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Some suggestions:
You could divide your prizemoney between the regular season and the finals. Have each win in pouleplay be worth 50$ (9 playdays of 5 matches x 5 divisions = 11250$) , give the winners of the divisions 500$ (2500$). Rest goes to the finals (still 86250$). The online playoffs for seeding shouldn't be awarded with money, the winners getting to go through to the finals is a big enough reward in itself. Get rid of the open tournament, now that the participants aren't invite based anymore.
I don't like the finals format, I'd much rather prefer a 2nd pouleplay (groups of 4, round robin bo3) and have the best 8 battle it out in Single elim ro8 Bo5, ro4 Bo7, finals Bo7. Downside to this is that you can't cast all the matches the first day, unless you lenghten the event by a day.
Have the players send their driver info beforehand, so you can pre install everything. (make an image and make sure to restrict the access of the players to the computers). Have backup PC's and gear. Work with that variables.txt thing someone suggested in the thread (don't know what it is precisely, but I imagine it's a config of sorts). Tape all cords/wires to the ground.
As to the sound/image issues, I don't have any decent knowledge of what needs to be done, except that you need extensive testing and have an experienced crew.
Make sure you got someone in charge for the "show" specifically, who says things like "interviewer mic 1 & 2 on, mute commentator mic 1 & 2", "switch to floorcam1" etc.(that's what a director does, right? :p)
I'm still all for replays for the online part, TSL proved it's doable (and better), they had 1 or 2 hickups, which is less than you guys had casting live. You say the players don't have the discipline to do it, yet no match was delayed or forfeited during TSL. You should give them more credit.
If possible, can you revamp your site? I like the idea behind it, but it could be a bit more simplistic and especially a lot lighter. Same with the venue, everything was pitchdark, could've been a goth meeting :D.
Get new booths! players looked like they didn't have enough room, I dunno if the crowd could see the players but it seemed like it wasn't possible, which takes away from the experience. I like the webcam idea, but the image was just so shitty it doesn't really add anything. Have a camera onstage facing the crowd/players, I saw multiple cheerfuls from the back, but not being able to read them sucks, I always love some good banter or art on a cardboard :D.
Overall, I like the NASL, it had a lot of hickups, but if it can evolve in a steady league it will surely help SC2 expand. Don't hesitate to ask help from people who have experience with these sort of events, DJwheat mentioned multiple times that he had the feeling that the NASL crew gave the idea they didn't need/want help from the outside, but it can't hurt to talk to people who are involved in E-sports for a long time.
Yey for Season 2, hope all goes well 
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One Solution could be to not give the Open Tournament Winner a Spot in the Grand Final, it's completely destructive to the whole Idea of a League. Imagine the NBA adding another Tourney to add one Team to its Playoffs that didn't play in the actual Season. I think a next Season Spot should be enough incentive to play the Open Tournament.
And btw we all know the Winner of that Tournament will be some Korean Gosu so dont let him play vs the #1 Finisher of the Season.
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I cannot help but compare HSCIII and NASL finals. Both ran for 3 days with 16 player and were casted from one computer.
Now compare the viewer experience... and have the season 2 finals in Take's flat!
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On July 12 2011 19:30 butch wrote:
Some suggestions:
You could divide your prizemoney between the regular season and the finals. Have each win in pouleplay be worth 50$ (9 playdays of 5 matches x 5 divisions = 11250$) , give the winners of the divisions 500$ (2500$). Rest goes to the finals (still 86250$). The online playoffs for seeding shouldn't be awarded with money, the winners getting to go through to the finals is a big enough reward in itself. Get rid of the open tournament, now that the participants aren't invite based anymore.
Its good idea. Maybe some $ for each win in the league. No shows would be penalised.
And about the open tournament... They have 5 groups... No matter how you do it you will be one player short....
On July 12 2011 19:30 butch wrote:
I'm still all for replays for the online part, TSL proved it's doable (and better), they had 1 or 2 hickups, which is less than you guys had casting live. You say the players don't have the discipline to do it, yet no match was delayed or forfeited during TSL. You should give them more credit.
Remember that its Xeris... The manager who couldnt even get enough people from his own team online to participate in last match before finals in EG masters...
He is just comparing other managers to him...
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On July 12 2011 19:49 Thrombozyt wrote:
I cannot help but compare HSCIII and NASL finals. Both ran for 3 days with 16 player and were casted from one computer.
Now compare the viewer experience... and have the season 2 finals in Take's flat!
How many live viewers did HSC3 have?
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On July 12 2011 20:09 Morfildur wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2011 19:49 Thrombozyt wrote:
I cannot help but compare HSCIII and NASL finals. Both ran for 3 days with 16 player and were casted from one computer.
Now compare the viewer experience... and have the season 2 finals in Take's flat! How many live viewers did HSC3 have?
More than NASL on free stream only
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On July 12 2011 13:11 Xeris wrote:
As far as the delays go -- this was fairly standard for almost every LAN event,
The biggest issue I had, was that yet again a Starcraft organization completely neglects any kind of information to its viewers. I don't really understand why this is, when you can plainly see the kind of rage it induces, for each and every event.
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On July 12 2011 20:09 Frankon wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2011 20:09 Morfildur wrote:On July 12 2011 19:49 Thrombozyt wrote:
I cannot help but compare HSCIII and NASL finals. Both ran for 3 days with 16 player and were casted from one computer.
Now compare the viewer experience... and have the season 2 finals in Take's flat! How many live viewers did HSC3 have? More than NASL on free stream only
And after watching the free stream I am ready to pay money to watch HSC4.
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On July 12 2011 18:58 kmhuey wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2011 18:46 AmericanUmlaut wrote:On July 12 2011 18:30 kmhuey wrote:
I may be unpopular for this but you all keep complaining about Ret vs Puma. Yet had Ret won would you see everyone complaining like this? If Puma had lost I doubt we would see so many of the big TL guys complaining about how unfair the format was. Even though Puma flew further and won the open bracket which had to be just as tough if not slightly tougher than winning the group stage. If your complaint is about Bo3 or about single elimination there is no reason to bring up a specific game, the fact that everyone keeps bringing this one game up just shows what the main motivation for these complaints are. That is that Ret lost.
On a positive note I really enjoyed the finals. It was the first live event I have been to. I got to meet a lot of players and casters. I am planning on going to the S2 finals as long as it is still in So Cal.
P.S. don't take me wrong I like Ret and I was rooting for him the whole time I just think that there are some other motivations behind some of the format complaints other than just the format. The reason so many of us take issue with the format isn't that we don't think Puma's accomplishment was impressive or worthy of a prize, it's that there is so little reward for the nine weeks of content the pro players provide the NASL. Giving the winner of the open tournament bottom seed in the finals just feels completely unfair to the players who spent all that time grinding through the league, and effectively punishes the player with the best league record. See I do not get this. Puma played through a brutal Open Bracket which by the way it was announced before the league started that the open bracket winner would get into the top 16. Most of the top 16 could not have won that open bracket how does that make his accomplishment unimpressive or unworthy of a prize? Thats just silly to say.
Please read my post again, you have misunderstood the words in it.
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Well, I like that a reduced player pool of 45, instead of 50 means a shorter road to a final, but it also means only 4 games per night as opposed to 5.
I feel that 5 games per night was problematic for two reasons:
First: that's a shit-ton of starcraft. Not only for viewers, but for casters and staff too. I don't really care to watch that much. That's what, 3 or so hours per day? At least I know that you have at least a half-hour of boring hyping at the beginning that I can skip... (why not hype between games? Viewers have a notoriously forgetful short-term memory, by the time the game you hyped up an hour ago comes on, we've forgotten everything you've said about it)
Second: The overall quality of games in the first season was pretty bad. Luckily the quality of players has gone up a bit, so mayhaps that helps. Still, though, many of the games I tuned in for last season were really not worth my time. I'm not saying that every game has to be MC vs Puma finals, or anything, but with so many games, most of them were quite lackluster. I feel like you could have 4 games, but only cast 3--one being a quick-filler highlight recap, like they do in professional sports. No major sports league actually shows every season game on television...
I want the NASL to succeed. I do. But I would say these were my two biggest issues with the league.
Cheers, and GL with Season 2!
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really great to see so many good changes
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This may have been brought up already but as for the format of the finals. You said you are happy with it so far, but at the same time you are trying to make it more like a real sports league. To that end I would try to tweak it slightly. Single elimination is fine, most playoffs in sports are single elimination. However they all have something in common: first round byes. Right now the players that finish in the top 5 are not really rewarded much compared to the bottom 5. Look at Ret who had to play the eventual winner of the tournament in his first game despite being the number 1 seed. That should happen only rarely in a tournament system like this.
I would recommend trying to fit first round byes in the finals somehow for the top 5 division winners. Or if you wanted to make sure that even the last week matters make only the top 4 division winners get a bye so that even if you are ahead in your division and are advancing no matter what it is still worth it to win your last game.
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On July 12 2011 20:09 Frankon wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2011 20:09 Morfildur wrote:On July 12 2011 19:49 Thrombozyt wrote:
I cannot help but compare HSCIII and NASL finals. Both ran for 3 days with 16 player and were casted from one computer.
Now compare the viewer experience... and have the season 2 finals in Take's flat! How many live viewers did HSC3 have? More than NASL on free stream only
Uhm, live viewer means "person physically attending the event, getting autographs and photos with the stars", not "sitting at home in his room watching it on a stream"... I doubt you could even fit a hundred people into Takes flat.
Also, NASL Finals had 85'000 consecutive streamviewers when i checked them, which is IMHO quite impressive. Sadly NASL took place at an impossible time where i had to stop watching because it got too late and i had to go to work the next day.
EDIT(Clarification):
Producing a show with only online viewers is _a lot_ easier than producing a show with a big stage. You need a ton more people, hardware and space.
Even I could do a show at home, inviting a few pros over, connecting a webcam and cheap 50€ camera to my PC and streaming it... but a big event is something totally different.
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Cool info on possible improvements.
I think some of the constructive criticism here is spot on.
My two cents; you cannot even tell from your main website, nasl.tv, that the finals were even played!!
This was your highest achievment of the season, the final 7 games, they were such high quality gameplay and 'generally' unmarred by technical difficulties (apart from shit audio at end interview + shit gretorp audio)... So wheres the info, the big story, the pics of the man accepting the cheque ....
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On July 12 2011 20:27 Morfildur wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2011 20:09 Frankon wrote:On July 12 2011 20:09 Morfildur wrote:On July 12 2011 19:49 Thrombozyt wrote:
I cannot help but compare HSCIII and NASL finals. Both ran for 3 days with 16 player and were casted from one computer.
Now compare the viewer experience... and have the season 2 finals in Take's flat! How many live viewers did HSC3 have? More than NASL on free stream only Uhm, live viewer means "person physically attending the event, getting autographs and photos with the stars", not "sitting at home in his room watching it on a stream"... I doubt you could even fit a hundred people into Takes flat. Also, NASL Finals had 85'000 consecutive streamviewers when i checked them, which is IMHO quite impressive. Sadly NASL took place at an impossible time where i had to stop watching because it got too late and i had to go to work the next day.
Live viewers as non VOD viewers...
Also below Take flat there is a bar....
So a bar with big TV's and beer and pros coming down after the matches >>> NASL anytime.
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In addition for the praise I posted for addressing all the issues and working hard to improve them, I found a typo:
On July 12 2011 13:11 Xeris wrote:
Further, two huge complaints we got before the season: "why do you make people be on teams?!" and "why do they need VISA's" were answered this season. Take PainUser and Strelok for example. PainUser was no a dysfunctional/team that died. He was the most problematic player in the league in terms of attendance. The reason we require teams is precisely to take care of this issue. A player in a team is much less likely to have other full time commitments that preclude him from playing in matches, a team is much more likely to ensure their player shows up on time by reminding them, etc. As for the VISA issue, Strelok showed us that this is a real problem that people face. We took one "risk player," and at the end of the day it turned out that he wasn't able to get the VISA on time. Next season, we're going to work with everyone to make sure that they have their VISA's before the season starts before we allow them to participate so we won't have this problem again
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Something else I want to draw to your attention, Xeris. Why is this not posted on the NASL site? Why has the NASL site not been updated at all even after the finals in regards to the finals, winner, etc...? Even though TL is probably the main source of traffic for NASL, I think it's really important to keep your own website updated.
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I posted here so I shall tl;dr
> Run the next event in a pre-fitted auditorium (looks cooler, nicer seating)
> If you're broadcasting every game there's no need to schedule for a 'worst case' game length, schedules are always subject to change or run late
> GJ with the hype videos (shame you had to repeat them), with Lindsey, with post game interviews
> Sound problems will be self apparent when you watch back the event VoDs. You'll cringe when you realise what was going out.
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![[image loading]](http://chzmemebase.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/memes-cant-tell-if-rn-or-m.jpg)
User was warned for this post
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On July 12 2011 13:11 Xeris wrote:
They've now learned a lot about the work flow and have a solid rhythm down. We have a new graphic artist and video production guy (you saw his video to introduce the finals of MC vs PuMa, for example) who will be making the look and feel much better.
Is there a clip of this somewhere? I'd like to see it again, I don't really remember it.
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EPT
