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Over at Cadred we've taken a look at the highs and lows of the MLG Spring Arena tournament, as written up by our resident US reporter Jeff Kim.
MLG Spring Arena 2012. It's the event that nobody knew about until 2 days before it happened when we saw the huge banner on TeamLiquid, and then the switch clicked in our minds "oh shit, I forgot about that!" As we younger gamers, the ones still in school, head into the final weeks of our classes before the summer, we halt our studies and attempt to watch this amazing event unfold.
Hampered this time by the presence of DreamHack in Stockholm, Sweden, there's not a doubt in my mind that the viewer numbers were more spread out this time and that no records will be broken, but that's just the personal side of things. Again, MLG fails to disappoint the viewers by cutting the fee to watch the weekend of premium content and Starcraft 2 by half, as a receptive Sundance DiGiovanni listens to the crowds that roared so much at him for trying something new. Guess what? It paid off.
To read the rest, if you're so inclined, click the following link:
http://www.cadred.org/News/Article/174638/
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Seems like a very biased review that puts MLG is a falsely positive light. I agree that the event was very well-run, but I would have liked a more objective review that talks more about Areas of Improvements and strengths and weaknesses instead of so much personal opinion by saying that the fans are unfair to MLG and that Sundance is a great guy (he is, I agree)
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On April 23 2012 17:46 setmeal wrote:
Seems like a very biased review that puts MLG is a falsely positive light. I agree that the event was very well-run, but I would have liked a more objective review that talks more about Areas of Improvements and strengths and weaknesses instead of so much personal opinion by saying that the fans are unfair to MLG and that Sundance is a great guy (he is, I agree)
Serious question - what improvements do you think could be made and what weaknesses do you think were evident?
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On April 23 2012 17:38 Richard_Lewis wrote:
Over at Cadred we've taken a look at the highs and lows of the MLG Spring Arena tournament, as written up by our resident US reporter Jeff Kim.
That's not a 'highs and lows' review, but a 'we love MLG and Sundance above everything he can do no wrong' review.
If you are reviewing the event itself, then there's no need to go around praising MLG for past decisions, good or bad, nor go after people for hating one small part of the tournament.
I didn't watch it so I can't comment on how good it was, but the text itself is clearly written by a fanboy, not someone pretending to be unbiased.
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On April 23 2012 17:48 Richard_Lewis wrote:Show nested quote +On April 23 2012 17:46 setmeal wrote:
Seems like a very biased review that puts MLG is a falsely positive light. I agree that the event was very well-run, but I would have liked a more objective review that talks more about Areas of Improvements and strengths and weaknesses instead of so much personal opinion by saying that the fans are unfair to MLG and that Sundance is a great guy (he is, I agree) Serious question - what improvements do you think could be made and what weaknesses do you think were evident?
Well I bought a ticket for the first Arena, but seeing the 720p free stream and production value of Dreamhack this weekend made me glad I didn't pay for this one and I probably won't for future ones either. The line-up for this arena also wasn't really different from what we can see every week in the GSL.
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United States11637 Posts
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Wow, this is bad. By the looks of it the author is an actual contributor to the website, too. Good Lord, and he's a first year at university. Sadly, that explains a lot.
The worst part of the article is this paragraph here:
A bone to pick with you BLA BLA BLA ten sentences of stupid bullshit
Did you just randomly pick out an internet forum superstar when you were looking for a writer? This whining flies well on TL or Reddit because that's how people unfortunately discuss things on an anonymous internet forum, but for a website that calls itself premier esports coverage this is way under the line of passable quality.
This article is so bad, I originally thought I'd make a note of the rhetological fallacies in the article, but I just gave up after I realized there were so many.
There are some decent parts, yes. But I do not understand how you can look at this and decide to publish it on a website that tries to establish itself as "the premier esports coverage", and I hope that the author looks at this in five years time and cringes as hard as I did.
User was warned for this post
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On April 23 2012 17:48 Richard_Lewis wrote:Show nested quote +On April 23 2012 17:46 setmeal wrote:
Seems like a very biased review that puts MLG is a falsely positive light. I agree that the event was very well-run, but I would have liked a more objective review that talks more about Areas of Improvements and strengths and weaknesses instead of so much personal opinion by saying that the fans are unfair to MLG and that Sundance is a great guy (he is, I agree) Serious question - what improvements do you think could be made and what weaknesses do you think were evident?
The price. It should be free, especially after having watched Dreamhack this weekend.
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On April 23 2012 18:14 maartendq wrote:Show nested quote +On April 23 2012 17:48 Richard_Lewis wrote:On April 23 2012 17:46 setmeal wrote:
Seems like a very biased review that puts MLG is a falsely positive light. I agree that the event was very well-run, but I would have liked a more objective review that talks more about Areas of Improvements and strengths and weaknesses instead of so much personal opinion by saying that the fans are unfair to MLG and that Sundance is a great guy (he is, I agree) Serious question - what improvements do you think could be made and what weaknesses do you think were evident? The price. It should be free, especially after having watched Dreamhack this weekend.
I'm definitely in the "no to pay per view" camp. I know the writer of this article isn't. However, hypothetically, if the option was no MLG or PPV MLG, would you feel there was enough out there without it?
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This isnt a article by a "reporter"... far from it ... really bad reading...
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If you are going to review an event in the future, I would like to give some small advice. Take it or leave it 
- Don't start the review by declaring you knew it was amazing before it started ("we halt our studies and attempt to watch this amazing event unfold"), it's a clear indication that you were biased going into the event, not that the event was amazing.
- This segment: "MLG fails to disappoint the viewers by cutting the fee to watch the weekend of premium content and Starcraft 2 by half, as a receptive Sundance DiGiovanni listens" praises MLG, hails Sundance as receptive, etc, for the simple fact that they made a business decision to cut the price compared to the last time around. It's probably a good idea, but it's nothing to praise them for. It's a business decision, and says nothing about whether or not the event was worth it. This should have been further below in a paragraph discussing whether or not it was worth the pricetag. It seems out of place here.
- When you use half a paragraph to make a response to something on another site ("easily proved that they are the premier e-sports event in the world") - include a link. Some of us don't use the site. We don't know what it's about. You could be absolutely 100% right, or 100% wrong, and I wouldn't have an idea because you don't include a link to what you refer to. This paragraph is completely worthless for anyone that didn't continously read Reddit during the weekend. Do you want your review to only be for reddit users? If so, why not only post it there? Want it to be for everyone? Provide a link so we can check what you respond to, to see for ourselves whether or not you are fair.
- Death threats etc to Sundance based on feedback before the previous event ... may, possibly, have a place in a review of the first event, or a preview of this event, but not in a review of this event. It has nothing to do with this event specifically.
- Paragraph about 'extended series' ... ok so you love it, you hate people hating it, but - in this event - how did it work out? Were there any? Were they fun? Were there none? What happened? You don't mention it. Most reviews are not written exclusively for those that are die hard fans and watch everything, but for people that may have an interest themselves but for whatever reason only saw part of the event, or none of it. You only go about how you hate people hating it ... not what it had to do with this specific event, or how it worked out.
Now, and I am serious about this, the article is well written. It's nicely structured overall. The guy who write it is good at writing. Nice word choices, not too much repetition.
It's the content I don't think is right if you are going to review an event. A fair bit of the article seems misplaced, and the conclusion seems to be that before the event started, you knew it was going to be nothing short of amazing and little would convince you otherwise - and nothing did, so it was amazing.
A better way to do it would be to briefly mention everything negatively (same weekend as dreamhack, shitstorm about paying, extended series, etc etc etc) in one brief paragraph, and then do that brief 'so MLG had something to prove - that SC2 is worth a PPV model' (rephrased in a better way, obviously) question, before going into everything about the event, and conclude that it was nothing short of amazing (which, obviously, the author thinks).
What's done here is to straight out tell people in the introduction that he knew it would be nothing short of amazing, and nothing changed his mind ... so really, there was no point in reading everything.
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On April 23 2012 18:26 aebriol wrote:If you are going to review an event in the future, I would like to give some small advice. Take it or leave it - Don't start the review by declaring you knew it was amazing before it started (" we halt our studies and attempt to watch this amazing event unfold"), it's a clear indication that you were biased going into the event, not that the event was amazing. - This segment: " MLG fails to disappoint the viewers by cutting the fee to watch the weekend of premium content and Starcraft 2 by half, as a receptive Sundance DiGiovanni listens" praises MLG, hails Sundance as receptive, etc, for the simple fact that they made a business decision to cut the price compared to the last time around. It's probably a good idea, but it's nothing to praise them for. It's a business decision, and says nothing about whether or not the event was worth it. This should have been further below in a paragraph discussing whether or not it was worth the pricetag. It seems out of place here. - When you use half a paragraph to make a response to something on another site (" easily proved that they are the premier e-sports event in the world") - include a link. Some of us don't use the site. We don't know what it's about. You could be absolutely 100% right, or 100% wrong, and I wouldn't have an idea because you don't include a link to what you refer to. This paragraph is completely worthless for anyone that didn't continously read Reddit during the weekend. Do you want your review to only be for reddit users? If so, why not only post it there? Want it to be for everyone? Provide a link so we can check what you respond to, to see for ourselves whether or not you are fair. - Death threats etc to Sundance based on feedback before the previous event ... may, possibly, have a place in a review of the first event, or a preview of this event, but not in a review of this event. It has nothing to do with this event specifically. - Paragraph about 'extended series' ... ok so you love it, you hate people hating it, but - in this event - how did it work out? Were there any? Were they fun? Were there none? What happened? You don't mention it. Most reviews are not written exclusively for those that are die hard fans and watch everything, but for people that may have an interest themselves but for whatever reason only saw part of the event, or none of it. You only go about how you hate people hating it ... not what it had to do with this specific event, or how it worked out. Now, and I am serious about this, the article is well written. It's nicely structured overall. The guy who write it is good at writing. Nice word choices, not too much repetition. It's the content I don't think is right if you are going to review an event. A fair bit of the article seems misplaced, and the conclusion seems to be that before the event started, you knew it was going to be nothing short of amazing and little would convince you otherwise - and nothing did, so it was amazing. A better way to do it would be to briefly mention everything negatively (same weekend as dreamhack, shitstorm about paying, extended series, etc etc etc) in one brief paragraph, and then do that brief 'so MLG had something to prove - that SC2 is worth a PPV model' (rephrased in a better way, obviously) question, before going into everything about the event, and conclude that it was nothing short of amazing (which, obviously, the author thinks). What's done here is to straight out tell people in the introduction that he knew it would be nothing short of amazing, and nothing changed his mind ... so really, there was no point in reading everything.
I shall pass this on to the writer. Thanks for taking the time to be thorough.
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that wasnt really a review, or a report, or anything of the sort. it seems to have barely been about the event itself in fact. it was basically an opinion peice about mlg as a whole, not any kind of reporting. i mean, there are zero details about the event itself, in fact, not having watched it, or even been paying attention to it... i know almost nothing more about the event after reading the article than i did before.
if you are going to review an event, you should probobly talk about the event, not about how great you think mlg is.
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On April 23 2012 18:02 Logros wrote:Show nested quote +On April 23 2012 17:48 Richard_Lewis wrote:On April 23 2012 17:46 setmeal wrote:
Seems like a very biased review that puts MLG is a falsely positive light. I agree that the event was very well-run, but I would have liked a more objective review that talks more about Areas of Improvements and strengths and weaknesses instead of so much personal opinion by saying that the fans are unfair to MLG and that Sundance is a great guy (he is, I agree) Serious question - what improvements do you think could be made and what weaknesses do you think were evident? Well I bought a ticket for the first Arena, but seeing the 720p free stream and production value of Dreamhack this weekend I made me glad I didn't pay for this one and I probably won't for future ones either. The line-up for this arena also wasn't really different from what we can see every week in the GSL.
I just want to take a moment to laugh a bit about your last sentence. Was not really different from what we can see every week in the GSL? So, you mean, it wasn't really different from watching the absolute best players in the world play, with a foreigner or two thrown in for some hype?
Yes, nobody wants that... :D :D
MLG needs to have at least some bad players so that it is not the same as GSL. After all, we wouldn't want the quality of the games to be too high now would we!
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I would like to know one thing:
Why would i buy an MLG pass over a GSL pass for these Arenas?
The player field is nearly identical, except that they are all Jetlagged?
The casters are not better?
My problem with this event is:
I want to see only the best of the best? GSL!
I want to see top Koreans duke it out with an international field? Dreamhack! (Free)
I just don't see the "niche" MLG is targeting here, especially when it's PPV... There is just nothing i can't get somewhere else.
+1 extra Question:
Is there ANY reason why these MLG-Arenas are not held directly in Korea? You fly Players in, you fly Casters in, you have no audience... Woudln't it be easyer to just rent the GSL studio and do it from there?
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Like others have said that piece of writing was premeditated to be overly defensive if not abusive towards DH and blindingly faithful to MLG.
Try judging things on their merits next time.
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Actually the 'article' is fine, you just need to replace "reporter" with "fanboy" in the OP of this thread.
If you accept a couple of advices (beside aebriol's golden post) I'd say that you should limit your enthusiasm a little: as a reader, I'm not going to take you seriously if you talk all the time about how good of a guy Sundance is, how good MLG is and so on.
Especially if you don't avoid sentences like "You're not entitled to watch the stream. If you don't like the format, watch DreamHack, a players' stream, or go ladder or something.", or any reader will think of your article more as a post on your blog.
Or a post on Sundance's blog, since he is mentioned in 6 of the 8 major paragraphs! 
About the tournament's weakness - if you can call them like that - I'd say the lack of a live public (Dreamhack docet) and the timings (don't place the tournament the same days another big one is run, if you can).
Needless to be said a better timing could have provided another good foreigner in the group, so it's not only a matter of having to choose what stream to watch.
If we talk about the strong points I'd say the players lineup, despite the lack of Naniwa, Grubby and the finals.
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On April 23 2012 18:50 Velr wrote:
I would like to know one thing:
Why would i buy an MLG pass over a GSL pass for these Arenas?
The player field is nearly identical, except that they are all Jetlagged?
The casters are not better?
Well, the main argument would be stream quality. GSL streams are horrible, even with a HQ pass. MLG provides a very crisp 1080p stream and even the 480p stream look pretty good for those of us without much bandwidth.
There are also subjective matters. I like the compact weekend-format more than a long drawn out league. The times are better for me: MLG, while late at night, is in the weekend, while GSL always runs during working hours.
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Very defensive article, even defending extended series. Would be interesting to know what other "sports" this kid watches.
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On April 23 2012 17:38 Richard_Lewis wrote:Over at Cadred we've taken a look at the highs and lows of the MLG Spring Arena tournament, as written up by our resident US reporter Jeff Kim. Show nested quote +MLG Spring Arena 2012. It's the event that nobody knew about until 2 days before it happened when we saw the huge banner on TeamLiquid, and then the switch clicked in our minds "oh shit, I forgot about that!" As we younger gamers, the ones still in school, head into the final weeks of our classes before the summer, we halt our studies and attempt to watch this amazing event unfold.
Hampered this time by the presence of DreamHack in Stockholm, Sweden, there's not a doubt in my mind that the viewer numbers were more spread out this time and that no records will be broken, but that's just the personal side of things. Again, MLG fails to disappoint the viewers by cutting the fee to watch the weekend of premium content and Starcraft 2 by half, as a receptive Sundance DiGiovanni listens to the crowds that roared so much at him for trying something new. Guess what? It paid off. To read the rest, if you're so inclined, click the following link: http://www.cadred.org/News/Article/174638/
Nobody knew about it? Except those who watch SOTG/ITG or look at the TL calender.
Also just simply when compared to the last event this event was far worse. Sure the games/casting/lack of downtime were all good things, but 10 players kills an event. They cut the players to save money, but that doesn't allow for an amazing loser bracket run and also prevents people for rooting for their guy if he can't even participate.
Fluff article is fluffy imo
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EPT
