Hey everyone, just want to say a big thank you to everyone who came out to the NASL Finals this past weekend! It was a truly great event and I'm so happy that everyone there seemed to be enjoying themselves. I'm going to be sharing my experiences from this event and from managing the league in general! I hope that it will be interesting for you all to read about sort of what goes on behind the scenes and whatnot, so enjoy! I'll be working backwards most of the time ~~
The Finals
Setting up was a ton of work. We broke down the studio on Tuesday, and had all of Wednesday and Thursday to set up, with doors supposed to be opening Friday at 10:00am. Set up was quite a task, we basically just had us in the studio in addition to the sound crew, some of the convention center staff, and two laborers we hired to help set up. Things were going nicely, if you remember This Blog and This Blog. The first problem occurred Thursday night, when the projectors were finally installed and raised to the rafters and we were going to test them out. Everything was fine, and then... the right projector broke. Totally not working. We scrambled to get a replacement, which came in Friday morning, and we had to rush to install it before the start.
Another problem occurred with the projectors where they weren't sending packets they received (aka, problem projecting). We finally fixed that and got it working by the time stuff started Friday, but it was only a temporary solution (which is why only the feed from the capture computer came to the projector screens on Friday). This is the reason we repeated the "Journey to the Finals" videos on Saturday -- since the people in-house unfortunately didn't get to see them.
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.
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!
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.
Overall, we feel very pleased with our first LAN event. We had some hiccups on the first day but largely sorted them out after that. Now, we are much more aware of the things than can and oftentimes do go wrong at LAN events. We will be using this experience to make sure that the problems are corrected for the Finals of Season 2, and promise that it will be an even better event than this one!
The Season
The basic format of our league is unlike anything anyone has really done on a big scale in Starcraft 2. We are really trying to have the format of an actual sports league. Every other event is a tournament, rather than an actual league. If you think about sports: who watches every single NBA game? Only the most die-hard fans. Most people, casual fans, will only watch the teams // players they prefer. Our goal for the NASL is similar. We believe that the number reach of Starcraft 2 and the number of fans is so great that this is a viable format, once people get used to it. Maybe we're wrong, but we will definitely be giving it more than 1 Season to see if it catches on more. We feel strongly that giving players a lot of time each week to prepare for their matches is good, for the players that care enough to do so. Take, for instance, DarkForcE, Boxer, and Sheth. Those are three players who I know specifically put in a lot of preparation for each NASL game. That preparation paid off, and all three of those players advanced to the Finals. Boxer and DarkForcE were considered by many to not be deserving of the league at the start, in terms of skill (Boxer of course... for his fame however)! But this season they showed people what preparation can do for you. We like the fact that the format is different from every other event, so we are planning on keeping a very similar format for next season.
Major issues with the season, are pretty well known to most at this point: walk overs. However, if you actually examine the number of walkovers versus the number of matches played it isn't so bad. Throughout the season and the playoffs, we actually played out 93% of the games. Only 7% of games in a three month long season were walk overs (14 total walk overs). That's pretty good, but we can make it better, and we're planning to. The security deposit seemed like not enough of a disincentive to not attend matches, so we'll be making some tweaks to that rule to try to create more pressure from teams and their managers to ensure their players are more responsible.
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
A big issue raised by players were the times (for the Koreans), and servers. We are working on strategies to alleviate this problem. However, both fans and players must understand that there is a reason for the way we do things. As for playing the matches live, this seems to be a strikingly better option than casting off replays. Replay casting requires much more policing of players. There is a reason it takes IPL so long to happen despite it being announced months ago. Because they cast from replays, players don't have as much incentive to play their matches on time. Casting from replays means players (or an admin + players) need to schedule match times themselves. Players (fact) are irresponsible and mostly lazy, even with huge prize pools. Leaving it up to them means that there will be delays. We had pre-set times so that the players knew every single week exactly when they had to play. The specific time varied slightly, but if I'm a player I know that "every single Monday between 1-3pm I need to be available for Starcraft matches." This is much more stable and consistent than having players arrange times themselves and replay cast.
Next: we will be attempting to get accounts on the Europe and Korean servers for ourselves (the casters and production crew) and players. This way we can much more easily have cross server playing. We want to be able to have Koreans play Koreans on the Korean server, Europeans play each other on EU, etc. This is a very realistic change that will hopefully be much better for players that we are working on.
Production & Stuff
This is obviously the area that had the most difficulties as people know. It would take a long time to explain a lot of our initial difficulties, so I won't do that. I will, however, say things that we are working on in order to make sure things are better right from the start in Season 2!
The first major problem was that our first editor was a little overwhelmed for the project. We initially thought one editor could handle everything we were trying to do. On top of that, he was making a lot of careless mistakes (which could be attributed to many different factors) that we had to constantly spend a lot of time fixing. For example, our owner slept at the studio many nights because we had to watch the broadcasts to check for errors, then have them fixed if we found any. This process takes an incredibly long time. Encoding 5 hour videos takes hours. As a result, in the beginning we simply didn't have the time to fix all the problems with broadcasts, despite the fact we knew about them.
We now have a very strong crew of four editors (instead of 1), who are industry professionals. 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. We are very confident that Season 2 will not have the same problems that Season 1 did.
Stream & VODS
The biggest remaining issue is the VODS. This is one area that we need to improve on the most and I want to promise that we are going to look into ways to make archiving and access of our VODS more sensible and user friendly. This will happen during Season 2. We are also working on several options to get lower quality transcodes of VODs (I.E. having vods in 1080, 720, 640, 480, etc) for those who can't always handle 1080p VODS. This second issue is a bit more tricky, but we will be working on providing a solid solution for everyone.
We're aware of stream sound and lag issues. Again, all I can say about the first is that we will work on this and improve it. As for the second, there isn't much we can do outside of what we have done to try to prevent stream lag-- sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't.
What Else?
I personally enjoyed every moment of the ride that was NASL Season 1. It was tough, but we got through it and the final event was an absolute blast. I'm so happy I got to meet tons of people who enjoyed it, I'm happy I got to hear the cheers of people, and I was so happy to receive so many pleasant comments from players and casters at the event!
We're definitely aware that there were problems along the way. We're not perfect but I can promise everyone that we are motivated and improving daily. We hope that our regular season and Finals showcased this. We didn't start off great, but the end of the regular season was lightyears better than the beginning. The Finals started off rough, but ended with a bang. Know that we're going to ride this momentum and make sure that Season 2 is phenomenal.
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
So I hope everyone enjoyed the season, and I look forward to putting on another great show Season 2. The last note I'd like to say is that: keep an open mind... the NASL is not like other events, give it a chance and it might grow on you!
Got Feedback?
If I didn't respond to a major criticism, if you have other big issues to raise... please do so. As always, I will listen to all constructive criticism. If you're just going to bash on our casters, our format, our event, our stream, etc -- then don't expect a response. Mindless hate is bad; even justified hate is bad if it isn't presented in a reasonable manner (telling me "fix your shitty stream, or... replace Gretorp!" isn't helpful). Pointing out obvious things like "get better booths next time," are on the list: believe me. If you are posting about it being a problem, we've already thought about it.
If there is something you think I overlooked in this post or want to talk about, I'm always free. So anyways. I hope you all enjoyed it and GL&HF!
I find it interesting that you guys did the finals as a 'show' rather than a LAN. Is there research that shows that a 'show' is what your target market wants? Also, if you wanted a show, why stream? Why the long wait times? Why is there no script when Gretorp and Incontrol was on stage? Why aren't there any solid interview questions?
Also, I don't think that the black background on the stage was very easy on the eyes. If it was a 'show' as you say, the background of the stage should have been a little bit more stylish.
Can you also address the small cozy booths? Did you guys think about having 4 booths instead of 2 so 2 players can play while 2 players set up?
Even though I enjoyed the finals as a whole, I do feel like you really have MC and Puma to thank for that. The production was pretty awful and gave the feeling that if you had cut back on the prize pool a little and invested more in the production rather than that 'dollar sign headline' it might have been better. I certainly trust that you have learned from your mistakes given how harsh the feedback from the community can be if you get something wrong.
I hate to let events like this and MLG Dallas(?) get by unscathed because it carries weight as an e-sport representative. That weight shows any newcomers that e-sports is still in an immature state because it's not coming off as polished and professional.
You claiming the finals to be more of a "show" for people coming to the event and treating the stream as an afterthought sounds like a bit of a cop out to me. The stream was offered as a product and should definitely be treated as such.
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On NASL as a whole, I respect the idea of treating it like any other sports league, but in reality with so much competition for player's attention it just doesn't seem reasonable. To viewers and players alike. I found myself just not tuning in towards the end of the season because I was burnt out. You also have to understand that player's attention is limited and you're definitely demanding quite a bit of it. They travel and obviously play in other leagues/events.
Thanks for the clarification. It's nice to get some feedback from the other side of the story. I'm glad you guys realize that there were problems but are taking steps towards fixing them.
Very nice post, it reminds me of MLG's response after the Dallas disaster. I wish you guys better luck next season. It seems like you are finally going in the right direction!
My basic thought on the NASL were the production values were low, lots of technical problems, but the final tournament produced some of the best starcraft ever played. I actually missed the entire first day because I thought technical issues would ruin it but I was very happy that I tuned into the last days.
I have mixed feelings on NASL. I really like what you're trying to do, which is why the serious problems are so sad for me. Thanks for the reflections. Things are definitely improving. There's a couple big things for me that stand out.
The good things: - I really like the real regular season and the general format type. It's the only place you can really see foreign players playing matches they've had time to specifically prepare for. It also is a format that allows a real league to be feasible for foreigners to participate in. - I like that the caster choice (though there are plenty of criticisms for particular ones) tends to favor people with actual high-level game knowledge. I'm all for appealing to the less serious viewers, etc., but it has to be possible to do that without dropping all actual analysis from the commentary, and NASL seems to be doing it right.
Bad things not in the OP: - The website is in general very poor. I don't care about the design - that's fine - but it doesn't have basic information. Things like the schedule for the finals should really be there (and easy to find). It's great to post information on TL, but all the format clarification, updates, etc. should really also be on the official site. - As far as the finals go, please stick to the actual schedule. I had no interest in the musical act, etc., so I tuned in for the third place match and it was already mostly over. It's true that the schedule was too spread out, but once that's the published schedule it's still better to follow it. -Please get the map versions right. In the regular season there were so many games played on weird/outdated versions of the maps.
Please get rid of the 20 minute intro videos.. like 99% of the people did not want to watch them and then add the fact that there is a hour long break between each series mean that a lot of people will only watch one series and then go do something else after. NASL was ok but it would have been a lot more better if we got to see more than 10 games in a whole day.
I've generally been a big supporter of the NASL, I was actually pretty pleased with how the first season went overall. It had its bumps but I think it was a good tournament.
That said, there is an issue with the league that you didn't really seem to address. As has been mentioned in the past, once the main season is nearing its end, there are some players who have done poorly enough main season that they're guaranteed to be knocked out of the NASL, no matter what. The problem here is that it leaves little to no incentive to actually prepare much for their games if they don't make a difference. Will there be anything coming up in season 2 that will add more incentive for these lower scoring players to continue to try hard to win their remaining games?
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 Grand Finals > Every GSL Grand Final (GSL is awesome but the games between MC and Puma were great)
Good post, but I'll wait to see how Season 2 turns out. Based off your response to our complaints (especially the new animations guy) I have high expectations of NASL! And that's a good thing, I understand that shiny things and cool effects aren't exactly first priority, but they really give the entire tournament a legitimate and professional feel.
I've been critical of the stream, especially WHY you changed the free quality from 480 to 360 halfway through the tournament (really? give an explanation please).
Also, you need to fire or blame the original editor. You're skirting the blame (oh, various reasons). That's bullcrap. Just say he or she fucked up and now you have 3 extra guys with him/her. And I can't believe you thought that 1 editor could edit "5 hours of production". Come on....anyways,
as much as I'd like to be positive-minded towards season 2, Season 1 had so many mistakes I'm still going to hold off on spending any more towards NASL until I see a marked improvement (which I'm confident will happen).
Cheers, and that's my 2cents.
P.S.: Answer the change from 480p to 360p please. That's the #1 thing that pissed me off the most. It might not be the most important but it seemed low-handed and a dirty way to make more money.
Yeah, there were some major problems which maybe seemed even bigger for the stream users than for the people at the live event. So I might be understandable, that there were many complains by us.
But as you said, this was your first huge event (even if some of your people already are kinda familiar with the SC2 scene and stuff) and you stated your problems and it seems that you are aware of them. Thats very good i guess So hopefully (and I am sure it will become true) the next season will get even bigger and better! Congratulations on your succees, keep it coming!
And make sure that Lindsey has a good start into her SC2 experience
Encore:
So i wanna just list my suggestions/ideas/thoughts i have on this whole topic. I wasn't watching every game during the season and even wasn't watching the whole finals (due to personal issues) but I think i can state some critics
What I liked: - Having multiple casters throughout the season. That was quite cool and exciting - Hmm well, i can't really state other big positive things. I just think that the whole season was quite solid, it was ok
What I didn't like: - Having to pay for high quality streams. Sure, you have to get your money from somebody, and i fully understand this. So this isn't really a "you have to change that"-complain, its just something that bugged me . Maybe you could have given out free HD stream for the finals, that would've been a nice move - The whole news publishing issue. It was hard for me to navigate through your homepage and get to know all the results of the matches. So maybe overthing the website design/concept? I don't know - Known issues at the finals (no sound, delays etc.). Has all been stated so much, so i don't go into detail on that You already know what went wrong and you'll fix it next time
On July 12 2011 13:43 aristarchus wrote: I have mixed feelings on NASL. I really like what you're trying to do, which is why the serious problems are so sad for me. Thanks for the reflections. Things are definitely improving. There's a couple big things for me that stand out.
Bad things not in the OP: - The website is in general very poor. I don't care about the design - that's fine - but it doesn't have basic information. Things like the schedule for the finals should really be there (and easy to find). It's great to post information on TL, but all the format clarification, updates, etc. should really also be on the official site.
Seconded on the website! Really basic information was hard to find sometimes, and it was often out of date. It's out of date right now! On the front page you're showing the brackets from the finals with a giant blank space where Puma's name should be as champion! There is also nothing on the website right now about when season 2 starts, or that there even is a season two. I realize you guys are still figuring out season two, but even a short blurb like "Season two starts later this summer! Check back <insert website here> for more details soon!"
I kept finding myself wandering around TL and Wellplayed, etc to find out what was going on. That should really all be on your website. This post itself is great, but wouldn't it be good to have some kind of blog or something on the website saying the same thing?
Your response to individuals wanting a double-elimination format is "WELL NO1 ELSE DUZ IT SO..... ITZ OK!!"? Honestly, the only potential CON to having a double elimination format is that there are more games, but I cannot fathom a spectator turning down more games between professionals and I cannot fathom a competitor turning down a second chance to work his/her way back into the finals.
Edit: With this being said, if the problem for the tournament provider is exactly that, "too many games" I think that can be remedied while still showing awesome matches to the viewers. As everyone knows, even pros can lose a BO1, in a BO3, the better player has a better chance of winning, and even moreso in a BO5, etc. However, upsets will still happen resulting in a potentially better player NOT winning and being eliminated early. The double-elimination format is simply a cushion to encourage a situation where the best players end up finishing at the top which is great for the viewers (better games), great for the competitors (second chances), and great for the tournament provider (as better games + big names generally equals success.)
Your one sentence explanation for the sound issues doesn't resolve the fact that a few of the sound issues were simply from people not paying attention. Interviewers microphones were not being switched on to the stream until 1 minute into the interview, and as a result, we lost two questions and answers from an MC interview. That is not a technical issue, its someone forgetting to flip a switch or turn a knob.
On July 12 2011 13:11 Xeris wrote: 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!
As a subscriber who was on the stream for literally every second it was broadcasting this weekend, this is really depressing to hear. As I was joined by an average of 30-40x the number of people who could fit into the live event (the final topped 80k stream viewers!), I really have to question the wisdom of making your primary audience the second consideration.
All of these promised improvements sound great, but as this is just the latest example of many glaring questions of priority and experience, I'll have to temper my enthusiasm with a fairly well-deserved "I'll believe it when I see it."
hey nasl are u going to address the problem of the open winner vs top seed problem in the next season? I think it is kind of unfair and lets be honest... the person who comes into nasl thru open is very likely to win the whole tournament as seen in this season. Puma who never played a single match for the long and grueling qualifying process, crushes thru one fast open tournament with likely the best players in the world who aren't in the nasl already and also crushes the tournament (which he deserves)... i feel that it is unfair that you are letting such a strong player compete after everything the real qualifiers worked for :/ (and i know this is a competition but...)
keep it up. i like how your format is different from the rest. could really help ya later on. but sometimes i feel that the season is too long and that some games do not seem to matter. however...if you bring in better players like the Koreans...then I would watch. but watching some of the lesser known players...is just not "fun".
I'm so glad you guys are listening to the community feedback on the issues. I sincerely hope you all take all the criticism and complaints to heart to make the next season better. If it wasn't for the amazing games that the players displayed, it would have been a god awful event, especially in the finals. I hope you guys can do a turn around like MLG did after Dallas!
I can't shell out the money for a Season 2 pass. Frankly NASL hasn't convinced me that it can deliver a consistently high-quality product that I'm satisfied with. Especially because Mr. Bitter is going to cast full-time Season 2 and I really cannot stand him as a caster for more than one or two games. I am sure that I'm not going to be the only one who shares this feeling when you guys make the official announcement.
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.
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.
Only read about half of this post, but I just wanna let you know how great I think it is that you guys are already planning all of the improvements for Season 2. I don't think I'm alone when I say that I can't wait. Good luck guys.
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?
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?
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.
In the future, please make the schedule for each day clear and easy to find on the NASL website and the LR threads. Also if you're going to make a schedule stick to it as much as possible, I missed the finals by tuning in at 6 PDT hoping to watch the last few games of the finals and found out it was rescheduled to hours earlier (and I'm sure there are plenty of other people who woke up at unreasonable hours hoping to watch, only to see that the games were pushed up).
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.
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.
The regular season was meaningless. ~80% of the views occurred during the regular season yet four of the 52 players took home 90% of the prize money on the very last day. How is that a league?
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.
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.
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.
Are you planning on actually hiring competent professionals to do your production/audio/etc. work? It's cool that you're giving your buddies a chance and all, but NASL as a production throughout the season and in the finals was absolutely pathetic.
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.
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.
Also, some of the intro videos I actually watched (I know, right?) and there were a bunch of things I didn't like about them.
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.
Milkis pretty much nailed it. A lot of the production problems that plagued the regular season carried right into the finals so while I'm sure you learned a lot, I think at some point you need to realize that it would be beneficial to import production experience that already understands why some of these things are bad.
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.
I am glad that you guys at NASL are feeling positive and motivated for season two, because like you said, despite many problems throughout the season and all the community criticism, NASL really was awesome overall.
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.
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.. 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
I kind of understand why there is the long wait, maybe bring out a sofa, hold a mini SOTG session, have some pre recorded interviews with players (or some live interviews with people like David Kim, Tastosis and other efamous person for example). The "Excellent" interviews was refreshing and fun to watch, but it would be nice if there is more of them as well (or longer ones).
Also you could switch the camera to maybe the street fighter/xbox hangout area to see our favourite players suck at other games, I would also be interested in seeing MC in the practice area playing as zerg taking ladder points off poor NA nerds while day9 interrupting his game by pressing his arrow keys.
Like for Formula 1 in UK, one hour before the race start we have the pundits analysing highlights of previous games, talk about latest news in the industry, express their views on how the race is going to pan out, who to look out for, then Martin Brundle will be down the paddock walking around interviewing drivers, team bosses, celebrities when they were setting up their cars/doing their own stuff, there is never any downtimes, certainly no track staring for hours.
Anything is better than playing boring music and pointing the camera at the main stage for 2 hours in between games really.
Even though you gave a valid reason regarding the single elim format, it is still stupid and heartbroken to see Ret, who cruised through the league phase then to get knocked out in 2 extremely short games (opening game as well, seriously) after flying to NA from NL. If MLG can do open tournament, group stage, and double elim brackets in 3 days, I'm sure you guys can do something about it as well, maybe cut some of the autograph signing sessions, do you really need a 2 hour break after every single series?
Lastly, it would be nice if you guys are more transparent and keep us up to date with whatever is going wrong and you are trying hard to fix everything meanwhile, instead of delaying the event for 2 hours without a word.
Please communicate with the viewers more. I mean you guys changed the schedule up to 1 and half hour without saying anything really pissed lots of ppl off. Secondly, how hard is that to put a count down timer on the freaking screen, I mean everyone didn't know exactly when the next event start, so why not let us know that simple task?
I had a season pass to NASL Season 1, and I plan on getting one for Season 2. I really want to see NASL succeed, enough to put my money where my mouth is.
I like the stuff in red, it shows what you are going to do for next season - Spot on! I think you should add some other red stuff, like..
Tape down all power cords. This is STANDARD at ALL events since the beginning of time. Anytime you have cords, people trip. Events have very, very expensive equipment. Why was this overlooked? Did you not talk to any event organizers before putting on your event?
Giving people enough time to set up and test settings before playing.
Preinstall drivers for players, or give needy players their own computer. You are not the first people to face this issue. Did you talk to incontrol before the event and get his thoughts on MLG? At MLG they set aside special computers specifically for the koreans because they knew this issue would arrive. Again, talking to event/lan organizers before the event could have helped with this issue.
The translators should know a bit more about translating. It's not just saying "what he said". My understanding is that the translator should speak in the first person, and give the intonation and act as if he/she were the person responding. i.e. "I don't like my skin so I want to spend the $50K on skin care". You don't even have to hire a professional translator, but have them search the internet for translating tips!!!
Have backups of everything. As a photographer, I know that anything can fail at any time. I have backup flashes, batteries, chargers, CD cards, etc etc etc... Yes, it gets expensive, but how expensive is losing customers? Also, the backups need to be EXACTLY the same as the original. If you buy a backup projector, make sure its EXACTLY the same model as your real one configured exactly the same. The last thing you need is to figure out how to use new equipment on the fly.
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.
Ouch, this statement hurts the worst. When MLG messes up, they fess up and say 'we are going to make it up to you', instead of making excuses. If you didn't have enough people to set up the event, you have no where to look except into the mirror. If your people do not have the KSAs (knowledge skills abilities) to perform their job functions, you have nobody to blame but yourself.
That being said, keep on keeping on, and I can't wait for you to buck up and make Season 2 totally awesome!
On July 12 2011 15:00 Joseph123 wrote: What makes me sad is that you think your format is ok..
If you read it they don't think the format is "ok" and plan on changing many aspects of it.
-Open winner is most likely always going to be a strong Korean so it needs to be tooled around with on who the open winner plays.
-People go to college for four years to fix the audio problems that took you up to a day to fix, sometimes were never fixed in a matter of minutes. Please hire a real audio engineer.
-Double elimination; Bo5 for winner brackets, Bo3 for loser brackets.
-Less downtime, more talking. The video intro's need to NOT show their losses and just the wins, and only on day 1 please...
-The interviews with Lindsey in the breaks were great, please do keep them going
I loved the league format from the get-go. Of all the major tournaments, it's the one format where I'm most confident that the deserving players advanced (setting aside the timezone/lag stuff).
For the same reason, I really didn't like the finals bo3 format, which certainly does NOT get the most deserving players advancing. I know that to do bo5 or double elim would take away the ability to broadcast every game, but IMO it's worth it.
I'd like to see the prize pool split more evenly to those who make it to the playoffs rather than having most of the pool go to the top 5 finishers. Rewarding players that did well during the regular season and showed they both cared and had what it took to advance means more to me than the eventual winner taking half the pot.
Besides that I'd have to agree with the post Milkis made. Looking forward to NASL's response.
Please hire someone who is used to coreographing events. Ie someone who can organise how and where people move before during and after each game.... before during and after interviews etc.
Seeing players/casters etc walk in front of or behind the casting booth/playing booths randomly as though they weren't sure how or where they were supposed to go was just painful. It didn't feel like an organised event... more of a hey guys lets just play some games and figure the rest out as we go. Should be organised format... players stand in position x before match... greet each other... then go via pathway y to booths... then after match come back via pathway y to congratulate each other and then loser player follows path z off while winner player follows path w to interview area where interviews are standing ready.
Personally would like an "entrance" for each player. Something that hypes them... (I know wrestling is cheesy as hell but its a good example of hype). Why should we care about that random nerd walking across the stage. Its all about showmanship. That is what a good production needs. MC showed how it should be done. Not everyone has to be a cocky bastard but they have to at least do more than slink into a booth. Greet the crowd/bow/salute/wave whatever... do something. Make the show worth watching. And thats something NASL organisers can arrange, the music for each player, maybe a screen behind the casters can play some of their finer moments as they walk on etc. I don't know exactly but surely someone has some flair for entertainment.
I personally liked the "journey" vids... recaps are good time wasters. But what I don't get is why weren't the players being set up so they were good to go once that was over. Why wasn't that time utilized?
Things like wellplayed "top ten plays of the week" clips would have been good to go through in between games or something like that. That sort of thing HYPES the play and reminds people of all the good games that the NASL has provided. It also provides good time fillers that is appropriate. Not them exactly maybe but that concept.... something that is directly the result of the NASL used in a way that makes you go OOOOOOOH, AHHHHHHHHH. I don't like most mainstream sports but even I enjoy "plays of the week".
Definitely please rework the format of the final tournament. If you want to keep it single elimination, that's cool, but it would be awesome if there was more incentive to award people who got first in their division or first overall.
Maybe the people who get first in their division get to pick their first round opponent, or get a bye in the first round or something. I think having the higher seeded player pick first map or pick the player they play would give a nice reward to people who did better in the regular season.
Regarding the delays between matches. There's one obvious thing that can be done to help the problem. The next players should adjust their settings during the down time. I know that you want to announce the players to the crowd, but just let them know that the players need to adjust their settings first, and they'll be re-introduced to the crowd later.
That would eliminate the interminable stalling that the casters have to engage in before each match. They can go right into their intros, start the games, and then expound upon the matchup during the early game.
-Get interviewers who actually know what they are talkin about.
-get rid of ridiculously long intro videos.(15-20 seconds for each player is REALLY enough.(only show the best engagements or so)
-Get rid of the LSD graphics effects.....what is wrong with that?The Bloom is ridiculous
-Get a sound guy who knows what he is doing.(or give him enough time to check everything out)
-Get rid of black backgrounds.(black backgrounds ALWAYS look crappy and cheap.Better take a nice blue or something but not black) Imagine the news guy from CNN or whatever sitting infront of a black background reading the news....yeah,it would look like a trash production.
-Get new booths,i mean,what is this what you got there now?Dixitoilets?They need to be bigger and there needs to be a little light in it.(player cam was creepy is fuck ^^)
-Get Tastosis only if they can cast all games.( i dont hate on incontrol and gretorp but Tastosis is there.........i mean,Tastosis,helllooohooooooo. ;D
-Pre record some player interviews you can show in the breaks or have an interviewer who's doing live interviews while having breaks.(AskJoshy was there,i think he would have done a great job doin some live interviews)
It's so good to see you know what went wrong and that you're striving to fix it in the 2nd season. It's also good that you're open to submissions despite the hate you're gonna receive.
Now, what I'd consider an upgrade.The background was really ugly, I mean you could construct a nice little stylish stage, instead of this black/grey thing. Get more and better looking booths but I guess you know that already. Get a pro director to manage what's getting broadcasted when, and for christs sake inform the viewers about the schedule.In the LR thread we were basically trying to guess what would follow up on screen. Shorter timeline, 8 hours for 2 matches might be ok for the guys in the venue(considering all the other stuff that was happening) but it sure is boring for the internet viewers. Get a sound guy instead of the hamster you had toying around with the wires. Be more glamorous. Eg,get some dry ice and some cool lights for that ending song with Anna and Temp0. The money is there, use it. Stick to the schedule. Stick to the schedule. Stick to the schedule. MOAR LINDSEY!
Edit: And use hype videos in the right way. I'm sure there must be at least 10 people in TL that can make a nice hyping video using Adobe AE for you guys, not to mention professionals.
not to bash you guys for your production at the Finals, but did you even use video professionals? the bad camera work, mic setup, etc. just seemed......amateurish.
I know i even submitted my resume to you guys and I'm experienced in all that stuff lol.
Regardless keep up the work, but please tweak the minor issues.
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.. 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
We had an idea with the intro videos for each player, and it didn't work out as we had hoped. In the future we'll probably just do a few choice highlights rather than every match.
Your post really comes from a serious lack of insight. It would be really bad and disrespectful if we didn't have Gretorp+iNcontroL cast the finals. What does that say about how we value our employees if someone (Gret+iNc) bust their asses off for 3 months only to get thrown under the bus by 2 guys who just flew in for a weekend? Why would anyone want to work with us in the future if we disrespect employees that way? If we had anyone else cast the finals it would be like us saying "we don't have faith in your ability to be on the big stage," but we believe in them as casters and know they've worked hard for us all season. Whether you like them or not, that is the truth of the matter.
Day9, Tasteless, and Artosis all understand that, and were totally fine with it. All three of them loved the event, loved their work load, enjoyed getting to interact with fans, and everything else. Ask any of them.
The video quality was so poor in the finals.. Compare it to in studio takes and back to the NASL finals video IT WAS FRIGGEN BAD.. The lighting was so dark and gloomy it felt it was like 1990 all over again. The sound sync at time was "no comment", i think you know how it was. But work on the lighting of the stage to make it look better.
And is it just me or is the introduction annoying as hell. Its like a friggen wrestling match here. Koreans casters mix up the intros all the time but man the western style is always the same. example: "if you want to see MC win give a cheer for... etc etc" OR " on the bottom right we have the yellow protoss ....
man it just so overused and aligns itself with wrestling and no one takes wrestling seriously so doing that will impose of not making sc2 serious..
Can you guys please use something other than Black?
black walls, black drapes, black player booths inside and out, black caster table, BLACK EVERYTHING.
Also the players booths were set up as if to mimic a basement where the only light source inside was the monitor. That's really terrible having them play in that condition in front of a live audience.
really depressing stage. I think the online portion of NASL suffered from this too way back when it started, there was just black construction paper covering everything lol...
Regarding the intro videos, it depends on what their purpose is.
If they are what people traditionally think of intro videos - and the game is waiting for them to finish so that we can start - then yes they are way too long.
If they are more meant to fill in the time between matches while players are setting up, then that's great. Ideally, IMO, once a match has finished, it'd be a few minutes of caster recap, then they say something like "now let's watch these player videos while they're getting set up". Nobody could complain about that. At least we're not watching commercials / static shots.
I think from what I watched, you need to entertain me during the long down time. Because I didn't stick around. I got bored and did other things. Someone like 2gd can troll the crowd or whatever. Or just have the camera follow a caster around while he interviews people. Make me feel involved. Instead of playing random videos about Idras eyes etc.
I watched the match with select white ra. After it was over I waited and then I switched off.
I'm not going to add anymore criticism because you have heard it all this point. I enjoyed most of this seasons finals and I'm looking forward to next seasons. I'm happy to see NASL is committed to improving their product for the fans and players.
Xeris, I wanted and still do want the NASL to work. We as a community have extremely high standards and we expect those standards to be met if not surpassed. Growing pains are fine but Season 1 was a far cry from being a finished product.
NASL struck me as a project that garnered interest from some investors and enthusiasts, as well as community volunteers. But, it seemed from the start that there was no managerial presence, no structural hierarchy, and no responsibility. NASL felt like an "internet project", and I'll use a personal anecdote to explain:
When I was younger, my friend and I used to come up with ideas for RPGs. We had elaborate character backstories, we sketched out some character portraits, we thought up fun battle systems, but the only games we had created were simplistic RPGs in QBasic that used text as graphics. After a few years, the ideas grew bigger and more elaborate until we ultimately had the Internet at our disposal. The next thing I knew, he was pulling in all sorts of volunteers from all over the world who were submitting character portraits and game concepts to us. Because he was just grateful to receive any kind of help, he would say to anyone who submitted anything "WOW this character looks GREAT, THANK you for this omg" even if it was objectively terrible. The people who approached us were enthusiastic about working on the project, they shared our vision, and they wanted to be included. Those same people who submitted things would stick around for a week or two, then they'd disappear. When it came down to actual necessities like designing cities and dungeons, tile art, sprite art, cogent dialogue, we quickly realized how little we had. If we had a plan in place from the start, with an actual schedule and knowledge of what exactly we needed, we would have been able to make real headway as opposed to drowning.
That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
Nasl was great, the games were exciting aswell. I missed day 1 so cant really comment on what happened there. But, please talk iNcontrol into casting season 2. He's the best caster in the whole world! He's just so funny that it doesnt matter how boring the game is it's still enjoyable when he's behind the microphone. I even enjoy PvP when he's casting and that's probably the most boring thing I know..
Other than that, keep on rollin'. Looking forward to Season 2.
Hey hey. I didnt watch very much of NASL throughout the group stage, in fact I only watched a handful of games there so I won't be commenting on that. I will set my focus towards the finals, since that was mainly what I saw. My problem is with the person observing the game, he was missing a lot of battles, and didn't seem to have a cool enough head to realize the most important places to focus. Examples of this, that I can remember are: When a drop was going off in MCs base, Puma was focusing a citadel and the citadel went down. While the citadel was going down the observer didn't click on the building to show how far along the upgrade was. In a few other general spots there were drops going on that he would catch the end of, and when a battle was about to happen, sometimes he would go to a random place on the map.
I am well aware of the pressure on an observer, he has to be on point and that's incredibly hard, especially knowing that so many people are watching. I would just suggest spending a lot of time to improve the quality of his viewing skills. Another possibility is to hire someone who is a professional observer, I think SC1 used to have those. :D
I do not know if you have one dedicated floor manager while setting up and running the event, if you dont you really should have. I have helped out at a lot of events and having the owner/head of the organisation in charge of that stuff often leads to problems since he has a ton of other responsibilities as well.
So, one guy who is responsible for co-ordinating everything on site and making sure everything gets set up and tested correctly and who does not have to step aside every other minute to deal with a phone-call or something else.
That is how we usually did it, we had one guy at the top responsible for everything, in your case russel. His job was mostly to be the events face outwards and talk to sponsors, team managers, media and all the rest. He should not get involved in the details unless he absolutely has to.
Below him we had two guys, one in charge of the tournament part and one in charge of the venue part, if that makes sence. So the guy in charge of the venue part is what i would call the floor manager, he has the overall responsibility of everything practical going smoothly and working.
And one in charge of the tournament part, he is responsible for players, brackets, rules, maps, casters ets.
Ofc both of theese two has several people below them doing most of the actual work. But splitting up the responsibilities and making clear definitions while having competent people managing both branches of the event really helps.
Not sure if you had volounteers helping out? In swedish events at least volounteers are standard, help out 4h/day during an event and get in free + get a cool t-shirt for example. Or help out 8 hours before the event and get a free pass + dinner. It is standard both in LAN-events and in big student-parties aswell. It is also pretty popular to help out, plenty of peolple love helping out and find it quite fun to carry around tables and drawing cables for an hour or two if it helps E-sports =)
Having a bunch of bodies to throw at the menial tasks goes a long way to free up time for people "in the know" to fine-tune and test everything. For example dreamhack has some ~400 volounteers and while i do not know exactly how they do things now way back many years ago they had some kind of work/get in for free setup. Now i think they actually has enough people willing to volounteer full time...?
*edit* My experience comes from LAN-parties 5-10 years ago aswell as a lot of other student events. In your case you should probably add a 3rd person right below the head honcho, someone responsible for the production of the event on site. Why do you think that the guys who makes a lot of the magic happen at dreamhack almost never is seen in the community or seen/talk to the players? They are to busy actually making things work, a huuuuge problem is having a guy at the top trying to be in charge of everything. Like Russel (not saying you have this problem, just an example), if the guy in charge of production is also responsible for the venue, and palyers, and stream he is just way to split up to be able to do a good job managing the people below him and therefore they will not know what to do and things will go sluggish and slow.
Also, the person in charge of the venue should not be the same guy that is any kind of contact person for players, teams or whatever. If you are managing 20 people and telling them how to draw the electric and internet cables you do not want some ego-inflated player manager getting in your face because his players chair is to hard on his bum...
To me it seemed like you had no full-time organizer/producer for the Finals. Noone who told people what to do all the time.
It sounds stupid as everyone should know what to do all the time, but as a matter of fact: They don't. They would in normal situations, but under this high pressure, they don't. You need someone capable to be on top of everything, tell the sound guys "now activate the mic input for the interviewer and translater", tell the progamers "_now_ go up to the stage, shake inControls/Day9s/Tastless hand and go directly to your booth", tell the casters "ok, announcing is over, now you're on to entertain", etc.
It looked really unorganized, noone seemed to know what they were supposed to do. Lots of confused looks by everyone, from caster to player.
It's a life fact: If you don't tell someone how to do something, he will most likely do it wrong.
Sorry but using Boxer, Moon, and Darkforce as one of your excuses for time delays/schedule conflicts comes off as either being ignorant to the real problems plaguing your event, or just a cop out. It's not even the fact that those issues come up, it's that you're blaming them for your shortcomings. If I were Boxer, Moon, or Darkforce, I would probably feel disrespected as it was the players and the games they produced that saved your event, because taking other things into consideration such as audio quality, interview setups, lighting, etc, they were passable at best.
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
Haters will always exist and there's nothing you can do about it. But don't group "prominent" members of the community which many people on TL know and recognize as being haters as well because you might not take criticism well from them.
I think NASL's biggest problem is that they are very green. They went into this huge project with little experience and had to learn on the fly and it showed. I understand why they did this. One, its cheaper. And it also allows them to build up their own team. It leads to a lot of growing pains.
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.
I mean the games between Puma and MC. GSL production is off the hook but their finals have all been one sided for the most part. (Fixed my original post)
Do you guys have a dedicated observer? The observer during the LAN was quite bad and it seemed like it was someone who had done it for their first time. They were clicking around the map and moving wayyy tooo fast. Having one or even two dedicated observers would greatly increase the watchability of the games over the stream. There were too many times during important battles where the observer would click somewhere else on the map.
When they first get there a day or two in advance, every player should set up and you should save it so a staff member just copy it over before their matches.
Tell the players no installing drivers is allowed (this should be obvious, tbh) and if their stuff doesn't work, plug SS or whoever and have extra Kinzu's/Xai's/7g/6gv2's on hand.
Ask for any special accommodations like German language in advance. Relocalizing is a 2 minute process, and I believe you could even do it through the key bindings save file.
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 know how involved you've been with esports in the past but probably like 90% of players want to set up the computer themselves.
Also you should inquire what kind of drivers/settings etc players are using and get them before hand and install/uninstall and see that they work. (this should be possible when its just 16 players and should make things run a lot smoother)
The boxes that these players play in during the finals... they look like they were 1/3 of the sizes used by the koreans... are you planning on making them bigger? it'd also provide more air for the players... for some gigantic amerikans might have problems trying to get inside...
There is a lot of good constructive critisim here, really great ideas. I just fear no one at NASL will listen because they just think that anyone who had the slightest problem with it is just a `` hater``......Makes me upset
That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
QFT.
Everyone wants to help out for a week or two, and be part of the 'fun' of giving opinions and coming up with ideas. Very few people understand what it takes to coordinate and prioritize ideas and actually construct a coherent vision or plan. The production is actually straightforward, it's the management and implementation that's hard.
Excalibur put it more eloquently than I did, but the NASL is under-managed. The owner should not be staying up all night reviewing video. He is supposed to be doing business development, promoting the league, building partnerships and raising funds.
On July 12 2011 16:19 Jibba wrote: Also, for any small player pool LAN tournaments in the future, it really shouldn't take that long for players to set up.
When they first get there a day or two in advance, every player should set up and you should save it so a staff member just copy it over before their matches.
Tell the players no installing drivers is allowed (this should be obvious, tbh) and if their stuff doesn't work, plug SS or whoever and have extra Kinzu's/Xai's/7g/6gv2's on hand.
Ask for any special accommodations like German language in advance. Relocalizing is a 2 minute process, and I believe you could even do it through the key bindings save file.
Is it standard in RTS games for players to not be able to install drivers before their matches? I come from a FPS background and couldn't imagine playing that way.
basicly i enjoyed the live event alot, so much that it pushed me over the line to buy a season ticket next season. Not to support e-sports but because i wanne keep the live events going.
On July 12 2011 16:19 Jibba wrote: Also, for any small player pool LAN tournaments in the future, it really shouldn't take that long for players to set up.
When they first get there a day or two in advance, every player should set up and you should save it so a staff member just copy it over before their matches.
Tell the players no installing drivers is allowed (this should be obvious, tbh) and if their stuff doesn't work, plug SS or whoever and have extra Kinzu's/Xai's/7g/6gv2's on hand.
Ask for any special accommodations like German language in advance. Relocalizing is a 2 minute process, and I believe you could even do it through the key bindings save file.
Is it standard in RTS games for players to not be able to install drivers before their matches? I come from a FPS background and couldn't imagine playing that way.
It's not standard. I think Korean players would riot if they enforced that kind of rule.
First, the map pool. Even if players were given a veto, this map pool was absolutely horrible. It is clear that whoever picks the maps is not familiar with other SC2 tournaments or the game. There are very good reasons for why some of the maps in your pool (for example Backwater Gulch) are not used in any other tournament.
Second, the audio. While the balance issue was fixed, audio was horrible throughout the weekend. Various microphones not turned on at various times throughout the entire cast, and horrible audio quality all around. Not to mention the incredibly annoying audible clicking from the commentators...
Third, scheduling. You were two hours off schedule the first day and decided to take a 1 hour break anyway. You were 1.5 hours off schedule the last day for no apparent reason at all. This could be made better.
Edit: And one more thing: when the entire internet is hating on you, retweeting the 5 people that think your event is amazing is pretty silly.
There was no way to know why there was a delay or how long it would last, that is really not good. Viewers can accept a two hour delay, if they are informed about the problem and are given an estimate of when normal viewing will be resumed.
There should have had been an informative overlay on the stream, informing viewers about delays and when the next match will be played and with which players.
well the great matches in finals kinda saved you from total failure, you can say what you want but the problems on the first day were so exceptionally big i could not believe my eyes/ears, how its possible that tournament of that high caliber have so trivial issues. And lastly using excuses about inexperience is silly in modern world when you can hire people who know their stuff.
On July 12 2011 16:19 Jibba wrote: Also, for any small player pool LAN tournaments in the future, it really shouldn't take that long for players to set up.
When they first get there a day or two in advance, every player should set up and you should save it so a staff member just copy it over before their matches.
Tell the players no installing drivers is allowed (this should be obvious, tbh) and if their stuff doesn't work, plug SS or whoever and have extra Kinzu's/Xai's/7g/6gv2's on hand.
Ask for any special accommodations like German language in advance. Relocalizing is a 2 minute process, and I believe you could even do it through the key bindings save file.
Is it standard in RTS games for players to not be able to install drivers before their matches? I come from a FPS background and couldn't imagine playing that way.
Yeah not being allowed to install drivers sounds like it would hurt... Bigtime.
But i think each player should say beforehand what kind of languages they need installed on the computer, so if a german player is using a german only driver he needs to make this known beforehand.
Very nice that you picked up so much of the critisicm and work hard on these points to improve. With that, the NASL is taking one more step towards being on par with the GSL. Well, it is still a long way towards that, but in the near future I definitely see the NASL up there!
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote:Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement.
I'll expand that to leader in general. That's the impression I've gotten, that the main issue is a lack of a person that knows how to run events like this and a lack of someone that knows how manage the regular production.
For example that they supposedly now have 4 "professional video editors" instead of 1 "non professional" when they started. To me that makes it sound like the main problem wasn't that they didn't have enough professional video editors. It makes it sound like the real problem is that they don't have a "professional" production leader.
I couldn't decide if I should post or not at first after reading the op, felt like hundreds of people would post and complain about this and that, just like me. But I think it boils down to that I really want NASL to succeed. I love the 5 nights a week broadcasts for example.
I just get the impression that it might take 5-10 years or more before things work properly if the whole thing is based on a bunch of people that are supposed to learn everything from scratch. But I truly hope it's mostly my own fault for misunderstanding things and that I've just gotten the wrong impression.
I think that most people don't realize how hard it is to do it right the first time. There is so much stuff going on that the viewer never see. We are used with very high standards and compare NASL to other tournaments like MLG and Dreamhack. But these other tournaments have a lot of experience, and when they first started out they were way below the current standard. You have to keep that in mind.
Glad that you are learning from mistakes and working on improvements. Looking forward to season 2.
On July 12 2011 16:48 ethorn wrote: I think that most people don't realize how hard it is to do it right the first time. There is so much stuff going on that the viewer never see. We are used with very high standards and compare NASL to other tournaments like MLG and Dreamhack. But these other tournaments have a lot of experience, and when they first started out they were way below the current standard. You have to keep that in mind.
Glad that you are learning from mistakes and working on improvements. Looking forward to season 2.
Trial by fire, trial by fire. As much as I criticized the NASL over the past week, I really do want these guys to succeed.
I'll preface this by saying, I bought the original pass, and will be buying one for the next season. However, I didn't watch that many matches (perhaps 10-15 overall) before the final, where I didn't watch friday and only watched saturday and sunday. It's cheap enough that it's worth it for me anyway.
Now how would I rate it overall?
I would say so far, for me, I love GSL, and I really like MLG, and I like IGN pro league and NASL.
Things I think you need to work on: - The website needs to be clear, and informative, about everything. From day 1. - Stream should have information (just text) that gives out some kind of explanation for delays, schedule changes, matches removed, etc. - I can handle 1080p streams from elsewhere, just yours have sound issues especially in the beginning of the season. Look into it, or offer lower stream quality like 720p at least. It might be that I am from europe, I don't know, but really, it was annoying, and a big part of why I wasn't watching more of the season matches.
I quite enjoyed having Idra as a guest caster. And I enjoy other professionals doing the same other places. One thing you might look into is doing that a bit more if it would work out.
I think you did the right thing overall with casters. Obviously your employees will be casting the final, that only makes sense. It was fun seeing the well known personalities there in addition.
Something for the streamers ...
Like or dislike, Lindsey made the waiting a lot less painful for people (had something entertaining to watch, either for the comedy value, or just because it was funny how she made all us gamer nerds open up and talk), so I think that ... possibly ... if you would have shows in addition.
Ask Day[9] to do a live daily from the event? Have a showmatch for tastosis to cast during a break? Put on a stream with the best starcraft 2 parody songs (a countdown - top 20?).
Basically ... have some content on the stream during the final event, in addition to some kind of message saying 'next match is X vs Y at HH:MM PST in (countdown) - or whatever.
Overall, I enjoyed it, though not as much as I could have, and find it to be a good addition to the other leagues and events. This being a mix.
I'm insanely hyped for season 2. I have a lot of faith that you guys will do well next season, and I don't think any more criticisms need to be said since its all pretty obvious at this point (already stated by Milkis for the most part).
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.
IMO the main concerns arise when you say "NASL is not like any other event", which I completely agree with but that was never apparent until I attended the finals myself. It made all the "NASL is killing ESPORTS" arguments seem extremely silly when you had the entire crowd going ballistic over the finals game (and the bronze match as well). The only thing being killed at the NASL are awful back pains thanks to Gretorp's patented Gosu Massage.
The basic format of our league is unlike anything anyone has really done on a big scale in Starcraft 2. We are really trying to have the format of an actual sports league. Every other event is a tournament, rather than an actual league. If you think about sports: who watches every single NBA game? Only the most die-hard fans. Most people, casual fans, will only watch the teams // players they prefer. Our goal for the NASL is similar. We believe that the number reach of Starcraft 2 and the number of fans is so great that this is a viable format, once people get used to it. Maybe we're wrong, but we will definitely be giving it more than 1 Season to see if it catches on more. We feel strongly that giving players a lot of time each week to prepare for their matches is good, for the players that care enough to do so. Take, for instance, DarkForcE, Boxer, and Sheth. Those are three players who I know specifically put in a lot of preparation for each NASL game. That preparation paid off, and all three of those players advanced to the Finals. Boxer and DarkForcE were considered by many to not be deserving of the league at the start, in terms of skill (Boxer of course... for his fame however)! But this season they showed people what preparation can do for you. We like the fact that the format is different from every other event, so we are planning on keeping a very similar format for next season.
As an avid sports fan, I actually like the "season" idea a lot... However, you need to do more for it to work (like other sports do). + Show Spoiler +
On July 12 2011 15:03 HydraLF wrote: Like for Formula 1 in UK, one hour before the race start we have the pundits analysing highlights of previous games, talk about latest news in the industry, express their views on how the race is going to pan out, who to look out for, then Martin Brundle will be down the paddock walking around interviewing drivers, team bosses, celebrities when they were setting up their cars/doing their own stuff, there is never any downtimes, certainly no track staring for hours.
As stated above "dead time" at events needs to handled the same way the first 2 minutes of just about any game cast are. Filling space with analysis. Keep the fans entertained and thinking about the matche(s) or season. You can use highlight videos (I know some people complained about seeing them, but I actually really enjoyed the highlights of how players made it to the finals). You can even just have people breaking down the build orders and explaining why the strategy from the previous game was effective.
The other issue with the sports league format is keeping people interested for the duration.. + Show Spoiler +
On July 12 2011 14:57 ApBuLLet wrote: 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. [...] 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.
You need to keep hype going during the season. You really should have at least one SHOW AND THREAD (accessible from your website) dedicated to discussing, dissecting, analyzing, and hyping games that were played, how those games affect the standings, what upcoming games are very important or have potential to showcase new strategies (or two players who have very high win% vs opponent's race). Maybe you discuss the strategies being used (detailed BOs) or highlight some incredible micro (clips of an entire protoss army being EMPd and run over or insane baneling micro). Currently there are lots of community driven shows and TL is full of threads (many that discussed NASL), but to keep hype going for an entire season YOU need to be the one pushing it.
The last thing I'd mention is that if you're going to have a season, make it count - No "open" tournament spots.
TLDR: I like the idea of a "sports season" however you need to have a great way for fans to "catch up" with what happened if they missed a few games/weeks, and hype each week to keep people tuning in.
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.
I hope you rethink the Bo5 thing. I don't think flying X000 miles to an event to play one set is worth it...It's not a UFC fight where you physically can only do 1 fight. Think of all the tournaments where a player has done poorly in groups/goes to loser bracket and then makes it through to the end. When you are talking about player exposure from a sponsor standpoint, having half the player pool gone almost immediately is a bit :\ considering the event is 3 days long. #1 seed vs #1 open bracket is ....~_~. hopefully the community will convince you to change this.
The stream was much better on saturday/sunday - hopefully based on lessons learned from this run, there will be more prepared for the down time for the stream.
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.
The fact that people make polls as a way to put an upvote/downvote system into their posts on TL is actually extremely ridiculous. The public opinion is already apparent in the posts. Also bolding words makes my opinion stand out much more and gives me a sense of legitimacy. THIS TEXT IS FUCKING RED
Poll: Please validate my opinion TL
KILLING ESPORTS (12)
39%
Xeris' cat real fat (11)
35%
Let us circle jerk together (8)
26%
31 total votes
Your vote: Please validate my opinion TL
(Vote): Let us circle jerk together (Vote): KILLING ESPORTS (Vote): Xeris' cat real fat
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?
The only suggestion I have is to have a more even distribution of the prize pool. Anyone that makes it to the top 16 should be awarded with a bit more money. And people should get additional prize money for winning their division and the league. At least this way, there is some benefit for playing for first and not throwing away games (ex. Select).
That format was AWESOME as far as spectators were concerned. When you have a 4 player group and you simply state that the season placing will not only determine group seeding but also be used as a tiebreak in the group stage, suddenly your season rating might actually mean something in the finals.
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.
On July 12 2011 17:10 Kennigit wrote: I hope you rethink the Bo5 thing. I don't think flying X000 miles to an event to play one set is worth it...It's not a UFC fight where you physically can only do 1 fight. Think of all the tournaments where a player has done poorly in groups/goes to loser bracket and then makes it through to the end. When you are talking about player exposure from a sponsor standpoint, having half the player pool gone almost immediately is a bit :\ considering the event is 3 days long. #1 seed vs #1 open bracket is ....~_~. hopefully the community will convince you to change this.
The stream was much better on saturday/sunday - hopefully based on lessons learned from this run, there will be more prepared for the down time for the stream.
I don't quite understand why it couldn't be a normal group stage in the final event for those that qualified, like the other big tournaments.
It's awesome that you guys are working so hard to improve. I still think the format (for the season) is a major problem and your solution is that it will grow on everyone? Glad to see you've kept your optimism through your season 1 experience Xeris, lol. Seriously...
"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."
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.
On July 12 2011 17:10 Kennigit wrote: I hope you rethink the Bo5 thing. I don't think flying X000 miles to an event to play one set is worth it...It's not a UFC fight where you physically can only do 1 fight. Think of all the tournaments where a player has done poorly in groups/goes to loser bracket and then makes it through to the end. When you are talking about player exposure from a sponsor standpoint, having half the player pool gone almost immediately is a bit :\ considering the event is 3 days long.
The stream was much better on saturday/sunday - hopefully based on lessons learned from this run, there will be more prepared for the down time for the stream.
From a business standpoint, a single best of 3 just makes no sense. They should be taking advantage of the situation, by implementing a playoff format that generates as many quality games as possible.
It's good for NASL business, it's good for the online fans, it's good for the LAN event.
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."
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.
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 Grand Finals > Every GSL Grand Final (GSL is awesome but the games between MC and Puma were great)
Keep up the good work and continue to improve.
You were attending this event in person, no doubt it's gonna be better then watching a stream at 4am at night through your computer.
Honestly though, the fact that the Finals match wasn't completely 1 sided is the only thing that NASL has over GSL.
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.
Ya I have to pretty much agree with all of this.
Also, it may not be the best idea to blame the pro gamers for the delay, or at least not name specific names.
You also didn't seem to address the sound much other than say it was bad. You said you guys got many new people working in different positions, but I didn't see one for sound, unless I just missed it.
As someone else mentioned, delays could be reduced a few ways... possibly just having 2 sets of computers that can be moved, or even 4 booths like in the GSL.
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.
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.
FYI, it was brought up way before Puma even won the Open bracket
What i dislike is the way NASL has tried to pass blame and not own up to their crappy production.
Blaming progamers for downtime.
blaming it on NASL "being a show" instead of LAN event, yet saying it was their first LAN event a couple of sentences later.
Taking potshots at IPL about how long it took them to set up, saying that the NASL way of casting games live is "a strikingly better option". Only problem with this is that the IPL destroys NASL in both website management and production value, maybe just maybe they spent more time on really making everything work before they started their league?
Mentioning the sound problems and about fixing them in the RO16, there was echoes, static and the korean translator had no sound at all even at the finals. The sound issues were never fixed through the whole event basically.
Raffles/gaming/autograph signing were present at DH Invitational, a event with alot lower price pool and, probably, alot lower budget. Yet they did a way better job with everything from downtime to stage design.
ret lost to the eventual champion.. I don't see how double elimination would have really helped here (or do people not think puma deserved the title?).
My only complaint is that they did 9 weeks of competition for playoff placement...and then allowed an open tournament. That pretty much made the season worthless. IMO, give the top 2 players a bye (free win) or something (and spread out the prize money so ranking higher helps)
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.
Your logic is flawed, please think and reread before posting.
If PuMa lost (say 2-0 total of 15min game time like what happened to Ret), it won't change the fact that PuMa travelled all the way from SK to NA, costing thousands of dollar (don't know exactly where the money came from) then to lose a bo3 in 15mins.
Yes there maybe MORE complaints for Ret because he is the top seed and this is the TL forum, less complaint doesnt mean its less unfair.
On July 12 2011 18:39 DusTerr wrote: ret lost to the eventual champion.. I don't see how double elimination would have really helped here (or do people not think puma deserved the title?).
My only complaint is that they did 9 weeks of competition for playoff placement...and then allowed an open tournament. That pretty much made the season worthless. IMO, give the top 2 players a bye (free win) or something (and spread out the prize money so ranking higher helps)
It's just pure luck though that it was ret in that spot. Imagine if MC had played like his usual self in NASL and was the #1 seed. Then you'd see puma vs MC in the first round in a bo3...
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.
I really would like to see moderately sized prize purses for the top league and division spots, and maybe a small pot for each league win to incentivize players late season to play their best even if the outcome won't change their league results. I'd also really like to see the open tournament treated as a completely separate thing that is only used to qualify players for slots in the following season's league play. The way this season worked, you effectively had one player experiencing a completely different tournament format than the other 15 players.
The two biggest points for me are: I'd like to see the players better compensated for the nine games each that they play for our entertainment during league play, and I'd like to see every player have to take the same path to the finals.
On the points discussed in the OP: I'm glad that the NASL is aware that the first season was not up to the quality the community expects and is used to, and I hope that it will improve in coming seasons. I honestly came to regret putting down $25 for season one only to discover that I was basically purchasing the alpha version of the product, and I can't imagine I'll pay for another pass unless the quality picks up quite a bit. That being said, I really, really hope that the quality does pick up - like so many of us have written, I don't complain because I want the NASL to fail, but because I so much want it to succeed, and I'm sad to see a production with so much potential give such a lackluster debut performance.
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 Grand Finals > Every GSL Grand Final (GSL is awesome but the games between MC and Puma were great)
Keep up the good work and continue to improve.
You were attending this event in person, no doubt it's gonna be better then watching a stream at 4am at night through your computer.
Honestly though, the fact that the Finals match wasn't completely 1 sided is the only thing that NASL has over GSL.
I also agree, but I think the crowd at NASL has been the best crowd I've seen throughout all the major Starcraft 2 tournaments so far. (Lots of reactions, someone yelling at the casters to kiss each other, counting the kill count for MC's DTs, etc.) Plus I was part of it haha...
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.
FYI, it was brought up way before Puma even won the Open bracket
Actually I did read that thread and it seemed pretty split between those that thought it was a bad idea but understood why they chose that format and those that thought that was the way it should be run. Of course there were extremes in there as in every thread on TL.
On July 12 2011 13:33 fearlessparagon wrote: I find it interesting that you guys did the finals as a 'show' rather than a LAN. Is there research that shows that a 'show' is what your target market wants? Also, if you wanted a show, why stream? Why the long wait times? Why is there no script when Gretorp and Incontrol was on stage? Why aren't there any solid interview questions?
Also, I don't think that the black background on the stage was very easy on the eyes. If it was a 'show' as you say, the background of the stage should have been a little bit more stylish.
Can you also address the small cozy booths? Did you guys think about having 4 booths instead of 2 so 2 players can play while 2 players set up?
Excellent that you got the first reply. It's ok that NASL seems to be addressing the issue, but spinning it as a "show" is lame and dumb. Just admit to the mistakes and learn from it. People shelled money out and they're not happy, much less if they find you giving excuses like that. I hope you do next season better.
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.
On July 12 2011 14:40 MrBorto wrote: The regular season was meaningless. ~80% of the views occurred during the regular season yet four of the 52 players took home 90% of the prize money on the very last day. How is that a league?
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.
I really like this idea ! And it'll help with walkovers especially at the end of a season. (even if i don't know, how many games were played in the end)
On July 12 2011 14:40 MrBorto wrote: The regular season was meaningless. ~80% of the views occurred during the regular season yet four of the 52 players took home 90% of the prize money on the very last day. How is that a league?
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 $2k for playoff winners. Make it meaningful.
I really like this idea ! And it'll help with walkovers especially at the end of a season. (even if i don't know, how many games were played in the end)
Yeah that sounds great. Seems like all the SC2 tournaments are extremely top heavy in terms of money. DH invitational even had a bunch of cash for first price and no money for 2nd/3rd. This should be implemented especially cause they want to differentiate themselves from the competition in being a real league.
I don't agree with an open tournament winner being invited to the finals. Inviting the winner to the next season of play is understandable but to slide in and not have to grind out 9 weeks of play just like the other 15 players is pretty disheartening to me.
On July 12 2011 19:08 Tegin wrote: I don't agree with an open tournament winner being invited to the finals. Inviting the winner to the next season of play is understandable but to slide in and not have to grind out 9 weeks of play just like the other 15 players is pretty disheartening to me.
If I remember correctly from when iNcontrol first talked about the league the open bracket was the only way to get more than 5 people from the same team or players without a team into the league. They didn't want more than 5 per team or players without teams to be in the group play.
You could divide your prizemoney between the regular season and the finals. Have each win in pouleplay be worth 50$ (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.
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.
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...
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!
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 ....
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.
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
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
OK, it seems like I have to clarify: I do not want to suggest, that the venue was bad, but rather that the format of HSCIII was vastly superior to the NASL final. Simply because you could have non-stop games AND pros had multiple chances to recover (one could go though with 1 BO3 loss in group and then lose once in the playoff). Also with a group stage, you could use the season performance as primary tie break which means that the season matches gain additional importance. It also means that you have WAY MORE GAMES, increasing spectator value and sponsor exposure. All this without increasing the time needed or even the technical setup (HSCIII was one stream and one casting desk only).
Comparison: HSCIII: 16 players, 3 days, 1 stream, 24 (group) + 7 (winner brackets) + 5 (loser brackets) + 1 (grandfinal) = 37 BoX matches, a player can lose twice and still win the tourney NASL: 16 players, 3 days, 1 stream, 15 BoX matches, a player has to win every match straight
I can deal with all the technical issues, I can live with the format.
But please for the love of god don't make us wait 1+ hours between matches, and PLEASE don't show the same (extremely long) player intro video before each time said player has to play.
Congratulations on a (fairly) succesfull season 1, it was truly an amazing final (SO INTENSE!!!) and I look forward to an improved season 2 with more great games
ps. please get Lindsey Sporrer back to do interviews, that stuff was hilarious.
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.
OK, it seems like I have to clarify: I do not want to suggest, that the venue was bad, but rather that the format of HSCIII was vastly superior to the NASL final. Simply because you could have non-stop games AND pros had multiple chances to recover (one could go though with 1 BO3 loss in group and then lose once in the playoff). Also with a group stage, you could use the season performance as primary tie break which means that the season matches gain additional importance. It also means that you have WAY MORE GAMES, increasing spectator value and sponsor exposure. All this without increasing the time needed or even the technical setup (HSCIII was one stream and one casting desk only).
Comparison: HSCIII: 16 players, 3 days, 1 stream, 24 (group) + 7 (winner brackets) + 5 (loser brackets) + 1 (grandfinal) = 37 BoX matches, a player can lose twice and still win the tourney NASL: 16 players, 3 days, 1 stream, 15 BoX matches, a player has to win every match straight
HSCIII had more than twice the game content.
Maybe we just see everything differently, for me it's: NASL, 50 players, 9 weeks, 1 stream, a lot of Bo3 matches in the group stages and the final rounds. In the group stages, players can lose 1-2 matches and still get to the Ro16. Also, the open tournament with i don't know how many matches.
Also: Some games of the final 15 Bo3s casted by tastosis while you can hear and watch the hundreds or thousands of live viewers (i.e. physically there) cheer for their stars. The watery eyes of PuMa when hundreds of fans chant his name...
It's just a totally different kind of tournament and in no way comparable to such a small event like HSC3. If you have one PC, one Camera and a handful of people sitting around having some relaxed fun it's really not hard to have a production with no problems.
Yes, the format of NASL might be improved to double elimination, but actually all those players _had_ several chances to lose a game or two without "losing" the tournament. Only the finals were unforgiving.
The Koreans, those who you didn't want "too many of them" at the beginning of the league saved your tourney from disaster with amazing games.
Also, the league that lasted for months was completely useless, the guy who started playing the NASL in the last week via open bracket won it all. But what do you expect, when you base your tournament off invitations from video interviews..
Nice post Xeris. My only recommendation, like several others have mentioned, would be to improve your website to better disseminate league information both for the finals and throughout the regular season. Also, I would reevaluate how the written coverage content on the site is done. If news was not on the front page, rarely did I actually click the news link and scroll down to find the latest news on the site. If you are committed to providing content on the nasl.tv website, I would allow more of it to be shown, perhaps with a general section and then a section for each division, as well as clearly dated so people know what content is new and what is old. Also, I would suggest a more regular content schedule instead of articles every couple of days on various topics. Things like a weekly roundup and preview for each division would be a great start (I know some of this was done, but more consistency week to week would be best).
Overall though, I'm impressed with the progress you guys have made this season. Keep up the good work and I look forward to Season 2.
Great answer to the community but there were some things you missed out on:
Tastosis and Day9 problem Before the finals NASL hyped it up and told the communtiy that Tastosis and Day9 were going to cast the finals. When the finals then were played people got dissapointed when they get to see Gretorp and iNcontroL cast the games. People didn't get dissapointed because of their casting skills, people got dissapointed because they had looked forward to see Tastosis and Day9 cast. I understand 100% that you wanted Gretorp and iNcontroL to be a part of the finals as well since all their work they had put down into the league, but you should have been clear about it when you told the community you invited other casters to cast.
Tastosis and Day9 solution Make it clear who are going to cast what games before the event start or stick to your own casters and don't invite other casters.
Format problem Bo3 was bad and you said it was going to change to Bo5 for the next time. You then defend your use of single elimination by saying "That is how everyone else does it". Even if many other LAN tournaments does it I don't see why it should be used if double elimination is possible to fit in. Other LANs have their group plays at the events and this takes up one or two days of the event. Because of this they might have problems to fit the double elimination in a three days LAN tournament. NASL do not got this problem at all since you have the group stages played months before the finals.
Single elimination is bad for a game like SC2 where a lucky build choice can make a bad player beat a much better one.
Format solution: - Double elimination, bo5. - Upper bracket is played on stage, lower bracket is played off stage. - Play upper and lower brackets simultaneously. - Upper bracket is being casted and lower brackets are being casted when it is possible. Keep an observer in those games and when there is time to show some from the lower brackets then just put that game on the stream.
Sound issues There were sound issues through the whole tournament and not just before the first brake.
Sound solution You probably know the solution yourself and I'm sure it will be better the next time.
On July 12 2011 20:40 andytb wrote: 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.
Out of your whole post, Xeris, the only blame I see assigned is on the players. This is really disgraceful. Nobody has been complaining about the slight delays supposedly caused by players (or rather your inability to properly accommodate their needs and use time efficiently). The overwhelming majority of downtime had nothing to do with player's setting up.
The sound was never fixed and you were having problems right up until and including the final winner interview. I'm not sure if you are trying to deceive people who didn't see it themselves or if you actually are just ignorant of how bad your production was.
Your refusal to take any shred of responsibility for your screwups does not inspire any confidence in NASL.
The discounted HD pass for the weekend was a mission to find out about. had to find about it on IRC, it was 10$ when it said 25$. A little promotion about the weekend HD pass would be nice. I feel like i got robbed, since i bought it for 15$ like a week earlier with the discount code since i didn't know there was even going to be a HD pass for the weekend for 10$. i'm not even going to watch the VODs for the regular league play.
I'm surprised that bumping the grand final up 2 1/2 hours from the posted schedule has not been mentioned as much as other concerns, because that was dirty pool. I planned to attend the finals at a bar (the Toronto event), arriving at the posted time. By that time, however, they were already over.
First of all iam only able to say something about the Finals - dunno about the group matches since i barely watched them.
Well the most obvious parts were already mentioned so i skip to the more specific things: - camera guy: on the mainstage he was clearly adjusting the position of the camera while on stream. like when the casters started to talk about the next match after a break and the view switched to the mainstage camera he pan the camera left and right to fix the view to the casters - little thing but still unprofessional and you normaly dont even see that at rather unorganized events
- cocaster audio: i dont know if i was imagining it but it seemed that iNcontroL's sound volume was really low at most of the time - i could barely understand him
- cointerviewer/translator audio: it seemed like the microphone was muted at the beginning of each interview with koreans. Therefore the translation of the answer to the first question of an interview wasnt broadcasted on the stream.
- pausescreen between matches: well there isnt much to say just that a estimated start time of the next game would be awesome and helpful
That about it - Im glad you saw the obvious problems and try to avoid them next time - also i could difinitely see a difference between day 1 and the final!
I'd like to better understand why 1-3pm during the week was the selected time to play matches. As this is a North American league, it pretty much ensures no one with a FT job can play. Are there any plans to fix this? Sure, it's so Europeans & Koreans can play too, but shouldn't the focus be on making it as easy as possible for NA players?
Wow, people on here can be brutal. I just wanted to add in... I loved the event.
As far as the 360 --> 480 change. Totally logical. 480 is a good enough quality to not drive the viewer to want something more. On full screen, the difference between 480 and 720 or higher is not that big for me. However, with it being 360, it made me consider buying a ticket (I thought about it...). People on here need to realize that the nasl needs to make money to keep doing events. Let them make some money!! It's not "greedy," it's business. YOU have the choice of buying or not.
Single-elimination: Look at all the major sporting events... Look at Tennis, NFL, etc... I think logistically for a LAN, it's better. It also makes cheese SO much more controversial, and makes it a much bigger deal to the players, which makes it a much bigger deal to the viewer too
As far as people angry and trying to play the blame game, I think your original post was respectable and exactly what you needed to say. Don't dwell on mistakes, just move on. Most people are just nitpicking because they're used to TV-like, seamless production quality... which isn't possible if you don't have a massive NBC budget.
I feel like you all learned a LOT from this season, and I can't WAIT to see what you can bring next season. I feel like next season, the scheduling, timings, transitions, and quality are all going to keep getting better.
To the haters, manner up, this is their first time around. GO ESPORTS AND NASL!
On July 12 2011 21:37 Gurblechev wrote: Out of your whole post, Xeris, the only blame I see assigned is on the players. This is really disgraceful. Nobody has been complaining about the slight delays supposedly caused by players (or rather your inability to properly accommodate their needs and use time efficiently). The overwhelming majority of downtime had nothing to do with player's setting up.
The sound was never fixed and you were having problems right up until and including the final winner interview. I'm not sure if you are trying to deceive people who didn't see it themselves or if you actually are just ignorant of how bad your production was.
Your refusal to take any shred of responsibility for your screwups does not inspire any confidence in NASL.
Xeris has been known to be very ignorant and blame others for his mistakes. What's the big deal with Moon plugging his own mouse/keyboard? Or why are DarkForce's mouse drivers "obscure"?
These players probably caused 10-20 minutes delays, but we're talking about bigger delays which he didn't addressed.
To sum up his post: first season sucked, luckily the final games saved us, we promise to get better next season (which I doubt will happen).
On July 12 2011 21:44 -ForeverAlone- wrote: I'd like to better understand why 1-3pm during the week was the selected time to play matches. As this is a North American league, it pretty much ensures no one with a FT job can play. Are there any plans to fix this? Sure, it's so Europeans & Koreans can play too, but shouldn't the focus be on making it as easy as possible for NA players?
Actually this time is awful for koreans too, they have to play at very late hours during night.
On July 12 2011 21:48 Pheo wrote: Wow, people on here can be brutal. I just wanted to add in... I loved the event.
As far as the 360 --> 480 change. Totally logical. 480 is a good enough quality to not drive the viewer to want something more. On full screen, the difference between 480 and 720 or higher is not that big for me. However, with it being 360, it made me consider buying a ticket (I thought about it...). People on here need to realize that the nasl needs to make money to keep doing events. Let them make some money!!
As far as people angry and trying to play the blame game, I think your original post was respectable and exactly what you needed to say. Don't dwell on mistakes, just move on. Most people are just nitpicking because they're used to TV-like, seamless production quality.
I feel like you all learned a LOT from this season, and I can't WAIT to see what you can bring next season.
To the haters, manner up, this is their first time around. GO ESPORTS AND NASL!
Manner up? Some seem to think that criticism and people being annoyed by all the pauses, issues and schedule errors are bad for the scene. Companies that don't deliver on what they promise/what the consumer expects will get complaints. People don't do this out of spite but because they want improvements or they've paid for a service that's below par.
We're definitely aware that there were problems along the way. We're not perfect but I can promise everyone that we are motivated and improving daily. We hope that our regular season and Finals showcased this. We didn't start off great, but the end of the regular season was lightyears better than the beginning. The Finals started off rough, but ended with a bang. Know that we're going to ride this momentum and make sure that Season 2 is phenomenal.
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.
This part is weird and a bit misleading too.
Saying the finals started of rough but ended in a bang is more or less totally based on the level of play in the MC vs Puma game. The sound was still totally weird in the final game, camera on Gretorp/Incontrol was amateurish, the game wasn't played at the designated time and the interview missed at least two questions due to the translator mic being off (as it was EVERY single time i watched a korean interview).
Also calling community members haters is also a bit much. Seems like the NASL guys have no idea how to approach PR. If Xeris had ended on a note more like "the finals were a bumpy road but a great final match saved the day. We're dedicated to providing more games of that caliber with improved production value and less downtime in season 2." i think people would be fully supportive.
On July 12 2011 21:44 -ForeverAlone- wrote: I'd like to better understand why 1-3pm during the week was the selected time to play matches. As this is a North American league, it pretty much ensures no one with a FT job can play. Are there any plans to fix this? Sure, it's so Europeans & Koreans can play too, but shouldn't the focus be on making it as easy as possible for NA players?
Actually this time is awful for koreans too, they have to play at very late hours during night.
Good point actually, hadn't even thought about that. Basically it's only good for EUR... that seems really illogical, especially as there are enough EUR tournaments already.
I'm glad to see you guys are taking steps in the right direction, NASL has always been a really ambitious project and even though there's been a lot of problems and some poor decisions, the games made up for it in the end. As far as constructive criticism, there's a few things I could point out:
-More professionals, fewer friends/roommates/girlfriends...I'm glad to see you've hired more (professional) editors, and hiring a sound engineer would also be a huge step in the right direction. -It's probably not feasible in the short term, but looking into an alternative to jtv may be wise. MLG and GSL both use their own streaming/VOD services/programs, and honestly jtv's servers aren't really equipped to handle 80,000 people streaming 360 or 1080p at once. They've done a lot for the sc2 community but their platform isn't always the best way to handle HUGE events. -Guest casters! It was great to see Tastosis and Day9 at the finals but they were hardly used as much as they could've been, I understand having inc/gretorp casting the finals, but if you're going to fly in serious talent from S. Korea, at least let them do interviews or between-game commentary. Also, guest casters during the regular season was a great idea and I'd encourage more of it (and give Gretorp a break now and then haha, dude casted like a madman for months). -Rehearsal. I honestly think 95% of the problems with the live stream would've been resolved or seriously minimized with a few hours of practice the night before. I realize the venue had to be set up on an extremely strict schedule, but it's nigh inexcusable for a $100,000 live event to have as many production issues as NASL did on day one. Same deal with MLG Dallas, we gave them a lot of shit for it and they came back HUGE in Columbus, I'd love to see the same thing with NASL S2.
I'm really looking forward to season 2, especially with the injection of more Korean talent from the qualifiers...the finals was a sick event in terms of the games and everything, best of luck to you guys going into the next season!
On July 12 2011 21:55 karpo wrote: Manner up? Some seem to think that criticism and people being annoyed by all the pauses, issues and schedule errors are bad for the scene. Companies that don't deliver on what they promise/what the consumer expects will get complaints. People don't do this out of spite but because they want improvements or they've paid for a service that's below par.
Critiques are perfectly fine. The manner up was directed at the people who are giving xeris the finger and saying that the nasl is a setback for esports. There were bumps, especially at the start of the tournament, but my whole point is that this is just the first season.
On July 12 2011 21:55 karpo wrote: Manner up? Some seem to think that criticism and people being annoyed by all the pauses, issues and schedule errors are bad for the scene. Companies that don't deliver on what they promise/what the consumer expects will get complaints. People don't do this out of spite but because they want improvements or they've paid for a service that's below par.
Critiques are perfectly fine. The manner up was directed at the people who are giving xeris the finger and saying that the nasl is a setback for esports. There were bumps, especially at the start of the tournament, but my whole point is that this is just the first season.
Let's say you were going to buy a car. You're looking what company to buy it from, and see this new up-and-coming company hyping themselves as a great manufacturer. You decide to risk it because they seem like they have good intentions, but the car ends up sucking terribly. Sure, it goes fast on the straights, but the seats aren't comfortable, you've had to bring it to the shop multiple times, some functions don't work (AC only got added after 20,000km!)
If you're conscious about where you spend money, this would piss you off and you would regret investing in this new car manufacturer. This is a business transaction, not just a good faith and a "oh, it's ok if it sucks for the first 3 months! they'll fix it in S2".
On July 12 2011 21:55 karpo wrote: Manner up? Some seem to think that criticism and people being annoyed by all the pauses, issues and schedule errors are bad for the scene. Companies that don't deliver on what they promise/what the consumer expects will get complaints. People don't do this out of spite but because they want improvements or they've paid for a service that's below par.
Critiques are perfectly fine. The manner up was directed at the people who are giving xeris the finger and saying that the nasl is a setback for esports. There were bumps, especially at the start of the tournament, but my whole point is that this is just the first season.
I've read most of the thread and i've seen little to no "NASL is bad for esports". Saying it's their first season isn't a real argument to me as there's already serveral tournaments that do live LAN events better. If you want to have the highest price pool outside of korea you really should have a production crew good enough to, at least, equal the level of Dreamhack and MLG.
Single-elimination: Look at all the major sporting events... Look at Tennis, NFL, etc... I think logistically for a LAN, it's better. It also makes cheese SO much more controversial, and makes it a much bigger deal to the players, which makes it a much bigger deal to the viewer too
As far as people angry and trying to play the blame game, I think your original post was respectable and exactly what you needed to say. Don't dwell on mistakes, just move on. Most people are just nitpicking because they're used to TV-like, seamless production quality... which isn't possible if you don't have a massive NBC budget.
To the haters, manner up, this is their first time around. GO ESPORTS AND NASL!
Look man, first off SC2 is not tennis or NFL in any way. There is huge differance in funds as well as in the nature of the games. I have yet to hear of a tennis or NFL game that went only for 10 minutes. Let alone complete series. Do you think matches would be fun if the rule in NFL was "the first team to score a field goal wins"? At least that is how I see it.
On the nitpicking part of your post, and about haters needing to manner up because it is their first time around If they ask for my moral support in their effort to get better and/or learn how the ropes work, sure, they have it. But only while I'm on the free stream. If they want input on what viewers think went wrong, and ultimately help from others on how to get better, people are going to give them their oppinions and there is no room to get butthurt about that. Bottomline, everyone posting here wants to see NASL work.
i think you should have more "fillers" inbetween matches esp if ur makeing this a show rather than a lan. First thing that comes to mind is day9 vrs djwheat(i think?) on some down time inbetween matches in mlg. even if its just players interviews or something doesnt have to be big just fill the time. also make the first round a bo5 i mean wtf traveling all that way to american then loseing 2-0 must suck. and i for one, and sure many otheres did at first, rolled their eyes when they saw Gretorp and Incontrol casting the finals but i personaly think they did a better job than if artosis+ tastless had been casting so GJ to them! + no open bracket winners for reasons im sure have already been covered.
On July 12 2011 22:09 -ForeverAlone- wrote:Let's say you were going to buy a car. You're looking what company to buy it from, and see this new up-and-coming company hyping themselves as a great manufacturer. You decide to risk it because they seem like they have good intentions, but the car ends up sucking terribly. Sure, it goes fast on the straights, but the seats aren't comfortable, you've had to bring it to the shop multiple times, some functions don't work (AC only got added after 20,000km!)
If you're conscious about where you spend money, this would piss you off and you would regret investing in this new car manufacturer. This is a business transaction, not just a good faith and a "oh, it's ok if it sucks for the first 3 months! they'll fix it in S2".
Your example kind of sucks. I think a more fitting example would be buying an album. You pay 15 bucks for a new album from a new band. The production quality isn't as good as it could have been, but the core things are there (nasl had great talent, and great games). So yeah, the next "album" to come out will be better, and I think it's great the direction NASL is going.
Putting together a huge event like this for the first time is way easier said than done. Hindsight is 20/20, and realizing that they needed 4 guys for a certain job instead of 1 is something that experience teaches.
On July 12 2011 22:11 svarog wrote: Bottomline, everyone posting here wants to see NASL work.
Totally agree, but crucifying xeris like SOME posts isn't the way to go. I totally love all the constructive criticism that we've seen, but my post was directed toward the people pushing it to an extreme like the post above that I quoted comparing it to getting screwed over after buying a car. The guy who posted right above me... great example of constructive criticism through mannered opinions. (JouriCarver)
I think a problem larger than any you guys have addressed so far is communication. I'm surprised you haven't even addressed it copiously. That supposes to me that you don't see it as a problem or are trying to bury it.
Quite frankly, you're asking us to understand the difficulties on your end, which is reasonable (though at the end of the day, from both your perspective and mine only the results matter), but you're ignoring, or seem not to be aware of, the frustrating difficulties we've had on ours. You mention one of them: dead time on stream. Great, you're working to fix that. Not knowing when games will start, however, is another difficulty. Rapid changes in time also are. While you may think it's fine, it really isn't. You need to spend the additional five minutes communicating to the 100,000 people following this. It's unprofessional if you don't.
I'm not saying that you have to explain everything. We don't want everything. I'm just asking that you guys consider learning a lesson from the way TL ran their tournaments--decisions were explained, delays were announced, controversy was appeased. NASL will be much, much, much improved and will vastly ameliorate its reputation as a respectable international league if it does this effectively. Looking forward to improvements in Season 2!
On July 12 2011 22:09 -ForeverAlone- wrote:Let's say you were going to buy a car. You're looking what company to buy it from, and see this new up-and-coming company hyping themselves as a great manufacturer. You decide to risk it because they seem like they have good intentions, but the car ends up sucking terribly. Sure, it goes fast on the straights, but the seats aren't comfortable, you've had to bring it to the shop multiple times, some functions don't work (AC only got added after 20,000km!)
If you're conscious about where you spend money, this would piss you off and you would regret investing in this new car manufacturer. This is a business transaction, not just a good faith and a "oh, it's ok if it sucks for the first 3 months! they'll fix it in S2".
Your example kind of sucks. I think a more fitting example would be buying an album. You pay 15 bucks for a new album from a new band. The production quality isn't as good as it could have been, but the core things are there (nasl had great talent, and great games). So yeah, the next "album" to come out will be better, and I think it's great the direction NASL is going.
Putting together a huge event like this for the first time is way easier said than done. Hindsight is 20/20, and realizing that they needed 4 guys for a certain job instead of 1 is something that experience teaches.
On July 12 2011 22:11 svarog wrote: Bottomline, everyone posting here wants to see NASL work.
Totally agree, but crucifying xeris like SOME posts isn't the way to go. I totally love all the constructive criticism that we've seen, but my post was directed toward the people pushing it to an extreme like the post above that I quoted comparing it to getting screwed over after buying a car.
Going with your analogy, the band and the and the talent are available on another album that costs less. Very possible that because they fucked up their first album, people will go buy the one produced by the other guys.
Throughout this 1st season of NASL, their mantra has been "We'll do better next time". I think the whole thing has been terribly managed and was such a wasted opportunity. There have been a multitude of events in the past few months which have produced far higher quality content on a far smaller budget. It seems NASL was banking completely on their large prize pool and sacrificed good production value. There were so many glaring faults throughout the season which should just not have happened. A strong leader would have sacked people if they weren't performing, or made the case for hiring additional staff if people were overloaded with work.
I sincerely hope things will come up to a professional standard in the next season, however I do not expect them to, but I would be very happy to be wrong on this.
So much buck passing in this post, it made me eyes hurt. Blaming players, editors, sound guys - the fact of the matter is YOU were running the event. YOU - NO ONE ELSE. Take responsibility. A lot of us here are paying customers, I know 25$ isn't a huge amount but reading your post just made me really angry.
On July 12 2011 22:28 Trowa127 wrote: So much buck passing in this post, it made me eyes hurt. Blaming players, editors, sound guys - the fact of the matter is YOU were running the event. YOU - NO ONE ELSE. Take responsibility. A lot of us here are paying customers, I know 25$ isn't a huge amount but reading your post just made me really angry.
On July 12 2011 21:27 Morfildur wrote: It's just a totally different kind of tournament and in no way comparable to such a small event like HSC3. If you have one PC, one Camera and a handful of people sitting around having some relaxed fun it's really not hard to have a production with no problems.
You are massively underestimating the amount of work that went into HSCIII, even discounting the effort required to refurbish the apartment it was held in. One PC and one camera? Did you not see any of the shots of the production setup that they had in there? And there was significantly more than a "handful" of people - I was there and there were a fair number of staff wandering around downstairs at any given time.
I can't believe how many people think that just because Take made HSCIII look easy that it was actually just this simple thing where he invited 16 people over and hung out for three days.
Hey NASL I love the idea of a "show", I don't know which event it was but it was recently when we were shown the players having a BBQ, warming up, player reactions etc. and it was baller! (Ironic that I don't remember their name now but I haven't slept for 30 hours)
But I just can't help but be angry at the fact that none of you guys thought about this in advance, I mean really, cowering the whole event is what you're suppose to do if it isn't just a LAN but an "event"... It feels as if half the NASL staff are people scared shitless by all the critique that they just want things to work out which results in even more mistakes... because obviously nobody sat at the coffée meeting before the finals and said "Hey! I got an idea! If the whole event centers around a kind of 'gamer lifestyle experience' for the people there, making them feel like esports is more than just pure games, then why don't we try to include the hundreds of thousands that will view the stream and vods into that! I mean sure 400 onsite fans is great but isn't having 100 000+ people experience it over a video even sweller!?"
I realize this is PR, but you seem unaware of just how poor the stream experience was. The most obvious issue is the audio; the fix for it during the first day was a big improvement, but by the end of the event we still couldn't hear half of the winner's interview. Scheduling was another huge issue. Having delays at an event like that is perfectly understandable; we realize things won't go exactly according to schedule. However, you could at least put up a notice for the stream-viewers (not sure if live viewers were alerted or not) saying "next match is delayed for X reason, we expect to resume the tournament at Y time." A lot of people wasted a lot of time and/or missed matches they were looking forward to due to the complete lack of communication. There were a plethora of other, smaller issues as well that seem to have been overlooked; for example, the cameraman seemed to have Parkinson's and couldn't keep the shot steady for a second, "let's turn off all the lights and then pan the audience" and other silliness, and the absence of translators for foreign player interviews (I'm assuming this wasn't intentional...), to name a few. Overall the live event, from a stream viewer's perspective, was incredibly disorganized and frustrating, and production-wise, was probably the worst high-profile event I've watched barring MLG Dallas. Luckily the players were still able to produce amazing games, and we were able to watch (if not always hear) them, so overall I came away from the experience somewhat satisfied. You should thank the players rather than try to shift blame towards them.
Past the live event, the rest of the season went well, I think. Obviously the beginning was very rough, on you guys as well as on us. Glad to hear you've enlarged your crew. By the end of season 1 I felt like the casts were going smoothly and I always got what I expected if I tuned in, so everything was satisfactory. I'm still concerned about the format though (and this is purely opinion at this point). First of all, I don't like the open tournament. Personally I feel like the long leage-style group play allows us to get to know players' style and a tiny bit of personality through the interviews; there's a smidgen of storyline as far as seeing their record go up and down each week; and they have some history with the other advancing players from their group. The open tournament winner, worthiness to compete notwithstanding, has none of these things. I feel like being able to develop storylines like this is one of NASL's unique points and potential strengths over other tournament-style events (though I don't feel like it's being taken advantage of... but that's another point entirely), so having an "unknown" player come through and knock out all the regular season players makes you wonder why you bothered watching the league at all during regular season. Furthermore, the open spot is arguably more difficult to achieve than advancing through the regular season (season 1 results seem to support this, though it's only one sample), so the seeding position is questionable.
The second thing about the regular season I've already alluded to. I feel like there should be more done to create storylines for the players. IMO (and I'm sure many will disagree) it'd be neat to have a short review of each player before their matches where casters can go over how they performed in the previous week, how well they're doing, and recent non-NASL games they've participated in. I'm thinking a 30s-1m replay summary of the previous week's games' highlight moments while commentators just talk over it. One match per week for each player makes it hard for viewers to maintain a continuous image of a player. The interviews you do with winners is good; video feed as well as audio (not sure of the logistics of this, but just putting it out there) would be even better. In-depth interviews not just focused on the last match would also be interesting (e.g. IPL's interviews, where you get to know the players instead of hear them summarize the game you just watched; but maybe not as hardcore as the GSL's really long player introductions). Maybe just feature one player a day to do a little extra production for.
Anyway, I realize some of that was pretty harsh, but all in all I enjoyed the first season and look forward to the second. My personal suggestions will most likely be ignored, but whatever. Hopefully the criticisms in the first part will at least be heard and dealt with. Good luck with season two!
On July 12 2011 22:38 Krehlmar wrote: Hey NASL I love the idea of a "show", I don't know which event it was but it was recently when we were shown the players having a BBQ, warming up, player reactions etc. and it was baller! (Ironic that I don't remember their name now but I haven't slept for 30 hours)
But I just can't help but be angry at the fact that none of you guys thought about this in advance, I mean really, cowering the whole event is what you're suppose to do if it isn't just a LAN but an "event"... It feels as if half the NASL staff are people scared shitless by all the critique that they just want things to work out which results in even more mistakes... because obviously nobody sat at the coffée meeting before the finals and said "Hey! I got an idea! If the whole event centers around a kind of 'gamer lifestyle experience' for the people there, making them feel like esports is more than just pure games, then why don't we try to include the hundreds of thousands that will view the stream and vods into that! I mean sure 400 onsite fans is great but isn't having 100 000+ people experience it over a video even sweller!?"
The tournament you mentioned was probably the Home Story Cup at Take's apartment.
I agree that the downtime between games was a bit dull and showing the stream what is going on at the event would be a good move (just make us feel part of the whole event). Still you guys gave us Lindsey so it's all good <3.
Next time maybe have the interviewer show more of the stuff that is happening in the background instead of just interviewing people hanging around the main area.
I feel as if they should watch the whole event as a team in VOD form to really see what the stream viewer experience was. Then they can understand how cringeworthy, both production and otherwise, 90% of the first day (which is all I bothered watching) was. You can argue that the event was a success because it had one of the greatest SC2 series of all time, but frankly that was just lucky and had nothing to do with the organisation. If you are looking to improve then you can focus on things you can change, which isn't necessarily the quality of the play. In fact, you can improve that by not having bad/outdated maps or completely retarded map pools (like R16...)
Was watching the stream, and I am very happy, that you are gonna make the finals run more smoothly - 1 hour waiting pr match is quite long. I do think that the season league was great, and I think that its great, that you adress what you are gonna do better. Thank you for a great tournament over all!
If NASL is a league rather than a tournament, why can a non-league participant gain entry into the playoffs? No sports league would ever consider this.
On July 12 2011 22:56 typedef struct wrote: If NASL is a league rather than a tournament, why can a non-league participant gain entry into the playoffs? No sports league would ever consider this.
It's a leaguetournamentshowLAN depending on how good/bad they do at a particular aspect
On July 12 2011 22:28 Trowa127 wrote: So much buck passing in this post, it made me eyes hurt. Blaming players, editors, sound guys - the fact of the matter is YOU were running the event. YOU - NO ONE ELSE. Take responsibility. A lot of us here are paying customers, I know 25$ isn't a huge amount but reading your post just made me really angry.
When in doubt, Blame PainUser!
Haha, they will probably adopt that as the slogan for season 2!
To be honest, NASL got very lucky that two world class players in MC and Puma decided to play the TvP of a lifetime. I think that series alone made all the setbacks and production issues worthwhile for the audience.
Xeris, one thing you didn't address was the issue of Ret having to play Puma in the first round. Ret was the first seed, and in almost all tournaments the advantage of achieving the highest seed is being matched up against the lowest seed, and thus having an easier time reaching the higher brackets of the competition. I guess theoretically it would make sense to have this format; in theory you'd assume players who weren't selected for the NASL and thus had to play the open bracket would be weaker than players good enough to be selected to participate, but this was obviously not the case and I'm sure anyone could have predicted that the open bracket winner would be an amazing player. It just seemed really odd, and unfair to Ret, to make him play the strongest player and a potential GSL Code S winner by virtue of Ret finishing with the best record.
Is this something that you're considering changing next season? If not, I can't see any incentive for finishing in first place, which I think is a problem.
On July 12 2011 22:56 typedef struct wrote: If NASL is a league rather than a tournament, why can a non-league participant gain entry into the playoffs? No sports league would ever consider this.
It's a leaguetournamentshowLAN depending on how good/bad they do at a particular aspect
They really do seem to change what they are going for every time they screw something up. Point out flaw then it's all "Oh, but that's not what we were going for, we just didn't tell anyone about it, until right now". I hope NASL Season 2 comes back with a much more concrete identity that doesn't leave the vast majority of its viewers in the dark again.
Still annoyed their schedule change ruined the entire finals for me (tuned in at announced time, to see final gg), seriously NASL what the hell were you thinking there.
On July 12 2011 13:53 enemy2010 wrote: Thanks for this comment on the whole situation
Yeah, there were some major problems which maybe seemed even bigger for the stream users than for the people at the live event. So I might be understandable, that there were many complains by us.
But as you said, this was your first huge event (even if some of your people already are kinda familiar with the SC2 scene and stuff) and you stated your problems and it seems that you are aware of them. Thats very good i guess So hopefully (and I am sure it will become true) the next season will get even bigger and better! Congratulations on your succees, keep it coming!
And make sure that Lindsey has a good start into her SC2 experience
Encore:
So i wanna just list my suggestions/ideas/thoughts i have on this whole topic. I wasn't watching every game during the season and even wasn't watching the whole finals (due to personal issues) but I think i can state some critics
What I liked: - Having multiple casters throughout the season. That was quite cool and exciting - Hmm well, i can't really state other big positive things. I just think that the whole season was quite solid, it was ok
What I didn't like: - Having to pay for high quality streams. Sure, you have to get your money from somebody, and i fully understand this. So this isn't really a "you have to change that"-complain, its just something that bugged me . Maybe you could have given out free HD stream for the finals, that would've been a nice move - The whole news publishing issue. It was hard for me to navigate through your homepage and get to know all the results of the matches. So maybe overthing the website design/concept? I don't know - Known issues at the finals (no sound, delays etc.). Has all been stated so much, so i don't go into detail on that You already know what went wrong and you'll fix it next time
Thanks again, see you soon!
wow there are alot of smilies in this post.
on a serious note. thank you for season 1 of NASL. I look foward to tuning in next season as well!
Only point left is that for you Xeris, as the one in charge, to accept responsibility for not only the good things that happen, but also the bad. You can learn a lot from Sundance.
I loved the first season although there is room for improvement in the already talked areas, so it can only go from the great event it was this 1st season to the best event ever in the second season!
As for NightEnd -- once again: Romania is a "high risk" country, as are Russia, Ukraine, and Poland (just because Romania is in the EU doesn't mean they have a VISA waiver program... which they don't, which makes it automatically more difficult to get a VISA to the US). We didn't want to have multiple "high risk" players in the league due to obvious reasons. What if more than 1 of them qualifies for the finals, can't get a VISA, and don't show up? That ruins our live event completely.
White-Ra has demonstrated an ability to come to the US, BRAT_OK showed us his VISA, as did Strelok. So we were really left with two players (MaNa and NightEnd) from "high risk" countries. We only wanted to select 1; we chose MaNa. As I said multiple times before -- I should have explicitly stated the need for a VISA. I mistakenly thought it was obvious that people outside the US would ask about it considering the contract states that you must guarantee your ability to enter the US. It was my fault for not explicitly stating that they needed a VISA.
So my question for Xeris, how could you have seen Strelok's VISA when he hadn't even applied for it? Was Strelok or MaNa the one "high risk" player?
On July 12 2011 21:27 Morfildur wrote: It's just a totally different kind of tournament and in no way comparable to such a small event like HSC3. If you have one PC, one Camera and a handful of people sitting around having some relaxed fun it's really not hard to have a production with no problems.
You are massively underestimating the amount of work that went into HSCIII, even discounting the effort required to refurbish the apartment it was held in. One PC and one camera? Did you not see any of the shots of the production setup that they had in there? And there was significantly more than a "handful" of people - I was there and there were a fair number of staff wandering around downstairs at any given time.
I can't believe how many people think that just because Take made HSCIII look easy that it was actually just this simple thing where he invited 16 people over and hung out for three days.
Just to add to this, here's a pic of the HSC production rig + Show Spoiler +
It may look small but sure as hell there's a lot of cash sitting on that table right there.
Then SirScoots' home rig (used for the EGMC) just takes it to the next level of awesome
Now imagine what you need to do when you also mix in venue sound, projectors, radio mics, miles of cable and broadcast standard cameras. Pretty gross. I sometimes wish I'd carried on in event production, the stress is kinda fun.
Highlighting the end of each paragraph does not void you of the organizational responsibilities of the tournament. You chose the sound guy, its not completely his fault.
I don't even remember reading any type of apology. I just read "this issue, caused by this guy" "well change it next season".
On July 12 2011 22:56 typedef struct wrote: If NASL is a league rather than a tournament, why can a non-league participant gain entry into the playoffs? No sports league would ever consider this.
Yeah, I don't really understand why they give an open spot in the finals like that. I invested a fair amount of time watching all season and then in the end someone I didn't watch at all was in a lot of important games at the end. This isn't problematic in terms of the way Puma played, he obviously played amazing. But it did take a bit of the drama out of his matches for me because he didn't have that season long story line built up for me. Of course the grand finals was an epic BO7 for the ages, and you could argue that it would not have happened without the open bracket slot, but that seems more like luck than planning to me.
Anyway, NASL was a solid league, I liked that it was on in prime time and there were lots of decent matches on. Whatever mistakes they made *generally* didn't take away from the actual matches (that I watched), and while there is plenty to improve upon you have to give them credit for having a lot of world class players.
As for next season though, I suspect I will spend my 25 bucks elsewhere. There is a lot of things to spend money on in the SC2 community, and NASL probably isn't going to be my priority. I don't regret the purchase for this season, I feel like I got my money's worth, but I also feel like I'd like to try something different next time around.
Edited to add: The fact that I can watch live without paying and with ads is another reason I won't be playing. My connection rarely allowed me to stream in HD, and I never really had time to watch VODs anyway, so there was basically no advantage in my situation.
Firstly, I do hope you have a new team in production. It was just poor, and at times I felt like I was watching the Nigerian movie channel on TV, only worse.
Set design was extremely bad. I believe this has more to do with NASL's branding, I find the whole thing too dark and "cheap". It needs a seperate identity from SC2's style, this means new logo, new website, new marketing. For an example of good branding, take a look at TSL, the whole thing is bright, exciting, and professional.
Interviewers were poor, I know it's nice to have some pretty girl ask questions, but you had 3 of the greatest casters / personalities we have in SC just sat around doing not much.
Casting for me was average, I just don't like the gretorp / incontrol combo. I have grown to like incontrol a bit more, but he does tend to annoy me, but he worked the crowd well. Gretorp seems a bit slow, and a bit too obvious in what he is saying. I had hoped after seeing the first day with Gretorp / iNc and missing the saturday, I would see the finals being casting by our brightest and best, and I was wrong.
Overall I did actually enjoy the event, but this wasn't down to NASL.
It was down to:
A) A great crowd providing support for all the players.
B) Luckily, some of the best games of SC2 I have seen.
The event seemed like it needed some more experienced people, and better management.
NASL did pretty awesome IMO for the finals. I was able to watch most of day2 (why did you make me cry sen?!) and a couple of the grand finals matches. I was a little o.O at the musical act/performance - I don't know how the rest of the crowd took it, but to each their own for the taste in music. It resembled some random guy rapping at homestory cup o.O
I will write my impressions on NASL. This won't qualify as constructive criticism. I try not to hate but I won't beat around the bush too much.
I think overall its a league that did oversell too much and tried to make itself bigger than it is. The prize pool poses a large contrast to the production value. I was very skeptical how it was supposed to be run by people with almost no major league organization experience but hoped to be pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately, the concerns proved to be mostly appropriate. When looking at the today's poll results to the right I am very surprised how well the NASL finals were received. To be honest, if the league was run this way in Europe and would't have all the "we make ESPORTS happen in NA" myth it would qualify as the worst run major league. On the other hand, the games did turn up to be great and the enthusiastic American fans are a great plus for any tournament on American soil.
I want to stress how this only my impression and is probably unrectified: If you compare MLG Dallas to the NASL finals, I would describe it that way: MLG Dallas was planned decently and turned out to be bad (very, very bad). But those were external factors that just go wrong and are somewhat excusable if you have no big budget Things like the projector in the NASL finals and I wasn't too annoyed by that. But the rest of the production... you can't say it turned out badly because something went wrong, it was planned that way from the start. It might be okay for a school performance or something like that but people actually paid $25 for it.
Casters: There are reasons why you watch games and there are reasons why you don't. Whenever I talk to other people about NASL this comes up every time. GSL faced something similar and handled it well and professionally. If you want to be the best league, you should have the best casters.
Attitude: MLG always criticizes itself and improves a lot, even after great events like MLG Columbus. They make the impression to take feedback very seriously. I don't have the same impression for NASL. If I read the TL posts from staff members they always take criticism poorly and personally. It might be just my perception because here in Germany criticism is less sugarcoated and is more to the issue rather than the persons involved. To be fair, NASL has received tons of unnecessary shit in the early stages, so staff might have become reluctant to it. But if you want to be considered as a community project with all its perks you must take feedback more seriously.
About teams: These examples work in the inverse direction as well: Painuser did not show up despite being in a team, whereas pseudo teams like Team Grubby and Duckload worked (mostly) out. What distinguishes a one player team from a player? Calling players lazy ignores the fact that teams can be disorganized as well. In the end, the player will be always responsible to show up and play the games. About visa: The problematic player Strelok could not come to the finals whereas Nightend possibly could have. Don't get me wrong: It is valid to have your standpoints but giving examples how your principles failed nevertheless does not show you were right all along. Actually, it leaves the impression that the player selection was still arbitrary (invites always are so why deny that).
The studio: I don't see any benefit of having a studio yet. Note: This is from a viewer's view. I am well aware that you need to have your people together for your production. But from a viewer's view it looks just like a dark dungeon. Sure, it's all professional and neat but I actually enjoy the friendly and simple screens from EG MCS or TSL3 more. I didn't like the graphic style of season 1 but now that you have some graphic artist it will probably improve in season 2.
EU broadcast: It is a good idea, but: 1. Broadcast going down in important matches in the first couple of weeks killed the regular season for me. 2. It often collides with other stuff. 3. Europeans are not used to replay casts and/or prerecorded casts. We had everything live in WC3. Now we have everything prerecorded AND half of the world knows the score already. Team Liquid Live Report threads are mostly dead for EU broadcast and ESPORTS scene sites actually don't know how and when to report the scores (they are used to live events). 4. The sunday broadcast is on monday in EU. 5. GSL VODs are way better than rebroadcasts (for paying customers). They are up only two hours after the games end.
The format: I understand how you want to put an emphasis on the regular season but the open tournament undermines it. Additionally, you shouldn't do things just because they are like that in real sports. You must make games attractive to the viewers, otherwise you have a large workload and no real benefit. The german championship, EPS, has changed its format in the regular season from 16 players round robin to many small groups. It does so after the round robin has become a tradition after about 8 years and its similarity with real sports (German Bundesliga). It did so because round robin just produced many uninteresting games that nobody really wanted to see. Something that could also be seen in season 1 NASL and a possible explanation for the many walkovers.
Update: So I read my post twice and it might sound a bit too much like hate which it isn't. Why do I post at all if it is not directly constructive? Because I want to just give my impression which might help to improve the league as well. Clever responsible people can convert feelings into ideas. I just don't want to see how the league goes down with "but we did it all right! It must be the audience!". I don't really expect a response, it's just input.
I would like to add one more thing: Season broadcast scheduling
I don't know any other program that runs Wednesday through Sunday or Thursday through Monday (EU). I feel it would greatly improve the viewing experience if you could broadcast Monday through Friday. I could take Tuesday through Saturday as well for the EU broadcast, so that the US boys get it first on their prime time, but this run through the weekend is problematic - and I believe I'm not the only one.
Many 5 days a week broadcasts that run Monday through Friday suffer lower number of viewers on Friday, because that's partly a weekend night for many with different schedules.
In an ideal world, I could come home from work every day at 18:30, make dinner, start up the PC and watch NASL 7-10pm with a weekend broadcast bringing the 3 best series/games of the week running 5:30pm on Saturday.
On July 12 2011 13:11 Xeris wrote: 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.
So tournament X uses single elimination. But tournament Y uses double elimination! Is it really the only reason you've chosen SE -- because tournament X uses it? That's really really weak argument, especially since NASL didn't look at anyone else when they came up with group play format.
Dreamhack, MLG, WCG have a lot of players participating, and a very limited timeframe. You have 16 players total for the final event, and you have 3 days to play it out. Why not to use format that would better determine the skill of participants? Ret, #1 NASL players after 9 weeks of play, didn't have a second chance. White-Ra, one of the fan favorites (and, ok, my favorite :D) didn't have a second chance.
Yes, the finals are not an isolated event, but it makes even less sense when you consider how long and carefully you picked those 16 players, and then use the most basic and simple format after that. Dreamhack, MLG, WCG don't have 9 weeks of daily play as a lead-up to their play-off.
I find it a bit rich to give out six figure prize money, charge 25 USD for a high quality stream and then basically say something along the lines of "We're just starting out, it will get better, relax". Saying you feel great and that you started from nothing doesn't really help. That's something I'd buy from someone making it work with a small tournament he put a lot of effort in, not the disappointment your finals proved to be.
Also, why has noone mentioned Lindsey as a negative yet? Bringing her in without any prior experience in StarCraft whatsoever must have been one of the worst decisions you could have made. Clearly the show aspect got to your head a bit when you chose her.
With regards to the format, I definitely think BO5s throughout with BO7 final of course would make things a lot more interesting for the spectators early on while providing a more competitive ro16 and r08. While the best player most of the time wins still in a three set match, the nature of starcraft is that one game can sometimes hinge on tiny factors (zvz baneling wars anyone?). Some of the early matches were over very quickly and it would have felt better for them to be longer contests to allow a real match to develop. Given the relatively small number of matches being played during a three day event there would be more than enough time for this, simply playing a few more matches on the second and third days and less on the first. A BO3 can be over in a heartbeat and feels a little dispiriting given the enormity of the prize pool here.
Anyway, given the problems especially on the first day, it seems that everyone at NASL is listening to all the feedback and are acting accordingly so season two will be even better I'm sure.
Seems like NASL is responding correctly to the mistakes they made. Thinking about whether to buy Season after enjoying Season 1 despite the missteps, leaning towards making the purchase again
Really don't like the justification for single elimination. You can't compare to MLG saying its single because its not. Boxer flew to your tournament, played 1 series and was done. At MLG, Boxer will play at least 6 series. It is not a fair comparison. The open bracket is double elim also so you should just not even compare to MLG.
MLG does modified double elim. You can lose all your pool play games and it will count as your first loss.
I'm very interested to know about the specifics of who was involved in organising the event, as a screen and media student I learned to appreciate how hard live tv is to produce and have a new respect for what they accomplish. I found the "show" to be very awkward to watch and of course the sound and camera made it look very amateur, but I thought that the games were very entertaining so my opinion for season 2 would be to aim a bit lower use the studio that you have already, have a small studio audience and just spend the money on having a live tv crew gomtv style to come out and shoot/organize the event so that there's less time wasted on awkward moments with the casters just filling in dead air. This would make for a much better experience for the stream viewer who is the main audience (let's face it) good tv goes unnoticed in that it doesn't make the audience think "wow this sound is so balanced"
my proposal requires changes to the format of the league but iirc MLG used this for halo (or at least something similar) and it's worked amazing.
make ro16 finals double elim #1 league-seed gets a bye (ret) open winner gets seeded into losers round 1
i'm really not familiar with what MLG uses for SC, i just tune in for the finals usually.
edit - on another note, regarding the issue of marketing your event as a show as a reason for skimping out on non-live qualities...
it would seem to me to be a very poor choice considering the stream viewing market VASTLY out numbers the live attendance. you'd do well to reevaluate your standpoints. we all get it that you want the gigantic finals that draws people from across the country to get the real experience (aka korea) but a reminder: this is the US, not the geographically small country of south korea.
As for NightEnd -- once again: Romania is a "high risk" country, as are Russia, Ukraine, and Poland (just because Romania is in the EU doesn't mean they have a VISA waiver program... which they don't, which makes it automatically more difficult to get a VISA to the US). We didn't want to have multiple "high risk" players in the league due to obvious reasons. What if more than 1 of them qualifies for the finals, can't get a VISA, and don't show up? That ruins our live event completely.
White-Ra has demonstrated an ability to come to the US, BRAT_OK showed us his VISA, as did Strelok. So we were really left with two players (MaNa and NightEnd) from "high risk" countries. We only wanted to select 1; we chose MaNa. As I said multiple times before -- I should have explicitly stated the need for a VISA. I mistakenly thought it was obvious that people outside the US would ask about it considering the contract states that you must guarantee your ability to enter the US. It was my fault for not explicitly stating that they needed a VISA.
So my question for Xeris, how could you have seen Strelok's VISA when he hadn't even applied for it? Was Strelok or MaNa the one "high risk" player?
This is the kind of stuff that's completely insane, and which NASL seems to do on a regular basis. For all the effort to make excuses, the public image of NASL is an impression that they're making excuses and just saying whatever they can to get through the current criticism. My first guess would be that Xeris just misremembered and said it was MaNa when it was really Strelok who didn't have a visa... But I think I remember MaNa saying in an interview after an NASL that he couldn't go to MLG because he couldn't get a visa, and everyone in the live report thread collectively smacking themselves in the forehead at the obvious problem this created for NASL. And I've seen this false statement about Strelok brought up in several threads, and it has (as far as I know) never been responded to. When the 480p stream quality magically became not free anymore, there was no statement. There were threads where 15 different people asked whether it was intentional, and Xeris posted to say other things, and deliberately avoided saying anything about it.
Any time any rule or policy changes, there should be a clear news post on nasl.tv (and ideally a cross-post on TL). I shouldn't be surprised that only 4 people apparently qualified from the qualifier tournament, only to find that buried in the middle of the live report thread Xeris said they had reduced it to 4 because of potential format changes. When things go wrong, the response should not be to try to convince everyone it doesn't matter because you're trying hard. If people are criticizing you for something you don't think is bad, just don't post. If Gretorp isn't actually that bad, the people who like him will defend him. You don't have to. If consistently no one defends the thing you think is good, reconsider your opinion of it. If you agree that something was wrong (say, spoiling a game that's about to be played because stuff was edited in the wrong order...) then post to say "Yeah, our bad. We're aware of it, and working to fix it." If you want to explain what went wrong that caused the problem in more detail, that's ok, but you don't need to, and you should never expect that doing so somehow excuses the problem.
No one is expecting everything to be perfect. People are used to GSL and MLG and Dreamhack and none of them get everything right. Sometimes there are technical difficulties, probably occasionally caused by someone kicking a power cord. Those troubles are not unique to NASL, and trying to hide behind them just makes you look oblivious. People aren't criticizing you for being imperfect. They're criticizing you for things falling short of standards they know are completely reasonable.
On July 12 2011 23:45 TheResidentEvil wrote: Really don't like the justification for single elimination. You can't compare to MLG saying its single because its not. Boxer flew to your tournament, played 1 series and was done. At MLG, Boxer will play at least 6 series. It is not a fair comparison. The open bracket is double elim also so you should just not even compare to MLG.
MLG does modified double elim. You can lose all your pool play games and it will count as your first loss.
Our format and MLG's format are very different. MLG is a modified tournament. NASL is a league. By the time we have reached the finals, we've already eliminated through regular season records and playoff games 35 of the 50 regular season players.
The Finals for NASL is essentially the last echelons of the playoffs and the championship round. As with other professional sports, there is no double-elimination at this point.
We recognize that the SC2 community is not used to this, and thus a lot of the criticism, but it's a model we're standing by and that we think is critical to the reception and growth of eSports outside of this immediate community.
The natural response to this is "well if you're going for a normal pro-sports league style format, what about the open qualifier winner taking the 16th spot? That's not what other professional sports do."
You're right, and that's something we're taking another hard look at.
On July 12 2011 22:28 Trowa127 wrote: So much buck passing in this post, it made me eyes hurt. Blaming players, editors, sound guys - the fact of the matter is YOU were running the event. YOU - NO ONE ELSE. Take responsibility. A lot of us here are paying customers, I know 25$ isn't a huge amount but reading your post just made me really angry.
When in doubt, Blame PainUser!
This. The entire show was appalling watching Xeris pass the blame for all the problems onto other people, and coming off as completely unprofessional. Especially the PainUser incident. Sure, him showing up was his prerogative, but making a slander video (in which you personally acted like a complete asshole to PainUser) about it made me lose all respect for NASL. And how did they manage to have one of the microphones muted almost every time someone gave an interview in the finals? I hope for the sake of your investors, that you pick up the slack, and accept the blame.
On July 12 2011 23:45 TheResidentEvil wrote: Really don't like the justification for single elimination. You can't compare to MLG saying its single because its not. Boxer flew to your tournament, played 1 series and was done. At MLG, Boxer will play at least 6 series. It is not a fair comparison. The open bracket is double elim also so you should just not even compare to MLG.
MLG does modified double elim. You can lose all your pool play games and it will count as your first loss.
Our format and MLG's format are very different. MLG is a modified tournament. NASL is a league. By the time we have reached the finals, we've already eliminated through regular season records and playoff games 35 of the 50 regular season players.
The Finals for NASL is essentially the last echelons of the playoffs and the championship round. As with other professional sports, there is no double-elimination at this point.
We recognize that the SC2 community is not used to this, and thus a lot of the criticism, but it's a model we're standing by and that we think is critical to the reception and growth of eSports outside of this immediate community.
The natural response to this is "well if you're going for a normal pro-sports league style format, what about the open qualifier winner taking the 16th spot? That's not what other professional sports do."
You're right, and that's something we're taking another hard look at.
I think people just don't understand because there was so much wasted time on stream that it seemed as if it wasn't needed. Single elim is fine but bo3 is a bit dodgy.
Excuse me but I'm reserving my optimism. Considering they had heavy sound issues for the stream in day one which they couldn't fix even in the last day indicates to me that the NASL won't be "fixed" next season.
On July 12 2011 22:38 Krehlmar wrote: Hey NASL I love the idea of a "show", I don't know which event it was but it was recently when we were shown the players having a BBQ, warming up, player reactions etc. and it was baller! (Ironic that I don't remember their name now but I haven't slept for 30 hours)
But I just can't help but be angry at the fact that none of you guys thought about this in advance, I mean really, cowering the whole event is what you're suppose to do if it isn't just a LAN but an "event"... It feels as if half the NASL staff are people scared shitless by all the critique that they just want things to work out which results in even more mistakes... because obviously nobody sat at the coffée meeting before the finals and said "Hey! I got an idea! If the whole event centers around a kind of 'gamer lifestyle experience' for the people there, making them feel like esports is more than just pure games, then why don't we try to include the hundreds of thousands that will view the stream and vods into that! I mean sure 400 onsite fans is great but isn't having 100 000+ people experience it over a video even sweller!?"
The tournament you mentioned was probably the Home Story Cup at Take's apartment.
I agree that the downtime between games was a bit dull and showing the stream what is going on at the event would be a good move (just make us feel part of the whole event). Still you guys gave us Lindsey so it's all good <3.
Next time maybe have the interviewer show more of the stuff that is happening in the background instead of just interviewing people hanging around the main area.
Yeah Homestorycup, it was pretty awesome!
Just like skii-ing and extreme sports, esports need an "image", a "lifestyle" where we are not just huge nerds sitting in cellars.
A great example of this is the GSL parties in the USA, people getting togheter, drinking and having fun in the name of esports! It's a great thing that the NASL tries to further this, as they should and as all tournaments should, BUT I still stand with my first post about how damned stupid it was to not show the stream this effort... that just ruins it for us whilst 400 people got to take part in the event and we were left out.
On July 12 2011 23:45 TheResidentEvil wrote: Really don't like the justification for single elimination. You can't compare to MLG saying its single because its not. Boxer flew to your tournament, played 1 series and was done. At MLG, Boxer will play at least 6 series. It is not a fair comparison. The open bracket is double elim also so you should just not even compare to MLG.
MLG does modified double elim. You can lose all your pool play games and it will count as your first loss.
Our format and MLG's format are very different. MLG is a modified tournament. NASL is a league. By the time we have reached the finals, we've already eliminated through regular season records and playoff games 35 of the 50 regular season players.
The Finals for NASL is essentially the last echelons of the playoffs and the championship round. As with other professional sports, there is no double-elimination at this point.
We recognize that the SC2 community is not used to this, and thus a lot of the criticism, but it's a model we're standing by and that we think is critical to the reception and growth of eSports outside of this immediate community.
The natural response to this is "well if you're going for a normal pro-sports league style format, what about the open qualifier winner taking the 16th spot? That's not what other professional sports do."
You're right, and that's something we're taking another hard look at.
I agree with this. I think this response from most viewers is largely a result of there being so much downtime that it seemed like there should really be more games. Expanding to Bo5 would do a lot for that.
Also, while it was dumb to seed him 16th, the open tournament was really necessary to the legitimacy when everyone else was invite only, but I'm glad you're reconsidering it now. As the league becomes more full of people who qualified objectively, the need for the open tournament goes away.
Personally, I love awkward train wrecks and I enjoyed watching NASL. I mean my favorite show is Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Having said that, I'm glad to see you guys making improvements and changes for paying customers. I would've liked all matches to be bo5 and think that'd be a great switch.
On July 12 2011 23:45 TheResidentEvil wrote: Really don't like the justification for single elimination. You can't compare to MLG saying its single because its not. Boxer flew to your tournament, played 1 series and was done. At MLG, Boxer will play at least 6 series. It is not a fair comparison. The open bracket is double elim also so you should just not even compare to MLG.
MLG does modified double elim. You can lose all your pool play games and it will count as your first loss.
Did the players complain about this though? Like on the flip side of it, you don't have to play like 10 series which double elimination can be and be exhausted by the end either.
Personally as a player, with a big cash prize unless I was the absolute favorite like MC, I'd rather it just be single elimination. I'd rather try to put together 1 great series if I was boxer to knock MC out of the tournament for good, than maybe win but only knock him to the losers bracket just to have him come back later in the tournament and beat me.
I'm always intrigued how people on this forum claim to know what the players want and think is "fair" yet the players only real comment seemed to be on the maps, and perhaps BO5 instead of 3 but not that they wanted double elimination.
These guys play SC2 non-stop. I don't think they are upset because they flew a long way to play 1 series. They flew a long way to compete for $50,000. So would playing and losing 2 BO3's be better? At that point what does it really matter? They were also signing autographs, mingling with people, expanding their name and brand, enjoying the states, etc.
And again, thinking of some of the players at these double elimination tournaments that end up having to play series after series after series in the losers bracket, I think some would say they'd prefer the single elimination win and just move on, lose and enjoy your weekend.
I'm most looking forward to the hiring of additional editors. I think that's going to really make the production quality 100% better during the main part of the season.
On July 12 2011 13:11 Xeris wrote: 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.
I am not saying NASL needs to change their format. I am more responding to XERIS justification by saying MLG is single elim when it isn't. NASL can do their tournament however they want but don't say MLG is single elim when it isn't.
I for am glad the schedule didn't get stuck too on the final day. I live in the UK and the difference was between the finals starting at 10:30 or 12:00... so I actually got to see the finals!!!
But if you could schedule the finals so Europeans who work can watch them without going stupidly late (only very late ) it would be much appreciated!
Regarding Strelocks VISA I would guess he showed a previous VISA, as it next to impossible to get one without booking flights/accommodation and to be fair he did get one as early as he could from knowing he was going it was just 8 hours late.
Final Tin Hat comment, the reason the put more effort in creating a show/better live experience that the steam (which had more viewers) were their were a couple of potential sponsors in the audience
As for NightEnd -- once again: Romania is a "high risk" country, as are Russia, Ukraine, and Poland (just because Romania is in the EU doesn't mean they have a VISA waiver program... which they don't, which makes it automatically more difficult to get a VISA to the US). We didn't want to have multiple "high risk" players in the league due to obvious reasons. What if more than 1 of them qualifies for the finals, can't get a VISA, and don't show up? That ruins our live event completely.
White-Ra has demonstrated an ability to come to the US, BRAT_OK showed us his VISA, as did Strelok. So we were really left with two players (MaNa and NightEnd) from "high risk" countries. We only wanted to select 1; we chose MaNa. As I said multiple times before -- I should have explicitly stated the need for a VISA. I mistakenly thought it was obvious that people outside the US would ask about it considering the contract states that you must guarantee your ability to enter the US. It was my fault for not explicitly stating that they needed a VISA.
So my question for Xeris, how could you have seen Strelok's VISA when he hadn't even applied for it? Was Strelok or MaNa the one "high risk" player?
as much as i applaud the effort in constructing a post to explain everything it still comes across from you that you dont think having everything in place thursday night for a friday show is a problem?
24 hour window to test and replace equipment, sleep etc just isnt enough, as you saw. either im misreading your meaning or you honestly dont see this as a problem for the season 2 finals. try and get into the building 48 hours earlier and test EVERYTHING days before you go live please
As for NightEnd -- once again: Romania is a "high risk" country, as are Russia, Ukraine, and Poland (just because Romania is in the EU doesn't mean they have a VISA waiver program... which they don't, which makes it automatically more difficult to get a VISA to the US). We didn't want to have multiple "high risk" players in the league due to obvious reasons. What if more than 1 of them qualifies for the finals, can't get a VISA, and don't show up? That ruins our live event completely.
White-Ra has demonstrated an ability to come to the US, BRAT_OK showed us his VISA, as did Strelok. So we were really left with two players (MaNa and NightEnd) from "high risk" countries. We only wanted to select 1; we chose MaNa. As I said multiple times before -- I should have explicitly stated the need for a VISA. I mistakenly thought it was obvious that people outside the US would ask about it considering the contract states that you must guarantee your ability to enter the US. It was my fault for not explicitly stating that they needed a VISA.
So my question for Xeris, how could you have seen Strelok's VISA when he hadn't even applied for it? Was Strelok or MaNa the one "high risk" player?
Now that's interesting. o.o
Correct me if im wrong but hasnt xeris alrdy explained this post?
xeris: I acknowledge all the criticism, but I won't really do anything about it unless I get constructive criticism, which very few people do.
Since day 1, you have been very defensive towards criticism. It feels like only the criticism acceptable by your standards are considered constructive. Have you ever thought that, it is also possible to accept good and bad criticism constructively?
As for NightEnd -- once again: Romania is a "high risk" country, as are Russia, Ukraine, and Poland (just because Romania is in the EU doesn't mean they have a VISA waiver program... which they don't, which makes it automatically more difficult to get a VISA to the US). We didn't want to have multiple "high risk" players in the league due to obvious reasons. What if more than 1 of them qualifies for the finals, can't get a VISA, and don't show up? That ruins our live event completely.
White-Ra has demonstrated an ability to come to the US, BRAT_OK showed us his VISA, as did Strelok. So we were really left with two players (MaNa and NightEnd) from "high risk" countries. We only wanted to select 1; we chose MaNa. As I said multiple times before -- I should have explicitly stated the need for a VISA. I mistakenly thought it was obvious that people outside the US would ask about it considering the contract states that you must guarantee your ability to enter the US. It was my fault for not explicitly stating that they needed a VISA.
So my question for Xeris, how could you have seen Strelok's VISA when he hadn't even applied for it? Was Strelok or MaNa the one "high risk" player?
Now that's interesting. o.o
Correct me if im wrong but hasnt xeris alrdy explained this post?
Your ideas seem great (even though it, quite frankly, sucked for me as a stream viewer for much of the time for reasons you mentioned), I'm sure you'll do very well in the future.
The sports league setup is exactly what is needed.
One thing that I have thought about lately is that it is weird (in this and all SC2 competition) that the commentators are also the hosts of the show, handling all the intermediate talk between games. This does not seem to work out very well, for anyone. All other sports have separate commentators and a "studio". I'd love to see this here too!
xeris: I acknowledge all the criticism, but I won't really do anything about it unless I get constructive criticism, which very few people do.
Since day 1, you have been very defensive towards criticism. It feels like only the criticism acceptable by your standards are considered constructive. Have you ever thought that, it is also possible to accept good and bad criticism constructively?
I agree. The saying is "The customer is always right" and not "The customer is only right if he raises his complaints in a constructive manner".
- SOUND, bad compression at VoDs, VoDs always off a few seconds, bad sound management at offline finals - Video Quality on the LAN finals, saw interlace stripes all the time when things where moving, even at 1080p - finals format, single elimination - no thanks - rules, not showing up for a match is more favourable than showing up and losing - seriously? - stupid filler videos - online "best of NASL", offline "way to the finals", way to long and just plain boring
xeris: I acknowledge all the criticism, but I won't really do anything about it unless I get constructive criticism, which very few people do.
Since day 1, you have been very defensive towards criticism. It feels like only the criticism acceptable by your standards are considered constructive. Have you ever thought that, it is also possible to accept good and bad criticism constructively?
On July 13 2011 00:35 Doso wrote: - SOUND, bad compression at VoDs, VoDs always off a few seconds, bad sound management at offline finals - Video Quality on the LAN finals, saw interlace stripes all the time when things where moving, even at 1080p - finals format, single elimination - no thanks - rules, not showing up for a match is more favourable than showing up and losing - seriously? - stupid filler videos - online "best of NASL", offline "way to the finals", way to long and just plain boring
Haha is that seriously true? Thats the most rediculous thing i've ever heard.
Also, the sound quality endured throughout the event, implying that you don't really know what you are talking about to be honest. Sure, it was worst in the beginning, but it did not get much better. For example, 1 of the mics were off during the first few questions of the winner(final) interview.
And as a lot of people have already pointed out, NASL staff in general seem very aggresive towards criticism...
As for NightEnd -- once again: Romania is a "high risk" country, as are Russia, Ukraine, and Poland (just because Romania is in the EU doesn't mean they have a VISA waiver program... which they don't, which makes it automatically more difficult to get a VISA to the US). We didn't want to have multiple "high risk" players in the league due to obvious reasons. What if more than 1 of them qualifies for the finals, can't get a VISA, and don't show up? That ruins our live event completely.
White-Ra has demonstrated an ability to come to the US, BRAT_OK showed us his VISA, as did Strelok. So we were really left with two players (MaNa and NightEnd) from "high risk" countries. We only wanted to select 1; we chose MaNa. As I said multiple times before -- I should have explicitly stated the need for a VISA. I mistakenly thought it was obvious that people outside the US would ask about it considering the contract states that you must guarantee your ability to enter the US. It was my fault for not explicitly stating that they needed a VISA.
So my question for Xeris, how could you have seen Strelok's VISA when he hadn't even applied for it? Was Strelok or MaNa the one "high risk" player?
Now that's interesting. o.o
Correct me if im wrong but hasnt xeris alrdy explained this post?
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: Xeris, I wanted and still do want the NASL to work. We as a community have extremely high standards and we expect those standards to be met if not surpassed. Growing pains are fine but Season 1 was a far cry from being a finished product.
NASL struck me as a project that garnered interest from some investors and enthusiasts, as well as community volunteers. But, it seemed from the start that there was no managerial presence, no structural hierarchy, and no responsibility. NASL felt like an "internet project", and I'll use a personal anecdote to explain:
When I was younger, my friend and I used to come up with ideas for RPGs. We had elaborate character backstories, we sketched out some character portraits, we thought up fun battle systems, but the only games we had created were simplistic RPGs in QBasic that used text as graphics. After a few years, the ideas grew bigger and more elaborate until we ultimately had the Internet at our disposal. The next thing I knew, he was pulling in all sorts of volunteers from all over the world who were submitting character portraits and game concepts to us. Because he was just grateful to receive any kind of help, he would say to anyone who submitted anything "WOW this character looks GREAT, THANK you for this omg" even if it was objectively terrible. The people who approached us were enthusiastic about working on the project, they shared our vision, and they wanted to be included. Those same people who submitted things would stick around for a week or two, then they'd disappear. When it came down to actual necessities like designing cities and dungeons, tile art, sprite art, cogent dialogue, we quickly realized how little we had. If we had a plan in place from the start, with an actual schedule and knowledge of what exactly we needed, we would have been able to make real headway as opposed to drowning.
That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
These are good suggestions but I doubt that NASL has the money to take on that payroll.
This is a good example of e-sports trying to run before it can walk.
IPL has a much more clever way of approaching things... gradually working its way up while proving the market.
I just want to say that the live finals were a pain to watch from Europe. With every day starting after 10 pm and lasting after 3 am for three days in a row can be a bit tiring, but you can't really help how time works. What you can help is give us something interesting to look at during the 40 minute breaks.
I mean a random woman who doesn't seem to know too much at all what she is talking about doing interviews does not make me stay awake. If you have to take someone who doesn't play or watch SC2 at least tell them that it's the first season of the NASL so that she doesn't ask people if it's their first time watching the NASL and tell her that races are played and not played with.
Then the repeated loooooong introduction vidoes for the players. I mean what the hell they lasted like 5 minutes a piece. Besides the choices of the clips didn't really highlight their tournament victories or defeats. They were picked at random. And please change up the background music between videos. Ten minutes of the cliche-choir-screamy-epic-orchestral music is too much.
And Eye of the Tiger as July's entrance music. Seriously? Though that kinda woke me up (and made me stay up laughing), so I'll give you points for that.
I'm glad you've noticed that it wasn't that great for stream viewers but really quite a big change is needed. Give us good, well thought out interviews with the players, maybe a bit of post-match analysis from the casters, some musical shows etc. And cut a few minutes out of the intros and don't repeat them.
But apart from the horrible waiting and sound issues the games were great. I enjoyed following the whole season. Thanks a lot!
xeris: I acknowledge all the criticism, but I won't really do anything about it unless I get constructive criticism, which very few people do.
Since day 1, you have been very defensive towards criticism. It feels like only the criticism acceptable by your standards are considered constructive. Have you ever thought that, it is also possible to accept good and bad criticism constructively?
Completely agreed.
looks like xeris will never change... what a poor choice for public NASL representative.
On July 13 2011 00:54 TheResidentEvil wrote: i forgot about the interlacing! How do people not see the problems with the stream. I saw it 5 minutes after it went live!
I didn't notice it in the whole 10 hours i watched the stream and the 2 hours i watched the VODs of the games i missed...
Well, maybe i'm just blind or the problem is less visible in 1080p.
As for NightEnd -- once again: Romania is a "high risk" country, as are Russia, Ukraine, and Poland (just because Romania is in the EU doesn't mean they have a VISA waiver program... which they don't, which makes it automatically more difficult to get a VISA to the US). We didn't want to have multiple "high risk" players in the league due to obvious reasons. What if more than 1 of them qualifies for the finals, can't get a VISA, and don't show up? That ruins our live event completely.
White-Ra has demonstrated an ability to come to the US, BRAT_OK showed us his VISA, as did Strelok. So we were really left with two players (MaNa and NightEnd) from "high risk" countries. We only wanted to select 1; we chose MaNa. As I said multiple times before -- I should have explicitly stated the need for a VISA. I mistakenly thought it was obvious that people outside the US would ask about it considering the contract states that you must guarantee your ability to enter the US. It was my fault for not explicitly stating that they needed a VISA.
So my question for Xeris, how could you have seen Strelok's VISA when he hadn't even applied for it? Was Strelok or MaNa the one "high risk" player?
Now that's interesting. o.o
Correct me if im wrong but hasnt xeris alrdy explained this post?
best finals ive ever seen! and the final game was amazing´ Keep up the good work. Just make some fine tuning with your audio and schedule and vods little problems and its all set to be a perfect season 2!
On July 13 2011 00:54 TheResidentEvil wrote: i forgot about the interlacing! How do people not see the problems with the stream. I saw it 5 minutes after it went live!
I didn't notice it in the whole 10 hours i watched the stream and the 2 hours i watched the VODs of the games i missed...
Well, maybe i'm just blind or the problem is less visible in 1080p.
All in all I enjoyed the finals an hour in-between games isn't too bad i can get other things done rather than when its mlg or something i will sit in the chair for hours and hours >.<
Though I didn't follow much of the season which was played on-line. I find the format doesn't keep my interest, maybe its because I'm used to GSL and people going out in every round but generally there is something at stake all the time however in the nasl I only tuned in if there was a big match or if there is a player I really like to watch.
For me I'm going to see how the season 2 format is and which players are in before i consider buying a ticket.
I'm not blaming players. I'm explaining that were a lot of reasons for delays that were actually pretty standard for many LAN events. And as I said, the only extra reason for delays was on the first day, when the players adjusted their settings after the intro videos. On Saturday they started doing it before the intros and it was better.
I'm confused as to what other delays you guys are referring to.
On July 13 2011 01:25 Xeris wrote: I'm not blaming players. I'm explaining that were a lot of reasons for delays that were actually pretty standard for many LAN events.
On July 13 2011 01:25 Xeris wrote: I'm not blaming players. I'm explaining that were a lot of reasons for delays that were actually pretty standard for many LAN events. And as I said, the only extra reason for delays was on the first day, when the players adjusted their settings after the intro videos. On Saturday they started doing it before the intros and it was better.
I'm confused as to what other delays you guys are referring to.
It's the opposite of a delay, but could you comment on bumping up the grand finals on sunday by 2 and a half hours at the last minute, resulting in people (like me) missing them completely?
On July 13 2011 01:25 Xeris wrote: I'm not blaming players. I'm explaining that were a lot of reasons for delays that were actually pretty standard for many LAN events. And as I said, the only extra reason for delays was on the first day, when the players adjusted their settings after the intro videos. On Saturday they started doing it before the intros and it was better.
I'm confused as to what other delays you guys are referring to.
It's the opposite of a delay, but could you comment on bumping up the grand finals on sunday by 2 and a half hours at the last minute, resulting in people (like me) missing them completely?
Because mass people were complaining about 10 hours for 2 series, and we realized that our opening act really wouldn't fill up that much time -- so we just moved the start of the 3rd place match to 1:00pm rather than 2, and had a 1 hour break before the finals after the 3rd place match finished.
Since it was ZvZ... obviously much shorter time needed to complete it, which is why the finals started earlier. At that point it would have been a much better choice to start then rather than wait another 2 hours for the schedule.
if you schedule 2 hours for an event such as your music so you had spare time you could of prepared a highlight real of the best games from the regular season (including from players who ended up not making it to the finals) or some kind of interview material with players throughout the season or something to play in spare time rather than jumping up the finals screwing people over.
i know you put in a lot of work but it seems like if you have this schedule and you some how get ahead of it, putting up 'new' content is a bad move because it pisses people off who already planned their day.
but theres a lot you can do with old content to make it an exciting time filler
On July 13 2011 01:36 turdburgler wrote: if you schedule 2 hours for an event such as your music so you had spare time you could of prepared a highlight real of the best games from the regular season (including from players who ended up not making it to the finals) or some kind of interview material with players throughout the season or something to play in spare time rather than jumping up the finals screwing people over.
i know you put in a lot of work but it seems like if you have this schedule and you some how get ahead of it, putting up 'new' content is a bad move because it pisses people off who already planned their day.
but theres a lot you can do with old content to make it an exciting time filler
We could have done that, but didn't. This is a good idea and we'll be working much more next season to create more content for use at the event in case we run into these issues again.
On July 13 2011 01:25 Xeris wrote: I'm not blaming players. I'm explaining that were a lot of reasons for delays that were actually pretty standard for many LAN events. And as I said, the only extra reason for delays was on the first day, when the players adjusted their settings after the intro videos. On Saturday they started doing it before the intros and it was better.
I'm confused as to what other delays you guys are referring to.
It's the opposite of a delay, but could you comment on bumping up the grand finals on sunday by 2 and a half hours at the last minute, resulting in people (like me) missing them completely?
Because mass people were complaining about 10 hours for 2 series, and we realized that our opening act really wouldn't fill up that much time --
The five minute song that you scheduled half an hour for, you mean?
How soon cmon man im really dying to see new stuff about nasl season2 :D loved the first and will for sure love tthe second. So is soon like today or like valve time :D?
On July 13 2011 01:25 Xeris wrote: I'm not blaming players. I'm explaining that were a lot of reasons for delays that were actually pretty standard for many LAN events. And as I said, the only extra reason for delays was on the first day, when the players adjusted their settings after the intro videos. On Saturday they started doing it before the intros and it was better.
I'm confused as to what other delays you guys are referring to.
It's the opposite of a delay, but could you comment on bumping up the grand finals on sunday by 2 and a half hours at the last minute, resulting in people (like me) missing them completely?
Because mass people were complaining about 10 hours for 2 series, and we realized that our opening act really wouldn't fill up that much time --
The five minute song that you scheduled half an hour for, you mean?
if they have a tight timing for something like a song what do they do if they start late? its completely reasonable to over budget time for an event its just a shame if they dont have a back up plan
I watched the finals, and try to catch the stream of the regular season as much as I could, i have not unlimited resources nor have I unlimited time. Therefore, I decided to not buy the season 1 ticket to see how it unfolds, and won't buy the season 2 ticket either. Here is why.
Regular season
The regular season last something like 9 weeks, that's far too many matches to watch. If you're aiming towards a real sports league, you should have highlighted matches on your site, something like : "Friday 8p.m. it's MC Vs. Ret casted by Gretorp and Incontrol !"
You should have two tickets : one for highlighted matches + the playoff and finals around 10$ and the other one for the whole season, all the vods and everything that come with this for around 25$, allowing people to get an upgrade for the fair price : 15$.
This way you will be able to get paying viewers out of those that don't want to spend 25$ to be able to watch 1/10th of the games and most of the time not the best ones. Yes, sometimes you will guess wrong and highlight a stupid game with two or three matchs 5 minutes long, but it also happens to all the real sports.
I would've buy the cheap one if it existed. I'd like to look forward the highlighted match and to be able to watch it in HQ while eating or before sleeping.
As of now, GSL present the best production value, players and matches, that's why i buy only their tickets (and HSCIII, it was far too enjoyable to not buy it). Actually, I'd buy MLG's too but it's hard to watch live because I'm in France and LAN events are, for me, more enjoyable live whereas I can watch leagues a few days later without suffering from it.
Finals
About the finals format : bo3 were not the best choice, everyone agreed with that. I also think double elimination is a bit unfair to players : as someone stated earlier you might be able to squeeze out a win in the first round against MC and have to fight him again in the finals. And double elimination is not the way real sports work, as much as I'd like to be able to watch my favorite player make a comeback, I really do enjoy the tension of the single elimination bracket (GSL for instance).
The best format I think, is to have groups the first day (such as Dreamhack, GSL and HSC), and then bo5 (since there are only 16 players). Yes, the group might be a little random, but it's the way it works in nation-wide event in sports. The soccer world cup for instance has qualification over a year or so, and then a group play with 4 teams each where the two best advance. It's the same with variation with handball (group of 6, 3 advances to another group, then the 4best go to semis), basketball, volley, rugby, etc. It prevents people from flying over just to play one match : it's important, players or teams are human being. It also brings more matches to the viewer and creates suspense for the viewer.
Finally, pleaaase have a schedule easily readable with different time zones (GMT not just US time zones) and keep it up to date, as much as I was gladly suprised to be able to watch the final match because it was early, if I hadn't tune in earlier to see the third place and let the stream run while I was myself playing, I wouldn't have been able to watch it.
On July 13 2011 01:25 Xeris wrote: I'm not blaming players. I'm explaining that were a lot of reasons for delays that were actually pretty standard for many LAN events. And as I said, the only extra reason for delays was on the first day, when the players adjusted their settings after the intro videos. On Saturday they started doing it before the intros and it was better.
I'm confused as to what other delays you guys are referring to.
It's the opposite of a delay, but could you comment on bumping up the grand finals on sunday by 2 and a half hours at the last minute, resulting in people (like me) missing them completely?
Because mass people were complaining about 10 hours for 2 series, and we realized that our opening act really wouldn't fill up that much time --
The five minute song that you scheduled half an hour for, you mean?
if they have a tight timing for something like a song what do they do if they start late? its completely reasonable to over budget time for an event its just a shame if they dont have a back up plan
Yep, I think one of the biggest issues was our lack of a solid backup plan to fill time. But rest assured, we learned all about it at this event We'll have more stuff created for next time in case we need to fill time!
On July 13 2011 01:25 Xeris wrote: I'm not blaming players. I'm explaining that were a lot of reasons for delays that were actually pretty standard for many LAN events. And as I said, the only extra reason for delays was on the first day, when the players adjusted their settings after the intro videos. On Saturday they started doing it before the intros and it was better.
I'm confused as to what other delays you guys are referring to.
It's the opposite of a delay, but could you comment on bumping up the grand finals on sunday by 2 and a half hours at the last minute, resulting in people (like me) missing them completely?
Because mass people were complaining about 10 hours for 2 series, and we realized that our opening act really wouldn't fill up that much time --
The five minute song that you scheduled half an hour for, you mean?
Yes sir, that's what he means. One of the reasons we decided to move the matches up rather than invent filler content was that we were already aware that the community was already critical of quantity of extra-curricular content we had included already. Another reason is the players were ready and we felt making them wait when they were ready was a disservice to them. Obviously the quality of the matches proved that assumption correct. Yet another reason we decided to move the matches up was so that our EU fans could watch them at a more reasonable time.
So, in the end the original schedule for Sunday was clearly unrealistic, so we evolved it on-the-fly to try and create a better viewing experience for everyone.It caused some people who were expecting the matches to air at a specific time to miss them, and we apologize for that. We did our best to alert Fans via Twitter, Facebook and through our correspondents on TL.net, Reddit and WP.org.
In the end it was the correct decision that benefited far more fans than it hurt
Xeris, the worst thing about this is you not apologizing for the obvious glaring mistakes on your part, having the command responsibility, spinning it (show not lan?), and dodging blame to others, progamers at that. what ever your reason, this is a business venture, you are not paid to try, you are paid to deliver. And considering the mistakes are pretty fundamental, all matter of covering all bases (player set up delayed you? seriously?) and being overprepared, as you should.
Also, you messed up the final schedule, there is no way to spin that. People paid for the event Xeris, at least be dignified enough to admit your mistakes. And, judging by your replies so far, you are not the best person to represent NASL to the audience.Either shape up or find a proper PR person.
On a positive not, don`t listen to those Tastosis/Day9 comments. Gretorp and Incontrol were not that bad (they were less than good however), but they need to prepare more to be legit casters if they hope to still be viable next time. There is much room to improve. I hope you do it for season 2. GL
My biggest NASL issue was that if I hadn't bookmarked the justin.tv website, I wouldn't have been able to find the stream from nasl.tv.
During the regular season, NASL.tv had a link on the front page when matches were live, taking you to the stream. This wasn't present during the finals in any way I could find.
That being said, I'll buy another season pass I'm sure.
Here's a suggestion for a time-filler. Get Day9 to bring up a replay from the previous match. Have him go over the key points of the match, in a post-game analysis. That's got to be a better use of his talents. While the camera is on Day9, have the next players set up in the booths.
Nice to see lower resolution vids coming. I paid just for the vods, but the vods was more of a still image than a video. As I can see 1080p videos on Youtube, I couldn't know that I wasn't able to see your vods. The result was that I got nothing out of my money (well, except lesson learned)
While I understand the reasoning for shortening the Sunday schedule, I was one of the paying customers that saw the Sunday schedule, caught only half of the 3 place matches because it started early, and missed almost the entirety of the finals because I decided to go to the gym rather than wait.
If I didn't have an iphone with me, I would have missed Game 5 of the finals. It sucks to pay $25, follow the NASL all season and get shafted by rescheduling.
On July 13 2011 01:58 Hammurabio wrote: Here's a suggestion for a time-filler. Get Day9 to bring up a replay from the previous match. Have him go over the key points of the match, in a post-game analysis. That's got to be a better use of his talents. While the camera is on Day9, have the next players set up in the booths.
On July 13 2011 01:25 Xeris wrote: I'm not blaming players. I'm explaining that were a lot of reasons for delays that were actually pretty standard for many LAN events. And as I said, the only extra reason for delays was on the first day, when the players adjusted their settings after the intro videos. On Saturday they started doing it before the intros and it was better.
I'm confused as to what other delays you guys are referring to.
It's the opposite of a delay, but could you comment on bumping up the grand finals on sunday by 2 and a half hours at the last minute, resulting in people (like me) missing them completely?
Because mass people were complaining about 10 hours for 2 series, and we realized that our opening act really wouldn't fill up that much time --
The five minute song that you scheduled half an hour for, you mean?
if they have a tight timing for something like a song what do they do if they start late? its completely reasonable to over budget time for an event its just a shame if they dont have a back up plan
Yep, I think one of the biggest issues was our lack of a solid backup plan to fill time. But rest assured, we learned all about it at this event We'll have more stuff created for next time in case we need to fill time!
Dont create more stuff, there was already too much stuff T_T.. put your awesome casters on air, get them to interview people, get more games.. not more stuff.
On July 13 2011 01:25 Xeris wrote: I'm not blaming players. I'm explaining that were a lot of reasons for delays that were actually pretty standard for many LAN events. And as I said, the only extra reason for delays was on the first day, when the players adjusted their settings after the intro videos. On Saturday they started doing it before the intros and it was better.
I'm confused as to what other delays you guys are referring to.
It's the opposite of a delay, but could you comment on bumping up the grand finals on sunday by 2 and a half hours at the last minute, resulting in people (like me) missing them completely?
Because mass people were complaining about 10 hours for 2 series, and we realized that our opening act really wouldn't fill up that much time --
The five minute song that you scheduled half an hour for, you mean?
if they have a tight timing for something like a song what do they do if they start late? its completely reasonable to over budget time for an event its just a shame if they dont have a back up plan
Yep, I think one of the biggest issues was our lack of a solid backup plan to fill time. But rest assured, we learned all about it at this event We'll have more stuff created for next time in case we need to fill time!
Dont create more stuff, there was already too much stuff T_T.. put your awesome casters on air, get them to interview people, get more games.. not more stuff.
i disagree that there was too much stuff. i thought the 20 year intro to each player was too much but thats still 1 'thing' even if its a big thing :o
I will accept the production mistakes of NASL as growing pains for it to become a better event in the future when NASL admits that that there were pains and acknowledging that instead of the constant sugarcoating and skimming over it. Be upfront.
I made a lengthy post in another thread on this, and while parts have been answered I would like to bring this up (and hoping for a response from someone over at NASL ;p):
One of my main reasons why I bought a season was to watch the finals in decent quality, but it turns out I bought it too early. If I waited with buying I would have saved 15 USD, and while I understand why the NASL offers the passes cheaper end of season, part of me felt screwed over by the price reduction. I feel that the NASL should have refunded the people that paid full price, or offer a serious discount on s2 for those that bought s1. It seems rather illogical to make your most 'loyal' customers pay more. I'd like to hear some thoughts from the NASL on this.
(Keep my 15 bucks, I'd like to think it went to Puma ;p).
Full post in other thread spoilered, lots of it has been adressed by Xeris (who I congratulate on not sounding hostile this time around ;p). Even with Xeris' post tho, I'm going to have to see improvements before I buy again. Promises are easy.
On July 12 2011 07:52 Derez wrote: I bought season 1, but I will not be buying season 2.
My reasons: - The premium pass adds very little as it is at the moment. What I want and expect is a proper VOD system, and it just isn't there. The justin.tv stuff is a complete and utter mess, and so userunfriendly that over the course of the NASL I have watched maybe a VOD and a half. I've found out I can pretty much watch the matches I want to see on the broadcast/rebroadcast, and that most of the time I can't even be bothered to log in to switch to a higher resolution.
- The second real reason why I bought it was to watch the finals in decent quality, but it turns out I bought it too early. If I waited with buying I would have saved 15 USD, and while I understand why the NASL offers the passes cheaper end of season, part of me felt screwed over by the price reduction. I feel that the NASL should have refunded the people that paid full price, or offer a serious discount on s2 for those that bought s1. It's only logical to reward your most loyal customers.
- I strongly disagree with the delayed 'live' casting. If you're going to delay casts for production etc, I'm fine with that, but I feel that you could just as easily cast from replays then. This would be more convenient for the players and would allow for smoother production/casting. The NASL has been riddled with spoiled matched (by the casters), because they don't record in the same order they are aired, and I feel this ruins the overall 'narrative' of a night. Any league should be aiming to create a story, and answer questions like 'what happens if player X wins?'. The terrible terrible casting format has not allowed them to do anything of the sort, and a night of NASL feels like it's randomly cut and pasted together. Overall production needs to improve dramatically for me to pay for it again.
- The regular season feels meaningless. It's too many games spread over too many nights, and too many games are utterly mediocre. There are too few high end matchups in the regular season, too many lopsided games, and too many players I honestly don't give a shit about because they're not exactly up there in terms of skill.
- Justin.tv is a terrible partner for a league like this. Justin is just poor in europe, and does not offer the options required for a league like this. Lower resolution VOD's are a prime example of this, and while it's been promised for quite a while, it should have been in place from the get go.
- The NASL representatives are generally dismissive of what are very real problems, and it makes me feel like I'm not valued as a customer. MLG has had its screw-ups, but realizing that, apologizing for it and promising to do better goes a long way. I'm willing to pay to support a new league to some extent, but not when the main spokespeople keep hyping it like everything is working out fine. Take your feedback seriously, respond to it in a professional manner and don't dismiss it offhand. It's true that the NASL has gotten quite some unfair criticism, but a lot of the criticism has been quite fair and constructive, yet it gets treated as an attack on the NASL by their spokespeople. We all want this league to be awesome, and we all want to be taken seriously.
That said, if they offer the finals again at a discount rate (say 10 USD), I would buy that, simply because any 3 day tournament with 50k on the line is too exciting to miss out on.
EDIT: I'd like to add that I think the argument against casting from replays because 'players are lazy' is incredibly shortsighted. Even with casting from replays it is entirely possible to enforce a regular playing time, overseen by admins, with punishments as severe as they are for showing up late for a live match. You have all the tool you need to enforce it, and I feel it would greatly improve your overall production. Spoiler explains why.
Dont create more stuff, there was already too much stuff T_T.. put your awesome casters on air, get them to interview people, get more games.. not more stuff.
This.
You have Day9, the archon and some of the best players in the world available. There's a hundred things you can do with them that would be more interesting than some babe interviewing people or some random audience shots.
On July 13 2011 02:19 Milkis wrote: I will accept the production mistakes of NASL as growing pains for it to become a better event in the future when NASL admits that that there were pains and acknowledging that instead of the constant sugarcoating and skimming over it. Be upfront.
I appreciate your taking the time to address some of the concerns. I think a lot of the angst in the chat on tournament days over this past weekend could have been alleviated with better communication. Having a mod in the chat say something the flies by as everyone is chatting quickly isn't enough. There should have been some announcement on the website saying, "The projector is broken. This is why. We expect to start the games at X time." The lack of communication was the most annoying part for me in watching the streams. We had absolutely no idea of when the matches would be played, how long the breaks were, etc. I can understand the delays between matches being fine in person with booths to visit and players to meet, etc., but a countdown would have been great for those of us watching at home.
I would much prefer a knowledgeable SC person doing interviews than just a pretty face.
I think there should be no open tournament qualifier for the playoffs. Players should only be able to qualify in a tournament for the following regular season, not the playoffs of the current season. The playoffs should be reserved only for those who finished high enough during the regular season. Ret totally got screwed by actually having to play a superior player, even though he got the #1 seed. Please don't let people skip the 9-week regular season and qualify that way.
The NASL website was clumsily laid out. It was always a hunt to find information on schedules and such, and it was much easier to search for brackets and updates on TL rather than the actual NASL site. Once again, better communication would be great.
I can remember sitting through awful lag during the regular season, and the Mods would always say, "It's a Justin.tv issue; it's not our fault." Well, that is fine, but now is the time to do something about it. If JTV doesn't have the capacity to host an event like this, you have got to switch to someone who does. The lag in the finals games, especially Saturday night in MC v Select and the finals games on Sunday, was unbearable. Person after person in the chat complained about the freeze-ups during big battles, even at low resolution. As for me, I had to stop watching bc the lag was so bad, and I just watched the VODs later. Having brutal lag during your showcase event is unacceptable, and it's something to address in the off-season.
I know I sound really negative, but that's because I want to support North American e-sports so badly. I want so much to have a local league that's not on at 3 am that I can be proud of to call my local league. Take all the criticism as a good sign that people are really wanting the NASL to flourish. If no one was upset, that would mean no one cares. We want American e-sports to be something we're proud of, not something that looks and feels second-rate.
Though I paid for a subscription this first season, I'm going to hold off on buying season 2 to see how many improvements are made before making a decision.
On July 13 2011 02:19 Milkis wrote: I will accept the production mistakes of NASL as growing pains for it to become a better event in the future when NASL admits that that there were pains and acknowledging that instead of the constant sugarcoating and skimming over it. Be upfront.
I don't get it. I've said a dozen times that there were problems and that we are working to fix them. Just because I try to explain the reasons why certain things happened doesn't mean I'm sugarcoating, I'm just trying to give the community an inside perspective.
It doesn't change the fact that we had issues in Season 1, I've never said "well we had problems but it wasn't our fault," sure some things were out of our control, like the projector breaking, but a lot of things (like set design and not having enough content to account for us not hitting our schedule exactly) were on us, and we'll make sure those don't happen again.
On July 13 2011 01:25 Xeris wrote: I'm not blaming players. I'm explaining that were a lot of reasons for delays that were actually pretty standard for many LAN events. And as I said, the only extra reason for delays was on the first day, when the players adjusted their settings after the intro videos. On Saturday they started doing it before the intros and it was better.
I'm confused as to what other delays you guys are referring to.
It's the opposite of a delay, but could you comment on bumping up the grand finals on sunday by 2 and a half hours at the last minute, resulting in people (like me) missing them completely?
Because mass people were complaining about 10 hours for 2 series, and we realized that our opening act really wouldn't fill up that much time --
The five minute song that you scheduled half an hour for, you mean?
Yes sir, that's what he means. One of the reasons we decided to move the matches up rather than invent filler content was that we were already aware that the community was already critical of quantity of extra-curricular content we had included already. Another reason is the players were ready and we felt making them wait when they were ready was a disservice to them. Obviously the quality of the matches proved that assumption correct. Yet another reason we decided to move the matches up was so that our EU fans could watch them at a more reasonable time.
So, in the end the original schedule for Sunday was clearly unrealistic, so we evolved it on-the-fly to try and create a better viewing experience for everyone.It caused some people who were expecting the matches to air at a specific time to miss them, and we apologize for that. We did our best to alert Fans via Twitter, Facebook and through our correspondents on TL.net, Reddit and WP.org.
In the end it was the correct decision that benefited far more fans than it hurt
In view of lack of a formal apology from the NASL staff (I do not consider a post of 14th page of an obscure TL post which barely says sorry to the fans who missed the finals an apology), I have to respectfully disagree.
You talk about disservice to the players of making them wait till the 'scheduled' time to play but do not talk about the disservice to the multiple of fans who were unable to watch the games for no fault of theirs. NASL announced a time for their finals event and people made schedule arrangement according to it. Now, on the last moment, you change the time w/o any announcement of it on your freaking site, and no proper announcement/overlay on your stream as to when the finals will start. What use is your craptastic 'state of the art' site if it does not show any relevant information to the league at the point of time.
People missed the game because NASL was at fault. Are you making amends by providing free VODs for the finals for the people since they missed the games because of your fault? I have not heard anything like that from anyone related to NASL.
Also, the wonderful comment about the preponing the finals for the betterment of EU fans, If you had really considered them, you would not have made a terrible schedule upfront. At this point of time, it just seems that instead of manning up and accepting the mistake, you are trying to find another diversionary way to not taking the blame.
I would have had a lot more respect for NASL if you had the humility of accepting your mistakes and apologizing instead of finding pointless excuses for every single thing.
Also, I find it amusing that you and Xeris are sweeping the questions raised about Strelok issue under the rug and ignoring those questions. Comments like above and dishonest responses to the public make me seriously doubt your professionality.
Frankly, you guys lucked out that the players played an excellent finals but barring that the event had been full of problems. I shelled out 25 bucks for season 1 but rest assured, barring some drastic changes, I would definitely not be buying a season 2 pass.
I think all the very legimated concerns and critizism has been voiced, so I'll just add my 2 cents and say, I had awesome weekend, so thank you Xeris and rest of the people handling the event.
As for NightEnd -- once again: Romania is a "high risk" country, as are Russia, Ukraine, and Poland (just because Romania is in the EU doesn't mean they have a VISA waiver program... which they don't, which makes it automatically more difficult to get a VISA to the US). We didn't want to have multiple "high risk" players in the league due to obvious reasons. What if more than 1 of them qualifies for the finals, can't get a VISA, and don't show up? That ruins our live event completely.
White-Ra has demonstrated an ability to come to the US, BRAT_OK showed us his VISA, as did Strelok. So we were really left with two players (MaNa and NightEnd) from "high risk" countries. We only wanted to select 1; we chose MaNa. As I said multiple times before -- I should have explicitly stated the need for a VISA. I mistakenly thought it was obvious that people outside the US would ask about it considering the contract states that you must guarantee your ability to enter the US. It was my fault for not explicitly stating that they needed a VISA.
So my question for Xeris, how could you have seen Strelok's VISA when he hadn't even applied for it? Was Strelok or MaNa the one "high risk" player?
Now that's interesting. o.o
Correct me if im wrong but hasnt xeris alrdy explained this post?
On July 13 2011 02:19 Milkis wrote: I will accept the production mistakes of NASL as growing pains for it to become a better event in the future when NASL admits that that there were pains and acknowledging that instead of the constant sugarcoating and skimming over it. Be upfront.
I don't get it. I've said a dozen times that there were problems and that we are working to fix them. Just because I try to explain the reasons why certain things happened doesn't mean I'm sugarcoating, I'm just trying to give the community an inside perspective.
It doesn't change the fact that we had issues in Season 1, I've never said "well we had problems but it wasn't our fault," sure some things were out of our control, like the projector breaking, but a lot of things (like set design and not having enough content to account for us not hitting our schedule exactly) were on us, and we'll make sure those don't happen again.
Well, when there's a huge number of people who still consider your league to be a complete joke that's incapable of delivering a quality product, and you say in your original post "Well fucking Boxer tripped over this computer power cord and it turned off, so that basically accounts for why the stream sucked," it kind of makes it seem like there's a disconnect in how NASL and it's viewers see reality.
As for NightEnd -- once again: Romania is a "high risk" country, as are Russia, Ukraine, and Poland (just because Romania is in the EU doesn't mean they have a VISA waiver program... which they don't, which makes it automatically more difficult to get a VISA to the US). We didn't want to have multiple "high risk" players in the league due to obvious reasons. What if more than 1 of them qualifies for the finals, can't get a VISA, and don't show up? That ruins our live event completely.
White-Ra has demonstrated an ability to come to the US, BRAT_OK showed us his VISA, as did Strelok. So we were really left with two players (MaNa and NightEnd) from "high risk" countries. We only wanted to select 1; we chose MaNa. As I said multiple times before -- I should have explicitly stated the need for a VISA. I mistakenly thought it was obvious that people outside the US would ask about it considering the contract states that you must guarantee your ability to enter the US. It was my fault for not explicitly stating that they needed a VISA.
So my question for Xeris, how could you have seen Strelok's VISA when he hadn't even applied for it? Was Strelok or MaNa the one "high risk" player?
Now that's interesting. o.o
Correct me if im wrong but hasnt xeris alrdy explained this post?
On July 03 2011 01:11 Xeris wrote:
On July 03 2011 01:08 tsuxiit wrote: That blows. I thought a requirement to entering the tournament was actually having a valid visa?
As we said at the start of the season, Strelok was the 'risk' player we accepted, because his team Mouz assured us that he could get a VISA on time.
MaNa was the 'risk' player. They saw Strelok's VISA.
just wondering if you could touch on this xeris or russell
I did it many times in another thread. Mouz told us 100% that they could get Strelok's VISA and that they were working on getting him a B1 (which White-Ra and BRAT have, for example). Due to their longevity and repute as a team I had no reason to believe that this wouldn't happen. Strelok switching teams midway through might have had something to do with it, however.
As for NightEnd -- once again: Romania is a "high risk" country, as are Russia, Ukraine, and Poland (just because Romania is in the EU doesn't mean they have a VISA waiver program... which they don't, which makes it automatically more difficult to get a VISA to the US). We didn't want to have multiple "high risk" players in the league due to obvious reasons. What if more than 1 of them qualifies for the finals, can't get a VISA, and don't show up? That ruins our live event completely.
White-Ra has demonstrated an ability to come to the US, BRAT_OK showed us his VISA, as did Strelok. So we were really left with two players (MaNa and NightEnd) from "high risk" countries. We only wanted to select 1; we chose MaNa. As I said multiple times before -- I should have explicitly stated the need for a VISA. I mistakenly thought it was obvious that people outside the US would ask about it considering the contract states that you must guarantee your ability to enter the US. It was my fault for not explicitly stating that they needed a VISA.
So my question for Xeris, how could you have seen Strelok's VISA when he hadn't even applied for it? Was Strelok or MaNa the one "high risk" player?
Now that's interesting. o.o
Correct me if im wrong but hasnt xeris alrdy explained this post?
On July 03 2011 01:11 Xeris wrote:
On July 03 2011 01:08 tsuxiit wrote: That blows. I thought a requirement to entering the tournament was actually having a valid visa?
As we said at the start of the season, Strelok was the 'risk' player we accepted, because his team Mouz assured us that he could get a VISA on time.
MaNa was the 'risk' player. They saw Strelok's VISA.
just wondering if you could touch on this xeris or russell
I did it many times in another thread. Mouz told us 100% that they could get Strelok's VISA and that they were working on getting him a B1 (which White-Ra and BRAT have, for example). Due to their longevity and repute as a team I had no reason to believe that this wouldn't happen. Strelok switching teams midway through might have had something to do with it, however.
OK, but you didn't say you had absolute confidence Strelok could get you guys a VISA. You said he showed you a VISA. Those are completely different things.
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.. 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
Your post really comes from a serious lack of insight. It would be really bad and disrespectful if we didn't have Gretorp+iNcontroL cast the finals. What does that say about how we value our employees if someone (Gret+iNc) bust their asses off for 3 months only to get thrown under the bus by 2 guys who just flew in for a weekend? Why would anyone want to work with us in the future if we disrespect employees that way? If we had anyone else cast the finals it would be like us saying "we don't have faith in your ability to be on the big stage," but we believe in them as casters and know they've worked hard for us all season. Whether you like them or not, that is the truth of the matter.
The solution to that is not to shoot yourself on the foot by bringing to your event the most loved and respected casters in the community and then not having them cast the big ticket matches. A false expectation was created when you announced Tastosis and Day 9, without clarifying that Gret+Inc would cast the grand final.
Just be open and explicit when you market yourselves. Much of the hate from the community comes from the fact that you weren't giving enough information to the community throughout the season and particularly during the finals.
On July 13 2011 02:19 Milkis wrote: I will accept the production mistakes of NASL as growing pains for it to become a better event in the future when NASL admits that that there were pains and acknowledging that instead of the constant sugarcoating and skimming over it. Be upfront.
On July 13 2011 02:19 Milkis wrote: I will accept the production mistakes of NASL as growing pains for it to become a better event in the future when NASL admits that that there were pains and acknowledging that instead of the constant sugarcoating and skimming over it. Be upfront.
Couldn't agree more.
theyve aknowledged all of things you guys are saying!
On July 13 2011 02:31 Eternalmisfit wrote: In view of lack of a formal apology from the NASL staff (I do not consider a post of 14th page of an obscure TL post which barely says sorry to the fans who missed the finals an apology), I have to respectfully disagree.
You talk about disservice to the players of making them wait till the 'scheduled' time to play but do not talk about the disservice to the multiple of fans who were unable to watch the games for no fault of theirs. NASL announced a time for their finals event and people made schedule arrangement according to it. Now, on the last moment, you change the time w/o any announcement of it on your freaking site, and no proper announcement/overlay on your stream as to when the finals will start. What use is your craptastic 'state of the art' site if it does not show any relevant information to the league at the point of time.
People missed the game because NASL was at fault. Are you making amends by providing free VODs for the finals for the people since they missed the games because of your fault? I have not heard anything like that from anyone related to NASL.
Also, the wonderful comment about the preponing the finals for the betterment of EU fans, If you had really considered them, you would not have made a terrible schedule upfront. At this point of time, it just seems that instead of manning up and accepting the mistake, you are trying to find another diversionary way to not taking the blame.
I would have had a lot more respect for NASL if you had the humility of accepting your mistakes and apologizing instead of finding pointless excuses for every single thing.
Also, I find it amusing that you and Xeris are sweeping the questions raised about Strelok issue under the rug and ignoring those questions. Comments like above and dishonest responses to the public make me seriously doubt your professionality.
Frankly, you guys lucked out that the players played an excellent finals but barring that the event had been full of problems. I shelled out 25 bucks for season 1 but rest assured, barring some drastic changes, I would definitely not be buying a season 2 pass.
Allow me to condense it down for you:
- We messed up Sunday's schedule - We made a decision on how to mitigate that - We feel that it was the correct decision - We recognize some fans were adversely affected
What we won't do is just turn on the VODs for free, because that's not fair to the fans who paid for the HD stream and the VODs. We may offer something soon to fans who were affected, but since there's no way to verify who was affected and who was not, we'll have to deal with that on a case-by-case basis.
As for Strelok, I'm not sweeping anything under the rug, I'm simply not answering it because I don't know the answer. Player relations are Xeris's area of comment, so I'm not commenting on it.
If all of that wasn't "Man Up" enough for you, then I guess we'll never be able to satisfy you. We thank you for your patronage in Season One, and we'll be sorry to see you go in Season Two.
On July 13 2011 02:31 Eternalmisfit wrote: In view of lack of a formal apology from the NASL staff (I do not consider a post of 14th page of an obscure TL post which barely says sorry to the fans who missed the finals an apology), I have to respectfully disagree.
You talk about disservice to the players of making them wait till the 'scheduled' time to play but do not talk about the disservice to the multiple of fans who were unable to watch the games for no fault of theirs. NASL announced a time for their finals event and people made schedule arrangement according to it. Now, on the last moment, you change the time w/o any announcement of it on your freaking site, and no proper announcement/overlay on your stream as to when the finals will start. What use is your craptastic 'state of the art' site if it does not show any relevant information to the league at the point of time.
People missed the game because NASL was at fault. Are you making amends by providing free VODs for the finals for the people since they missed the games because of your fault? I have not heard anything like that from anyone related to NASL.
Also, the wonderful comment about the preponing the finals for the betterment of EU fans, If you had really considered them, you would not have made a terrible schedule upfront. At this point of time, it just seems that instead of manning up and accepting the mistake, you are trying to find another diversionary way to not taking the blame.
I would have had a lot more respect for NASL if you had the humility of accepting your mistakes and apologizing instead of finding pointless excuses for every single thing.
Also, I find it amusing that you and Xeris are sweeping the questions raised about Strelok issue under the rug and ignoring those questions. Comments like above and dishonest responses to the public make me seriously doubt your professionality.
Frankly, you guys lucked out that the players played an excellent finals but barring that the event had been full of problems. I shelled out 25 bucks for season 1 but rest assured, barring some drastic changes, I would definitely not be buying a season 2 pass.
Allow me to condense it down for you:
- We messed up Sunday's schedule - We made a decision on how to mitigate that - We feel that it was the correct decision - We recognize some fans were adversely affected
What we won't do is just turn on the VODs for free, because that's not fair to the fans who paid for the HD stream and the VODs. We may offer something soon to fans who were affected, but since there's no way to verify who was affected and who was not, we'll have to deal with that on a case-by-case basis.
As for Strelok, I'm not sweeping anything under the rug, I'm simply not answering it because I don't know the answer. Player relations are Xeris's area of comment, so I'm not commenting on it.
If all of that wasn't "Man Up" enough for you, then I guess we'll never be able to satisfy you. We thank you for your patronage in Season One, and we'll be sorry to see you go in Season Two.
I'm going to defend you here and say you did the right decision as I was one of the EU guys that was effected by it but the issue was you never told anyone about it. There was no massive public announcement that the schedule was changing and things would be way earlier. The 3rd place game just happened then a few pieces of info got out about times changing but that was really the limit of it.
Most of what I felt went wrong with NASL is the lack of good PR
On July 13 2011 02:19 Milkis wrote: I will accept the production mistakes of NASL as growing pains for it to become a better event in the future when NASL admits that that there were pains and acknowledging that instead of the constant sugarcoating and skimming over it. Be upfront.
I think this is how most reasonable people feel. Thank you for putting it so succinctly.
On July 13 2011 02:31 Eternalmisfit wrote: In view of lack of a formal apology from the NASL staff (I do not consider a post of 14th page of an obscure TL post which barely says sorry to the fans who missed the finals an apology), I have to respectfully disagree.
You talk about disservice to the players of making them wait till the 'scheduled' time to play but do not talk about the disservice to the multiple of fans who were unable to watch the games for no fault of theirs. NASL announced a time for their finals event and people made schedule arrangement according to it. Now, on the last moment, you change the time w/o any announcement of it on your freaking site, and no proper announcement/overlay on your stream as to when the finals will start. What use is your craptastic 'state of the art' site if it does not show any relevant information to the league at the point of time.
People missed the game because NASL was at fault. Are you making amends by providing free VODs for the finals for the people since they missed the games because of your fault? I have not heard anything like that from anyone related to NASL.
Also, the wonderful comment about the preponing the finals for the betterment of EU fans, If you had really considered them, you would not have made a terrible schedule upfront. At this point of time, it just seems that instead of manning up and accepting the mistake, you are trying to find another diversionary way to not taking the blame.
I would have had a lot more respect for NASL if you had the humility of accepting your mistakes and apologizing instead of finding pointless excuses for every single thing.
Also, I find it amusing that you and Xeris are sweeping the questions raised about Strelok issue under the rug and ignoring those questions. Comments like above and dishonest responses to the public make me seriously doubt your professionality.
Frankly, you guys lucked out that the players played an excellent finals but barring that the event had been full of problems. I shelled out 25 bucks for season 1 but rest assured, barring some drastic changes, I would definitely not be buying a season 2 pass.
Allow me to condense it down for you:
- We messed up Sunday's schedule - We made a decision on how to mitigate that - We feel that it was the correct decision - We recognize some fans were adversely affected
What we won't do is just turn on the VODs for free, because that's not fair to the fans who paid for the HD stream and the VODs. We may offer something soon to fans who were affected, but since there's no way to verify who was affected and who was not, we'll have to deal with that on a case-by-case basis.
As for Strelok, I'm not sweeping anything under the rug, I'm simply not answering it because I don't know the answer. Player relations are Xeris's area of comment, so I'm not commenting on it.
If all of that wasn't "Man Up" enough for you, then I guess we'll never be able to satisfy you. We thank you for your patronage in Season One, and we'll be sorry to see you go in Season Two.
I'm going to defend you here and say you did the right decision as I was one of the EU guys that was effected by it but the issue was you never told anyone about it. There was no massive public announcement that the schedule was changing and things would be way earlier. The 3rd place game just happened then a few pieces of info got out about times changing but that was really the limit of it.
Most of what I felt went wrong with NASL is the lack of good PR
There is just a general lack of management in NASL, that's clear to see.
If it wasn't for TL I would have had no idea what times games where, or what was happening by just using the NASL site.
As for NightEnd -- once again: Romania is a "high risk" country, as are Russia, Ukraine, and Poland (just because Romania is in the EU doesn't mean they have a VISA waiver program... which they don't, which makes it automatically more difficult to get a VISA to the US). We didn't want to have multiple "high risk" players in the league due to obvious reasons. What if more than 1 of them qualifies for the finals, can't get a VISA, and don't show up? That ruins our live event completely.
White-Ra has demonstrated an ability to come to the US, BRAT_OK showed us his VISA, as did Strelok. So we were really left with two players (MaNa and NightEnd) from "high risk" countries. We only wanted to select 1; we chose MaNa. As I said multiple times before -- I should have explicitly stated the need for a VISA. I mistakenly thought it was obvious that people outside the US would ask about it considering the contract states that you must guarantee your ability to enter the US. It was my fault for not explicitly stating that they needed a VISA.
So my question for Xeris, how could you have seen Strelok's VISA when he hadn't even applied for it? Was Strelok or MaNa the one "high risk" player?
Now that's interesting. o.o
Correct me if im wrong but hasnt xeris alrdy explained this post?
On July 03 2011 01:11 Xeris wrote:
On July 03 2011 01:08 tsuxiit wrote: That blows. I thought a requirement to entering the tournament was actually having a valid visa?
As we said at the start of the season, Strelok was the 'risk' player we accepted, because his team Mouz assured us that he could get a VISA on time.
MaNa was the 'risk' player. They saw Strelok's VISA.
just wondering if you could touch on this xeris or russell
I did it many times in another thread. Mouz told us 100% that they could get Strelok's VISA and that they were working on getting him a B1 (which White-Ra and BRAT have, for example). Due to their longevity and repute as a team I had no reason to believe that this wouldn't happen. Strelok switching teams midway through might have had something to do with it, however.
Thanks for taking the time to answer. The issue I have is the apparent contradiction between "Mouz told us 100% that they could get Strelok's VISA" and "BRAT_OK showed us his VISA, as did Strelok"
If it wasn't for TL I would have had no idea what times games where, or what was happening by just using the NASL site.
There are several criticisms I agree with in this thread, and one that I saw on Twitter throughout the Finals and again on this thread was that we did a lousy job of letting fans visiting our site know the schedule. I agree 100% on that. It needs to improve. It will improve.
On July 13 2011 02:31 Eternalmisfit wrote: In view of lack of a formal apology from the NASL staff (I do not consider a post of 14th page of an obscure TL post which barely says sorry to the fans who missed the finals an apology), I have to respectfully disagree.
You talk about disservice to the players of making them wait till the 'scheduled' time to play but do not talk about the disservice to the multiple of fans who were unable to watch the games for no fault of theirs. NASL announced a time for their finals event and people made schedule arrangement according to it. Now, on the last moment, you change the time w/o any announcement of it on your freaking site, and no proper announcement/overlay on your stream as to when the finals will start. What use is your craptastic 'state of the art' site if it does not show any relevant information to the league at the point of time.
People missed the game because NASL was at fault. Are you making amends by providing free VODs for the finals for the people since they missed the games because of your fault? I have not heard anything like that from anyone related to NASL.
Also, the wonderful comment about the preponing the finals for the betterment of EU fans, If you had really considered them, you would not have made a terrible schedule upfront. At this point of time, it just seems that instead of manning up and accepting the mistake, you are trying to find another diversionary way to not taking the blame.
I would have had a lot more respect for NASL if you had the humility of accepting your mistakes and apologizing instead of finding pointless excuses for every single thing.
Also, I find it amusing that you and Xeris are sweeping the questions raised about Strelok issue under the rug and ignoring those questions. Comments like above and dishonest responses to the public make me seriously doubt your professionality.
Frankly, you guys lucked out that the players played an excellent finals but barring that the event had been full of problems. I shelled out 25 bucks for season 1 but rest assured, barring some drastic changes, I would definitely not be buying a season 2 pass.
Allow me to condense it down for you:
- We messed up Sunday's schedule - We made a decision on how to mitigate that - We feel that it was the correct decision - We recognize some fans were adversely affected
What we won't do is just turn on the VODs for free, because that's not fair to the fans who paid for the HD stream and the VODs. We may offer something soon to fans who were affected, but since there's no way to verify who was affected and who was not, we'll have to deal with that on a case-by-case basis.
As for Strelok, I'm not sweeping anything under the rug, I'm simply not answering it because I don't know the answer. Player relations are Xeris's area of comment, so I'm not commenting on it.
If all of that wasn't "Man Up" enough for you, then I guess we'll never be able to satisfy you. We thank you for your patronage in Season One, and we'll be sorry to see you go in Season Two.
Ok great you guys know the areas that need improving...but still there has been no formal apology to the fans. People arent looking to get free vods or whatever, I just think there should have been a formal apology, as do many other people in this thread, and in the other nasl threads around tl.
it really looks like you are learning from your mistakes and making sure that things that went wrong wont happen again this is very good and i really hope we will see big improvements like we saw at the last MLG event so I for one think we should give you at least two seasons before I can real real criticism
but there is a thing that really bothers me, Its a rather small thing but i think it makes a big change. you must get a trophy for the winner, money is nice and we all love it, but it should be only a bonus to the "fame". a winner should rise a trophy not a check Those small thing is what i think will make the eSports go to the nest level, as in real sports when the real thing is the winning, not the money
On July 13 2011 02:31 Eternalmisfit wrote: In view of lack of a formal apology from the NASL staff (I do not consider a post of 14th page of an obscure TL post which barely says sorry to the fans who missed the finals an apology), I have to respectfully disagree.
You talk about disservice to the players of making them wait till the 'scheduled' time to play but do not talk about the disservice to the multiple of fans who were unable to watch the games for no fault of theirs. NASL announced a time for their finals event and people made schedule arrangement according to it. Now, on the last moment, you change the time w/o any announcement of it on your freaking site, and no proper announcement/overlay on your stream as to when the finals will start. What use is your craptastic 'state of the art' site if it does not show any relevant information to the league at the point of time.
People missed the game because NASL was at fault. Are you making amends by providing free VODs for the finals for the people since they missed the games because of your fault? I have not heard anything like that from anyone related to NASL.
Also, the wonderful comment about the preponing the finals for the betterment of EU fans, If you had really considered them, you would not have made a terrible schedule upfront. At this point of time, it just seems that instead of manning up and accepting the mistake, you are trying to find another diversionary way to not taking the blame.
I would have had a lot more respect for NASL if you had the humility of accepting your mistakes and apologizing instead of finding pointless excuses for every single thing.
Also, I find it amusing that you and Xeris are sweeping the questions raised about Strelok issue under the rug and ignoring those questions. Comments like above and dishonest responses to the public make me seriously doubt your professionality.
Frankly, you guys lucked out that the players played an excellent finals but barring that the event had been full of problems. I shelled out 25 bucks for season 1 but rest assured, barring some drastic changes, I would definitely not be buying a season 2 pass.
Allow me to condense it down for you:
- We messed up Sunday's schedule - We made a decision on how to mitigate that - We feel that it was the correct decision - We recognize some fans were adversely affected
What we won't do is just turn on the VODs for free, because that's not fair to the fans who paid for the HD stream and the VODs. We may offer something soon to fans who were affected, but since there's no way to verify who was affected and who was not, we'll have to deal with that on a case-by-case basis.
As for Strelok, I'm not sweeping anything under the rug, I'm simply not answering it because I don't know the answer. Player relations are Xeris's area of comment, so I'm not commenting on it.
If all of that wasn't "Man Up" enough for you, then I guess we'll never be able to satisfy you. We thank you for your patronage in Season One, and we'll be sorry to see you go in Season Two.
I never said make the entire season/LAN tourney Vods free since that would not be fair but providing just the Vods for the finals would have been a nice goodwill gesture for the people who were unable to watch the finals because of NASL's fault.(Also, it is not like I am trying to get free finals vods for myself since I have premium and can watch it at will. I believe on principle that it should have been something NASL should have done)
There is a lack of apology even in this post and at this point, I can say we can agree to disagree on what good or bad PR and customer service is. Good luck with season 2 and I hope for your sake that despite your posts, you can realize the issue at hand and hopefully not make the same mistakes in the future. Peace out.
Well, I didn't see the entire Finals, so I can't comment on everything, but here are my remarks:
- Current statements - I agree completely with Milkis on this point. Did you see the response MLG made after their first disastrous event? Now compare it to your own. MLG apologized untill we couldn't even hear the world "apologize" without puking. I'm not saying you need to do the same thing, but at least be honest about what happened. Something like: "We know the sound was bad guys, we're sorry about that." would go a very long way. Here is your version of it: "Some sound things were bad, but we're working on it for next season!"
- Show rather than LAN - This is just saying: "It's not our fault you weren't here, everybody who was actually at the event had lots of stuff to do and had a great time!" Compare the numbers of audience, and you know the stream is the most important to fill the time.
- "Blaming players" - Even though I understand the fact that you just mentioned some examples of hiccups in the event, only mentioning players makes it seem like you ARE blaming them. Could've worded that a lot better, or just don;t name specific players.
- Format - Another big thing. At the Homestory Cup, Take discussed with the players what they thought was the best format, and they agreed it was double elemination after group play. So we have the players AND the fans saying it is the best format. Saying a lot of other tourneys do it as well is ridiculous, cause you can name a lot of tournaments that actually have double elimination.
But the main problem with this part is the lack of comeback potential and limited time to prove yourself. Look at the Ret stuff: he proved he belonged to the best in the league, but didn't really get the chance to prove he can actually take them on, because he got knocked out in the first round by the eventual champion. Even a system like the World Cup of soccer would be preferable over the current one. The league is the qualifier, top 2 place for the next round, which is a group play again.
The drama and excitement a comeback can produce should not be underestimated, we all root for the underdog, and whats better than 'seeing a player go through to loser bracket just to take it all in the end?
- Communication - One of the things a lot of tournaments do wrong. Please put up an announcement or countdown timer for the next event/match. Or when you don;t have an ETA because something went wrong say something like: "Due to technical difficulties we are experiencing some delay, we will update this message as soon as we know more".
- Wardrobe - As silly as it seems, I actually agree with the comment about the t-shirt/blazer stuff. Looks way to casual.
- Desks - What's up with all the akward desks everywhere? The GSL and NASL desks look really clunky, and don't get me started on the CG EG Master's Cup desks O_o.
- Final Casters - I agree with the decision to let Gretorp and inControl cast the final games, they deserved it and did an excellent job. But announce who is casting what at the start of the finals, to avoid the rabid reaction we have seen now.
- Interview questions - Please let the interviewers prepare them beforehand. If they did that now, I apologize. But even if they did, please let someone like Day9 or Artosis write the questions, and let the ladies ask them.
- NASL site - As other people have said, wasn't usefull at all during the finals, which is a shame.
- Feedback - I don't know if you guys read every post in this thread, but I don't agree with this form of feedback. Responding to a few of the posts in this thread is not the way to go in my opinion. Now I don't even know if anyone will actually read my post. Open an e-mail account like feedback@nasl.tv or something and respond with a similar general message you have written here in the first post.
- Suggestions - Some suggestions I think will make the event look and feel smoother:
Interview area: Interviewing the players standing in front of the booths was awkward and unneccesary. Put down a couch like Dreamhack or something, gives it a more natural feel
Can't think of more right now, and I think this post is long enough as is. Just my 2 cents.
Fantastic response from Xeris. I admit to being an outspoken critic of his opinions at times, but reading through the post made me hyped for season 2 actually. Keep up the good work!
The one issue I didn't see addressed, though perhaps I missed it, is the issue of casters. From an objective standpoint, there are just better options for casters than Gretorp, and I would definitely argue viewer response to him is more negative than positive. I hope the NASL takes serious consideration in finding new casters. There's a lot of casting talent in North America.
On July 13 2011 02:56 Eternalmisfit wrote: There is a lack of apology even in this post and at this point, I can say we can agree to disagree on what good or bad PR and customer service is. Good luck with season 2 and I hope for your sake that despite your posts, you can realize the issue at hand and hopefully not make the same mistakes in the future. Peace out.
You're right, I didn't include a formal apology, so here it is:
On behalf of the entire North American Star League staff, we apologize to the entire SC2 community for changing our Sunday schedule at the last second. We realize this adversely affected some viewers, and we will work hard to ensure the mistake is not repeated in future events.
We are thankful and blessed to have such a passionate fan base which was reflected in the 84,000+ fans who watched the Championship match. We will continue to improve and your continued support is appreciated.
On July 13 2011 02:56 Eternalmisfit wrote: There is a lack of apology even in this post and at this point, I can say we can agree to disagree on what good or bad PR and customer service is. Good luck with season 2 and I hope for your sake that despite your posts, you can realize the issue at hand and hopefully not make the same mistakes in the future. Peace out.
You're right, I didn't include a formal apology, so here it is:
On behalf of the entire North American Star League staff, we apologize to the entire SC2 community for changing our Sunday schedule at the last second. We realize this adversely affected some viewers, and we will work hard to ensure the mistake is not repeated in future events.
We are thankful and blessed to have such a passionate fan base which was reflected in the 84,000+ fans who watched the Championship match. We will continue to improve and your continued support is appreciated.
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.
To those saying that it "doesn't matter because they will have to face each other eventually," it absolutely does matter. If the first seeded player faces the open winner in the RO16 as opposed to a later round, there is a difference in prize money that may or may not justify them flying out in the first place. For example, if Ret got knocked out by PuMa one round LATER, then he would have made enough money to cover his travel costs.
On July 13 2011 02:31 Eternalmisfit wrote: In view of lack of a formal apology from the NASL staff (I do not consider a post of 14th page of an obscure TL post which barely says sorry to the fans who missed the finals an apology), I have to respectfully disagree.
You talk about disservice to the players of making them wait till the 'scheduled' time to play but do not talk about the disservice to the multiple of fans who were unable to watch the games for no fault of theirs. NASL announced a time for their finals event and people made schedule arrangement according to it. Now, on the last moment, you change the time w/o any announcement of it on your freaking site, and no proper announcement/overlay on your stream as to when the finals will start. What use is your craptastic 'state of the art' site if it does not show any relevant information to the league at the point of time.
People missed the game because NASL was at fault. Are you making amends by providing free VODs for the finals for the people since they missed the games because of your fault? I have not heard anything like that from anyone related to NASL.
Also, the wonderful comment about the preponing the finals for the betterment of EU fans, If you had really considered them, you would not have made a terrible schedule upfront. At this point of time, it just seems that instead of manning up and accepting the mistake, you are trying to find another diversionary way to not taking the blame.
I would have had a lot more respect for NASL if you had the humility of accepting your mistakes and apologizing instead of finding pointless excuses for every single thing.
Also, I find it amusing that you and Xeris are sweeping the questions raised about Strelok issue under the rug and ignoring those questions. Comments like above and dishonest responses to the public make me seriously doubt your professionality.
Frankly, you guys lucked out that the players played an excellent finals but barring that the event had been full of problems. I shelled out 25 bucks for season 1 but rest assured, barring some drastic changes, I would definitely not be buying a season 2 pass.
Allow me to condense it down for you:
- We messed up Sunday's schedule - We made a decision on how to mitigate that - We feel that it was the correct decision - We recognize some fans were adversely affected
What we won't do is just turn on the VODs for free, because that's not fair to the fans who paid for the HD stream and the VODs. We may offer something soon to fans who were affected, but since there's no way to verify who was affected and who was not, we'll have to deal with that on a case-by-case basis.
As for Strelok, I'm not sweeping anything under the rug, I'm simply not answering it because I don't know the answer. Player relations are Xeris's area of comment, so I'm not commenting on it.
If all of that wasn't "Man Up" enough for you, then I guess we'll never be able to satisfy you. We thank you for your patronage in Season One, and we'll be sorry to see you go in Season Two.
The fact that the 3rd place match was a ZvZ was something that could not be planned for.
On July 13 2011 02:19 Milkis wrote: I will accept the production mistakes of NASL as growing pains for it to become a better event in the future when NASL admits that that there were pains and acknowledging that instead of the constant sugarcoating and skimming over it. Be upfront.
Couldn't agree more.
theyve aknowledged all of things you guys are saying!
The internet has proven time and time again people are very "selective readers."
One of the things I had some problem with was watching in full 1080 live (my net sucks -_-) although I had no problem with the same quality vods(my laptop doesn't suck as much :D). However, I was able to watch most of the league live but only at 720p. I don't mind paying the 25 bucks (have done so twice already, and twenty to be exact if you take into account the discount codes) but I was wondering if there any plans for lower quality subscriptions, i.e, pay 20 bucks but you only get up to 720 and/or pay 10-15 bucks but you only get up 480 although with the opportunity of upgrading at any time plus access to VODs and other nifty things, of course. Personally I'd find that really nice as it would suit the computers and wallets (and the perception of how much they value NASL throughout the whole season) of many more people. Are there any plans to perhaps implement something like this for the third season?
Sorry if something like this has been answered already, I haven't finished reading the whole thread.
On July 13 2011 02:56 Eternalmisfit wrote: There is a lack of apology even in this post and at this point, I can say we can agree to disagree on what good or bad PR and customer service is. Good luck with season 2 and I hope for your sake that despite your posts, you can realize the issue at hand and hopefully not make the same mistakes in the future. Peace out.
You're right, I didn't include a formal apology, so here it is:
On behalf of the entire North American Star League staff, we apologize to the entire SC2 community for changing our Sunday schedule at the last second. We realize this adversely affected some viewers, and we will work hard to ensure the mistake is not repeated in future events.
We are thankful and blessed to have such a passionate fan base which was reflected in the 84,000+ fans who watched the Championship match. We will continue to improve and your continued support is appreciated.
Thank you, sir! And thank you once again for giving us one of the most epic sc2 series of all time! (MC vs Puma)
On July 13 2011 02:56 Eternalmisfit wrote: There is a lack of apology even in this post and at this point, I can say we can agree to disagree on what good or bad PR and customer service is. Good luck with season 2 and I hope for your sake that despite your posts, you can realize the issue at hand and hopefully not make the same mistakes in the future. Peace out.
You're right, I didn't include a formal apology, so here it is:
On behalf of the entire North American Star League staff, we apologize to the entire SC2 community for changing our Sunday schedule at the last second. We realize this adversely affected some viewers, and we will work hard to ensure the mistake is not repeated in future events.
We are thankful and blessed to have such a passionate fan base which was reflected in the 84,000+ fans who watched the Championship match. We will continue to improve and your continued support is appreciated.
Now put this (or something, or anything) on your website instead of page 16 of a thread on an unaffiliated forum
On July 13 2011 03:03 r_con wrote: i will pay for the service if you fix the vod issue, if not, then i will not pay
So I just checked our JTV Finals Channel page, and confirmed that you can see the VODs in different resolutions as shown in this screenshot I literally took less than 5 minutes ago:
If this is what you were referring to, case solved. If not, please be more specific.
New format - highest seeded player gets to PICK his opponent from the bottom 50% seeded players. Second highest seeded player then picks, etc. So if there's 16 ppl, Ret could pick from the bottom 8 who he wanted to play. Then the 2nd seeded person could pick from the bottom 7 remaining, etc. Would give some incentive to be the highest seed possible :o.
DING DING DING!!! This is the right answer!!! Thank you!!! (hopefully this will be in the OP instead of page 16 next time =D)
On July 13 2011 03:01 OCsurfeR wrote: You're right, I didn't include a formal apology, so here it is:
On behalf of the entire North American Star League staff, we apologize to the entire SC2 community for changing our Sunday schedule at the last second. We realize this adversely affected some viewers, and we will work hard to ensure the mistake is not repeated in future events.
We are thankful and blessed to have such a passionate fan base which was reflected in the 84,000+ fans who watched the Championship match. We will continue to improve and your continued support is appreciated.
This is the wrong answer.... Someone needs to take PR lessons!
On July 13 2011 02:27 Xeris wrote: I don't get it. I've said a dozen times that there were problems and that we are working to fix them. Just because I try to explain the reasons why certain things happened doesn't mean I'm sugarcoating, I'm just trying to give the community an inside perspective.
It doesn't change the fact that we had issues in Season 1, I've never said "well we had problems but it wasn't our fault," sure some things were out of our control, like the projector breaking, but a lot of things (like set design and not having enough content to account for us not hitting our schedule exactly) were on us, and we'll make sure those don't happen again.
p.s. not having a backup projector is your fault. You should also have a back up PC, monitor, extra cables and batteries, video camera. We all know that things break at the last minute when least expected.
you maybe want to provide a real league like a "sports league" but heres the problem: In sports the fans will watch the biggest league because is has the best players and there are no other major leagues....but in SC2 there is too much content anyway so the viewer has to choose and then he wont choose NASL
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.
To those saying that it "doesn't matter because they will have to face each other eventually," it absolutely does matter. If the first seeded player faces the open winner in the RO16 as opposed to a later round, there is a difference in prize money that may or may not justify them flying out in the first place. For example, if Ret got knocked out by PuMa one round LATER, then he would have made enough money to cover his travel costs.
The biased answer options in this poll certainly don't help its credibility, so I assume many people just didn't answer honestly.
My personal choice would've been to let the top 4 seeds choose their opponents from the bottom 4 seeds or something.
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
What's funny is i have 5 years production experience in broadcasting and even sent NASL my resume yet they ignored it and then put on that attrocity of a broadcast.
It speaks to how much they want their product to succeed. They received an email (if not multiple ones) from experienced staff and chose what seemed like some stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut.
It's kind of sad. I would like to see them do better etc. but it just seems like they won't own up to their mistakes and much rather prefer placing blame on other people, as well as refusing to keep the community up to date with anything regarding issues etc.
Even here Xeris isn't replying to all the questions and comments and is completely missing the point of some people.
Also the overall arrogant attitude coming from NASL members (mostly Xeris) is just disrespectful to the fans and why would we want to support you any further when you show a lack of respect towards people who pay for your product?
Finally, Xeris should be barred from making any PR style posts. He clearly doesn't know good PR skils. His posts are just blowing up in his face which is not what you want at all.
On July 13 2011 03:03 r_con wrote: i will pay for the service if you fix the vod issue, if not, then i will not pay
So I just checked our JTV Finals Channel page, and confirmed that you can see the VODs in different resolutions as shown in this screenshot I literally took less than 5 minutes ago:
If this is what you were referring to, case solved. If not, please be more specific.
Thanks for reminding me why everyone's happy you have new graphics guys. >_>
On July 12 2011 23:52 OCsurfeR wrote: The natural response to this is "well if you're going for a normal pro-sports league style format, what about the open qualifier winner taking the 16th spot? That's not what other professional sports do."
You're right, and that's something we're taking another hard look at.
In a tournament the fans want the best possible players, so having an open bracket is great--you're almost assured to get a really good player who wasn't able to participate in the qualifiers or whatever.
In a league, the fans want to see the players they've already been following for 9 weeks. Those are the stories. The 16th best NASL player has fans, has a history in the league, has had ups and downs and just barely made it.
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
What's funny is i have 5 years production experience in broadcasting and even sent NASL my resume yet they ignored it and then put on that attrocity of a broadcast.
It speaks to how much they want their product to succeed. They received an email (if not multiple ones) from experienced staff and chose what seemed like some stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut.
Nepotism in action, baby!
You think Anna and the blond girl got the interview job because they're great interviewers?
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
What's funny is i have 5 years production experience in broadcasting and even sent NASL my resume yet they ignored it and then put on that attrocity of a broadcast.
It speaks to how much they want their product to succeed. They received an email (if not multiple ones) from experienced staff and chose what seemed like some stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut.
Nepotism in action, baby!
You think Anna and the blond girl got the interview job because they're great interviewers?
Rachel is pretty well known in the community and CSN has provided so much great content from Korea, and Anna is the current Miss Oregon. There's no doubting their interview skills.
On July 12 2011 15:00 Joseph123 wrote: 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?
It would be really bad and disrespectful if we didn't have Gretorp+iNcontroL cast the finals. What does that say about how we value our employees if someone (Gret+iNc) bust their asses off for 3 months only to get thrown under the bus by 2 guys who just flew in for a weekend? Why would anyone want to work with us in the future if we disrespect employees that way?
This was absolutely the right call, and anyone who thinks otherwise, frankly, is an idiot. Gretorp and InControl were the NASL casters for Season 1 - to give casting of the final match of the season to anyone but them would have been disrespectful in the extreme.
And personally, I like Gretorp and InControl as casters. I think they do a good job.
On July 12 2011 16:19 Jibba wrote:Tell the players no installing drivers is allowed (this should be obvious, tbh) and if their stuff doesn't work, plug SS or whoever and have extra Kinzu's/Xai's/7g/6gv2's on hand.
I think I remember seeing a rule that said players had to provide NASL with information about what drivers and all they would need beforehand, and that if not provided, they couldn't be used - but I may be thinking of another tournament.
On July 12 2011 16:54 aebriol wrote: Like or dislike, Lindsey made the waiting a lot less painful for people (had something entertaining to watch, either for the comedy value, or just because it was funny how she made all us gamer nerds open up and talk), so I think that ... possibly ... if you would have shows in addition.
Ask Day[9] to do a live daily from the event? Have a showmatch for tastosis to cast during a break? Put on a stream with the best starcraft 2 parody songs (a countdown - top 20?).
Basically ... have some content on the stream during the final event, in addition to some kind of message saying 'next match is X vs Y at HH:MM PST in (countdown) - or whatever.
Overall, I enjoyed it, though not as much as I could have, and find it to be a good addition to the other leagues and events. This being a mix.
I agree with all of this. More content in the downtime for streamers is a must - sit-down interviews with players, particularly, would be an AMAZING way to fill up the time with little effort. I'm glad you guys are planning to correct that in the future.
A question, suggestions, and a concern:
Why was Morrow allowed to play as Terran vs July, in direct contradiction to the rules stating that race cannot be changed mid-season?
This has so far gone completely unaddressed, as far as I'm aware, other than to say that NASL has known about it. Even if every other Zerg player in the finals agreed to allow Morrow to play as Terran against them, I think it reflects poorly on the league to not enforce its own rules - particularly ones as game-changing as race-switch.
Seed the bottom players from the regular season into the open qualifying tournament.
I think this could help with walkovers and in general, lackluster performance for those in the bottom of the groups. It gives them a reason to still try their best to win, by giving them a chance to be seeded higher into the open tournament and re-qualify.
Make the prize pool less top-heavy, and spread some of it out among the finals more.
It's my understanding, iirc, that you already provide $500 stipends for travel to everyone who qualifies, but as White-Ra said in the interview with Diggity, it's still rough for anyone who travels huge distances and gets knocked out in the Ro16. I'm actually one of the people who supports the single-elimination format, but I believe spreading the prize pool out a bit more among the finals would be a good thing for everyone involved. Even if you drop the #1 to #4 prizes from 50k/25k/10k/5k to like 40k/20k/8k/4k or something, and scale the bottom placers up accordingly, that's a pretty substantial difference in prizepool for the remaining players, while still being HUGE prizes for the top finishers.
It's something to consider, anyway.
Don't allow Open Bracket entrance to the finals.
I know you've already said you're considering this point, so I'm sorry to bring it back up, but I just wanted to stress how important it is to me, personally. Despite the truly amazing series between MC and Puma for the finals, it really cuts into the enjoyment of the league when you watch people play for two months and then someone comes in through an open tournament and wins it. While going through the open bracket is by no means an easy feat, it still just pained me to see someone from the open bracket take it all.
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
What's funny is i have 5 years production experience in broadcasting and even sent NASL my resume yet they ignored it and then put on that attrocity of a broadcast.
It speaks to how much they want their product to succeed. They received an email (if not multiple ones) from experienced staff and chose what seemed like some stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut.
Nepotism in action, baby!
You think Anna and the blond girl got the interview job because they're great interviewers?
Oh i don't doubt that at all. Thats the nature of the entertainment business.
But when you're production team (not talent) is just horrible at their jobs, its time to fire them and find better staff.
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
What's funny is i have 5 years production experience in broadcasting and even sent NASL my resume yet they ignored it and then put on that attrocity of a broadcast.
It speaks to how much they want their product to succeed. They received an email (if not multiple ones) from experienced staff and chose what seemed like some stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut.
Nepotism in action, baby!
You think Anna and the blond girl got the interview job because they're great interviewers?
Rachel is pretty well known in the community and CSN has provided so much great content from Korea, and Anna is the current Miss Oregon. There's no doubting their interview skills.
Rachel i understand, but it's pretty clear that Anna only got the job cause she's incontrols gf.
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
What's funny is i have 5 years production experience in broadcasting and even sent NASL my resume yet they ignored it and then put on that attrocity of a broadcast.
It speaks to how much they want their product to succeed. They received an email (if not multiple ones) from experienced staff and chose what seemed like some stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut.
Nepotism in action, baby!
You think Anna and the blond girl got the interview job because they're great interviewers?
Rachel is pretty well known in the community and CSN has provided so much great content from Korea, and Anna is the current Miss Oregon. There's no doubting their interview skills.
So going off your post, because she's a beauty pageant contestant, where all she does is answer questions (not ask them) she's a good interviewer?
I've read every post in the entire thread, and I too few people supported Xeris's decision to have incontrol and gretorp cast the finals. I absolutely think this was the right move. I would be horrified if I casted the entire regular season, only to be dumped for the finals by people who flew in for a weekend. It doesn't matter if tastosis would have done a better job, you can't treat your people like disposable diapers. Kudos on making the right choice, and treating your casters well!!!
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
What's funny is i have 5 years production experience in broadcasting and even sent NASL my resume yet they ignored it and then put on that attrocity of a broadcast.
It speaks to how much they want their product to succeed. They received an email (if not multiple ones) from experienced staff and chose what seemed like some stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut.
Nepotism in action, baby!
You think Anna and the blond girl got the interview job because they're great interviewers?
Rachel is pretty well known in the community and CSN has provided so much great content from Korea, and Anna is the current Miss Oregon. There's no doubting their interview skills.
Oh, Rachel was very good. She's a very good interviewer, by far the most competent of the three girls you had at the event. I meant that other blond girl. edit: Lindsey
Apparently, interviewing someone else and being interviewed require different skill sets as Anna showed on stage during the event.
I won't harp on this any longer because it looks like you have seen the feedback and started hiring new and hopefully more competent people for their respective jobs in the next season. But there's been a healthy dose of nepotism in the first season of NASL. I know you have to deny it, (that's your job), but it still needs to be pointed out.
On July 13 2011 02:56 Eternalmisfit wrote: There is a lack of apology even in this post and at this point, I can say we can agree to disagree on what good or bad PR and customer service is. Good luck with season 2 and I hope for your sake that despite your posts, you can realize the issue at hand and hopefully not make the same mistakes in the future. Peace out.
You're right, I didn't include a formal apology, so here it is:
On behalf of the entire North American Star League staff, we apologize to the entire SC2 community for changing our Sunday schedule at the last second. We realize this adversely affected some viewers, and we will work hard to ensure the mistake is not repeated in future events.
We are thankful and blessed to have such a passionate fan base which was reflected in the 84,000+ fans who watched the Championship match. We will continue to improve and your continued support is appreciated.
Now put this (or something, or anything) on your website instead of page 16 of a thread on an unaffiliated forum
I agree...it's like you guys don't like to utilize your website or something. Any issues/information/updates/apologies/statements should be up on your website [that's what makes things official]. I guess this is included in your lack of communication to the people.
First, let me just say that the season improved vastly from beginning to end (minus the issue of keeping matches important, which I will discuss below). Casters meshed, production was wildly better, and less walkovers in the second half all made it a solid show to sit down and watch on the days I could make, and largely the players invited were worth watching just to see good games.
Now, here are my two complaints as most of what Xeris said matches with my desired improvements:
1) the VODs are very hard to navigate, take forever to load, and prone to crashing my browser (and I have tried 3 different ones). In addition the site is a little clunky, though in general I found that I did more than just click VOD links and watch the JTV broadcast from the index page, which was good to discover.
2) The regular season is just a little too long, I believe it will be a week shorter next time which is good and with less players, but I would like to see a quicker elimination of players who are failing to make the cut in order to decrease the number of games (without taking away from their awesomeness).
For instance, if you start eliminating players after week 4, or something, you can add way more urgency, importance to viewers and players by creating the need to catch your player and support them or help players discover some extra drive instead of slowly boiling like a toad who doesn't see its end coming . It will also add the thrill of seeing players battle on the edge of making the cut, I can see some real heroes being created with this method.
I really would have enjoyed it more if ( i know you said you wont do it) it was a 4group of 4 players round robin. More games = more fun. +People don't do crazy flights for 15minutes of playing +So much thing can go wrong in 1 of 2 games, that you sometimes loose a series you don't deserve to, much more player friendly
On July 13 2011 03:24 Jampackedeon wrote: First, let me just say that the season improved vastly from beginning to end (minus the issue of keeping matches important, which I will discuss below). Casters meshed, production was wildly better, and less walkovers in the second half all made it a solid show to sit down and watch on the days I could make, and largely the players invited were worth watching just to see good games.
Now, here are my two complaints as most of what Xeris said matches with my desired improvements:
1) the VODs are very hard to navigate, take forever to load, and prone to crashing my browser (and I have tried 3 different ones). In addition the site is a little clunky, though in general I found that I did more than just click VOD links and watch the JTV broadcast from the index page, which was good to discover.
2) The regular season is just a little too long, I believe it will be a week shorter next time which is good and with less players, but I would like to see a quicker elimination of players who are failing to make the cut in order to decrease the number of games (without taking away from their awesomeness).
For instance, if you start eliminating players after week 4, or something, you can add way more urgency, importance to viewers and players by creating the need to catch your player and support them or help players discover some extra drive instead of slowly boiling like a toad who doesn't see its end coming . It will also add the thrill of seeing players battle on the edge of making the cut, I can see some real heroes being created with this method.
as they already answered the idea is to watch the players you like throughout the season. you might not like a player that has not been playing very well but someone might still see all of his games no matter what. For example mc would be eliminated in season 1 by your way of seing it, because he started off really badly. do you think it would be a good thing to eliminate mc(who got to the finals)?
I am quite satisfied with NASL overall. I did not purchase a season pass and still got to enjoy a bunch of games during the season and watched some awesome games in the finals. Thanks for everything NASL staff!
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
What's funny is i have 5 years production experience in broadcasting and even sent NASL my resume yet they ignored it and then put on that attrocity of a broadcast.
It speaks to how much they want their product to succeed. They received an email (if not multiple ones) from experienced staff and chose what seemed like some stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut.
Nepotism in action, baby!
You think Anna and the blond girl got the interview job because they're great interviewers?
Rachel is pretty well known in the community and CSN has provided so much great content from Korea, and Anna is the current Miss Oregon. There's no doubting their interview skills.
See, this is stupid. The fact that you're still making posts like this tells me you've completely missed the point. Yes, they've done stuff before. Doing CSN content is meaningful experience. I really don't know how being Miss Oregon is particularly relevant, but Anna has done some interviews before and so forth. I didn't have a problem with them (though Lindsey or whatever was pretty special), but the definition of a good performance is one that the audience likes. If you have a lot of your audience saying they didn't like their interviews, then saying "there's no doubting their interview skills" is just factually wrong. You can make an informed judgement that with time most people will like the interviews, or that they do now and these people are a minority, but you can't just post saying that they're just factually wrong and how dare they question you. It frankly doesn't matter at all what you think of their interviews or what other experience they have that you think is relevant. What matters is what the audience thinks. The audience opinion can't actually be wrong, and these posters are just expressing their opinion as part of the audience. The only reason things like "they've done interviews" before matter is because it's a sign that the audience is likely to actually like them.
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
What's funny is i have 5 years production experience in broadcasting and even sent NASL my resume yet they ignored it and then put on that attrocity of a broadcast.
It speaks to how much they want their product to succeed. They received an email (if not multiple ones) from experienced staff and chose what seemed like some stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut.
Nepotism in action, baby!
You think Anna and the blond girl got the interview job because they're great interviewers?
Rachel is pretty well known in the community and CSN has provided so much great content from Korea, and Anna is the current Miss Oregon. There's no doubting their interview skills.
I agree. Winning a competition more or less based around standing around in a swimsuit and hoping for world peace translates directly to great interviewing skills. The audio engineer got hired because he's won a local line dancing event?
I mean, come on, you've been getting criticism for not hiring the right people for the job for ages, and now we get answers like this.
(Not a dig at the interviewer girl (anna?), but at miss-whatever elections in general)
I also agree that it would have been tacky to let someone other than Gretorp and InControl cast the finals. For better or worse, they were the face of NASL season 1. Don't get me wrong; I dislike Gre as a caster, but subbing them out would have been wrong.
On July 13 2011 02:56 Eternalmisfit wrote: There is a lack of apology even in this post and at this point, I can say we can agree to disagree on what good or bad PR and customer service is. Good luck with season 2 and I hope for your sake that despite your posts, you can realize the issue at hand and hopefully not make the same mistakes in the future. Peace out.
You're right, I didn't include a formal apology, so here it is:
On behalf of the entire North American Star League staff, we apologize to the entire SC2 community for changing our Sunday schedule at the last second. We realize this adversely affected some viewers, and we will work hard to ensure the mistake is not repeated in future events.
We are thankful and blessed to have such a passionate fan base which was reflected in the 84,000+ fans who watched the Championship match. We will continue to improve and your continued support is appreciated.
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
What's funny is i have 5 years production experience in broadcasting and even sent NASL my resume yet they ignored it and then put on that attrocity of a broadcast.
It speaks to how much they want their product to succeed. They received an email (if not multiple ones) from experienced staff and chose what seemed like some stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut.
Nepotism in action, baby!
You think Anna and the blond girl got the interview job because they're great interviewers?
Rachel is pretty well known in the community and CSN has provided so much great content from Korea, and Anna is the current Miss Oregon. There's no doubting their interview skills.
See, this is stupid. The fact that you're still making posts like this tells me you've completely missed the point. Yes, they've done stuff before. Doing CSN content is meaningful experience. I really don't know how being Miss Oregon is particularly relevant, but Anna has done some interviews before and so forth. I didn't have a problem with them (though Lindsey or whatever was pretty special), but the definition of a good performance is one that the audience likes. If you have a lot of your audience saying they didn't like their interviews, then saying "there's no doubting their interview skills" is just factually wrong. You can make an informed judgement that with time most people will like the interviews, or that they do now and these people are a minority, but you can't just post saying that they're just factually wrong and how dare they question you. It frankly doesn't matter at all what you think of their interviews or what other experience they have that you think is relevant. What matters is what the audience thinks. The audience opinion can't actually be wrong, and these posters are just expressing their opinion as part of the audience. The only reason things like "they've done interviews" before matter is because it's a sign that the audience is likely to actually like them.
Anna has over 2 years of experience interviewing Starcraft players (the first time I remember her was at WCG USA 2009 interviewing people). Rachel has done a LOT of interviewing through her time in Korea. I was responding to the fact that people think it's just nepotism, but it isn't. We brought them to the event to do interviews because they've done a lot of it before.
I've read that a lot of people would rather have someone like Artosis or Day9 doing interviews rather than Anna/Rachel. This point is being taken into consideration for future events. Again, I was responding to people simply saying "they're only here because of nepotism," they were there because of their experience.
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.
This comment here shows me that you guys still don't get it. You're taking people who were critical and lumping them into this group. At the end of the day, none of these people want NASL to fail, they just want a great product and you simply failed to deliver this season. Especially after the way the NASL was hyped and billed as the premier tournament in NA.
What if great companies out there just dismissed customer's complaints as "well, they're just haters." Poor business thinking my friend. I count myself among the critics. I paid my $25 and expected to get a great product and felt that it fell short of that. I will be waiting to see how you address things in season two, but I think you and the NASL leaders need to change how you view your customers.
Best of luck and season 2. As a customer of season one and potential customer in season 2, I will be keeping a watchful eye.
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
What's funny is i have 5 years production experience in broadcasting and even sent NASL my resume yet they ignored it and then put on that attrocity of a broadcast.
It speaks to how much they want their product to succeed. They received an email (if not multiple ones) from experienced staff and chose what seemed like some stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut.
Nepotism in action, baby!
You think Anna and the blond girl got the interview job because they're great interviewers?
Rachel is pretty well known in the community and CSN has provided so much great content from Korea, and Anna is the current Miss Oregon. There's no doubting their interview skills.
See, this is stupid. The fact that you're still making posts like this tells me you've completely missed the point. Yes, they've done stuff before. Doing CSN content is meaningful experience. I really don't know how being Miss Oregon is particularly relevant, but Anna has done some interviews before and so forth. I didn't have a problem with them (though Lindsey or whatever was pretty special), but the definition of a good performance is one that the audience likes. If you have a lot of your audience saying they didn't like their interviews, then saying "there's no doubting their interview skills" is just factually wrong. You can make an informed judgement that with time most people will like the interviews, or that they do now and these people are a minority, but you can't just post saying that they're just factually wrong and how dare they question you. It frankly doesn't matter at all what you think of their interviews or what other experience they have that you think is relevant. What matters is what the audience thinks. The audience opinion can't actually be wrong, and these posters are just expressing their opinion as part of the audience. The only reason things like "they've done interviews" before matter is because it's a sign that the audience is likely to actually like them.
Anna has over 2 years of experience interviewing Starcraft players (the first time I remember her was at WCG USA 2009 interviewing people). Rachel has done a LOT of interviewing through her time in Korea. I was responding to the fact that people think it's just nepotism, but it isn't. We brought them to the event to do interviews because they've done a lot of it before.
I've read that a lot of people would rather have someone like Artosis or Day9 doing interviews rather than Anna/Rachel. This point is being taken into consideration for future events. Again, I was responding to people simply saying "they're only here because of nepotism," they were there because of their experience.
Then say that Anna has 2 years of experience interviewing Starcraft players instead of saying that she is Miss Oregon. I don't really see how that was relevant at all, and it was pretty obvious it would generate a bad response from a lot of people. This is one of those "PR problems" everyone talks about, it doesn't even matter if it was the right choice or not, the way you explained it basically asks for bashing. And you still avoided talking about Lindsay, and you wonder why people say you avoid answering some questions.
This isn't even about wether you are right or wrong, I just don't understand the way you talk to people.
On July 12 2011 23:45 TheResidentEvil wrote: Really don't like the justification for single elimination. You can't compare to MLG saying its single because its not. Boxer flew to your tournament, played 1 series and was done. At MLG, Boxer will play at least 6 series. It is not a fair comparison. The open bracket is double elim also so you should just not even compare to MLG.
MLG does modified double elim. You can lose all your pool play games and it will count as your first loss.
Our format and MLG's format are very different. MLG is a modified tournament. NASL is a league. By the time we have reached the finals, we've already eliminated through regular season records and playoff games 35 of the 50 regular season players.
The Finals for NASL is essentially the last echelons of the playoffs and the championship round. As with other professional sports, there is no double-elimination at this point.
We recognize that the SC2 community is not used to this, and thus a lot of the criticism, but it's a model we're standing by and that we think is critical to the reception and growth of eSports outside of this immediate community.
Sorry pal but this is bullshit. No double elimination because you want to make starcraft more mainstream? Really?
I fail to see how you can make the comparison with other sports when the games themselves are so different. What other sport do you compare Starcraft to and where a match can be over in less than 10 minutes and a complete Bo3 series over in less than half an hour? This is just as exciting as seeing Cobe Bryant break his ankle in the first playoff game and then watching the team tank. It is the extended series of matches and especially the possibility of comebacks that makes the playoffs, and any tournament or game for that fact, interesting.
And how do you see single elimination critical to the reception and growth of eSports outside the community? I feel stupid, but for the life of me I do not see the connection. Do you really think that someone new to the game would care if it is single or double elimination? I am sure that they will be plenty confused with other issues that have nothing to do with this aspect of the format.
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
What's funny is i have 5 years production experience in broadcasting and even sent NASL my resume yet they ignored it and then put on that attrocity of a broadcast.
It speaks to how much they want their product to succeed. They received an email (if not multiple ones) from experienced staff and chose what seemed like some stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut.
Nepotism in action, baby!
You think Anna and the blond girl got the interview job because they're great interviewers?
Rachel is pretty well known in the community and CSN has provided so much great content from Korea, and Anna is the current Miss Oregon. There's no doubting their interview skills.
See, this is stupid. The fact that you're still making posts like this tells me you've completely missed the point. Yes, they've done stuff before. Doing CSN content is meaningful experience. I really don't know how being Miss Oregon is particularly relevant, but Anna has done some interviews before and so forth. I didn't have a problem with them (though Lindsey or whatever was pretty special), but the definition of a good performance is one that the audience likes. If you have a lot of your audience saying they didn't like their interviews, then saying "there's no doubting their interview skills" is just factually wrong. You can make an informed judgement that with time most people will like the interviews, or that they do now and these people are a minority, but you can't just post saying that they're just factually wrong and how dare they question you. It frankly doesn't matter at all what you think of their interviews or what other experience they have that you think is relevant. What matters is what the audience thinks. The audience opinion can't actually be wrong, and these posters are just expressing their opinion as part of the audience. The only reason things like "they've done interviews" before matter is because it's a sign that the audience is likely to actually like them.
Anna has over 2 years of experience interviewing Starcraft players (the first time I remember her was at WCG USA 2009 interviewing people). Rachel has done a LOT of interviewing through her time in Korea. I was responding to the fact that people think it's just nepotism, but it isn't. We brought them to the event to do interviews because they've done a lot of it before.
I've read that a lot of people would rather have someone like Artosis or Day9 doing interviews rather than Anna/Rachel. This point is being taken into consideration for future events. Again, I was responding to people simply saying "they're only here because of nepotism," they were there because of their experience.
Then say that Anna has 2 years of experience interviewing Starcraft players instead of saying that she is Miss Oregon. I don't really see how that was relevant at all, and it was pretty obvious it would generate a bad response from a lot of people. This is one of those "PR problems" everyone talks about, it doesn't even matter if it was the right choice or not, the way you explained it basically asks for bashing. And you still avoided talking about Lindsay, and you wonder why people say you avoid answering some questions.
This isn't even about wether you are right or wrong, I just don't understand the way you talk to people.
What I like about NASL is precisely the league format the regular season...matches five days a week to watch if I was bored, and if I had a favorite player I could make a point of catching at least his matches.
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.
This comment here shows me that you guys still don't get it. You're taking people who were critical and lumping them into this group. At the end of the day, none of these people want NASL to fail, they just want a great product and you simply failed to deliver this season. Especially after the way the NASL was hyped and billed as the premier tournament in NA.
What if great companies out there just dismissed customer's complaints as "well, they're just haters." Poor business thinking my friend. I count myself among the critics. I paid my $25 and expected to get a great product and felt that it fell short of that. I will be waiting to see how you address things in season two, but I think you and the NASL leaders need to change how you view your customers.
Best of luck and season 2. As a customer of season one and potential customer in season 2, I will be keeping a watchful eye.
I don't get what you're saying. Just because I talk about people who are haters or people who just criticize without being constructive doesn't mean we don't listen to them. Were the first days of the NASL the same as the last? Did we listen to criticisms and improve along the way? Was Sunday better than Friday at the Finals? Where do you get the idea that anyone here dismisses criticism?
You can't look at isolated statements taken out of context and make claims about what we get and don't get. I find it frustrating when prominent community members criticize us, yes. But does it mean that we're dismissing them? No. I've said it before and will say it again. We're going to keep improving. The reason I post so often here is because I am listening. If I didn't care I wouldn't post here at all. But I do. I want this to succeed just like everyone else and every day is a constant improvement for us. We learn from our mistakes, and we get better. I've posted so many feedback threads because I want to know what people think, and I want to interact directly with the people who criticize so I know exactly what people's problems are. Sometimes things I say come out wrong, but I hope nobody doubts my intentions !
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.
This comment here shows me that you guys still don't get it. You're taking people who were critical and lumping them into this group. At the end of the day, none of these people want NASL to fail, they just want a great product and you simply failed to deliver this season. Especially after the way the NASL was hyped and billed as the premier tournament in NA.
What if great companies out there just dismissed customer's complaints as "well, they're just haters." Poor business thinking my friend. I count myself among the critics. I paid my $25 and expected to get a great product and felt that it fell short of that. I will be waiting to see how you address things in season two, but I think you and the NASL leaders need to change how you view your customers.
Best of luck and season 2. As a customer of season one and potential customer in season 2, I will be keeping a watchful eye.
I don't get what you're saying. Just because I talk about people who are haters or people who just criticize without being constructive doesn't mean we don't listen to them. Were the first days of the NASL the same as the last? Did we listen to criticisms and improve along the way? Was Sunday better than Friday at the Finals? Where do you get the idea that anyone here dismisses criticism?
You can't look at isolated statements taken out of context and make claims about what we get and don't get. I find it frustrating when prominent community members criticize us, yes. But does it mean that we're dismissing them? No. I've said it before and will say it again. We're going to keep improving. The reason I post so often here is because I am listening. If I didn't care I wouldn't post here at all. But I do. I want this to succeed just like everyone else and every day is a constant improvement for us. We learn from our mistakes, and we get better. I've posted so many feedback threads because I want to know what people think, and I want to interact directly with the people who criticize so I know exactly what people's problems are. Sometimes things I say come out wrong, but I hope nobody doubts my intentions !
<3
i appreciate your efforts, i really do! im 100% sure that the small problems you had in 1st season are already a thing of the past and that this season 2 will become of the same size if not bigger than gsl
I'm really glad you guys are keeping Gretorp on, I thought his casting was poo at first but he's really awesome now and has improved so much as a caster.
Some of the interviews for the finals were a little wonky, I think using Rachel to interview the Koreans exclusively would have been a good idea because of her relation to the Korean scene with a translator present while having Anna interview the English speaking players exclusively would work out better.
Some of the interview questions were also kind of bad, maybe have the questions prepared by like two or three people as the games are going on and come up with 6-7 good questions to go up and ask so we can avoid silly stuff like, "Are you happy you won?", I mean honestly... What's the player going to say? "Fuck no, man... I wanted to lose that game". So have a few people writing down questions pertaining to both the games as they happen and future matches and sort of pick the best and go up there for a good ~5 minute interview with better questions.
Also, the seeding for the finals needs to be reassessed, this is something I didn't see mentioned in your post, Xeris. Honestly, the open bracket is such a major unknown that I can't see many players wanting to really have to deal with that. Just look at the situation with Ret, he claimed first in league play to logically get the lowest ranked opponent and ended up drawing the guy who went on to win the whole thing. Sure that can happen regardless of success seeding but it's kind of a silly reward to be given for first place and also leads to players throwing games to avoid first place as we saw towards the end of the season.
I've heard the pool is being reduced to 45 players and I'm not sure what's happening with the open bracket but the winner of the open bracket should not be placed up against the number 1 player from league play, there are far too many good players who aren't in the league to assume that someone from the open bracket would be inferior to the other 15 finalists and should be seeded at 16th.
Something difficult to do(because you'd have to communicate with the players which apparently has been an issue for the NASL), but ultimately kind of cool would be to have the top 8 players choose their opponent from the bottom 8 and have the open bracket winner placed in the bottom 8 for selection. Selection would go downwards from 1st to 8th so the first seeded player gets to choose anyone in the top 16 and the 8th seeded player gets the last person left. No one would want to throw a game if it meant they had a chance to get to pick one place earlier.
I am kind of astonished by the thinly veiled arrogance that some of what I perceive as NASL's representatives write here exhibits. In all the years I have worked in esports, I have never come across someone who screwed up like this on an event and then had the nerve to give his paying customers sh** about it on top of it. I can only hope someone is wise enough to stop you from typing at some point, because writing nothing is better than what you're writing at the moment.
On July 13 2011 04:07 Xeris wrote: Yes, we're going to re-visit the Open Bracket winner seed. We're also going to introduce some element of group selection for Season 2, so stay tuned!
I love watching the group selections for GSL, so this sounds pretty cool!
On July 13 2011 04:07 Xeris wrote: Yes, we're going to re-visit the Open Bracket winner seed. We're also going to introduce some element of group selection for Season 2, so stay tuned!
and also please readress the finals to something similar to a winners losers bracket please, thats actually the only complaint i have about the brackets of the whole tournament
Do what the GSL did after their season one (remember it had a ton of hiccups). Give all people who previously had a pass a discount on the season two pass for putting up with what happened with season one. If it's gonna be $25 per pass for season 2, make it $15 or $20 for all people who paid for Season one. Put a positive spin on it, not that you fucked up (I think people are being overly critical anyways), but rather that you want to reward returning customers and that you're glad they were understanding of hiccups, etc.
Note: I did not purchase a season 1 pass so it's not like I'm just trying to get a discount myself. I think people are honestly being incredibly over critical of you guys though. I had no problem with the interviewers, I thought Sporrer was fucking hilarious and some nice eye candy, and just took it to be something amusing. It's not like you guys didn't address the time issue, so I'm sure it'll be fixed in the future.
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
What's funny is i have 5 years production experience in broadcasting and even sent NASL my resume yet they ignored it and then put on that attrocity of a broadcast.
It speaks to how much they want their product to succeed. They received an email (if not multiple ones) from experienced staff and chose what seemed like some stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut.
Nepotism in action, baby!
You think Anna and the blond girl got the interview job because they're great interviewers?
Rachel is pretty well known in the community and CSN has provided so much great content from Korea, and Anna is the current Miss Oregon. There's no doubting their interview skills.
See, this is stupid. The fact that you're still making posts like this tells me you've completely missed the point. Yes, they've done stuff before. Doing CSN content is meaningful experience. I really don't know how being Miss Oregon is particularly relevant, but Anna has done some interviews before and so forth. I didn't have a problem with them (though Lindsey or whatever was pretty special), but the definition of a good performance is one that the audience likes. If you have a lot of your audience saying they didn't like their interviews, then saying "there's no doubting their interview skills" is just factually wrong. You can make an informed judgement that with time most people will like the interviews, or that they do now and these people are a minority, but you can't just post saying that they're just factually wrong and how dare they question you. It frankly doesn't matter at all what you think of their interviews or what other experience they have that you think is relevant. What matters is what the audience thinks. The audience opinion can't actually be wrong, and these posters are just expressing their opinion as part of the audience. The only reason things like "they've done interviews" before matter is because it's a sign that the audience is likely to actually like them.
Anna has over 2 years of experience interviewing Starcraft players (the first time I remember her was at WCG USA 2009 interviewing people). Rachel has done a LOT of interviewing through her time in Korea. I was responding to the fact that people think it's just nepotism, but it isn't. We brought them to the event to do interviews because they've done a lot of it before.
I've read that a lot of people would rather have someone like Artosis or Day9 doing interviews rather than Anna/Rachel. This point is being taken into consideration for future events. Again, I was responding to people simply saying "they're only here because of nepotism," they were there because of their experience.
Then say that Anna has 2 years of experience interviewing Starcraft players instead of saying that she is Miss Oregon. I don't really see how that was relevant at all, and it was pretty obvious it would generate a bad response from a lot of people. This is one of those "PR problems" everyone talks about, it doesn't even matter if it was the right choice or not, the way you explained it basically asks for bashing. And you still avoided talking about Lindsay, and you wonder why people say you avoid answering some questions.
This isn't even about wether you are right or wrong, I just don't understand the way you talk to people.
haha <3 I was thinking the same thing, why not just said she has 2 years of experience than Miss Oregon. Completely irrelevant.
On July 13 2011 04:07 Xeris wrote: Yes, we're going to re-visit the Open Bracket winner seed. We're also going to introduce some element of group selection for Season 2, so stay tuned!
Lol its funny how people will act on the internet. They feel like they have a little bit of power and of course they're anonymous so they'll say whatever they want. So we get things like "sorry pal this is bullshit"...."someone needs to take PR lessons"..."stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut"..."generall lack of management"... and a lot of sarcasm. Obviously this isn't how you guys communicate in real life. And there's a reason that's the case - because it's not effective communication. You don't get people to change by insulting them and being completely unconstructive. The only possible purpose of your post is to verbally tear NASL down. The LR threads on the first and second days were absolutely chock full of this.
Thankfully I think the majority of people in this thread are being reasonable and constructive. It's a shame the bad apples won't go away.
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
What's funny is i have 5 years production experience in broadcasting and even sent NASL my resume yet they ignored it and then put on that attrocity of a broadcast.
It speaks to how much they want their product to succeed. They received an email (if not multiple ones) from experienced staff and chose what seemed like some stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut.
Nepotism in action, baby!
You think Anna and the blond girl got the interview job because they're great interviewers?
Rachel is pretty well known in the community and CSN has provided so much great content from Korea, and Anna is the current Miss Oregon. There's no doubting their interview skills.
See, this is stupid. The fact that you're still making posts like this tells me you've completely missed the point. Yes, they've done stuff before. Doing CSN content is meaningful experience. I really don't know how being Miss Oregon is particularly relevant, but Anna has done some interviews before and so forth. I didn't have a problem with them (though Lindsey or whatever was pretty special), but the definition of a good performance is one that the audience likes. If you have a lot of your audience saying they didn't like their interviews, then saying "there's no doubting their interview skills" is just factually wrong. You can make an informed judgement that with time most people will like the interviews, or that they do now and these people are a minority, but you can't just post saying that they're just factually wrong and how dare they question you. It frankly doesn't matter at all what you think of their interviews or what other experience they have that you think is relevant. What matters is what the audience thinks. The audience opinion can't actually be wrong, and these posters are just expressing their opinion as part of the audience. The only reason things like "they've done interviews" before matter is because it's a sign that the audience is likely to actually like them.
Anna has over 2 years of experience interviewing Starcraft players (the first time I remember her was at WCG USA 2009 interviewing people). Rachel has done a LOT of interviewing through her time in Korea. I was responding to the fact that people think it's just nepotism, but it isn't. We brought them to the event to do interviews because they've done a lot of it before.
I've read that a lot of people would rather have someone like Artosis or Day9 doing interviews rather than Anna/Rachel. This point is being taken into consideration for future events. Again, I was responding to people simply saying "they're only here because of nepotism," they were there because of their experience.
Then say that Anna has 2 years of experience interviewing Starcraft players instead of saying that she is Miss Oregon. I don't really see how that was relevant at all, and it was pretty obvious it would generate a bad response from a lot of people. This is one of those "PR problems" everyone talks about, it doesn't even matter if it was the right choice or not, the way you explained it basically asks for bashing. And you still avoided talking about Lindsay, and you wonder why people say you avoid answering some questions.
This isn't even about wether you are right or wrong, I just don't understand the way you talk to people.
haha <3 I was thinking the same thing, why not just said she has 2 years of experience than Miss Oregon. Completely irrelevant.
It's not irrevelant, as beauty pageant contestants you are trained to handle interviews well, literally you get classes/lessons on how to go through and conduct interviews for any serious beauty pageant contestants.
Again people are just reaching for anything to grab at, it's kind of sad.
I thought the interviewers were fine (I've seen interviews by both Rachel and Anna that I've liked). I'd say the problems would be an awkward position and setup for the interview (too noisy, felt too in the mix of things) and awkward translations (the translator was great, but handing off the mic constantly and the waiting was pretty awkward) made the thing feel a bit weird. If possible it'd be nice if the translator at the very least had a clip-on mic, even better if it was the interviewer and the translator so you could just hold the mic up for the player at all times. Or delay the interview a bit and get all 3 micced up with clip-on mics. Anything to make the interview go smoother.
I enjoyed the season overall, but what I want to see is just more consistency. Less issues with the mics, better sound levels, a more stable camera angle that's properly centered and zoomed in on the casters, games all in the right order, all that stuff.
The format was enjoyable, the games great, and graphical effects and what not were good. It's just the consistency of the other stuff that detracted from the otherwise good league. You may feel you're being judged harshly on any little slip-ups, but mostly it's because you've made mistakes in the past that people judge harshly and making further mistakes is just going to cause people to think you haven't changed.
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
What's funny is i have 5 years production experience in broadcasting and even sent NASL my resume yet they ignored it and then put on that attrocity of a broadcast.
It speaks to how much they want their product to succeed. They received an email (if not multiple ones) from experienced staff and chose what seemed like some stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut.
Nepotism in action, baby!
You think Anna and the blond girl got the interview job because they're great interviewers?
Rachel is pretty well known in the community and CSN has provided so much great content from Korea, and Anna is the current Miss Oregon. There's no doubting their interview skills.
See, this is stupid. The fact that you're still making posts like this tells me you've completely missed the point. Yes, they've done stuff before. Doing CSN content is meaningful experience. I really don't know how being Miss Oregon is particularly relevant, but Anna has done some interviews before and so forth. I didn't have a problem with them (though Lindsey or whatever was pretty special), but the definition of a good performance is one that the audience likes. If you have a lot of your audience saying they didn't like their interviews, then saying "there's no doubting their interview skills" is just factually wrong. You can make an informed judgement that with time most people will like the interviews, or that they do now and these people are a minority, but you can't just post saying that they're just factually wrong and how dare they question you. It frankly doesn't matter at all what you think of their interviews or what other experience they have that you think is relevant. What matters is what the audience thinks. The audience opinion can't actually be wrong, and these posters are just expressing their opinion as part of the audience. The only reason things like "they've done interviews" before matter is because it's a sign that the audience is likely to actually like them.
Anna has over 2 years of experience interviewing Starcraft players (the first time I remember her was at WCG USA 2009 interviewing people). Rachel has done a LOT of interviewing through her time in Korea. I was responding to the fact that people think it's just nepotism, but it isn't. We brought them to the event to do interviews because they've done a lot of it before.
I've read that a lot of people would rather have someone like Artosis or Day9 doing interviews rather than Anna/Rachel. This point is being taken into consideration for future events. Again, I was responding to people simply saying "they're only here because of nepotism," they were there because of their experience.
Then say that Anna has 2 years of experience interviewing Starcraft players instead of saying that she is Miss Oregon. I don't really see how that was relevant at all, and it was pretty obvious it would generate a bad response from a lot of people. This is one of those "PR problems" everyone talks about, it doesn't even matter if it was the right choice or not, the way you explained it basically asks for bashing. And you still avoided talking about Lindsay, and you wonder why people say you avoid answering some questions.
This isn't even about wether you are right or wrong, I just don't understand the way you talk to people.
haha <3 I was thinking the same thing, why not just said she has 2 years of experience than Miss Oregon. Completely irrelevant.
Yes, I should have said that first. Please to forgive. <3
On July 13 2011 04:08 FlyingDJ wrote: I am kind of astonished by the thinly veiled arrogance that some of what I perceive as NASL's representatives write here exhibits. In all the years I have worked in esports, I have never come across someone who screwed up like this on an event and then had the nerve to give his paying customers sh** about it on top of it. I can only hope someone is wise enough to stop you from typing at some point, because writing nothing is better than what you're writing at the moment.
Anyone who starts a sentence with "in all the years I have worked in esports" is clearly incapable of understanding the scene and what people do for it.
Pretty much everything has been discussed by this point.
I'm in the group that thinks there should be a double elim/group play since you have so much time anyways. If not bo5 at the very least with much better seeding system.
Also, you have 3 of the top people in the foreign esports scene (day9 tastosis)... use them. And no I don't just mean casting. If you need to fill time have them do stuff. Have them play eachother, or go over a game or do something with the crowd. Don't just have them walk out to announce the players and disappear back into the shadows.
On July 13 2011 04:15 QTIP. wrote: I didn't consider season 1 a polished enough product to purchase the ticket, but season 2 may change that. These changes look good. GL
I think one of your challenges is that NASL is a combination of 2 things--a live event and a broadcast. I think you need to decide which you are primarily. If the live event is a money-maker, then just remind fans that you are event-driven, and if they want the full experience they need to attend the event. But if the money is in the subscriptions, then the live event needs to be secondary.
I wasn't at the live event, so I can't speak of how to improve it. But I can speak on the broadcast. The most important things are: (1) the best players in the world, (2) great commentators, (3) great streaming with quality options and no lag, (4) a good user interface on the web site with helpful information about when matches will start.
In my opinion, you nailed (1) and (2), but (3) and (4) need significant improvement. If the live event is hampering the broadcast, compromise the live event to ensure that the broadcast is top-notch. Viewers need to know when matches start and they need to have a decent quality broadcast with no lag. If Justin.tv can't provide this, find someone who can. If the live event format can't coexist with a satisfying broadcast, change the live event. (That is assuming the live event isn't a huge money-maker.)
Whatever changes you make, do not compromise (1) and (2). Like I said, you nailed these, and they are what will keep viewers coming back. For instance, if spreading the prize money out will make live-event attendees like White-Ra happier, but will make top players less likely to sign up in the first place, don't do it. Of course White-Ra wants more money for Ro16 finishes--that's where he finished. Would he still have signed up if the first place prize was only $25,000?
On that note, in Puma's interview after the Squirtle match, Anna asked him if it was more important to him to win the money or beat the best players, and he said "I just want more people to know who I am." I think money and fame are the biggest draws for top players. So, make a BIG deal about Puma. Do what you can to make him famous. Produce a high-end video of his highlights with crowds cheering, and end with him holding the check for $50,000 surrounded by booth babes. Put it on YouTube and wherever else your target market spends time. I would make it your goal to make sure EVERYONE who plays Starcraft knows who he is. That is what will keep the big names coming back and ensure the quality of NASL.
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
What's funny is i have 5 years production experience in broadcasting and even sent NASL my resume yet they ignored it and then put on that attrocity of a broadcast.
It speaks to how much they want their product to succeed. They received an email (if not multiple ones) from experienced staff and chose what seemed like some stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut.
Nepotism in action, baby!
You think Anna and the blond girl got the interview job because they're great interviewers?
Rachel is pretty well known in the community and CSN has provided so much great content from Korea, and Anna is the current Miss Oregon. There's no doubting their interview skills.
See, this is stupid. The fact that you're still making posts like this tells me you've completely missed the point. Yes, they've done stuff before. Doing CSN content is meaningful experience. I really don't know how being Miss Oregon is particularly relevant, but Anna has done some interviews before and so forth. I didn't have a problem with them (though Lindsey or whatever was pretty special), but the definition of a good performance is one that the audience likes. If you have a lot of your audience saying they didn't like their interviews, then saying "there's no doubting their interview skills" is just factually wrong. You can make an informed judgement that with time most people will like the interviews, or that they do now and these people are a minority, but you can't just post saying that they're just factually wrong and how dare they question you. It frankly doesn't matter at all what you think of their interviews or what other experience they have that you think is relevant. What matters is what the audience thinks. The audience opinion can't actually be wrong, and these posters are just expressing their opinion as part of the audience. The only reason things like "they've done interviews" before matter is because it's a sign that the audience is likely to actually like them.
Anna has over 2 years of experience interviewing Starcraft players (the first time I remember her was at WCG USA 2009 interviewing people). Rachel has done a LOT of interviewing through her time in Korea. I was responding to the fact that people think it's just nepotism, but it isn't. We brought them to the event to do interviews because they've done a lot of it before.
I've read that a lot of people would rather have someone like Artosis or Day9 doing interviews rather than Anna/Rachel. This point is being taken into consideration for future events. Again, I was responding to people simply saying "they're only here because of nepotism," they were there because of their experience.
Then say that Anna has 2 years of experience interviewing Starcraft players instead of saying that she is Miss Oregon. I don't really see how that was relevant at all, and it was pretty obvious it would generate a bad response from a lot of people. This is one of those "PR problems" everyone talks about, it doesn't even matter if it was the right choice or not, the way you explained it basically asks for bashing. And you still avoided talking about Lindsay, and you wonder why people say you avoid answering some questions.
This isn't even about wether you are right or wrong, I just don't understand the way you talk to people.
lol @ how unreasonable this is. You say that Xeris's simple statement that Anna was Miss Oregon and therefore has interview experience (which is 100% correct, btw) is a "PR problem" and "basically asks for bashing." WTF???? It's a harmless, non-confrontational post on an internet forum. You're completely taking him to task on something that is actually insignificant.
On July 13 2011 03:21 bbulzibar wrote: I've read every post in the entire thread, and I too few people supported Xeris's decision to have incontrol and gretorp cast the finals. I absolutely think this was the right move. I would be horrified if I casted the entire regular season, only to be dumped for the finals by people who flew in for a weekend. It doesn't matter if tastosis would have done a better job, you can't treat your people like disposable diapers. Kudos on making the right choice, and treating your casters well!!!
Yep, you got it, that is exactly our position and was our reasoning. Well done sir
On July 13 2011 04:13 Doodsmack wrote: Lol its funny how people will act on the internet. They feel like they have a little bit of power and of course they're anonymous so they'll say whatever they want. So we get things like "sorry pal this is bullshit"...."someone needs to take PR lessons"..."stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut"..."generall lack of management"... and a lot of sarcasm. Obviously this isn't how you guys communicate in real life. And there's a reason that's the case - because it's not effective communication. You don't get people to change by insulting them and being completely unconstructive. The only possible purpose of your post is to verbally tear NASL down. The LR threads on the first and second days were absolutely chock full of this.
Thankfully I think the majority of people in this thread are being reasonable and constructive. It's a shame the bad apples won't go away.
I posted the "sorry pal this is bullshit" post, and I was responding to something which is bullshit.
But anyhow, instead of reducing my post to the opening one-liner, why not comment on the following paragraphs which explained why the quoted post was bullshit?
On July 13 2011 03:21 bbulzibar wrote: I've read every post in the entire thread, and I too few people supported Xeris's decision to have incontrol and gretorp cast the finals. I absolutely think this was the right move. I would be horrified if I casted the entire regular season, only to be dumped for the finals by people who flew in for a weekend. It doesn't matter if tastosis would have done a better job, you can't treat your people like disposable diapers. Kudos on making the right choice, and treating your casters well!!!
Yep, you got it, that is exactly our position and was our reasoning. Well done sir
Sorry for the jab, but can you look Ret in the eyes and say the same?
Hey Xeris, I'm not sure if this was answered anywhere, but who is replacing Incontrol for casting?
Also, when I first tuned in on Friday for the finals, I thought it was going to be terrible (due to the terrible production value at the start), but by the end it was better than MLG!
Lindsey did a great job for the situation she was in, I have nothing but respect for her. If you watched Weapon of Choice this weekend, djWheat made an excellent point though, why did you hire someone to walk around and do interviews who had no knowledge about the community or game? Why not at least give her a brief education or rundown first if she was your only choice ("flashcards" like wheat said would work too)? It was a huge missed opportunity. This seems to be a central theme of NASL, putting people who are not qualified to do what they are doing in a position where they will undoubtedly make mistakes.
The sound issue is another one you dodged most of, the sound was bad all weekend, even up to the finals where we missed two interview questions. Big thumbs up to gunrun for trying to help, but the bigger problem is why would you need the help of an audience member in the first place? Do you think at a concert the sound guy(s) would let or need anyone from the audience to come help? It seems like yet another case of putting someone (infamous "sound guy") who wasn't qualified in a position where they would struggle. It is not fair to the people you are doing this to, or your audience.
Lastly the web-site is atrocious, not just in terms of design but in terms of getting any information out of. It is often not updated until the last minute if at all. There are probably volunteers from the community who would jump to help you and design a website that is 10x better than the one you have now (which I seriously hope you are not paying someone for).
I was a subscriber and a fairly consistent viewer, and I don't want to rehash what has been said many times before, just a few things to consider:
1) Keep the rules consistent:
To me, the single worst decision of the season what the arbitrary reduction of the number of qualifiers from the second tournament from 8 to 4. Some players may have chosen not to enter the first one because of other commitments, knowing they had an equal chance of qualifying for season 2 in the second tournament. I'm a fan (serious) of the league, but this single decision was nearly a deal-killing turnoff, because it undermined the up/down nature of the league that implies the best players that are interested have a chance of qualifying. Even to this date, there is no communication how you intend to order the "standby" players that would have been otherwise qualified before the mid-season rule change.
2) Consistent and accurate information:
If the goal is to be a professional league, act like one with regard to standings and playoffs. Why is the website standing page often not up to date, and on the rare occasions that it was, it still contained inaccurate stats. You want fans to follow the league and play 'what-if,' with the results and the upcoming matches, why not provide accurate tools to encourage that?
3) Do what you are doing already, by addressing the major concerns:
Now that there really is an up/down process for choosing players, I think the open tournament invite to the finals is less important than it was in season one. In season one, it made sense, give the rather arbitrary selection of the initial 50 players.
The sound quality (compared with the great video quality) was weak - sorry to repeat what others said, but that needs to be addressed.
I think some of the other changes you are proposing make sense, like changing to a best-of-5 in the early matches of the finals.
Again, I'm a fairly happy customer, and I'll be buying season 2, just hoping you're honestly interested in addressing this feedback!
On July 13 2011 04:27 Hammurabio wrote: Just to be clear, being a national beauty contestant alone does not make anyone good at interviews. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww
To be fair, Anna has done some very good interviews in the past. So pulling up some random beauty queen who flopped miserably does not necessarily make for terrible interview skills. Also of note is role, in the video you linked she's the interviewee, not interviewer.
On July 13 2011 03:21 bbulzibar wrote: I've read every post in the entire thread, and I too few people supported Xeris's decision to have incontrol and gretorp cast the finals. I absolutely think this was the right move. I would be horrified if I casted the entire regular season, only to be dumped for the finals by people who flew in for a weekend. It doesn't matter if tastosis would have done a better job, you can't treat your people like disposable diapers. Kudos on making the right choice, and treating your casters well!!!
Yep, you got it, that is exactly our position and was our reasoning. Well done sir
Sorry for the jab, but can you look Ret in the eyes and say the same?
Not sure what Ret has to do with the casters we chose. I talked to Ret several times during the tournament. BTW, Ret stayed for nearly every single second of the Finals after he was eliminated, and was gracious and supportive of the entire event. He's coming back strong next season and is ready to continue his strong competitive position within the NASL.
On July 13 2011 04:17 ZergFerguson wrote: I think one of your challenges is that NASL is a combination of 2 things--a live event and a broadcast. I think you need to decide which you are primarily. If the live event is a money-maker, then just remind fans that you are event-driven, and if they want the full experience they need to attend the event. But if the money is in the subscriptions, then the live event needs to be secondary.
I wasn't at the live event, so I can't speak of how to improve it. But I can speak on the broadcast. The most important things are: (1) the best players in the world, (2) great commentators, (3) great streaming with quality options and no lag, (4) a good user interface on the web site with helpful information about when matches will start.
In my opinion, you nailed (1) and (2), but (3) and (4) need significant improvement. If the live event is hampering the broadcast, compromise the live event to ensure that the broadcast is top-notch. Viewers need to know when matches start and they need to have a decent quality broadcast with no lag. If Justin.tv can't provide this, find someone who can. If the live event format can't coexist with a satisfying broadcast, change the live event. (That is assuming the live event isn't a huge money-maker.)
Whatever changes you make, do not compromise (1) and (2). Like I said, you nailed these, and they are what will keep viewers coming back. For instance, if spreading the prize money out will make live-event attendees like White-Ra happier, but will make top players less likely to sign up in the first place, don't do it. Of course White-Ra wants more money for Ro16 finishes--that's where he finished. Would he still have signed up if the first place prize was only $25,000?
On that note, in Puma's interview after the Squirtle match, Anna asked him if it was more important to him to win the money or beat the best players, and he said "I just want more people to know who I am." I think money and fame are the biggest draws for top players. So, make a BIG deal about Puma. Do what you can to make him famous. Produce a high-end video of his highlights with crowds cheering, and end with him holding the check for $50,000 surrounded by booth babes. Put it on YouTube and wherever else your target market spends time. I would make it your goal to make sure EVERYONE who plays Starcraft knows who he is. That is what will keep the big names coming back and ensure the quality of NASL.
Heya, thanks for the feedback. I'll respond!
Website: We understand the limitations with our current website. This is something we plan to work on moving forward. We hope that we'll be able to update it so that it's easier to find and display information in addition to making a much better VOD interface.
Streaming: Having a custom built CDN is really expensive, and to be honest, outside of our capabilities right now. GSL and MLG have their own streaming because they can afford it. In a perfect world, we'll get there one day. For now, Justin.tv really helps make this event possible. They've been great and incredibly supportive of us and have tried to do whatever they could to make our streams as good as possible. We want to make some tweaks in Season 2 to make it better (I.E. we just got a sick fiber internet at the studio so we won't have any more lag on our end, we're working on getting multiple transcodes of different quality VODS, we've got different transcodes of the stream at different quality now).
Live Event vs Stream: This is definitely true. We are going to do a lot more in Season 2 to make this better. We could have utilized Day9 and Artosis more throughout the weekend aside from casting and MC'ing, and can have other events for the stream going on, etc. We'll make sure to address this for next season.
As far as prize distribution goes: It's a tough balance. People who lose early don't like the top heavy payout, but those at the top do. At this point, I'd rather not change the payout, but say that... if we get additional funds, our priority would be:
- more accommodations for players (I.E. giving them larger stipends to try and fully cover travel cost) - fill out the prize pool from the bottom up
Obviously however, all additional fund would go first into improving // streamlining production, and prize/player accommodation would be secondary.
On July 13 2011 04:17 ZergFerguson wrote: On that note, in Puma's interview after the Squirtle match, Anna asked him if it was more important to him to win the money or beat the best players, and he said "I just want more people to know who I am." I think money and fame are the biggest draws for top players. So, make a BIG deal about Puma. Do what you can to make him famous. Produce a high-end video of his highlights with crowds cheering, and end with him holding the check for $50,000 surrounded by booth babes. Put it on YouTube and wherever else your target market spends time. I would make it your goal to make sure EVERYONE who plays Starcraft knows who he is. That is what will keep the big names coming back and ensure the quality of NASL.
Dude, you are brilliant. This is exactly the type of "value-add" organizations need to think about -- i.e. adding to the value of your event without large direct expenses like raising the prizepool.
Edit: Xeris, your response above is the best one I've seen in the entire thread!!! That type of response is what makes me believe that you are taking responsibility and not blaming others, shows what your priorities are and steps you are taking to improve, and makes me really excited about season 2!
On July 13 2011 04:29 Duravi wrote: Lindsey did a great job for the situation she was in, I have nothing but respect for her. If you watched Weapon of Choice this weekend, djWheat made an excellent point though, why did you hire someone to walk around and do interviews who had no knowledge about the community or game? Why not at least give her a brief education or rundown first if she was your only choice? It was a huge missed opportunity. This seems to be a central theme of NASL, putting people who are not qualified to do what they are doing in a position where they will undoubtedly make mistakes.
The sound issue is another one you dodged most of, the sound was bad all weekend, even up to the finals where we missed two interview questions. Big thumbs up to gunrun for trying to help, but the bigger problem is why would you need the help of an audience member in the first place? Do you think at a concert the sound guy(s) would let or need anyone from the audience to come help? It seems like yet another case of putting someone (infamous "sound guy") who wasn't qualified in a position where they would struggle. It is not fair to the people you are doing this to, or your audience.
Lastly the web-site is atrocious, not just in terms of design but in terms of getting any information out of. It is often not updated until the last minute if at all. There are probably volunteers from the community who would jump to help you and design a website that is 10x better than the one you have now (which I seriously hope you are not paying someone for).
First: Gunrun isn't an audience member. He's an employee at Justin.tv and it's his job to help fix stream issues, which is what he was doing. He was also rotating with Gretorp doing observing of games.
We're aware of the sound problems. We're going to be working to fix them so it hopefully won't happen at our next event!
It's a bit weird that you have rebroadcast for EU for the regular season, but not for the actual finals. I think this is a missed chance, you could 'easily' fix this by doing a full rebroadcast of the whole finals like MLG does, including commercials. I think this would add revenue and potential viewers.
On July 13 2011 04:38 Cajun2k1 wrote: It's a bit weird that you have rebroadcast for EU for the regular season, but not for the actual finals. I think this is a missed chance, you could 'easily' fix this by doing a full rebroadcast of the whole finals like MLG does, including commercials. I think this would add revenue and potential viewers.
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
What's funny is i have 5 years production experience in broadcasting and even sent NASL my resume yet they ignored it and then put on that attrocity of a broadcast.
It speaks to how much they want their product to succeed. They received an email (if not multiple ones) from experienced staff and chose what seemed like some stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut.
Nepotism in action, baby!
You think Anna and the blond girl got the interview job because they're great interviewers?
Rachel is pretty well known in the community and CSN has provided so much great content from Korea, and Anna is the current Miss Oregon. There's no doubting their interview skills.
See, this is stupid. The fact that you're still making posts like this tells me you've completely missed the point. Yes, they've done stuff before. Doing CSN content is meaningful experience. I really don't know how being Miss Oregon is particularly relevant, but Anna has done some interviews before and so forth. I didn't have a problem with them (though Lindsey or whatever was pretty special), but the definition of a good performance is one that the audience likes. If you have a lot of your audience saying they didn't like their interviews, then saying "there's no doubting their interview skills" is just factually wrong. You can make an informed judgement that with time most people will like the interviews, or that they do now and these people are a minority, but you can't just post saying that they're just factually wrong and how dare they question you. It frankly doesn't matter at all what you think of their interviews or what other experience they have that you think is relevant. What matters is what the audience thinks. The audience opinion can't actually be wrong, and these posters are just expressing their opinion as part of the audience. The only reason things like "they've done interviews" before matter is because it's a sign that the audience is likely to actually like them.
Anna has over 2 years of experience interviewing Starcraft players (the first time I remember her was at WCG USA 2009 interviewing people). Rachel has done a LOT of interviewing through her time in Korea. I was responding to the fact that people think it's just nepotism, but it isn't. We brought them to the event to do interviews because they've done a lot of it before.
I've read that a lot of people would rather have someone like Artosis or Day9 doing interviews rather than Anna/Rachel. This point is being taken into consideration for future events. Again, I was responding to people simply saying "they're only here because of nepotism," they were there because of their experience.
Then say that Anna has 2 years of experience interviewing Starcraft players instead of saying that she is Miss Oregon. I don't really see how that was relevant at all, and it was pretty obvious it would generate a bad response from a lot of people. This is one of those "PR problems" everyone talks about, it doesn't even matter if it was the right choice or not, the way you explained it basically asks for bashing. And you still avoided talking about Lindsay, and you wonder why people say you avoid answering some questions.
This isn't even about wether you are right or wrong, I just don't understand the way you talk to people.
lol @ how unreasonable this is. You say that Xeris's simple statement that Anna was Miss Oregon and therefore has interview experience (which is 100% correct, btw) is a "PR problem" and "basically asks for bashing." WTF???? It's a harmless, non-confrontational post on an internet forum. You're completely taking him to task on something that is actually insignificant.
Please, Xeris himself admited he should have said that instead. And yes, that is asking for a bashing. I think he has been a part of the community long enough to see how people will react to an statement like that, be it valid or not. There is no reason to create a problem when you don't have to, specially if you have much better reason to back something up.
The internet is funny like that, it's those small things that lead to the NASL being treated this baddly by the community, people cling to small mistakes like that all the time. Just look at the few posts after his statement. The hate is definatelly unreasonable, but there is no reason to add fuel to the fire. If there are better ways to communicate something, it's better PR to actually use them, specially if you are accused of lacking PR skills. I can't see how this is so unreasonable.
This was also not the first time I've seen him expresses himself badly, and by the number of people agreeing with me, it seems I wasn't the only one. I tried to be respectfull and sorry if those things don't matter to you, but you should know that it the internet doesn't consider those kinds of posts harmless.
Thanks for the well articulated explanation about the whole thing. As much as people here (me included) liked to complain about things as they happened this entire season, it was because we wanted it to work as badly as you guys did. Thanks for all the hard work so far and really looking forward to season 2.
i said it before, a league with swiss format (64 players & 6 rounds) bring 192 matches, instead of the actually 225 matches. it's more easy in the edition, and could bring more NA players.
I was a season 1 subscriber and I subscribed from basically Incontrol's announcement that was an actual announcement. Since you asked for feedback, I will gladly give it to you.
I think your biggest problem is in marketing, not in actual execution. I thought the whole NASL was fine. The first week was rough, but it got better as the season went along. The same can be said for the Finals between Friday and Sunday. All of that is fine with me; I understand that your first time running of all this is difficult.
The reason I think there are so many haters, and also why I was ultimately disappointed, is because you did not come out saying "Hey, we are making this large league with a serious prize pool. Come check us out!" You came out and said "We are making this large league with a serious prize pool, and our quality will be better than the GSL. Come check us out!" Now, you may just have been speaking to the fact that you were offering 1080p and the GSL wasn't. In fact, I am sure that is what you were saying specifically. But the way it was presented, you had made a comparison with one of the most popular tournaments in SC2. How could people not compare it then?
From then on, every thing you have done is tainted by that comparison. That statement, which was made multiple times by more than one of your representatives, really hurt you. And you kept on emphasizing that you wanted the most professional of leagues. This is all great, and I am glad that that was your goal. But you should not have been advertising something you were incapable of delivering. If you hadn't presented yourselves as a super professional SC2 league that was on par with the best Korean league in the world, you wouldn't be having most of these problems.
On July 12 2011 13:11 Xeris wrote: A big issue raised by players were the times (for the Koreans), and servers. We are working on strategies to alleviate this problem. However, both fans and players must understand that there is a reason for the way we do things. As for playing the matches live, this seems to be a strikingly better option than casting off replays. Replay casting requires much more policing of players. There is a reason it takes IPL so long to happen despite it being announced months ago. Because they cast from replays, players don't have as much incentive to play their matches on time. Casting from replays means players (or an admin + players) need to schedule match times themselves. Players (fact) are irresponsible and mostly lazy, even with huge prize pools. Leaving it up to them means that there will be delays. We had pre-set times so that the players knew every single week exactly when they had to play. The specific time varied slightly, but if I'm a player I know that "every single Monday between 1-3pm I need to be available for Starcraft matches." This is much more stable and consistent than having players arrange times themselves and replay cast.
Another mixed expectations issue is the live casting part. This is more of a miscommunication than a marketing problem, but to a lot of people there was an impression of the NASL being live casted, and 7 weeks into it people were confused on whether there was live casting or not. I understand how it works: you cast the games as they happen, but then you play that cast at a later time. The problem I really have, is that it really does not make sense why this is the case over replays.
I read your point above, and that is a legitimate concern. If you think it is more stable to cast live, then that is fine. But live casting, the way you portrayed it, had the implication of fan interaction. If there is a problem in a GSL cast or the Homestory Cup, Tastosis or Take can talk directly to the stream and fix it. If Day9 wants to do a live poll, he can because it is live. The way you've done it though, there is no difference between watching it live and watching it through a VOD.
This is a place where I feel like doing it through replays isn't that big of a deal. I personally thought the TSL3 was the best tournament I have seen so far, and it has nothing to do with production since production was non-existant. They just happen to have the best games with the best hype that also delivered on the hype. But I also never felt as if the replays hurt them. I honestly don't particularly care whether or not you use replays. This isn't something I want (as in I don't want it to be like the TSL). I just feel as though the live casting thing was miscommunicated, and having it from replays doesn't confuse while also not hurting your product.
_________
I do have another issue though. I rarely was able to watch the live stream. I have a pretty terrible internet, so the VODs work much better for me (and I don't really need the lower resolution; 1080p VODs is fine since I can let them load overnight or whatever). My issue here is with your website. Your website design is not great, but it's not terrible either. I think some people are being too harsh on the website (except for the scheduling thing). The website does what it needs to do. But it does not do enough. I never used your website, because your website had no recommendations. I realize it might be slightly insulting to your players in the league to recommend certain people's games over others, but with so many games 5 days a week for 9 weeks, it is not realistic to expect everyone to watch every game.
So what I did was wait until TeamLiquid threads had their recommended games polls finished, and then I watched those VODs. There has to be some way to do something like that for your website as well. You could add a poll for the live stream, or on the website after the game is done to figure out whether you should recommend it or not. Or you could link from your website to the TeamLiquid thread discussing it. I realize you guys are not associated with TeamLiquid, but I really have no reason to go to your website at any time and it would be helpful to VOD watchers like me.
Anyways, in conclusion I did want to say that I enjoyed watching the NASL. There were some truly awesome games, and I feel the experience has been worth it. But because of your problem with communicating your execution properly, I am not certain whether I will purchase a second season ticket. I'm still thinking about it.
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
What's funny is i have 5 years production experience in broadcasting and even sent NASL my resume yet they ignored it and then put on that attrocity of a broadcast.
It speaks to how much they want their product to succeed. They received an email (if not multiple ones) from experienced staff and chose what seemed like some stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut.
Nepotism in action, baby!
You think Anna and the blond girl got the interview job because they're great interviewers?
Rachel is pretty well known in the community and CSN has provided so much great content from Korea, and Anna is the current Miss Oregon. There's no doubting their interview skills.
See, this is stupid. The fact that you're still making posts like this tells me you've completely missed the point. Yes, they've done stuff before. Doing CSN content is meaningful experience. I really don't know how being Miss Oregon is particularly relevant, but Anna has done some interviews before and so forth. I didn't have a problem with them (though Lindsey or whatever was pretty special), but the definition of a good performance is one that the audience likes. If you have a lot of your audience saying they didn't like their interviews, then saying "there's no doubting their interview skills" is just factually wrong. You can make an informed judgement that with time most people will like the interviews, or that they do now and these people are a minority, but you can't just post saying that they're just factually wrong and how dare they question you. It frankly doesn't matter at all what you think of their interviews or what other experience they have that you think is relevant. What matters is what the audience thinks. The audience opinion can't actually be wrong, and these posters are just expressing their opinion as part of the audience. The only reason things like "they've done interviews" before matter is because it's a sign that the audience is likely to actually like them.
Anna has over 2 years of experience interviewing Starcraft players (the first time I remember her was at WCG USA 2009 interviewing people). Rachel has done a LOT of interviewing through her time in Korea. I was responding to the fact that people think it's just nepotism, but it isn't. We brought them to the event to do interviews because they've done a lot of it before.
I've read that a lot of people would rather have someone like Artosis or Day9 doing interviews rather than Anna/Rachel. This point is being taken into consideration for future events. Again, I was responding to people simply saying "they're only here because of nepotism," they were there because of their experience.
Then say that Anna has 2 years of experience interviewing Starcraft players instead of saying that she is Miss Oregon. I don't really see how that was relevant at all, and it was pretty obvious it would generate a bad response from a lot of people. This is one of those "PR problems" everyone talks about, it doesn't even matter if it was the right choice or not, the way you explained it basically asks for bashing. And you still avoided talking about Lindsay, and you wonder why people say you avoid answering some questions.
This isn't even about wether you are right or wrong, I just don't understand the way you talk to people.
lol @ how unreasonable this is. You say that Xeris's simple statement that Anna was Miss Oregon and therefore has interview experience (which is 100% correct, btw) is a "PR problem" and "basically asks for bashing." WTF???? It's a harmless, non-confrontational post on an internet forum. You're completely taking him to task on something that is actually insignificant.
Please, Xeris himself admited he should have said that instead. And yes, that is asking for a bashing. I think he has been a part of the community long enough to see how people will react to an statement like that, be it valid or not. There is no reason to create a problem when you don't have to, specially if you have much better reason to back something up.
The internet is funny like that, it's those small things that lead to the NASL being treated this baddly by the community, people cling to small mistakes like that all the time. Just look at the few posts after his statement. The hate is definatelly unreasonable, but there is no reason to add fuel to the fire. If there are better ways to communicate something, it's better PR to actually use them, specially if you are accused of lacking PR skills. I can't see how this is so unreasonable.
This was also not the first time I've seen him expresses himself badly, and by the number of people agreeing with me, it seems I wasn't the only one. I tried to be respectfull and sorry if those things don't matter to you, but you should know that it the internet doesn't consider those kinds of posts harmless.
I've also been around long enough for people to know that that's just how I am I'm not making an excuse, because I need to frame myself better a lot of the time. Anyway, its cleared up.
On July 13 2011 05:02 xuanzue wrote: i said it before, a league with swiss format (64 players & 6 rounds) bring 192 matches, instead of the actually 225 matches. it's more easy in the edition, and could bring more NA players.
except swiss is the worst format and rewards people for losing, no thanks !
On July 13 2011 03:21 bbulzibar wrote: I've read every post in the entire thread, and I too few people supported Xeris's decision to have incontrol and gretorp cast the finals. I absolutely think this was the right move. I would be horrified if I casted the entire regular season, only to be dumped for the finals by people who flew in for a weekend. It doesn't matter if tastosis would have done a better job, you can't treat your people like disposable diapers. Kudos on making the right choice, and treating your casters well!!!
Yep, you got it, that is exactly our position and was our reasoning. Well done sir
Sorry for the jab, but can you look Ret in the eyes and say the same?
Not sure what Ret has to do with the casters we chose. I talked to Ret several times during the tournament. BTW, Ret stayed for nearly every single second of the Finals after he was eliminated, and was gracious and supportive of the entire event. He's coming back strong next season and is ready to continue his strong competitive position within the NASL.
To quote the post to which you replied: "I would be horrified if I casted the entire regular season, only to be dumped for the finals by people who flew in for a weekend."
If you do not see the parallel I cannot help you mate. It was a jab after all.
On July 13 2011 05:02 xuanzue wrote: i said it before, a league with swiss format (64 players & 6 rounds) bring 192 matches, instead of the actually 225 matches. it's more easy in the edition, and could bring more NA players.
except swiss is the worst format and rewards people for losing, no thanks !
in the swiss-format tournaments that i have seen the top players really take the top spots, it's not like those single elimination tournaments where the runner up takes that spot because a easy bracket.
swiss format had good performance in chess belong decades, you need to explain better why it's the worst format.
On July 13 2011 03:21 bbulzibar wrote: I've read every post in the entire thread, and I too few people supported Xeris's decision to have incontrol and gretorp cast the finals. I absolutely think this was the right move. I would be horrified if I casted the entire regular season, only to be dumped for the finals by people who flew in for a weekend. It doesn't matter if tastosis would have done a better job, you can't treat your people like disposable diapers. Kudos on making the right choice, and treating your casters well!!!
Yep, you got it, that is exactly our position and was our reasoning. Well done sir
Sorry for the jab, but can you look Ret in the eyes and say the same?
Not sure what Ret has to do with the casters we chose. I talked to Ret several times during the tournament. BTW, Ret stayed for nearly every single second of the Finals after he was eliminated, and was gracious and supportive of the entire event. He's coming back strong next season and is ready to continue his strong competitive position within the NASL.
To quote the post to which you replied: "I would be horrified if I casted the entire regular season, only to be dumped for the finals by people who flew in for a weekend."
If you do not see the parallel I cannot help you mate. It was a jab after all.
I get the comparison now. In either case, Ret didn't seem concerned whom he lost to as much as he was that he lost in general. If you're going to lose, losing to the guy that ends up winning the whole thing is at least satisfying because you know the guy that beat you beat everyone else too.
On July 13 2011 05:02 xuanzue wrote: i said it before, a league with swiss format (64 players & 6 rounds) bring 192 matches, instead of the actually 225 matches. it's more easy in the edition, and could bring more NA players.
except swiss is the worst format and rewards people for losing, no thanks !
in the swiss-format tournaments that i have seen the top players really take the top spots, it's not like those single elimination tournaments where the runner up takes that spot because a easy bracket.
swiss format had good performance in chess belong decades, you need to explain better why it's the worst format.
One problem with the Swiss system: The incentives are often unequal for "odd" opponents who have different scores, particularly in the last two rounds. For example, in the last round of a minor tournament (5 rounds, 29 players), I played the only person with a perfect record. Since I won, I split first place with 5 people (worth $150), and if I had lost or drawn I would have gotten nothing, whereas my opponent would have had a clear first place finish ($400) if he had won or drawn, but instead he shared first place. So, between the two of us, we would get $400 if he won and $300 if I won. This imbalance means that it would be rational for him to offer me $200 to resign once I had a winning position; we would both be $50 better off, and 3 people would be $33 worse off splitting second place. Of course, in chess, this would result in a double forfeit if caught. In backgammon, though, players may be used to hedging, and who would fault a player with no chance of winning money for giving up against an opponent who can while trailing Crawford 7-away at 2 am? This suggests that one should use a hybrid system, or make sure that there are at least token incentives for players not to throw matches in the last round. Of course, the problem is much smaller for the Swiss system than for a round robin format.
On the logistical side, most people don't have to wait for the last game of the previous round to finish for the next round of a round robin tournament to be played, but by some pairing rules for the Swiss system one does have to wait. Tournament directors seem to look more stressed under the Swiss system.
On July 13 2011 03:21 bbulzibar wrote: I've read every post in the entire thread, and I too few people supported Xeris's decision to have incontrol and gretorp cast the finals. I absolutely think this was the right move. I would be horrified if I casted the entire regular season, only to be dumped for the finals by people who flew in for a weekend. It doesn't matter if tastosis would have done a better job, you can't treat your people like disposable diapers. Kudos on making the right choice, and treating your casters well!!!
Yep, you got it, that is exactly our position and was our reasoning. Well done sir
Sorry for the jab, but can you look Ret in the eyes and say the same?
Not sure what Ret has to do with the casters we chose. I talked to Ret several times during the tournament. BTW, Ret stayed for nearly every single second of the Finals after he was eliminated, and was gracious and supportive of the entire event. He's coming back strong next season and is ready to continue his strong competitive position within the NASL.
To quote the post to which you replied: "I would be horrified if I casted the entire regular season, only to be dumped for the finals by people who flew in for a weekend."
If you do not see the parallel I cannot help you mate. It was a jab after all.
I get the comparison now. In either case, Ret didn't seem concerned whom he lost to as much as he was that he lost in general. If you're going to lose, losing to the guy that ends up winning the whole thing is at least satisfying because you know the guy that beat you beat everyone else too.
Yes and no. It's much less satisfying because you
1) Consequently didn't get to make it as far in the tournament.
2) Consequently didn't get as much prize money if he faced someone weaker and had advanced.
On July 13 2011 03:21 bbulzibar wrote: I've read every post in the entire thread, and I too few people supported Xeris's decision to have incontrol and gretorp cast the finals. I absolutely think this was the right move. I would be horrified if I casted the entire regular season, only to be dumped for the finals by people who flew in for a weekend. It doesn't matter if tastosis would have done a better job, you can't treat your people like disposable diapers. Kudos on making the right choice, and treating your casters well!!!
Yep, you got it, that is exactly our position and was our reasoning. Well done sir
Sorry for the jab, but can you look Ret in the eyes and say the same?
Not sure what Ret has to do with the casters we chose. I talked to Ret several times during the tournament. BTW, Ret stayed for nearly every single second of the Finals after he was eliminated, and was gracious and supportive of the entire event. He's coming back strong next season and is ready to continue his strong competitive position within the NASL.
To quote the post to which you replied: "I would be horrified if I casted the entire regular season, only to be dumped for the finals by people who flew in for a weekend."
If you do not see the parallel I cannot help you mate. It was a jab after all.
I get the comparison now. In either case, Ret didn't seem concerned whom he lost to as much as he was that he lost in general. If you're going to lose, losing to the guy that ends up winning the whole thing is at least satisfying because you know the guy that beat you beat everyone else too.
Yes and no. It's much less satisfying because you
1) Consequently didn't get to make it as far in the tournament.
2) Consequently didn't get as much prize money if he faced someone weaker and had advanced.
Well, there's no assuming that PuMa would have won. He's a player who literally has no accomplishments and is known for choking in big events. Anyone he played would have been really hard, but it's not like anyone in the Ro16 had an easy opponent.
Anna and Rachel are more than capable of interviewing people well. The problem was a lack of preparation time (for both the interviewer and the interviewee) after the match.
Next time, I would recommend having Artosis, Gretorp or whatever casting team is up their kill time with some post-game analysis. When people say they wish Artosis was doing the interview, I think part of that comes from fans just wanting to hear pro-gamers analyze the game.
This should buy an extra 5-7 minutes for the interviewer, translator and player to relax a bit and get on the same page.
In fact, to kill time between matches, why not have Gretorp or Mr Bitters interview other players at the tournament about the games they just watched?
On July 13 2011 05:43 OCsurfeR wrote: That assumes Ret would have made it further had he faced somebody else. That's not a known outcome.
I agree. There's a ton of different variables. But it was in response to saying "if you lose to someone, at least it's satisfying knowing you lost to the person who won." I'm merely saying that if I lost to the person who won, I'd be super bummed, thinking "damn, if only I played someone weaker first I wouldn't have been knocked out so fast, and I would have got more prize money to make the trip more worth it." It'd be a bummer for him considering he was the #1 seed.
Like I said though, I thnk the #1 seed should be able to pick his opponent in the boottm 8, then the #2 seed should pick from the remaining 7, etc. I think that'd be the coolest way and reward players no matter what for getting a higher seed in the top 8 (although, I guess it would make seeds 9-16 useless?).
On July 13 2011 05:43 OCsurfeR wrote: That assumes Ret would have made it further had he faced somebody else. That's not a known outcome.
People just feel disproportionately sorry for Ret because he's Ret. He's like the Eeyore of SC2.
I do think there should be a better reward or incentive for placing first in the league, though. The league is so competitive it's actually an amazing accomplishment to be 1st, and it deserves some kind of recognition. Like an extra $500 or something.
One thing I just can't understand. What is up with the casting teams of two in SC2? Why NO foreign event ever had three? There is so much flexibility with a setup of this kind. You can employ two casters that are fairly used to each other (and have fitting styles - while I understand why you decided to go with Incontrol and Gretorp for the final game - and I respect both a whole lot, they are simply not very good at what they do, or at least don't have a style of casting fitting an event like NASL) and add someone who will drop a comment every now and then, maybe even (an american) player (because it cannot be as lax as homestory). He doesn't have to be a very active participant, but just having a casting trio changes the dynamic of the commentary A LOT.
On July 13 2011 04:29 Duravi wrote: Lindsey did a great job for the situation she was in, I have nothing but respect for her. If you watched Weapon of Choice this weekend, djWheat made an excellent point though, why did you hire someone to walk around and do interviews who had no knowledge about the community or game? Why not at least give her a brief education or rundown first if she was your only choice? It was a huge missed opportunity. This seems to be a central theme of NASL, putting people who are not qualified to do what they are doing in a position where they will undoubtedly make mistakes.
The sound issue is another one you dodged most of, the sound was bad all weekend, even up to the finals where we missed two interview questions. Big thumbs up to gunrun for trying to help, but the bigger problem is why would you need the help of an audience member in the first place? Do you think at a concert the sound guy(s) would let or need anyone from the audience to come help? It seems like yet another case of putting someone (infamous "sound guy") who wasn't qualified in a position where they would struggle. It is not fair to the people you are doing this to, or your audience.
Lastly the web-site is atrocious, not just in terms of design but in terms of getting any information out of. It is often not updated until the last minute if at all. There are probably volunteers from the community who would jump to help you and design a website that is 10x better than the one you have now (which I seriously hope you are not paying someone for).
First: Gunrun isn't an audience member. He's an employee at Justin.tv and it's his job to help fix stream issues, which is what he was doing. He was also rotating with Gretorp doing observing of games.
We're aware of the sound problems. We're going to be working to fix them so it hopefully won't happen at our next event!
Unless I'm mistaken, it's not his job to observe games for you. Why didn't you follow the lead of many other major tournaments and hire a dedicated observer?
Audio. God, the audio. You had a huge mixing desk and units everywhere, but the audio was constantly either distorting or not even present. I'd love to see it improved for the next season, as it really did dent the experience of watching the finals.
My main advice is: don't fly in a top-caster duo such as Tasteless and Artosis and then proceed to NOT use them for the semi-finals and the finals. That's just grossly wasting money AND potential.
With all due respect to Gretorp and InControl, but they're not even in the same league as Tasteless and Artosis. Noone is. No caster duo has the same amount of experience and chemistry these two have. They've basically been doing it (semi-)professionally for years. If you fly them over all the way from Korea, at least use them. Not using them is basically the same as inviting, say, Robert de Niro to do some small guest part because you want your best friend, who's not nearly as good an actor, to play the lead in your film lest you hurt his feelings. If you've got the available resources, put them to use instead of wasting them.
If you want people to view the NASL as a high-profile tournament instead of a long-spun event by and for friends that just so happens to have a $100,000 prize pool, start treating it as such and hire professionals, no matter how hard it may be for some people's egos (you may have to tell friends that they will be replaced by people who're doing what they do because it's their job instead of their hobby, which is always a hard thing to do).
The whole tournament looked like it had a lot of passion for the game but no business plan at all, which is pretty much obligatory if multiple seasons are planned.
I would like to add that having a group stage at the Finals after the players have just been through a grueling 9 weeks of group stages to qualify for it is not unprecedented. I would like you to look at the World Cup Finals - the single biggest sporting event in the world- as an example.
Because it is held only every 4 years, there is a qualifying campaign that starts as early as 2 years before the competition begins. Yes, two years. And often times this qualification process is brutal and intense, as well as stretching over periods of months and years. And much of the qualifications for most continents are based on group stages where the top-x of the continental divisions advance to the World Cup. But after they get to the World Cup Finals, they play another group stage. Why? Maybe because playing one match and getting eliminated Tennis-style would make the tournament much less attractive for both players and viewers.
I am not saying NASL should use group stages, but I strongly advise the NASL to move away from single-elimination.
On July 13 2011 06:20 maartendq wrote: My main advice is: don't fly in a top-caster duo such as Tasteless and Artosis and then proceed to NOT use them for the semi-finals and the finals. That's just grossly wasting money AND potential.
With all due respect to Gretorp and InControl, but they're not even in the same league as Tasteless and Artosis. Noone is. No caster duo has the same amount of experience and chemistry these two have. They've basically been doing it (semi-)professionally for years. If you fly them over all the way from Korea, at least use them. Not using them is basically the same as inviting, say, Robert de Niro to do some small guest part because you want your best friend, who's not nearly as good an actor, to play the lead in your film lest you hurt his feelings. If you've got the available resources, put them to use instead of wasting them.
If you want people to view the NASL as a high-profile tournament instead of a long-spun event by and for friends that just so happens to have a $100,000 prize pool, start treating it as such and hire professionals, no matter how hard it may be for some people's egos (you may have to tell friends that they will be replaced by people who're doing what they do because it's their job instead of their hobby, which is always a hard thing to do).
The whole tournament looked like it had a lot of passion for the game but no business plan at all, which is pretty much obligatory if multiple seasons are planned.
On July 13 2011 06:20 maartendq wrote: My main advice is: don't fly in a top-caster duo such as Tasteless and Artosis and then proceed to NOT use them for the semi-finals and the finals. That's just grossly wasting money AND potential.
With all due respect to Gretorp and InControl, but they're not even in the same league as Tasteless and Artosis. Noone is. No caster duo has the same amount of experience and chemistry these two have. They've basically been doing it (semi-)professionally for years. If you fly them over all the way from Korea, at least use them. Not using them is basically the same as inviting, say, Robert de Niro to do some small guest part because you want your best friend, who's not nearly as good an actor, to play the lead in your film lest you hurt his feelings. If you've got the available resources, put them to use instead of wasting them.
If you want people to view the NASL as a high-profile tournament instead of a long-spun event by and for friends that just so happens to have a $100,000 prize pool, start treating it as such and hire professionals, no matter how hard it may be for some people's egos (you may have to tell friends that they will be replaced by people who're doing what they do because it's their job instead of their hobby, which is always a hard thing to do).
The whole tournament looked like it had a lot of passion for the game but no business plan at all, which is pretty much obligatory if multiple seasons are planned.
You do know there's lots of movies where actors just do guest apperances for fun? I'm pretty sure Tastosis had a blast just talking to fans and actually watching the final instead of casting it. I think they too feel like the NASL final casting is reserved for Gretorp and Incontrol tbh.
P.S. I prefer single-elimination. Please keep it. I just hate double elimination because I think it makes the finals MUCH more anti-climactic. You could always make it like NBA/MLB/NHL and have every single series be Bo7! That way tons of games :D.
On July 13 2011 04:17 ZergFerguson wrote: On that note, in Puma's interview after the Squirtle match, Anna asked him if it was more important to him to win the money or beat the best players, and he said "I just want more people to know who I am." I think money and fame are the biggest draws for top players. So, make a BIG deal about Puma. Do what you can to make him famous. Produce a high-end video of his highlights with crowds cheering, and end with him holding the check for $50,000 surrounded by booth babes. Put it on YouTube and wherever else your target market spends time. I would make it your goal to make sure EVERYONE who plays Starcraft knows who he is. That is what will keep the big names coming back and ensure the quality of NASL.
This is a really fantastic idea, and I'd love to see something like this.
You can not pit the top seed from one qualifying process with the top seed from another qualifying process, one that is arguably much harder to win, and pretend to be a legitimate competition. It's hard to imagine a more contemptible situation, but then you gave the runner up from the open tournament a higher seed than the winner; what can I say. I think it's pretty clear MC would have been just as hard an opponent as Puma, but MC is who Ret should have played, the fifteenth seeded player, not the winner of a straight elimination tournament.
If you had had Inctorp cast the finals, that would have been absolutely fine; I wouldn't have watched, but it's totally understandable. To go out and bring in Day9 and Tastosis, 5 casters for a 16 match event, and then dole out a handful of games per caster and decide that Inctorp 'deserved' it more than the talent you brought in to replace them is just baffling. Stand by your casters from the start, don't bait and switch.
I have only watched bits and pieces of the NASL but this is some great selfreflection here. It really shows that you are taking this seriously.
From what I've watched, the long waits between games in the finals were really annoying, especially for me as an European. The audio wasn't great either (at least not the first day) and I'd have rather seen Tastosis casting the finals than Incontrol and Gretorp (who are good casters too, but not as good).
On July 13 2011 06:37 FabledIntegral wrote: P.S. I prefer single-elimination. Please keep it. I just hate double elimination because I think it makes the finals MUCH more anti-climactic. You could always make it like NBA/MLB/NHL and have every single series be Bo7! That way tons of games :D.
Yea group into single elim seems the best. Double elim is nice and but when it comes to finals/semis etc. it just isn't as epic.
On July 12 2011 21:37 Nuttyguy wrote: The discounted HD pass for the weekend was a mission to find out about. had to find about it on IRC, it was 10$ when it said 25$. A little promotion about the weekend HD pass would be nice. I feel like i got robbed, since i bought it for 15$ like a week earlier with the discount code since i didn't know there was even going to be a HD pass for the weekend for 10$. i'm not even going to watch the VODs for the regular league play.
Quoting myself so Xeris can hopefully see this. Got any response to this?
My 2 cents to balance some of the complaints: * High-stakes BO3 for the playoffs is fine, IMHO. Makes each game more exciting and there were already plenty of good ones. * Tastosis is great, but all the casters/interviewers did great. If anything, you had an embarrassment of riches. It's all good. * Glad to hear the live attendees felt like they were at a great show. From the stream, it looked a little drab except when the awesome games were going on.
Finals suggestions: * Have a dedicated stream caster/host. They can periodically re-explain the current situation (since people log on and off the streams all day) that the live audience doesn't need. They can recap or even replay the games and generally fill some of the inevitable downtime. * Have the eliminated players interact with the fans at the arena and on stream. Have them chat with an interviewer or play TL-attack style funny games with fans or each other. If the budget permits, you can pay all the players at the finals an "attendance fee" just for showing up and participating in that (and signings) and make it even more worth their while to be at the finals even if they lose in the first round.
Season suggestion: * I'm already overwhelmed by content and watched very few in-season games. But a weekly highlight should would have been awesome. Is it possible to recap the whole week's action in ~30 minutes? I would watch that every week and it would probably motivate me to pay for a season pass to go back and watch the best games. * The NASL.tv website was not easy to use for me. I would go over to see how the season was going, what happened this week, standings and would rarely easily find the info. Maybe it's to avoid spoiling results, but maybe a 24-hour rule and then stop hiding things.
One thing you could do at NASL is more/better prep on players histories. During the finals, Incontrol didn't know which of the Koreans were Code S/A. Nobody mentioned that oGsMC is the #1 SC2 money earner in the world to date (although they called him rich a couple of times). Casters should have interns prepping bio info before matches. Run-down their accomplishments in GSL, MLG, Dreamhack, etc. I don't think it undercuts NASL, it fits the NASL into the context of the other top leagues in the world.
To me, the storylines of Koreans flying back and forth in the middle of the GSL was added interest. Are any staying over until MLG in Anaheim? When Sen's next big tourney? Puma?
During the season, there were players who were scrambling to play matches around plane trips to other tournaments. It's not just sad when it doesn't work out, it's even more heroic when somebody wins a match from an internet cafe on a laptop. Don't be afraid to talk about this type of meta-game -- it's actually more accessible to the non-hardcore SC2 fans out there. I talk about those things when I explain eSports to my non-gaming friends (playing in Sweden one week, then Korea and then California).
NASL has some real potential. I hope you have some people building infrastructure who are aiming to make it a big (many multi-million dollars/year) business. You'll need lots of professionals and people thinking big to make that happen. If you're managing, Xeris, I hope you have an ownership stake and I hope you're trying to get rich.
On July 12 2011 21:37 Nuttyguy wrote: The discounted HD pass for the weekend was a mission to find out about. had to find about it on IRC, it was 10$ when it said 25$. A little promotion about the weekend HD pass would be nice. I feel like i got robbed, since i bought it for 15$ like a week earlier with the discount code since i didn't know there was even going to be a HD pass for the weekend for 10$. i'm not even going to watch the VODs for the regular league play.
Quoting myself so Xeris can hopefully see this. Got any response to this?
On July 12 2011 22:52 bennyaus wrote: I feel as if they should watch the whole event as a team in VOD form to really see what the stream viewer experience was.
This ONE MILLION TIMES OVER... I hope someone gets the chance to sit down and watch the vod from the finals. From Friday (including the 2hrs and 30min delay) to sunday with all the sound screw ups and all the problems.
I feel like had they not had an amazing finals we would have had a riot on our hands..
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
What's funny is i have 5 years production experience in broadcasting and even sent NASL my resume yet they ignored it and then put on that attrocity of a broadcast.
It speaks to how much they want their product to succeed. They received an email (if not multiple ones) from experienced staff and chose what seemed like some stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut.
Nepotism in action, baby!
You think Anna and the blond girl got the interview job because they're great interviewers?
Rachel is pretty well known in the community and CSN has provided so much great content from Korea, and Anna is the current Miss Oregon. There's no doubting their interview skills.
See, this is stupid. The fact that you're still making posts like this tells me you've completely missed the point. Yes, they've done stuff before. Doing CSN content is meaningful experience. I really don't know how being Miss Oregon is particularly relevant, but Anna has done some interviews before and so forth. I didn't have a problem with them (though Lindsey or whatever was pretty special), but the definition of a good performance is one that the audience likes. If you have a lot of your audience saying they didn't like their interviews, then saying "there's no doubting their interview skills" is just factually wrong. You can make an informed judgement that with time most people will like the interviews, or that they do now and these people are a minority, but you can't just post saying that they're just factually wrong and how dare they question you. It frankly doesn't matter at all what you think of their interviews or what other experience they have that you think is relevant. What matters is what the audience thinks. The audience opinion can't actually be wrong, and these posters are just expressing their opinion as part of the audience. The only reason things like "they've done interviews" before matter is because it's a sign that the audience is likely to actually like them.
Anna has over 2 years of experience interviewing Starcraft players (the first time I remember her was at WCG USA 2009 interviewing people). Rachel has done a LOT of interviewing through her time in Korea. I was responding to the fact that people think it's just nepotism, but it isn't. We brought them to the event to do interviews because they've done a lot of it before.
I've read that a lot of people would rather have someone like Artosis or Day9 doing interviews rather than Anna/Rachel. This point is being taken into consideration for future events. Again, I was responding to people simply saying "they're only here because of nepotism," they were there because of their experience.
GET ARTOSIS TO DO INTERVIEWS!!! simple solution to a simple problem. This guy actually understands the game... Or at least get him to write the questions.
I was really frustrated after seeing an amazing game only to have someone who didn't grasp it ask questions about some irrelevant situation in game or "how they prepared for their match?".
On July 12 2011 21:37 Nuttyguy wrote: The discounted HD pass for the weekend was a mission to find out about. had to find about it on IRC, it was 10$ when it said 25$. A little promotion about the weekend HD pass would be nice. I feel like i got robbed, since i bought it for 15$ like a week earlier with the discount code since i didn't know there was even going to be a HD pass for the weekend for 10$. i'm not even going to watch the VODs for the regular league play.
Quoting myself so Xeris can hopefully see this. Got any response to this?
lol price drops happen all the time, not sure how you feel jipped. Usually companies make sure not to explicitly advertise reduced costs to the entire audience, but rather to select customers (via coupon catalogues, etc.). It's basic economics. Those who are poor and try to save whenever possible will make sure to look online for the best deals, while those who have money would simply rather pay the small amount extra instead of wasting time to find the deals.
Sounds like you were actually "screwed" by timing, but still, I see absolutely nothing wrong with it. Happens in every single industry. You think Microsoft would announce "going to lower prices in 2 months"? No way! No one would buy for 2 months...
On July 12 2011 14:40 MrBorto wrote: The regular season was meaningless. ~80% of the views occurred during the regular season yet four of the 52 players took home 90% of the prize money on the very last day. How is that a league?
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.
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.. 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
I agree. While it's true there is a limited amount of money, I think the first + second place should have 3k less (6k less combined); that money would be redistributed to Ro16-Ro8
So first is 47k and second is 22k (not that big of a drop in prize money).
Ro16 would obtain 1k(500 dollars more for each of the 8 players), Ro8, 2k(500 more for 4 players each); fourth and third get the same 5/10k respectively.
Not a huge difference but it'll at least make the Ro16 and Ro8 losers gain a little bit more for their travels.
Also sometimes an unfortunate case may be Boxer vs MC for example (or anyone vs MC).
The person who has to face MC first would be unfortunate.
Even if said person is better than everyone else EXCEPT MC, that person will end up losing in the Ro16.
To make the above issue less of an issue: I think NASL Finals Ro16 should be a Round Robin. Maybe similar to GSL Code S Ro32 (except 5 matches played instead of 3). Players could be in two groups of 8 then play a Bo5, always playing a different player.
Players who wins Bo5 moves on.
Ro8+ can be played as normal single elimination (or it could be another round robin).
The reason why I think any of these changes should be done is because the tournament is weeks worth of play with only the top players from each division advancing to the finals (which is played locally rather than online).
Now other tournaments do this also (single elimination and not a round robin) but that doesn't mean it is the best way nor does it mean it should be done for the NASL.
Anyway good job on the NASL though. It's good to have more and more SC2 tournaments. I'm sure NASL will improve next season for sure .
On July 12 2011 21:37 Nuttyguy wrote: The discounted HD pass for the weekend was a mission to find out about. had to find about it on IRC, it was 10$ when it said 25$. A little promotion about the weekend HD pass would be nice. I feel like i got robbed, since i bought it for 15$ like a week earlier with the discount code since i didn't know there was even going to be a HD pass for the weekend for 10$. i'm not even going to watch the VODs for the regular league play.
Quoting myself so Xeris can hopefully see this. Got any response to this?
lol price drops happen all the time, not sure how you feel jipped. Usually companies make sure not to explicitly advertise reduced costs to the entire audience, but rather to select customers (via coupon catalogues, etc.). It's basic economics. Those who are poor and try to save whenever possible will make sure to look online for the best deals, while those who have money would simply rather pay the small amount extra instead of wasting time to find the deals.
Sounds like you were actually "screwed" by timing, but still, I see absolutely nothing wrong with it. Happens in every single industry. You think Microsoft would announce "going to lower prices in 2 months"? No way! No one would buy for 2 months...
Did you really just compare a multi-trillion dollar company to an esports production? Clearly you have cables crossed at some location.
BTW Microsoft does care about customer retention, if you call up their support line and bitch, they would refund the money, much like i assume NASL will do.
The seeding from NASL was a joke. I'm not sure how to avoid it but your bottom two seeded players were the two favorites and ended up facing each other in the finals. What.
Regarding the visa issue, it is possible that Strelok had the WRONG visa. He may have had a tourist rather than a H1B, but that's just speculation.
All of my criticisms have been addressed above, whether it's the sound, casting, or wait times. I just couldn't keep up with all the content, and there must have been some good way to keep track of all the matches.
If R1CH accidentally hit the delete key and wiped all of TL, I would have the toughest of time finding out what happened in the competition, unlike with all the other majors tournaments (GSL, MLG, DH etc...)
On July 12 2011 21:37 Nuttyguy wrote: The discounted HD pass for the weekend was a mission to find out about. had to find about it on IRC, it was 10$ when it said 25$. A little promotion about the weekend HD pass would be nice. I feel like i got robbed, since i bought it for 15$ like a week earlier with the discount code since i didn't know there was even going to be a HD pass for the weekend for 10$. i'm not even going to watch the VODs for the regular league play.
Quoting myself so Xeris can hopefully see this. Got any response to this?
lol price drops happen all the time, not sure how you feel jipped. Usually companies make sure not to explicitly advertise reduced costs to the entire audience, but rather to select customers (via coupon catalogues, etc.). It's basic economics. Those who are poor and try to save whenever possible will make sure to look online for the best deals, while those who have money would simply rather pay the small amount extra instead of wasting time to find the deals.
Sounds like you were actually "screwed" by timing, but still, I see absolutely nothing wrong with it. Happens in every single industry. You think Microsoft would announce "going to lower prices in 2 months"? No way! No one would buy for 2 months...
Did you really just compare a multi-trillion dollar company to an esports production? Clearly you have cables crossed at some location.
BTW Microsoft does care about customer retention, if you call up their support line and bitch, they would refund the money, much like i assume NASL will do.
It's like that with almost all companies. Microsoft was pulled out of my ass as I wrote the post. I never said anything about customer retention. If you bitch, they might give you a refund, but it doesn't mean at ANY point Microsoft cheated you. That guy was making it sound as if the NASL cheated him, with is a load of bullshit.
While watching some Brood War matches tonight, I realized something that would be AMAZING to include in NASL:
Picture-in-Picture observing for matches. Have two observers,and pop up a PIP view of the drops or whatever when there's more than one area of interest. I hate when you miss a game-changing harass because the observer is focused on the main battle, but you also (obviously) can't forsake the main battles for every little harass on the chance that it's going to end the game.
On July 13 2011 16:03 Grr Arr Rawr wrote: While watching some Brood War matches tonight, I realized something that would be AMAZING to include in NASL:
Picture-in-Picture observing for matches. Have two observers,and pop up a PIP view of the drops or whatever when there's more than one area of interest. I hate when you miss a game-changing harass because the observer is focused on the main battle, but you also (obviously) can't forsake the main battles for every little harass on the chance that it's going to end the game.
This would just be so nice.
That is a great idea and i would really like it, though they have to be careful not to clutter the screen too much.
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
What's funny is i have 5 years production experience in broadcasting and even sent NASL my resume yet they ignored it and then put on that attrocity of a broadcast.
It speaks to how much they want their product to succeed. They received an email (if not multiple ones) from experienced staff and chose what seemed like some stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut.
Nepotism in action, baby!
You think Anna and the blond girl got the interview job because they're great interviewers?
Rachel is pretty well known in the community and CSN has provided so much great content from Korea, and Anna is the current Miss Oregon. There's no doubting their interview skills.
See, this is stupid. The fact that you're still making posts like this tells me you've completely missed the point. Yes, they've done stuff before. Doing CSN content is meaningful experience. I really don't know how being Miss Oregon is particularly relevant, but Anna has done some interviews before and so forth. I didn't have a problem with them (though Lindsey or whatever was pretty special), but the definition of a good performance is one that the audience likes. If you have a lot of your audience saying they didn't like their interviews, then saying "there's no doubting their interview skills" is just factually wrong. You can make an informed judgement that with time most people will like the interviews, or that they do now and these people are a minority, but you can't just post saying that they're just factually wrong and how dare they question you. It frankly doesn't matter at all what you think of their interviews or what other experience they have that you think is relevant. What matters is what the audience thinks. The audience opinion can't actually be wrong, and these posters are just expressing their opinion as part of the audience. The only reason things like "they've done interviews" before matter is because it's a sign that the audience is likely to actually like them.
Anna has over 2 years of experience interviewing Starcraft players (the first time I remember her was at WCG USA 2009 interviewing people). Rachel has done a LOT of interviewing through her time in Korea. I was responding to the fact that people think it's just nepotism, but it isn't. We brought them to the event to do interviews because they've done a lot of it before.
I've read that a lot of people would rather have someone like Artosis or Day9 doing interviews rather than Anna/Rachel. This point is being taken into consideration for future events. Again, I was responding to people simply saying "they're only here because of nepotism," they were there because of their experience.
I didn't manage to post yesterday so sorry that this is a bit delayed but I would like to add something here.
First of all I would like to say that I actually thought the interviews that Anna did were quite good. The mayor problem imho was that some of the players were extremely shy. And it is hard to interview someone with a translator that won't directly look at you. Besides asking the right questions I think it is also important to have a good stage presence when doing a live interview in front of a large crowd and while she might be lacking in the former I think she makes up for it by having plenty of the later.
With all that being said I still have a large problem with your general line of reasoning when it comes to nepotism. Nepotism is the practice of promoting friends and family. This does not exclude them from being unskilled imho. There are drastic examples of nepotism where someone without any prior knowledge is elevated to a position that he is completely unsuited for but usually it is much more subtle then that.
You should always strife to fill a position with the best possible candidate that you can get. I know that this is unrealistic and that most careers are build on knowing the right people but please don't tell me that this is not a form of nepotism. So the question shouldn't be if Anna or Rachel had any qualifications but if they really were the best person that you could get. This might sound like hair splitting but I think it is a question on how you approach these things.
Nice post Xeris but I've got to agree with a lot of posters in this thread. There were just so many issues that definately appear could have been handled better and before they happened.
That being said I'd like to comment on the actual content on the website. You've got a lot of stuff but missing some huge key items.
1. I went to the www.nasl.tv site during the finals because I wanted to check times. I noticed the finals had already started but I couldn't find a single link to the stream. Now, as a season pass subscriber I knew I could find it on justin.tv but its still insane that I couldn't find a link to the stream on the main site of the NASL, especially as a newcomer who may be interested in watching. I ended up finding the stream through the team liquid site.
2. There was some mention, again here on team liquid, that you guys were doing a deal for season 2 passes. Yet when I scan through the recent news posts on www.nasl.tv I don't see a single mention of it. I know you guys are partnered with wellplayed.org or something to that extent by why on earth can I not find pertinent information on the NASL website, it baffles me.
I understand what you are trying to do with the whole league/show thing and I like it and understand it. There were at TON of great games for me to watch but I contribute that to the players. Finding the vods was tedious and the sound qualities have been beaten to death already.
Also as others mentioned the interviews sucked. All that being said I truly hope that you guys do much better Season 2 because I want e-sports to do well.
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
What's funny is i have 5 years production experience in broadcasting and even sent NASL my resume yet they ignored it and then put on that attrocity of a broadcast.
It speaks to how much they want their product to succeed. They received an email (if not multiple ones) from experienced staff and chose what seemed like some stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut.
Nepotism in action, baby!
You think Anna and the blond girl got the interview job because they're great interviewers?
Rachel is pretty well known in the community and CSN has provided so much great content from Korea, and Anna is the current Miss Oregon. There's no doubting their interview skills.
See, this is stupid. The fact that you're still making posts like this tells me you've completely missed the point. Yes, they've done stuff before. Doing CSN content is meaningful experience. I really don't know how being Miss Oregon is particularly relevant, but Anna has done some interviews before and so forth. I didn't have a problem with them (though Lindsey or whatever was pretty special), but the definition of a good performance is one that the audience likes. If you have a lot of your audience saying they didn't like their interviews, then saying "there's no doubting their interview skills" is just factually wrong. You can make an informed judgement that with time most people will like the interviews, or that they do now and these people are a minority, but you can't just post saying that they're just factually wrong and how dare they question you. It frankly doesn't matter at all what you think of their interviews or what other experience they have that you think is relevant. What matters is what the audience thinks. The audience opinion can't actually be wrong, and these posters are just expressing their opinion as part of the audience. The only reason things like "they've done interviews" before matter is because it's a sign that the audience is likely to actually like them.
Anna has over 2 years of experience interviewing Starcraft players (the first time I remember her was at WCG USA 2009 interviewing people). Rachel has done a LOT of interviewing through her time in Korea. I was responding to the fact that people think it's just nepotism, but it isn't. We brought them to the event to do interviews because they've done a lot of it before.
I've read that a lot of people would rather have someone like Artosis or Day9 doing interviews rather than Anna/Rachel. This point is being taken into consideration for future events. Again, I was responding to people simply saying "they're only here because of nepotism," they were there because of their experience.
GET ARTOSIS TO DO INTERVIEWS!!! simple solution to a simple problem. This guy actually understands the game... Or at least get him to write the questions.
I was really frustrated after seeing an amazing game only to have someone who didn't grasp it ask questions about some irrelevant situation in game or "how they prepared for their match?".
I don't really get that argument to be honest. DjWheat and JP interview people often, and neither of them are good at the game. Their game knowledge is probably only slightly better than someone like Anna or Rachel (who both have extensive experience being around people who know a lot about the game). Is it because, as women, they seem less likely to know about the game or be qualified to interview someone as opposed to JP, for example? Nobody ever complains about JP's lack of game knowledge when he interviews someone... so why do people suddenly complain with Anna and/or Rachel interviewing someone?
Also -- if you read Korean interviews of GSL games, they ask really similar questions.. "how did you prepare," "why did you decide to do X in Game 2," etc.
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
What's funny is i have 5 years production experience in broadcasting and even sent NASL my resume yet they ignored it and then put on that attrocity of a broadcast.
It speaks to how much they want their product to succeed. They received an email (if not multiple ones) from experienced staff and chose what seemed like some stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut.
Nepotism in action, baby!
You think Anna and the blond girl got the interview job because they're great interviewers?
Rachel is pretty well known in the community and CSN has provided so much great content from Korea, and Anna is the current Miss Oregon. There's no doubting their interview skills.
See, this is stupid. The fact that you're still making posts like this tells me you've completely missed the point. Yes, they've done stuff before. Doing CSN content is meaningful experience. I really don't know how being Miss Oregon is particularly relevant, but Anna has done some interviews before and so forth. I didn't have a problem with them (though Lindsey or whatever was pretty special), but the definition of a good performance is one that the audience likes. If you have a lot of your audience saying they didn't like their interviews, then saying "there's no doubting their interview skills" is just factually wrong. You can make an informed judgement that with time most people will like the interviews, or that they do now and these people are a minority, but you can't just post saying that they're just factually wrong and how dare they question you. It frankly doesn't matter at all what you think of their interviews or what other experience they have that you think is relevant. What matters is what the audience thinks. The audience opinion can't actually be wrong, and these posters are just expressing their opinion as part of the audience. The only reason things like "they've done interviews" before matter is because it's a sign that the audience is likely to actually like them.
Anna has over 2 years of experience interviewing Starcraft players (the first time I remember her was at WCG USA 2009 interviewing people). Rachel has done a LOT of interviewing through her time in Korea. I was responding to the fact that people think it's just nepotism, but it isn't. We brought them to the event to do interviews because they've done a lot of it before.
I've read that a lot of people would rather have someone like Artosis or Day9 doing interviews rather than Anna/Rachel. This point is being taken into consideration for future events. Again, I was responding to people simply saying "they're only here because of nepotism," they were there because of their experience.
GET ARTOSIS TO DO INTERVIEWS!!! simple solution to a simple problem. This guy actually understands the game... Or at least get him to write the questions.
I was really frustrated after seeing an amazing game only to have someone who didn't grasp it ask questions about some irrelevant situation in game or "how they prepared for their match?".
I don't really get that argument to be honest. DjWheat and JP interview people often, and neither of them are good at the game. Their game knowledge is probably only slightly better than someone like Anna or Rachel (who both have extensive experience being around people who know a lot about the game). Is it because, as women, they seem less likely to know about the game or be qualified to interview someone as opposed to JP, for example? Nobody ever complains about JP's lack of game knowledge when he interviews someone... so why do people suddenly complain with Anna and/or Rachel interviewing someone?
Also -- if you read Korean interviews of GSL games, they ask really similar questions.. "how did you prepare," "why did you decide to do X in Game 2," etc.
Can you please elaborate?
Isn't JP a masters-level player? And people complain about DjWheat's lack of game knowledge all the time. I didn't mind the interviews, but I assume the people asking for the casters to do them are looking for there to be more questions about the strategic decisions they made in the game.
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
What's funny is i have 5 years production experience in broadcasting and even sent NASL my resume yet they ignored it and then put on that attrocity of a broadcast.
It speaks to how much they want their product to succeed. They received an email (if not multiple ones) from experienced staff and chose what seemed like some stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut.
Nepotism in action, baby!
You think Anna and the blond girl got the interview job because they're great interviewers?
Rachel is pretty well known in the community and CSN has provided so much great content from Korea, and Anna is the current Miss Oregon. There's no doubting their interview skills.
See, this is stupid. The fact that you're still making posts like this tells me you've completely missed the point. Yes, they've done stuff before. Doing CSN content is meaningful experience. I really don't know how being Miss Oregon is particularly relevant, but Anna has done some interviews before and so forth. I didn't have a problem with them (though Lindsey or whatever was pretty special), but the definition of a good performance is one that the audience likes. If you have a lot of your audience saying they didn't like their interviews, then saying "there's no doubting their interview skills" is just factually wrong. You can make an informed judgement that with time most people will like the interviews, or that they do now and these people are a minority, but you can't just post saying that they're just factually wrong and how dare they question you. It frankly doesn't matter at all what you think of their interviews or what other experience they have that you think is relevant. What matters is what the audience thinks. The audience opinion can't actually be wrong, and these posters are just expressing their opinion as part of the audience. The only reason things like "they've done interviews" before matter is because it's a sign that the audience is likely to actually like them.
Anna has over 2 years of experience interviewing Starcraft players (the first time I remember her was at WCG USA 2009 interviewing people). Rachel has done a LOT of interviewing through her time in Korea. I was responding to the fact that people think it's just nepotism, but it isn't. We brought them to the event to do interviews because they've done a lot of it before.
I've read that a lot of people would rather have someone like Artosis or Day9 doing interviews rather than Anna/Rachel. This point is being taken into consideration for future events. Again, I was responding to people simply saying "they're only here because of nepotism," they were there because of their experience.
GET ARTOSIS TO DO INTERVIEWS!!! simple solution to a simple problem. This guy actually understands the game... Or at least get him to write the questions.
I was really frustrated after seeing an amazing game only to have someone who didn't grasp it ask questions about some irrelevant situation in game or "how they prepared for their match?".
I don't really get that argument to be honest. DjWheat and JP interview people often, and neither of them are good at the game. Their game knowledge is probably only slightly better than someone like Anna or Rachel (who both have extensive experience being around people who know a lot about the game). Is it because, as women, they seem less likely to know about the game or be qualified to interview someone as opposed to JP, for example? Nobody ever complains about JP's lack of game knowledge when he interviews someone... so why do people suddenly complain with Anna and/or Rachel interviewing someone?
Also -- if you read Korean interviews of GSL games, they ask really similar questions.. "how did you prepare," "why did you decide to do X in Game 2," etc.
Can you please elaborate?
Isn't JP a masters-level player? And people complain about DjWheat's lack of game knowledge all the time. I didn't mind the interviews, but I assume the people asking for the casters to do them are looking for there to be more questions about the strategic decisions they made in the game.
Yea Im pretty sure JP is masters level random player, DJWheat plays alot, but im not sure he's ever told anyone what rank he's in, but i believe they have more game knowledge then they let on (at least wheat) because usually they are paired with someone with more game knowledge, so they do the play by play.
It's a common misconception that being a good interviewer and being an expert at the material you're interviewing about must be in lock-step. This is simply untrue as evidenced by nearly every television reporter on the face of the planet. That's not to say it doesn't help to know the person you're interviewing and have at least some background on them if you are doing a Barbara Walters style interview, but the assertion that the interviewer must be an expert on the subject matter simply is not true.
Certainly with sports related interviews if the questions involve detailed and specific questions about tactics, unit composition, or other detailed strategy or tactic analysis, then the interviewer should have a better-than-layman knowledge of the sport or topic. But if the questions are, "How do you feel about winning the match?" or "What did you do to prepare?" or questions like that, the charisma of the interviewer and their ability to put the interviewee at ease is much more important.
Conversely, you can be a great game commentator and analyst and be simply horrible at interviewing players - the two aspects are not completely mutually exclusive, but there is very little connective tissue between them.
This isn't just the viewpoint of the NASL, it's the viewpoint of every major news media outlet on the planet.
Give folks like Seltzer, Anna Prosser and Lindsey time to develop their craft. It's a new sport, a new industry and these are new people learning it all.
In my opinion, I think NASL can bounce back from this just fine if they truly wanted to. NASL has the resources. I agree with people saying that the production was bad. To be honest, it kinda was. Please just invest some more money making the event look more "elaborate". The quality of the games is there and NASL has great potential. I just hope that you take the feedback in stride and improve!
On July 14 2011 03:04 zeeschildpad wrote: Are the bold red text in the OP really necessary?
Based on the reading comprehension skills of 99% of people on the internet, including on these forums... absolutely. The red text makes it easier for simpletons to catch the important statements.
Of course, half of the people will still completely ignore 95% of the OP anyway, because that's just how they roll, son.
First off I want to say thank you. A huge thank you for bringing the best players in the world into a new top shelf event. I will be short and sweet with my feedback. And yes I am a paying customer and most likely will be for the next season.
The Fundamentals
At its core the league is an online experience. Everything should go through the filter of "what does the average person at their computer see." And what they should see is a crisp website that is informative and most importantly timely. Results, league decisions, and more importantly the actual games need to flow onto the site promptly. You are offering an online gaming experience and made it difficult to find said games online. I will say that again. You are offering an online gaming experience and made it difficult to find said games online.
Polish
Almost everything you are being hammered on boils down to lack of attention to detail. We need a set. Blank black set. We need some booths. Boring small booths. We need some graphics. Basic and boring graphics. We need some cameras for our live event. Shakey cams in the wrong places. The details are so so important. Would four larger and half decorated booths cost that much more? Or was the time not taken to polish them? Would a well decorated studio stage cost that much more or was the time just not taken to polish it up.
It is okay to steal.. err be inspired
What sort of studio sets look good for competition broadcasting. ESPN studio desks, Real Sports on HBO, NFL pregame shows. Watch them and steal.. err be inspired by what looks good and works. The $50,000 touch screen display wall you should pass on. The camera positions and their motion you should use as a base to build from. The back wall and set layouts you should use as a base to build from.
Player profiles, pregame show and highlight reels. Watch some NFL Games, The Olympics. March Madness. Flying to Eastern Europe with a full production crew to get the inside story you can skip. Pacing.. editing.. timing in relation to the broadcast... overall length... steal, steal, steal.
Use of Graphics. Watch any of the above and some of your competition. The TSL used some nice music and hand drawn player sketches to make a perfect VOD intro.. Stea.. err be inspired, be inspired.
You have the best players and the quality of the game play will flow from that. You have a great prize pool and top notch sponsors so the hype and exposure will flow from that. Bring the admin and production to that level and you will be a beast of an organization. I look forward to season 2.
Player profiles, pregame show and highlight reels. Watch some NFL Games, The Olympics. March Madness. Flying to Eastern Europe with a full production crew to get the inside story you can skip. Pacing.. editing.. timing in relation to the broadcast... overall length... steal, steal, steal.
Great point! Structuring it more professionally can go a long way!
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
What's funny is i have 5 years production experience in broadcasting and even sent NASL my resume yet they ignored it and then put on that attrocity of a broadcast.
It speaks to how much they want their product to succeed. They received an email (if not multiple ones) from experienced staff and chose what seemed like some stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut.
Nepotism in action, baby!
You think Anna and the blond girl got the interview job because they're great interviewers?
Rachel is pretty well known in the community and CSN has provided so much great content from Korea, and Anna is the current Miss Oregon. There's no doubting their interview skills.
See, this is stupid. The fact that you're still making posts like this tells me you've completely missed the point. Yes, they've done stuff before. Doing CSN content is meaningful experience. I really don't know how being Miss Oregon is particularly relevant, but Anna has done some interviews before and so forth. I didn't have a problem with them (though Lindsey or whatever was pretty special), but the definition of a good performance is one that the audience likes. If you have a lot of your audience saying they didn't like their interviews, then saying "there's no doubting their interview skills" is just factually wrong. You can make an informed judgement that with time most people will like the interviews, or that they do now and these people are a minority, but you can't just post saying that they're just factually wrong and how dare they question you. It frankly doesn't matter at all what you think of their interviews or what other experience they have that you think is relevant. What matters is what the audience thinks. The audience opinion can't actually be wrong, and these posters are just expressing their opinion as part of the audience. The only reason things like "they've done interviews" before matter is because it's a sign that the audience is likely to actually like them.
Anna has over 2 years of experience interviewing Starcraft players (the first time I remember her was at WCG USA 2009 interviewing people). Rachel has done a LOT of interviewing through her time in Korea. I was responding to the fact that people think it's just nepotism, but it isn't. We brought them to the event to do interviews because they've done a lot of it before.
I've read that a lot of people would rather have someone like Artosis or Day9 doing interviews rather than Anna/Rachel. This point is being taken into consideration for future events. Again, I was responding to people simply saying "they're only here because of nepotism," they were there because of their experience.
GET ARTOSIS TO DO INTERVIEWS!!! simple solution to a simple problem. This guy actually understands the game... Or at least get him to write the questions.
I was really frustrated after seeing an amazing game only to have someone who didn't grasp it ask questions about some irrelevant situation in game or "how they prepared for their match?".
I don't really get that argument to be honest. DjWheat and JP interview people often, and neither of them are good at the game. Their game knowledge is probably only slightly better than someone like Anna or Rachel (who both have extensive experience being around people who know a lot about the game). Is it because, as women, they seem less likely to know about the game or be qualified to interview someone as opposed to JP, for example? Nobody ever complains about JP's lack of game knowledge when he interviews someone... so why do people suddenly complain with Anna and/or Rachel interviewing someone?
Also -- if you read Korean interviews of GSL games, they ask really similar questions.. "how did you prepare," "why did you decide to do X in Game 2," etc.
Can you please elaborate?
Nobody ever complains about JP or DjWheat? Is that a joke? LOL. I've read plenty of complaints about JP being boring, uncharismatic, uninsightful and asking silly questions. Lack of game knowledge and self confidence when it comes to said knowledge certainly is a factor there. I think the point however is that FREAKING ARTOSIS WAS THERE (!!!) and he could've done the job a million times better than anyone else in the world! In fact, most of the posts (after complaining about audio issues ofc) in the LR threads were asking 'where's Tastosis' and 'why fly them over if you're not going to use them' and it didn't always just refer to the casting.
I hate that the free stream quality is really low, it went from 480 to 360 half way thru the season and stayed 360. if it wasn't $25 maybe $10 I would have payed early on, and by the time the finals were here it wasn't worth $10 for 3 days and hard to find vods. ( imo)
I guess what i'm suggesting is make it a little cheaper for the high quality stream, give the freeloaders back a reasonable quality ( true 360p or 420-480p) not that washed out garble , Give access to replays, and make low Quality Vods free ( or one free Vod Per day like GSL) then half of those 80k ppl will be paying subscribers nest season.
Even if JP and WHEAT played at a bronze level, there is absolutely no basis to rip on them. They have (with the shows they created and host) made themselves the go-to points for the current affairs of the scene. As a result, they are both spectacularly well-informed and well-connected, the perfect template for a host or interviewer.
Until Anna or Rachel is involved at even a fraction of that depth, the comparison is silly. [Don't read this as a dig at them, Anna is a wonderful ambassador of both her pageant scene and sc and Rachel's connection with the Korean scene is invaluable.]
On July 14 2011 02:59 OCsurfeR wrote: Certainly with sports related interviews if the questions involve detailed and specific questions about tactics, unit composition, or other detailed strategy or tactic analysis, then the interviewer should have a better-than-layman knowledge of the sport or topic. But if the questions are, "How do you feel about winning the match?" or "What did you do to prepare?" or questions like that, the charisma of the interviewer and their ability to put the interviewee at ease is much more important.
Why must the questions be that basic? Why can't we have an interesting, probing post-game interview? We get it: "the game was really close." "thanks to my fans, i will show good games for them in the future." Why must all questions of tactics, units, strategy, or anything be avoided?
On July 14 2011 02:59 OCsurfeR wrote: Give folks like Seltzer, Anna Prosser and Lindsey time to develop their craft. It's a new sport, a new industry and these are new people learning it all.
Why is the hugely expensive Finals event anyone's first exposure to SC2? How can you give Lindsey absolutely no information about what she's doing after hiring her?
I can't really figure out a single thread of conversation here, so I'll just continue with the 'provide feedback' formula that Xeris suggested.
I guess my feeling for much of Season 1 was that NASL had some new and exciting concepts that you guys were really excited about and focused on, only to let the fundamentals lapse. The production suffered frequently, and the walkovers were unfortunate. The NASL seemed perpetually understaffed; there was always some small mistake that a larger group of people would've caught. Some of the decision making as well (player choices, league format) seems like it was made with an insular group and not fully vetted by a crowd. At the finals, all of the mistakes that NASL seems to have corrected over the course of the season came back again. Again, NASL seemed understaffed. Again there were some really questionable tournament format decisions.
If I could stress one thing, though Xeris, that would be communication. This was an issue from the first day to the last. When things went wrong, NASL either never acknowledged it, or did so only after a community reaction. When announcements were made, they were often made in only one or two settings. This absolutely has to change, and I think this had more of a corrosive effect on NASL's standing than anything else. It made NASL an easy punching bag because you guys were always too slow to set the record state, defend yourselves, or apologize. And it gave a strong impression that the NASL was shooting for 'good enough' instead of 'the best'. That's damming. Throughout the season, as little mistake after little mistake piled up, myself and others got the idea that the NASL was too concerned with the big picture to focus on the nuts and bolts, and too ignorant of the community to recognize that the source of the negative responses was disappointment, not unsubstantiated hate.
Take a lesson from MLG Dallas, where the most prominent critic of the event was... the CEO of MLG. Despite the troubles MLG Dallas had, Sundance let everybody know that he personally was embarrassed and was going to fix the problems. NASL never had the balls or the personnel to say that. That needs to change.
This season, NASL was rescued by three people. PuMa, MC, and Sen. If they didn't play the games they played (Oh, why not make those games free on your website so non-subscribers can be convinced to watch? Don't be petty.) then NASL would've sunk. NASL was derailed mid-season by a tournament with a vastly inferior competitor pool, vastly inferior prize pool, and had its results completely spoiled before it even began. Keep that in mind. You guys need to recognize how close NASL came to the brink. The same errors won't be tolerated for a second season. So please, talk to the community a little more. Hire more people. Be vocal, helpful, and humble. And don't take second best as good enough.
On July 12 2011 15:42 Excalibur_Z wrote: That, to me, was NASL Season 1. It was like you had a grandiose idea for an awesome league, but the transition between the brainstorming phase and actual planning and delegation hit like a brick wall. Get a paid, qualified staff with experience in the field of editing and post-production. Get experienced department leaders who can manage their teams effectively, report issues to you upfront and provide their suggestions for improvement. Run it like the business it should be -- and needs to be in order to succeed. Volunteers and hopeful dreamers are no substitute for proven, experienced, career-minded professionals. Listen to their feedback and take it to heart.
You can dismiss this post as "hate" all you like, and you can shirk the blame all you like. You, Gretorp, and Inc are the faces of NASL whether you expected to be or not, and you guys are the ones who will be held collectively responsible for the positive or negative results of your league. All I know is that if my name is attached to something, I want to be its harshest critic and demand perfection at every turn.
The good news is that by changing things up, Season 2 can be a lot better. You've already received some constructive criticism in this thread and others, don't just ignore it because you think people are being hateful.
What's funny is i have 5 years production experience in broadcasting and even sent NASL my resume yet they ignored it and then put on that attrocity of a broadcast.
It speaks to how much they want their product to succeed. They received an email (if not multiple ones) from experienced staff and chose what seemed like some stoner kids from the backlot of a Pizza Hut.
Nepotism in action, baby!
You think Anna and the blond girl got the interview job because they're great interviewers?
Rachel is pretty well known in the community and CSN has provided so much great content from Korea, and Anna is the current Miss Oregon. There's no doubting their interview skills.
See, this is stupid. The fact that you're still making posts like this tells me you've completely missed the point. Yes, they've done stuff before. Doing CSN content is meaningful experience. I really don't know how being Miss Oregon is particularly relevant, but Anna has done some interviews before and so forth. I didn't have a problem with them (though Lindsey or whatever was pretty special), but the definition of a good performance is one that the audience likes. If you have a lot of your audience saying they didn't like their interviews, then saying "there's no doubting their interview skills" is just factually wrong. You can make an informed judgement that with time most people will like the interviews, or that they do now and these people are a minority, but you can't just post saying that they're just factually wrong and how dare they question you. It frankly doesn't matter at all what you think of their interviews or what other experience they have that you think is relevant. What matters is what the audience thinks. The audience opinion can't actually be wrong, and these posters are just expressing their opinion as part of the audience. The only reason things like "they've done interviews" before matter is because it's a sign that the audience is likely to actually like them.
Anna has over 2 years of experience interviewing Starcraft players (the first time I remember her was at WCG USA 2009 interviewing people). Rachel has done a LOT of interviewing through her time in Korea. I was responding to the fact that people think it's just nepotism, but it isn't. We brought them to the event to do interviews because they've done a lot of it before.
I've read that a lot of people would rather have someone like Artosis or Day9 doing interviews rather than Anna/Rachel. This point is being taken into consideration for future events. Again, I was responding to people simply saying "they're only here because of nepotism," they were there because of their experience.
GET ARTOSIS TO DO INTERVIEWS!!! simple solution to a simple problem. This guy actually understands the game... Or at least get him to write the questions.
I was really frustrated after seeing an amazing game only to have someone who didn't grasp it ask questions about some irrelevant situation in game or "how they prepared for their match?".
I don't really get that argument to be honest. DjWheat and JP interview people often, and neither of them are good at the game. Their game knowledge is probably only slightly better than someone like Anna or Rachel (who both have extensive experience being around people who know a lot about the game). Is it because, as women, they seem less likely to know about the game or be qualified to interview someone as opposed to JP, for example? Nobody ever complains about JP's lack of game knowledge when he interviews someone... so why do people suddenly complain with Anna and/or Rachel interviewing someone?
Also -- if you read Korean interviews of GSL games, they ask really similar questions.. "how did you prepare," "why did you decide to do X in Game 2," etc.
Can you please elaborate?
- I thought JP was a masters random player which is pretty damn good. Not sure what DJWheat is but based on ITG he seems competent enough. Plus they're both known to be long-time gamers in other communities. I guess the community perception is that Anna/Rachel are just beginners at the game as they've never really talked about playing it.
- Even given above, if JP/DJWheat were interviewing, you would still get some people telling you to get Artosis to interview, and rightfully so. He's got the best game knowledge and also proven to have good interview skills from his personal youtube videos and GSL. If you put up a poll for example I can't imagine Artosis not beating JP/DJW/Anna/Rachel by a wide margin.
- If you are going to develop certain interviewers knowing they are not the best then you will get flak for that. What's so hard to understand? If you still think it's worth it to go with Anna/Rachel to develop them, fine, but don't complain about the complaining.
On July 14 2011 05:45 tree.hugger wrote: And it gave a strong impression that the NASL was shooting for 'good enough' instead of 'the best'.
I got this impression too, enforced by this thread. The public word is always that of a qualitatively positive trend, rather than some quantitative or more universal state.
Seeing as how that last sentence confuses even me, I'll give an example. It's like they're saying they're getting better grades now than they did earlier, without telling us what they think their current grades are. Do they think the finals were an A or a D?
While it is certainly unusual for anyone to be so honest in public, Sundance set the bar really high when it comes to transparency in feedback and expectations and there's no chance it will be lowered again.
On July 14 2011 05:34 Wren wrote: Even if JP and WHEAT played at a bronze level, there is absolutely no basis to rip on them. They have (with the shows they created and host) made themselves the go-to points for the current affairs of the scene. As a result, they are both spectacularly well-informed and well-connected, the perfect template for a host or interviewer.
Until Anna or Rachel is involved at even a fraction of that depth, the comparison is silly. [Don't read this as a dig at them, Anna is a wonderful ambassador of both her pageant scene and sc and Rachel's connection with the Korean scene is invaluable.]
On July 14 2011 02:59 OCsurfeR wrote: Certainly with sports related interviews if the questions involve detailed and specific questions about tactics, unit composition, or other detailed strategy or tactic analysis, then the interviewer should have a better-than-layman knowledge of the sport or topic. But if the questions are, "How do you feel about winning the match?" or "What did you do to prepare?" or questions like that, the charisma of the interviewer and their ability to put the interviewee at ease is much more important.
Why must the questions be that basic? Why can't we have an interesting, probing post-game interview? We get it: "the game was really close." "thanks to my fans, i will show good games for them in the future." Why must all questions of tactics, units, strategy, or anything be avoided?
On July 14 2011 02:59 OCsurfeR wrote: Give folks like Seltzer, Anna Prosser and Lindsey time to develop their craft. It's a new sport, a new industry and these are new people learning it all.
Why is the hugely expensive Finals event anyone's first exposure to SC2? How can you give Lindsey absolutely no information about what she's doing after hiring her?
Your assumptions are incorrect. We didn't launch Lindsey with "no information" as you suggest, but she was hired a relatively short time prior to the Finals. Perhaps the Finals weren't the best place to debut her. It's a learning experience.
On July 14 2011 05:34 Wren wrote: Even if JP and WHEAT played at a bronze level, there is absolutely no basis to rip on them. They have (with the shows they created and host) made themselves the go-to points for the current affairs of the scene. As a result, they are both spectacularly well-informed and well-connected, the perfect template for a host or interviewer.
Until Anna or Rachel is involved at even a fraction of that depth, the comparison is silly. [Don't read this as a dig at them, Anna is a wonderful ambassador of both her pageant scene and sc and Rachel's connection with the Korean scene is invaluable.]
On July 14 2011 02:59 OCsurfeR wrote: Certainly with sports related interviews if the questions involve detailed and specific questions about tactics, unit composition, or other detailed strategy or tactic analysis, then the interviewer should have a better-than-layman knowledge of the sport or topic. But if the questions are, "How do you feel about winning the match?" or "What did you do to prepare?" or questions like that, the charisma of the interviewer and their ability to put the interviewee at ease is much more important.
Why must the questions be that basic? Why can't we have an interesting, probing post-game interview? We get it: "the game was really close." "thanks to my fans, i will show good games for them in the future." Why must all questions of tactics, units, strategy, or anything be avoided?
On July 14 2011 02:59 OCsurfeR wrote: Give folks like Seltzer, Anna Prosser and Lindsey time to develop their craft. It's a new sport, a new industry and these are new people learning it all.
Why is the hugely expensive Finals event anyone's first exposure to SC2? How can you give Lindsey absolutely no information about what she's doing after hiring her?
Your assumptions are incorrect. We didn't launch Lindsey with "no information" as you suggest, but she was hired a relatively short time prior to the Finals. Perhaps the Finals weren't the best place to debut her. It's a learning experience.
It's not an assumption, it's what Lindsey posted herself:
Just got home from my first ever StarCraft experience. I know nothing about the game yet (obviously), but I'm having fun learning. My agent told me they'd train me before I started interviewing, but ...well, I suppose jumping right into on-camera interviewing is one way to learn Sorry for all the mistakes, but thanks for watching.
On July 14 2011 05:34 Wren wrote: Even if JP and WHEAT played at a bronze level, there is absolutely no basis to rip on them. They have (with the shows they created and host) made themselves the go-to points for the current affairs of the scene. As a result, they are both spectacularly well-informed and well-connected, the perfect template for a host or interviewer.
Until Anna or Rachel is involved at even a fraction of that depth, the comparison is silly. [Don't read this as a dig at them, Anna is a wonderful ambassador of both her pageant scene and sc and Rachel's connection with the Korean scene is invaluable.]
On July 14 2011 02:59 OCsurfeR wrote: Certainly with sports related interviews if the questions involve detailed and specific questions about tactics, unit composition, or other detailed strategy or tactic analysis, then the interviewer should have a better-than-layman knowledge of the sport or topic. But if the questions are, "How do you feel about winning the match?" or "What did you do to prepare?" or questions like that, the charisma of the interviewer and their ability to put the interviewee at ease is much more important.
Why must the questions be that basic? Why can't we have an interesting, probing post-game interview? We get it: "the game was really close." "thanks to my fans, i will show good games for them in the future." Why must all questions of tactics, units, strategy, or anything be avoided?
On July 14 2011 02:59 OCsurfeR wrote: Give folks like Seltzer, Anna Prosser and Lindsey time to develop their craft. It's a new sport, a new industry and these are new people learning it all.
Why is the hugely expensive Finals event anyone's first exposure to SC2? How can you give Lindsey absolutely no information about what she's doing after hiring her?
Your assumptions are incorrect. We didn't launch Lindsey with "no information" as you suggest, but she was hired a relatively short time prior to the Finals. Perhaps the Finals weren't the best place to debut her. It's a learning experience.
Didn't she say in an interview the first game of Starcraft she had ever seen was at the finals? That's about as close to "no information" as you can get...
Nobody ever complains about JP or DjWheat? Is that a joke? LOL. I've read plenty of complaints about JP being boring, uncharismatic, uninsightful and asking silly questions. Lack of game knowledge and self confidence when it comes to said knowledge certainly is a factor there. I think the point however is that FREAKING ARTOSIS WAS THERE (!!!) and he could've done the job a million times better than anyone else in the world! In fact, most of the posts (after complaining about audio issues ofc) in the LR threads were asking 'where's Tastosis' and 'why fly them over if you're not going to use them' and it didn't always just refer to the casting.
I'm going to address this and put this to bed right now, and after this, I'm not responding to more questions about it.
Tasteless and Artosis didn't cast the Championship match because they are not NASL's casting team. Gretorp and InControL were our casting duo for Season One, and thus they were our casting duo for the Finals. That was always the decision, and we stand firmly behind it. You may like Tastosis better, you may not, but regardless, we remained loyal to our casting duo for the Championship match.
We were very VERY pleased to have Tastosis and Day9 with us for the Finals, and together with Gretorp and iNcontroL made for a very exciting Finals weekend and allowed us to rotate through several casting combinations thoughout the weekend. The casters themselves even complimented NASL organizers several times about how we set up the casting schedule so that they could have breaks, as well as give fans exposure to different casting combinations.
While the community's opinions regarding who NASL's casters are and were for the Finals is absolutely relevant, we firmly stand behind our team, and believe Gretorp and iNcontroL did an OUTSTANDING job for the Championship match between Puma and MC.
On July 14 2011 05:34 Wren wrote: Even if JP and WHEAT played at a bronze level, there is absolutely no basis to rip on them. They have (with the shows they created and host) made themselves the go-to points for the current affairs of the scene. As a result, they are both spectacularly well-informed and well-connected, the perfect template for a host or interviewer.
Until Anna or Rachel is involved at even a fraction of that depth, the comparison is silly. [Don't read this as a dig at them, Anna is a wonderful ambassador of both her pageant scene and sc and Rachel's connection with the Korean scene is invaluable.]
On July 14 2011 02:59 OCsurfeR wrote: Certainly with sports related interviews if the questions involve detailed and specific questions about tactics, unit composition, or other detailed strategy or tactic analysis, then the interviewer should have a better-than-layman knowledge of the sport or topic. But if the questions are, "How do you feel about winning the match?" or "What did you do to prepare?" or questions like that, the charisma of the interviewer and their ability to put the interviewee at ease is much more important.
Why must the questions be that basic? Why can't we have an interesting, probing post-game interview? We get it: "the game was really close." "thanks to my fans, i will show good games for them in the future." Why must all questions of tactics, units, strategy, or anything be avoided?
On July 14 2011 02:59 OCsurfeR wrote: Give folks like Seltzer, Anna Prosser and Lindsey time to develop their craft. It's a new sport, a new industry and these are new people learning it all.
Why is the hugely expensive Finals event anyone's first exposure to SC2? How can you give Lindsey absolutely no information about what she's doing after hiring her?
Your assumptions are incorrect. We didn't launch Lindsey with "no information" as you suggest, but she was hired a relatively short time prior to the Finals. Perhaps the Finals weren't the best place to debut her. It's a learning experience.
It's not an assumption, it's what Lindsey posted herself:
Just got home from my first ever StarCraft experience. I know nothing about the game yet (obviously), but I'm having fun learning. My agent told me they'd train me before I started interviewing, but ...well, I suppose jumping right into on-camera interviewing is one way to learn Sorry for all the mistakes, but thanks for watching.
Ouch, apparently NASL needs to hire a new PR guy instead of OCSurfer and Xeris, since they are just assuming that the scene is a bunch of misogynists. I guess they havent heard the term "The Customer Is Always Right".
On July 14 2011 06:24 Wren wrote: He was talking about using the people who have been living in Korea for years as interviewers. The caster thing is clear to all of us.
It's a good point Wren, and something we will consider for Season Two.
I was a huge critic of Season 1 and the production value sof the finals, but I truly appreciate your thoughtful post and it gives me great hope that Season 2 will be markedly better. I doubt you'll have as many presales this time though
Didn't she say in an interview the first game of Starcraft she had ever seen was at the finals? That's about as close to "no information" as you can get...
Yes. It is like for every problem these NASL guys have an excuse. Take a page from Sundance, acknowledge and own your problems, say as specifically as you can what you are doing to correct them, and then do it! Pointing fingers at the players for delays, saying huge delays are reasonable for a LAN, and outright contradicting what your employee (Lindsey) even said, is not going to buy you a lot of goodwill.
"It's a learning experience" is not this magic card you can whip out every time there is a problem over the entire course of the season. If similar or the same problems keep happening there is very little "learning" going on, and as far as I can tell you guys have been making the mistake of putting unqualified (or not enough) people in a position where they are guaranteed to make mistakes all season, starting with the editor and all the way through Lindsey. (just to be clear I am not bashing Lindsey at all, she did an awesome job for the situation her employer put her in)
I want to add something positive since this was a pretty negative post, you guys did manage to get many of the best players in the world, have them play broadcasted games in a several month season, and come to a final where we have seen some of the best games at any live event. That was an ambitious goal and you did it, you guys definitely have the content to be hugely successful if you can fix the other issues surrounding it.
On July 14 2011 06:24 Wren wrote: He was talking about using the people who have been living in Korea for years as interviewers. The caster thing is clear to all of us.
It's a good point Wren, and something we will consider for Season Two.
Yeah, it'd be VERY cool to have live interviews without a translator. Would be so much smoother. If the translating interviewer also happens to be one of the premier English-language casters, so much the better, but even a fluent member of the scene, somebody like Milkis, could make for really good interviews. [/theorycrafting]
On July 14 2011 06:24 Wren wrote: He was talking about using the people who have been living in Korea for years as interviewers. The caster thing is clear to all of us.
It's a good point Wren, and something we will consider for Season Two.
Yeah, it'd be VERY cool to have live interviews without a translator. Would be so much smoother. If the translating interviewer also happens to be one of the premier English-language casters, so much the better, but even a fluent member of the scene, somebody like Milkis, could make for really good interviews. [/theorycrafting]
We've actually spoken about that internally as an idea for Season Two. And if Sen keeps being the beast he is, we'll need Korean and Mandarin interviewers.
On July 14 2011 06:24 Wren wrote: He was talking about using the people who have been living in Korea for years as interviewers. The caster thing is clear to all of us.
Exactly, I'm not sure how he managed to misinterpret my post if he actually read it. Anyway, they've not only lived in Korea for years, but they're pillars of the Starcraft community as a whole. They (including Day9) know the players, the game, the scene, the fans, everything and they probably even have more experience doing major events than every single other person that was working there those days. Hiring some beauty pageant blonde and giving her exactly nothing to go on (which was proven despite OCsurfer's claims), instead of using the most perfect people in the world for the job who are already there anyway and every viewer wants to see, is baffling beyond belief. At least we got some new memes I guess.
Frankly I can't believe some of the excuses and arguments to support said excuses being posted here, like the random misogynist reference, it's ridiculous. The NASL isn't your baby and we're not bullying it so stop acting like it. We're telling you what we expect in return for giving you money. If you don't want our money, then fine, but I expect otherwise.
On July 14 2011 06:24 Wren wrote: He was talking about using the people who have been living in Korea for years as interviewers. The caster thing is clear to all of us.
Hiring some beauty pageant blonde and giving her exactly nothing to go on (which was proven despite OCsurfer's claims), instead of using the most perfect people in the world for the job who are already there anyway and every viewer wants to see, is baffling beyond belief.
Tasteless, Artosis, or Day[9] might get even more awkward, nerd-in-shock responses than Lindsey!
On July 14 2011 06:24 Wren wrote: He was talking about using the people who have been living in Korea for years as interviewers. The caster thing is clear to all of us.
Hiring some beauty pageant blonde and giving her exactly nothing to go on (which was proven despite OCsurfer's claims), instead of using the most perfect people in the world for the job who are already there anyway and every viewer wants to see, is baffling beyond belief.
Tasteless, Artosis, or Day[9] might get even more awkward, nerd-in-shock responses than Lindsey!
True, but then they could've done lengthier off-stage player interviews, or just sat together and plain entertained us with some discussion about the games that were just played or even random Starcraft banter during the downtime. Something like how sports events go back to the studio during half-time and after the game to discuss a ton of stuff about the game and its implications with supposed experts. The possibilities are endless with these people and it's sad to see so much potential go to waste because of bad management.
As long as NASL accepts the criticism (however harsh) and adopts a workman-like mentality, there should be no problems in Season 2. Maybe go a little lighter on the hot girls and just stick to the grass-roots of Esports?
If I was in charge of NASL, here's what I'd do: Gather all staffers into the conference room. Have them all watch the full 11 hours of Day 1. Have them make notes on what went well, what went bad, and what could be done to improve the event. Then have them watch Day 3 to see what did improve.
For NASL 2 Finals, have a full day reserved for a dress rehearsal. All those issues that happened on Day 1 and corrected for Day 2 would have been caught during the practice cast. Learning how to use the equipment isn't something that should be done live on-the-air. Issues like needing an observer instead of putting the computer on follow would have been discovered before going live.
PS - And no more excuses about a broken projector. The other two projectors were working and could have been used for the tests.
I was a Season 1 pass holder, and already purchased my pass for Season 2. I also attended the Season 1 live finals in Ontario. I'm a big fan of NASL, and support the league wholeheartedly. While NASL had a lot of issues during the season and the finals, I feel confident it will overcome those problems. I'm very happy that NASL seems to pay very close attention to the community, and addresses nearly every complaint/suggestion that comes up. If NASL continues along this path, I see the league becoming a full success.
If I had one complaint that hasn't been addressed, it would be the casters and production team's lack of providing the viewers proper scope for matches, in regards to the overall season and standings. Each match should be discussed in greater detail on how it will affect standings, playoff seedings, whether a player will be eliminated, etc... This is very common in traditional sports broadcasts, and it should be done for NASL as well. Not only should casters mention player records and standings, but there should also be graphics applied to the discussion before every match. It was annoying having to go to nasl.tv to check the standings before each match, then try and figure out the repercussions of a win/loss for each player. Throw up a graphic of the standings before a match and have the casters address it. This will add more hype/drama to each match.
On a similar note, it would be nice if additional graphics that many traditional sports broadcasts use were applied to each match in post production. For instance, various stats like win % vs. certain races and/or map win % graphics could be shown as a graphical overlay during a cast (not just the beginning). Perhaps short "helpful tips" can be included as well. Little text bits with interesting information about the player, the strategy, statistics, etc... During the early stages of matches, there's a bit of a lull in interesting information, so I think it would be a perfect time to throw a few of these "graphical tidbits" in there. These things are quite common in traditional sports broadcasts, and I think they would go a long way to making newcomers to eSports feel more comfortable watching a NASL broadcast. I have a feeling these types of graphics are going to be done in the IPL2 later today (we'll see)...so perhaps you can copy them.
I'm very happy to see that some changes are coming for the best. Any news about keeping/removing the 360p limit and the ability to chat only if you are pro. I honestly think this is a bad move. I don't really know any other tournament that deprives his main viewers like that...
I usually don't post PMs out of respect for the circumstances in which it was written but since this is an official representative of an organization and I feel it's quite an appalling message all in all, I'm compelled to share with the community and I've already sent it as part of an email to Russel Pfister.
Another giant excuse for the excuses posted and the general unwillingness to admit fault, and a disturbing tidbit about what the NASL organization supposedly thinks of the community. Notice the signature at the bottom, NASL.tv.
From: OCsurfeR [ 129 posts | Profile | Buddy | Report ] Subject: NASL Date: 7/14/11 23:30 Just a side note.
One of the difficulties we encounter is that Tl.net is not a customer service forum. In fact, 99% of those posting on these boards will never pay for a subscription of any sort, so they're not ACTUALLY our customers. I mean, they are our customers in the sense that if they watch the stream and the commercials their our audience, but they're not actually substantially contributing to our business model.
If this was a forum for subscribing customers, not only would the conversations be more mature, but there'd be a lot more to talk about in a constructive fashion.
As to your "it's not our baby" comment. Well, in fact, it is our baby. We conceived it, we birthed it, and now we're trying to raise it. Is that an excuse for us to get defensive...in most cases no, we shouldn't be, but think about how you would deal with the day in, day out trolling that happens on these pages. It can be rather a large challenge to smile at all the constant attacks, many of which are from people who just love to troll and have no constructive feedback whatsoever.
I don't PM everybody, just the posters who make good points and who clearly seem to be mature members of the community.
Peace.
OCsurfeR, NASL.tv
If this is what the community representatives at the NASL truly believe then maybe you guys should just quit trying to connect with the communities, or you know, actually get your own supposedly utopian forums, because quite clearly, you're not cut out for the job at hand.
What's next? An excuse for this too? The solution is to stop posting random shit that doesn't make sense coming from a representative of a product that needs customers. What's the point of posting constructive feedback if it gets shut down by unjustified denial because of circumstances entirely irrelevant?
vrok, you're ridiculous. Instead of maybe PMing him back to try and get a point across about possible changes to the quality and presentation of their product, instead you just publicly ridicule him without any constructive criticism. As of that post, it looks more like a torch-bearing witch-hunt, to me.
On July 15 2011 02:07 vrok wrote: I usually don't post PMs out of respect for the circumstances in which it was written but since this is an official representative of an organization and I feel it's quite an appalling message all in all, I'm compelled to share with the community and I've already sent it as part of an email to Russel Pfister.
Another giant excuse for the excuses posted and the general unwillingness to admit fault, and a disturbing tidbit about what the NASL organization supposedly thinks of the community. Notice the signature at the bottom, NASL.tv.
From: OCsurfeR [ 129 posts | Profile | Buddy | Report ] Subject: NASL Date: 7/14/11 23:30 Just a side note.
One of the difficulties we encounter is that Tl.net is not a customer service forum. In fact, 99% of those posting on these boards will never pay for a subscription of any sort, so they're not ACTUALLY our customers. I mean, they are our customers in the sense that if they watch the stream and the commercials their our audience, but they're not actually substantially contributing to our business model.
If this was a forum for subscribing customers, not only would the conversations be more mature, but there'd be a lot more to talk about in a constructive fashion.
As to your "it's not our baby" comment. Well, in fact, it is our baby. We conceived it, we birthed it, and now we're trying to raise it. Is that an excuse for us to get defensive...in most cases no, we shouldn't be, but think about how you would deal with the day in, day out trolling that happens on these pages. It can be rather a large challenge to smile at all the constant attacks, many of which are from people who just love to troll and have no constructive feedback whatsoever.
I don't PM everybody, just the posters who make good points and who clearly seem to be mature members of the community.
Peace.
OCsurfeR, NASL.tv
If this is what the community representatives at the NASL truly believe then maybe you guys should just quit trying to connect with the communities, or you know, actually get your own supposedly utopian forums, because quite clearly, you're not cut out for the job at hand.
What's next? An excuse for this too? The solution is to stop posting random shit that doesn't make sense coming from a representative of a product that needs customers.
OCsurfer seems to suffer from a severe case of denial. I've seen very little to no trolling in this thread. A lot of the remarks people make are completely justified. Why is it so difficult for people to realize they've made mistakes?
I really enjoyed watching all the games staying up till redic hours doing so but besides obv sound issues the one thing bugging me with your post is this. 'As far as the delays go -- this was fairly standard for almost every LAN even' I don't think you should use that to justify the delays and next time plan a better schedule to reduce the chances of delays from whatever caused them this time.
Im not sure exactly how many PCs you had to work with in the booths but setting up etc does take a fair bit of time at lans so i think if you have the 2 pcs in the booths and 2 backstage somewhere, the next players in the game schedule to be on after the current game should warmup and get there settings/drivers sorted on backstage PCs and in between the games you can just swap the PCs in and maybe get things going a bit faster. Can't wait for season 2, good work so far
No matter what you have to lose atleast 2 times to be eliminated from an MLG competition. If you do poorly in groups you're placed into the losers bracket but that's after multiple losses.
I don't think you can say MLG is single elimination at all.
The stream chat has those nice little stars next to the names of all the subscribers, and it was FAR AND AWAY the most vicious real-time feedback I've ever seen. Maybe they should start a subscriber forum, then there would be no denying what their customers think.
NASL would do well to realize that TL is as friendly a forum they will ever be exposed to, where people strive to be rational and reasonable and moderators actively squelch the unsupporered hate their productions have generated.
It is absolutely appalling to see broad sweeping dismissals.
All that said, PMs are meant to stay private, it is always "wrong" to share them in public.
I used to work in industrial safety, and our policy was this: there is no such thing an "accident." An accident makes it sound like there is no one to blame, it just happened. That is never the case. If someone is injured, it is because either:
-Policy was not followed. The person who failed to follow policy is to blame, and will be dealt with accordingly.
-Policy was followed. This means the policy was unclear or wrong, and MUST BE CHANGED to avoid future incidents.
NASL, it really looks to me like you went into this without a plan. Shit happens, and you just say "oh well shit happens." Shit will always happen, you need to make sure that you do everything in your power to prepare for it and deal with it. Will things still go wrong? Of course, but you need a baseline of standards so you can go back and update them based on the new information. If you fail to do that, NASL Season 2 is going to have just as many problems. People might be willing to forgive once, but don't be surprised if the hate for Season 2 is ten times worse.
But that's the bad news. The good news is you can fix it! Take responsibility, really look at what went wrong, and have a detailed plan to avoid those issues in the future.
Certainly we went into everything we do with a detailed plan. Certainly that plan wasn't perfect. Certainly it wasn't always executed perfectly. Certainly the plan needs revision and we are revising it. We don't say "accidents happen" to put aside the NASL's responsibility, we take full responsibility for every decision we make and every error that occurs, thus my apology on the behalf of the NASL for the last-moment schedule change on the last day of the Finals, along with several other explanations and admissions on where we have erred and need to improve.
NASL has been and will continue to be as transparent as possible to the community and we will continue to admit our mistakes and then strive even harder to fix them until the NASL is an organization each and every member of the SC2 community can be proud of.
On July 15 2011 03:35 Wren wrote: The stream chat has those nice little stars next to the names of all the subscribers, and it was FAR AND AWAY the most vicious real-time feedback I've ever seen. Maybe they should start a subscriber forum, then there would be no denying what their customers think.
NASL would do well to realize that TL is as friendly a forum they will ever be exposed to, where people strive to be rational and reasonable and moderators actively squelch the unsupporered hate their productions have generated.
It is absolutely appalling to see broad sweeping dismissals.
All that said, PMs are meant to stay private, it is always "wrong" to share them in public.
The biggest challenge we face in future events is how to create an event that is as engaging for the remote streaming audience as it is for the live audience. Albeit even the live audience offered some feedback lending credulity that there was probably too much time between matches, on the whole they didn't mind it nearly as much as the remote audience and, in fact many appreciated the breaks as an opportunity to get signatures from players, have something to eat, visit partner booths and discuss the matches with each other. None of that is really possible remotely, which means we in the NASL need to do a better job in either bifurcating that content so there is more for the remote audience, or compress inter-game times at the suffering of the live audience, or some other improvement to make it more ideal for both audiences.
You're right wren, on day one the streaming audience, all of whom were subscribers, were pretty vicious, and rightly so. By the end of Day one and pretty much through Day two and three things had calmed down considerably and there was a lot of positive feedback, but what I described above remained a persistent facet of pain for the streaming audience. We are aware and we will evolve it for the Season Two Finals.
On July 15 2011 03:35 Wren wrote: The stream chat has those nice little stars next to the names of all the subscribers, and it was FAR AND AWAY the most vicious real-time feedback I've ever seen. Maybe they should start a subscriber forum, then there would be no denying what their customers think.
NASL would do well to realize that TL is as friendly a forum they will ever be exposed to, where people strive to be rational and reasonable and moderators actively squelch the unsupporered hate their productions have generated.
It is absolutely appalling to see broad sweeping dismissals.
All that said, PMs are meant to stay private, it is always "wrong" to share them in public.
The biggest challenge we face in future events is how to create an event that is as engaging for the remote streaming audience as it is for the live audience.
I don't think it's that "hard". I used quotation marks because producing quality video broadcasts is obviously not easy. But entertaining both live and remote viewers is not something no one done before. Perhaps you can pick something up from for example the UFC but your post made me think of the Dreamhack invitational.
Ignoring the technical production quality(would guess some TV production company was responsible for that part), the basic concept did not seem complicated. From reading the comments on TL both the live and stream viewers seemed to love the event.
I'm sure it could be better than the DH invitational and I'm sure there will be better live events but it seemed like a decent example of an SC2 event concept that people appeared to enjoy.
On July 15 2011 03:35 Wren wrote: The stream chat has those nice little stars next to the names of all the subscribers, and it was FAR AND AWAY the most vicious real-time feedback I've ever seen. Maybe they should start a subscriber forum, then there would be no denying what their customers think.
NASL would do well to realize that TL is as friendly a forum they will ever be exposed to, where people strive to be rational and reasonable and moderators actively squelch the unsupporered hate their productions have generated.
It is absolutely appalling to see broad sweeping dismissals.
All that said, PMs are meant to stay private, it is always "wrong" to share them in public.
The biggest challenge we face in future events is how to create an event that is as engaging for the remote streaming audience as it is for the live audience.
I don't think it's that "hard". I used quotation marks because producing quality video broadcasts is obviously not easy. But entertaining both live and remote viewers is not something no one done before. Perhaps you can pick something up from for example the UFC but your post made me think of the Dreamhack invitational.
Ignoring the technical production quality(would guess some TV production company was responsible for that part), the basic concept did not seem complicated. From reading the comments on TL both the live and stream viewers seemed to love the event.
I'm sure it could be better than the DH invitational and I'm sure there will be better live events but it seemed like a decent example of an SC2 event concept that people appeared to enjoy.
The biggest diference is DH had a lot of games and people didn't mind losing a few games to watch everything that was avaible at the event. If your whole competition is one event, people can miss a few earlier games but still watch every game in the finals.
NASL wanted watching every single game while still doing other stuff in the local event possible. That's understandable, considering it's only the finals, but in my opinion impossible. You either have to make the local crowd do their stuff before or after the games, make them miss some matches, or accept large downtimes. I cannot think of a solution that does result in one of those three situations and would be pleasently surprised if they could find one, but I believe they will just have to compromise and offer the live crowd less time to do what they do.
On July 15 2011 03:35 Wren wrote: The stream chat has those nice little stars next to the names of all the subscribers, and it was FAR AND AWAY the most vicious real-time feedback I've ever seen. Maybe they should start a subscriber forum, then there would be no denying what their customers think.
NASL would do well to realize that TL is as friendly a forum they will ever be exposed to, where people strive to be rational and reasonable and moderators actively squelch the unsupporered hate their productions have generated.
It is absolutely appalling to see broad sweeping dismissals.
All that said, PMs are meant to stay private, it is always "wrong" to share them in public.
The biggest challenge we face in future events is how to create an event that is as engaging for the remote streaming audience as it is for the live audience.
I don't think it's that "hard". I used quotation marks because producing quality video broadcasts is obviously not easy. But entertaining both live and remote viewers is not something no one done before. Perhaps you can pick something up from for example the UFC but your post made me think of the Dreamhack invitational.
Ignoring the technical production quality(would guess some TV production company was responsible for that part), the basic concept did not seem complicated. From reading the comments on TL both the live and stream viewers seemed to love the event.
I'm sure it could be better than the DH invitational and I'm sure there will be better live events but it seemed like a decent example of an SC2 event concept that people appeared to enjoy.
The biggest diference is DH had a lot of games and people didn't mind losing a few games to watch everything that was avaible at the event. If your whole competition is one event, people can miss a few earlier games but still watch every game in the finals.
NASL wanted watching every single game while still doing other stuff in the local event possible. That's understandable, considering it's only the finals, but in my opinion impossible. You either have to make the local crowd do their stuff before or after the games, make them miss some matches, or accept large downtimes. I cannot think of a solution that does result in one of those three situations and would be pleasently surprised if they could find one, but I believe they will just have to compromise and offer the live crowd less time to do what they do.
I meant the Dreamhack Stockholm invitational, not DH summer/winter.
On July 15 2011 03:35 Wren wrote: The stream chat has those nice little stars next to the names of all the subscribers, and it was FAR AND AWAY the most vicious real-time feedback I've ever seen. Maybe they should start a subscriber forum, then there would be no denying what their customers think.
NASL would do well to realize that TL is as friendly a forum they will ever be exposed to, where people strive to be rational and reasonable and moderators actively squelch the unsupporered hate their productions have generated.
It is absolutely appalling to see broad sweeping dismissals.
All that said, PMs are meant to stay private, it is always "wrong" to share them in public.
The biggest challenge we face in future events is how to create an event that is as engaging for the remote streaming audience as it is for the live audience.
I don't think it's that "hard". I used quotation marks because producing quality video broadcasts is obviously not easy. But entertaining both live and remote viewers is not something no one done before. Perhaps you can pick something up from for example the UFC but your post made me think of the Dreamhack invitational.
Ignoring the technical production quality(would guess some TV production company was responsible for that part), the basic concept did not seem complicated. From reading the comments on TL both the live and stream viewers seemed to love the event.
I'm sure it could be better than the DH invitational and I'm sure there will be better live events but it seemed like a decent example of an SC2 event concept that people appeared to enjoy.
The biggest diference is DH had a lot of games and people didn't mind losing a few games to watch everything that was avaible at the event. If your whole competition is one event, people can miss a few earlier games but still watch every game in the finals.
NASL wanted watching every single game while still doing other stuff in the local event possible. That's understandable, considering it's only the finals, but in my opinion impossible. You either have to make the local crowd do their stuff before or after the games, make them miss some matches, or accept large downtimes. I cannot think of a solution that does result in one of those three situations and would be pleasently surprised if they could find one, but I believe they will just have to compromise and offer the live crowd less time to do what they do.
Obviously we'll have to brainstorm some options, but we believe if we cut down on some of the inter-game video, introduce features like post-game analysis and make the process of changing players out of the booths more efficient, we can both compress time and preserve the enjoyability both for the fans at the event and the fans at home. We'll be soliciting a ton of feedback from all of you as we prepare for the Season Two Finals.
Okay so I am going to make my point as short and sweet as possible to avoid the flame/whine threads that are all too common these days regarding this topic.
I want to start off saying that I love the growth we are seeing from the E-sports community. From IPL, GSL, NASL, DREAMHACK, and Much more we are getting a daily stream of great Sc2 content. All of these organization are putting a great foot forward in expanding the sport we all love so much.The pro scene is evolving and stories are developing to create a great atmosphere surrounding the players.
We all know that MLG Dallas was learning experience. They had ongoing issues with their stream which hurt their credibility to put a solid product out there for us. What was their reaction? They owned up to their shortcomings and guranteed a solid performance at their next showing @ MLG Columbus. In addition anyone that paid for HD stream quality/VOD access to MLG Dallas was either refunded or credited for the next MLG event. There was alot of paths they could of taken, but they chose to take care of their customers. It was great to see them be so successful @ MLG Columbus and show the community that they are a great organization that takes care of their audience.
So my question is to NASL. Much like MLG Dallas, we all know and acknowledge that NASL Season 1 had many shortcomings. Sure it had its positive ( so many great games through the season),but honestly the production value was far from expected, the no shows should of been handled differently or addressed before the season started, and the commentating should of been far better early in the season. Going into season 2 I have faith that you guys are going to fix these issues and put out a much better product starting at day 1. However that does not change the fact that the people who paid 20.00-25.00 were not given a polished and finished product. We were given a product with many bugs and issues. I almost feel like we paid to let them figure out how to produce a quality product.
So NASL, will there be any compensation for those who purchased Season 1 Tickets? I realize that we as consumers take our own risks when purchasing products, and we are not entitled to any kind of compensation. However, I would look at the road paved by MLG@Dallas and how they handled the whole process. Now it's time for NASL to step up.
On July 16 2011 07:03 OCsurfeR wrote: Any questions about NASL.tv accounts should be emailed to accounts@nasl.tv and we will assess requests for refunds on a case-by-case basis.
TL.net forums are not the correct place to have a Customer Service conversation.
So I was thinking about a fun way to change up the finals and give a compromise between single and double elimination, and I thought, why not have a hybrid of both? Have the entire tourney be double elimination, EXCEPT the finals match. I say hybrid because it's not truly double elimination - when you're elminated once, you can no longer get to first/second place. Instead, in the losers bracket, you compete for a third/fourth place. Thus, the winner of the losers bracket does not go up to play the winner of the winners bracket (and have to beat him twice), but rather he gets third place (which is still a whopping $10k from the prize pool).
You'd still be able to play a single elimination finals, the loser of the match doesn't drop to the losers bracket, they simply get 2nd place prize money, which is $15k more than third, so why go there anyways! You'd get in over twice the amount of games using this format with still having a finals where no player has an inherent advantage over another!
I understand this is more like having a single elimination tourney with a second, lesser tourney in the losers bracket, but it's a way to get in more games and keep the excitement imo.
This is how I would see it looking. Assuming all the same people won in the winners bracket of the single elimination tourney, this is how it could potentially look in the losers bracket. Even if they're no longer fighting for $50,000 first place, $10,000 is a huge prize in and of itself and bigger than 1st prize of many other tournies (CodeA, Homestory, etc. MLG Columbus). It would increase the number of games by soooo much without having the shitty finals that comes from traditional double elimination.
EPT
(Fixed my original post)
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