. I didn't watch after White-Ra and BoxeR got eliminated.
On July 12 2011 17:35 alexhard wrote:The DH Invitational had the best solution for this I think: the players had separate computers which they set up as they wished while the previous series was going on. During the downtime between the series, the staff simply swapped the towers in the booths. Total set-up time on stage was basically reduced to the time it takes to boot up the PCs.
They could even reduce the number of PCs needed for setup, just take swapable harddisks. We had those in one of the universities i attended, the professors just took theirs disk, put them into the slot in the front and their own setups were ready to go. Just install windows, SC2 and some common drivers, put 2 PCs somewhere in the back, insert the disks and let the players set up (and maybe even practice/warm-up). When it's time for the big stage, transfer the disks over and insert the new disks for the next 2 players on schedule so those can set-up and warm-up without having to bother with all the options the previous players might have changed. If they use SSDs, the boot time will be reduced even more, making the system ready in mere seconds.
Another thing that i thought of, though i don't know if that already happened as i live too far away to ever attend a NASL live: Wouldn't it be nice for the live audience if the left and right screens would show the first person view of the players? It's definatly technically possible by mirroring the screen output and sending it to the projectors and it would be awesome to see the players in action. From the camera shots it looked like all screens were the same, which would be a waste.
On July 12 2011 17:35 alexhard wrote:The DH Invitational had the best solution for this I think: the players had separate computers which they set up as they wished while the previous series was going on. During the downtime between the series, the staff simply swapped the towers in the booths. Total set-up time on stage was basically reduced to the time it takes to boot up the PCs.
They could even reduce the number of PCs needed for setup, just take swapable harddisks. We had those in one of the universities i attended, the professors just took theirs disk, put them into the slot in the front and their own setups were ready to go. Just install windows, SC2 and some common drivers, put 2 PCs somewhere in the back, insert the disks and let the players set up (and maybe even practice/warm-up). When it's time for the big stage, transfer the disks over and insert the new disks for the next 2 players on schedule so those can set-up and warm-up without having to bother with all the options the previous players might have changed. If they use SSDs, the boot time will be reduced even more, making the system ready in mere seconds.
Another thing that i thought of, though i don't know if that already happened as i live too far away to ever attend a NASL live: Wouldn't it be nice for the live audience if the left and right screens would show the first person view of the players? It's definatly technically possible by mirroring the screen output and sending it to the projectors and it would be awesome to see the players in action. From the camera shots it looked like all screens were the same, which would be a waste.
This is actually the Blizzcon setup from last year.
NASL's setup is only a waste if it doesn't help anyone who couldn't get seats with a good view of the main screen see what's going on. If their seats are spread out on the sides a lot, having multiple projectors with the same screen is going to be helpful for the audience.
EPT
