On September 04 2012 03:14 Dosey wrote: It's a shame that there's no real threat of competition for the current casters. The up and comers have even less knowledge than the current top dogs and the pros most likely don't want to abandon their dream just yet. If we had even just a little competition from the pros, we just might see their complacent attitudes disappear as they worked harder to put out better casting and maintain their jobs.
after reading this thread or any other thread about casting can you really be surprised at the lack of competition? progamer or otherwise, who wants to get into casting when all you'll get is people pouring over your every statement just waiting for you to say something wrong so they can shit on you?
#1: Do your homework: Basically there are about three casters out there who actually know what they're talking about. And, that's in terms of strategy, almost nobody follows the scene well enough to know the lesser known players, or to know how a famous player has been doing recently. Apollo is basically the only one that fits both categories. Kudos to him, but it's really pathetic that so many casters don't take the time out of their day to do research ahead of casting gigs. Every time I write an article, I make sure I know the people I'm writing about first, it's mind blowing that casters don't feel the same responsibility.
#2: Practice with a purpose Just like there are a lot of Sc2 players who play a billion games and never get better, so too are there a lot of casters who cast a ton of things, and don't improve. Just like a good Sc2 player mixes in some replay watching and some stream watching to improve their own game, so does a good caster critique themselves, identifies flaws in their delivery and watches other casters to learn and gain perspective.
#3: Stop trying to be so smart Everyone is so obsessed with predicting what's going to happen, and it's really terrible. I much prefer casters who focus on what is going on at the moment, and then think critically about why that's happening.You see a lot of casters spend minutes talking about scenarios that will never come to play. Don't count your chickens before they hatch. Let the players play the game, and explain what's going on for the audience.
#4: Stop trying to be so smart, Pt. 2 Negativity is the saddest thing a caster can bring to the table. There are tons of popular casters who seem to completely forget that they have total map vision, and the players don't. They're always being critical of players for things that are totally understandable mistakes. They're holding some players to totally unreasonable standards. If you're casting two NA GM's, of course they're not going to be able to multitask properly, so why even bring it up? Code A players are really really good, but don't hold them to the top of Code S standard. I think when casters are negative, it makes me think less of the game and really makes me bored by the end of it. It's awful, the absolute worst casters in Sc2 are the overly negative ones. It's compounded by the fact that, as explained in #1, these people usually use their negativity to cover up their own terrible game knowledge and preparation.
#5: Understand why you're there Not every caster has been around esports their entire life. Not every caster has an RTS mind like Day9 or Artosis. Not every caster can be full-time and can put in as much study as Apollo. I think the community expects casters for dry, clinical analysis, but if you listen to the Korean casters (the best in the game, there's no doubt) you'll realize that it's possible to be both informed and really exciting. I'd rather listen to the Koreans than any English caster. Their enthusiasm is infectious. They're telling the korean fans what's going on, but to someone who doesn't understand them, their voices make up the emotional tenor of the game. That's the caster's first job, not analysis. It's to be authentically excited about the game, and to give the viewers the emotional cues to make the game more entertaining.
On September 04 2012 03:14 Dosey wrote: It's a shame that there's no real threat of competition for the current casters. The up and comers have even less knowledge than the current top dogs and the pros most likely don't want to abandon their dream just yet. If we had even just a little competition from the pros, we just might see their complacent attitudes disappear as they worked harder to put out better casting and maintain their jobs.
after reading this thread or any other thread about casting can you really be surprised at the lack of competition? progamer or otherwise, who wants to get into casting when all you'll get is people pouring over your every statement just waiting for you to say something wrong so they can shit on you?
You talk as if this is different in the pro scene?
I think this will be semi-long. Basically though, People need information and they need to know how to apply it.
I don't think someone has to be a high level analyst with a ton of game knowledge to be a good caster. I don't actually even think that it's entirely necessary or the "best" way to cast. BUT I think a lot of people attach to that as the idea of what the "Best" kind of caster is because it shares a commonality that we just don't see in any of the casters really, and that is just high quality judgement and analysis in general. What I'm saying is, there is a difference between being able to analyze well, and doing an "analytical cast."
you could think of artosis as the best example of an analytical cast, especially on days where he disregards screaming at all. Or apollo. Or TLO.
But when it comes to just analyzing and correctly calling things and pointing things out in general WITHOUT all the high level back ground...there really isn't anyone. And if they do from time to time, it's entirely drowned out by the excessive screeching and stupid noises about equally stupid unexciting things like "zomg a fungal landed"...I genuinely can't decide if it's just because they think that's what their job is supposed to be, or they think they need to hype the game up making a big deal about explosions like SC2 needs to be a michael bay movie because the plot by itself isn't interesting enough in their opinion, or what. I really don't.
So we get garbage, and then we get people who either are, or attempt to be, really really purely analytical, with various degrees of success, because that's what the community asks for, and because that middle ground is very difficult to find, I think, because it requires a lot of game knowledge to be able to correctly identify everything and interpret it WITHOUT semi-devolving into an information bot.
So you can take people like Rotterdam (no really we're going through a few casters): Rotterdam does a lot more analysis than he used to, and makes a very big effort to give information and his opinion on the cast and what's going on and what he thinks people are going to potentially do. His biggest caveat in there however, is that most of the information he seems to be drawing from is his own personal experiences on the euro server or what he experiences with his friends or what his friends talk about, which limits his range a little and sometimes points him in the wrong direction. But he's still an amazing caster and honestly probably the best example of someone trying to find that middle ground I mentioned.
I think Khaldor is in a similar position of trying to find that middle ground. He has a lot of information and he tries to give a genuinely good cast without being all the way over to Artosis. Instead of falling to his own experience a bit too much like Rotterdam, he has problems with the other side of things. He turns his judgements into actual judgements and his casts sometimes sound like a coach looking at his player's replays. It's the part where the analysis meets the information and has to come out in a "cast", and again, I think that's the hardest part about casting.
Those are really the big two that stand out for me for what I'm talking about. I'm not saying shout-casting needs to go either; just that shout-casting in general from our casters has been completely bastardized into incoherent rambling and loud noises without any actual casting involved, and that that needs to change. And if you want to cast, or want to be a good caster, you need to have information, and then USE that information to aid your shout-cast, or your play by play, or your pure analysis, or your relaxed sort of community talk watching a replay together-cast
------------------- I think it's something the community should demand more of itself and it's casters. This screaming putting on a lights show bullshit zomg storm is just stupid. There needs to be more competition and the industry needs to demand actual excellence of itself and it's casters rather than "hey you're a cool guy in the community, THEREFORE YOU ARE NOW QUALIFIED TO CAST STARCRAFT" which is effectively the position a lot of people have.
SO, TLDR: have information and use that information you have. If analytical, bake it in correctly, If more shout-casting type (there arent just two), equally bake that in so you don't sound like a screeching nitwit all the fucking time. Also, regardless of what you are, you have to do both to varying degrees. Also also, community should expect more.
On September 04 2012 04:42 Gosi wrote:You don't see casters in other sports or in many other games for that matter sitting there explaining how the game works. That is something you look up yourself.
There's no specific trait to being good caster, everyone has their own style of doing it.
What makes me mad during casts is bashing players about mistakes and making misleading predictions. For some reason, I know Khaldor for both bashing players and making bad predictions, and I mean, obviously bad ones.
I do like TB's way of casting. He knows he's got pretty low game knowledge so he doesn't go into "This build is so popular on korean ladder, blablabla", he just comments what he sees, you can fully enjoy the game, thinking on your own.
Analysis is awesome, but I like it done after the game, not during it. You have the ability to have your own prespective of the game, which will be based on your own game knowledge, your awareness, not the knowledge of some guy sitting in front of camera.
I would say that "insightful" casters are better for the people who are pretty new to the game, comments like that help people to understand the game better, sometimes those comments are overused and make the game bleak.
On September 04 2012 04:42 Gosi wrote:You don't see casters in other sports or in many other games for that matter sitting there explaining how the game works. That is something you look up yourself.
Actually yes you do.
In what?
On September 04 2012 04:58 tree.hugger wrote: #5: Understand why you're there Not every caster has been around esports their entire life. Not every caster has an RTS mind like Day9 or Artosis. Not every caster can be full-time and can put in as much study as Apollo. I think the community expects casters for dry, clinical analysis, but if you listen to the Korean casters (the best in the game, there's no doubt) you'll realize that it's possible to be both informed and really exciting. I'd rather listen to the Koreans than any English caster. Their enthusiasm is infectious. They're telling the korean fans what's going on, but to someone who doesn't understand them, their voices make up the emotional tenor of the game. That's the caster's first job, not analysis. It's to be authentically excited about the game, and to give the viewers the emotional cues to make the game more entertaining.
Yes, this is huge aswell. English sc2 casting is so dead compared to korean casting, or something like Dota casting. During the weekend alot of new people to Dota came to check it out and said how amazingly fun and exciting it was because the casters there made it amazing, even if they didn't understand what heroes and spells did.
But at the same time, as soon as someone is raising their voice in sc2 casting the casters get alot of hate because "he is screaming, why is he screaming? so annoying".
Unfortunately, most casters are not very good at all at recognizing patterns or changes in the metagame, or builds. Infact there are so many occasions where casters who are newbies at the game, judge players and berate them for their mistakes, while they actually don't have a clue what is going on. Of course mistakes are much easier to point out than those little things players change in their play or the mind games that are going on at the top level. But these are the things that make starcraft a brilliant game to watch and follow. I feel like if we had professional casters who actually put the time and effort into delivering the best performance possible, the audience would come much closer to be able to experience starcraft in the same way that progamers experience it. With all the little nuances, mind games, and reasons why someone is doing what they're doing being analyzed and clearly explained.
p.s sorry kinda off-topic, but felt like writing my opinion
Agreed. I would say every caster is good at play-by-play, they speak fluidly, don't stutter, show enough enthusiasm, and throw in jokes and witty puns now and then to keep it interesting, but I rarely see casters look at a play and explain it in depth as to why they are doing it or why it is a good or bad decision. I feel that casters should be AT LEAST masters level and always talking to players and other casters to learn more about the current meta-game. Apollo's post-game analysis at summer championship is what I want at least one caster to sound like in every commentary
don't have insane "words per min" without anything from value.thats the reason i can't watch people like tb or apollo for some degree. they simply talk and talk and talk without any pause. and it must be damn exhausting because i feel after watching a game casted by them fucking done.
On September 04 2012 00:50 TBone- wrote: Hmm, you missed the most important point in the OP. In the words of djWHEAT. Telling a story. Its all about the storyline, if you don't have a story then its a meaningless match.
Pretty much this. I don't watch GSL because I can't be up at those hours, and can't be bothered to buy a season/year pass. But I love reading the previews, reviews, watching the brackets, reading the interviews and whatnot. The stories excite me more than watching any of the games.
I agree with everything Treehugger said. It's sometimes annoying when both players are on their own side of the map, then player A moves his army out of position, and then comments how player B could attack and basically win because player A wouldn't be to deal with it. They then get caught up into their own scenario that they then start to critisize player B for not taking advantage of something he had literally no way or knowing about.
That's a pretty specific example, and of course there are a hundred others, but this happens often enough it really does bother me.
Adjusting your tenor to try to create emotion in your cast depending on what's going on and devolving into a screaming noise-making full-retard "if my three year old were doing this i might beat them for it" ARE NOT THE SAME FUCKING THING.
Artosis carries the Tastosis casting gig, without him Tastless is helpless. Wolf on the other hand, has shown that he is quite capable of casting alone, he has great insight into the game and can be quite hilarious at times, thus I think Wolf >> Tastless, get your facts straight OP.
subtle Wolf bash thread is subtle.
And oh yeah don't ever put HD and "caster" together in the same thread/post/sentence please.
If anything casters NEED to stop prematurely saying GG's just focus on what is going on in the game, make it exciting, I hate, hate "so, um, gas going down here..."
On September 04 2012 04:58 tree.hugger wrote: [...] I'd rather listen to the Koreans than any English caster. Their enthusiasm is infectious. They're telling the korean fans what's going on, but to someone who doesn't understand them, their voices make up the emotional tenor of the game. That's the caster's first job, not analysis. It's to be authentically excited about the game, and to give the viewers the emotional cues to make the game more entertaining.
The problem is that a lot of english speaking casters try to sound emotional but it just sounds terribly fake. Every time I hear day9 saying "oooooooooooooh BEAUTIFUL STORMS" I get a headache. A lot of casters have fallen into this trap, particularly day9, bitter, tb and djwheat (prolly others I don't have in mind right now) their casts sound SO fake. A perfect counter example of this is Khaldor, he gets excited but you can feel he is trully passionate about the game and not just casting starcraft because it's the next hot game. Screaming is fine when needed, but don't yell every time a storm or a fungal is used, and don't say OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH the same way every freaking time.
Idra has such a monotone voice, but when he casts I really enjoy it a lot. Two key things when he casts sticks out for me...
1) good insight of the strategies/decisions made (duh!) 2) is NOT NEGATIVE .....he understands why certain players fucked up at various points in the game because he is trying to figure out what is going through their head and what information they have or had in the game. As a player Idra understands these guys are not scrubs and do random shit so he doesn`t criticize so harshly as many casters do these days.
I don't know if it's relevant to anyone, but if you want the view of a gold scrub who is new to the scene, I'd like to tell you what got me into the game in the first place. There is a lot of talk about "growing esports", and one perspective from a new viewer might be interesting.
It was, rather unsurprisingly, Day9. I had never played SC or any RTS until I stumbled upon him on Youtube a few months ago, found the dailies and started watching. This lead me to tournaments casted by him, I started enjoying it as a sport, eventually buying the game and attempting to learn it myself, with TL and the dailies as my way in. Since then I've watched basically every major tournament from GSL to HSC and a ton of smaller ones via streams like z33k.
I'm still not good enough to see all the small subtle things Ret talks about. And I have no idea whether I'm being told about them or not. I think that I have a general understanding of what happens in a progame even if I can't play at that level myself, having watched a lot of it, and sometimes I even find myself being right when a caster is wrong. But most likely, I'm just bad and not experiencing SC2 fully, and in no position to judge casters.
So what made me hooked when I didn't even know the game, and what kept me watching? The main thing in the beginning was Day9's positive attitude, his obvious love of the game. The same for Tastosis when I started watching the GSL. I love watching Apollo nowadays, I feel like I learn a lot when he casts, the same goes for Artosis. I'm not sure how much I'm learning from Day9 anymore when he's casting, but I love watching him cast because he's so freaking happy and excited. It's infectious. What got me hooked was the overwhelming positivity, the love of the game, that some casters have. So from this nooby scrub, positivity trumps everything. I don't care that much if I learn or get a good analysis of the games as long as the casters create an atmosphere of excitement and joy.
There are objective and subjective conditions, so this discussion is destined to fail because everyone is trying to interpret the subjective part as a fact.
subjective part: the caster must appeal to you as a person. ok, so the most important thing is taste, that can't be argued about, because everyone's is different. I for example can't stand Wolf's mannerisms, or TLO's voice, but that's my own taste, and everyone got their own unique tastes.
objective traits: do the research- yeah it's annoying if I know more about the scene when I only do sc2 as a hobby have a clear, nice voice- sorry guys, Rotterdam for example doesn't qualify, he always talks as if his mouth was full of something. no way would he ever be able to work as a caster at a real sport event on television, Khaldor and Tlo the same. if the guys job is to talk all day, then he should speak english better than me for example. this is not my taste, i even like rotterdam for example, but to me this is like a cripple trying to make a living as a runner. try to show as little bias as pos- if a caster adores a player that's not so annoying, sometimes it's even cute. but if they bash players... that's just unprofessional. the more objective the cast is, the more professional it seems to me good observing skills- self explanatory have a basic understanding of the game- ok i'm just diamond but it's strange when i can tell the guy has no clue of whats happening. if you're not sure, dont try to analyze
other than these, there are caster roles, the hardcore analyst, the play by playwho can make good atmosphere, the hybrid, etc- my expectations slightly vary. i expect at least a little bit of analysis, i dont mind play by play if its not dull (70% of the guys just telling whats happening on the screen). Pro gamers casting are cool but it's more of a treat to hear them at hsc for example, if the goal here is to set standards 90% them wouldnt qualify as serious casters
but anyways, if you like the person, you probably won't mind if he is missing out at other aspects, you probably even begin to like his flaws. i bet that most people rate the casters based on sympathy, not their skills. and if that's true you can't really specify traits, maybe just stuff that annoy you (like most ppl did in the thread)
EPT
