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Hi guys, Yoan "ToD" Merlo and I want to share an interesting review with you on his official website. As you may know ToD has been a professional Starcraft 2 gamer for a long time. He decided to centralise some informations about famous SC2 Players's playing conditions in major Tournaments.
Here is the article ( English ):
Playing conditions
You will find many reviews from several players including ToD, Grubby, ForGG, MMA, Sheth, Naniwa, Ret, Man, Morrow and so on...
Have a great read.
Mat
Post preview:
I came up with 4 questions which I asked to a lot of progamers to answer, I will answer those myself aswell. I also reached out to all the main tournaments out there to have them speak about the playing conditions they offer and their general view on it.
1. What is your best experience at a tournament conditions wise, can you describe and explain why?
2. Without mentioning any tournament name, can you tell me what is the worst conditions you’ve had to deal with, and again describe and explain why they were so?
3. What is , in your opinion the ideal setup at a tournament ,explain in details please?
4. How do you think it can be achieved ? players union ? federation ? what is your message to tournament organizers out there ?
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Wow, this list is massiveeee. Nice that it was all compiled into a list. Some player's opinions were quite detailed, some were really picky and some gave generic answers that really didn't say much at all. I find it quite interesting to see what they complain most about anyway.
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Neat initiative. Playing conditions have been overlooked in many major tourneys. (Though I think it's gotten somewhat better with the elimination of the MLG open bracket, etc.)
Are you and ToD planning on making this a long-term venue for players to voice concerns?
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Interesting article, not sure how it helps the scene to bash venues. Then again, IPL got great reviews *rip*
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Some of them are really picky lol, but hey, the best deserve the best. Hopefully tournament organizers will take this advise when setting up a tournament.
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On May 30 2013 11:08 Chairman Ray wrote:
Some of them are really picky lol, but hey, the best deserve the best. Hopefully tournament organizers will take this advise when setting up a tournament.
haha yeah, some of them are pretty nitpicky, but they definitely deserve the best organizers can do :D
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All tournaments should just follow TitaN's advice. :D
Seriously though, great compilation of opinions, I guess there's hardly anyone outside of the pro scene who'd get so many responses from so many pros, so it's great that one of the pros themselves did the work to make a survey or whatever on an interesting topic.
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I really liked the photos of people's desktops. Thanks for the article!
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It was nice to see other people's set ups and hearing their opinions.
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France7248 Posts
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On May 30 2013 11:17 StarVe wrote:
All tournaments should just follow TitaN's advice. :D
Seriously though, great compilation of opinions, I guess there's hardly anyone outside of the pro scene who'd get so many responses from so many pros, so it's great that one of the pros themselves did the work to make a survey or whatever on an interesting topic.
To me all he did was preach WCS when I believe it could be a lot better. ._. How many other tournaments did the chap compete in? Not entirely sure. I think he mostly sticks to the tournaments in Europe, no?
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This was an amazing read. So many player opinions! Thank you for taking the time to do this. I hope this initiative causes some sort of change <3.
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Some of these guys are really specific O.o, I wonder how they deal with tourneys so well  .
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On May 30 2013 10:46 Ichabod wrote:
Neat initiative. Playing conditions have been overlooked in many major tourneys. (Though I think it's gotten somewhat better with the elimination of the MLG open bracket, etc.)
Are you and ToD planning on making this a long-term venue for players to voice concerns?
Our goal was to explain as much as possible how good conditions matter. E-sport world is going to be more and more pro and like in others sports, details like cooler air, noise,or monitor position are really important imo.
So this is basically just a working base for any tournament managers to try to take care of those details.
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On May 30 2013 10:49 Crownlol wrote:
Interesting article, not sure how it helps the scene to bash venues. Then again, IPL got great reviews *rip*
Again we didn't want to point any tournament in particular, it's just a topic of general interest. We just want to say that in some tournaments lots of things are made to gamers playing conditions. It would be great to make a sort of check list you know, some standards according to players reviews and this article is a working base for the future.
Cya.
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Netherlands45349 Posts
Great article, interesting to read progamers perspective of how they are being treated at tournaments.
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I think the absolute minimum standard that should be there is that noise thing. It should be possible for players to fully concentrate on the game. Also there should be enough space on the desk the player is playing so players can move around things freely because some got their keyboard further on the desk and some near the edge etc..
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A dialogue between the major tournaments regarding the standardisation of equipment (including the ability to adjust chair/monitor height) I think is an important point that is, in general, overlooked. This seems like it would go a long way to solve a lot of the problems raised by the players.
Players who rely on energy drinks to keep their energy up need to get in better shape and/or prepare better. Complaints about food/water I don't understand since those are things that the players generally can, and should, organise themselves.
Edit: That's not to say that tournaments shouldn't provide food and water for players, only that players themselves should be capable of preparing how they are going to eat/drink throughout the day.
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Hi Tod,
I wrote a really long reply on your website but I got an error so I have to retype it 
Here is a kindda summary of what I said.
First off, thank you for your effort and your friend who took the time to compound this article.
I've had the great opportunity of travelling to events while casting (however bad i was at it <3) and also while I was working for own3D. Very often players talk a lot or complain about events (of course players say great stuff too.)
Here is a list of TLDR stuff about events (from both sc2 and dota2 tournaments):
Huge priority:
The painfully obvious fact is to have decent PC for tournaments. Windows 7 minimum, no XP and Windows 8 is sometimes buggy (still a new window.) It would be great if events could have their admins to try out the PCs before the event actually started. Problems range from screens being blackscreened, auto alt tab while inside game to internet being an absolute nightmare.
Proper scheduling to make sure players are not burnt out.
If there is no space inside players area where they actually play games for events, please try to have a players area where players can at least sit down and rest, even if there is no PC (Though some players mentioned it will be great to have practise PC but obviously not every event can afford it.)
Players area have to be somewhat roped off so public can't be close enough to touch the players chair (huge issue for most players) or get flashed at. Journalism is important but journalists should have enough knowledge to not use flash while taking "victory" pictures of players WHILE they are playing.
Stage matches with "sound proof" boxes have to actually be sound proof, otherwise provide noise cancelling headset. Many times players can hear what is going on outside of their game and it is mega distracting. Production is important for all event.
Make sure the event is not a "glare nightmare". Most players have problems playing in the day when there are events with light in the playing area and they can't see their screen properly.
Try to make sure lighting is not too bright or too low. Sometimes events have crazy production lights that are shining all over the place and the players eyes either get flashed really suddenly or their screen are.
Seats and Tables. FFS.... so many people have problem with playing with a table that is too high, or a chair that is just a 10$ ikea chair and they are expected to sit in it for more than 10 hours... I know there is a budget for events but ... yeah...
Medium priority:
Bathrooms have to be close enough for players to access to. Most players are being swarmed by fans while trying to go to the bathroom in between their games. Most players are too shy to say no to their fans, and they are labelled as "dicks" by their fans for saying no.
Food and drink provided: As many of the organisers have mentioned in the article, it will be a great thing if they have a budget for it. But most of the time events costs are really high and they can't afford to include it in the budget. If events dont provide food or drinks please try to make sure there are at least places that are a Maximum of 10 minutes walk away... some times I've encountered situations where players have to go really far to get food. Then they starve because they either have no time or have no one to do it for them. Many times I had to go almost 20 - 30 minutes walk away to even get close to anywhere that sells food or drinks. Many events have places inside that do sell stuff, but a lot of the convention hall stuff catered by the actual event place (not the organisers) are extremely overpriced... (Like.. $5 for a bottle of water. Wut.)
That cloth thing on the table... Some pro gamers use cloth pads.. there are mounds that make their mouse pop over the mousepads (hope everyone knows what I mean.) OR the cloth pads move a lot because the cloth has no friction over the table.. so your mouse and mousepad are moving at the same time. Nightmare for a lot of players. Went to a few events where players try to remove the cloth on the table.. but usually it's stapled in... if there is a NEED to use cloth cover on the table, maybe provide some hardpad for the player to put below their mousepads (even if it's just a stack of hard cardboard. Better than nothing!)
Anyway I got to run, will edit it later, sorry if it sounds short.
Peace!
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kellymilkies,
thanks for that comment, I don't know why you had this problem. I put your comment on the site.
Mat.
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Was really interesting reading progamers opinions on the different conditions in a tournament.
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only read the answers to the first question (this article is really long), but i do think it's interesting - though not really surprising - that much pretty any tournament gets multiple mentions except for MLG. right now the only person i can remember saying MLG was Naniwa, which makes sense considering it's where he has done the best historically.
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Just thought I'd throw it out that my work network blocks the link due to being "known for distributing malware". I am not necessarily saying it does, but letting OP know they might want to figure that issue out.
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I know what tournament Grubby is referring to for the worst one he attended; it was a War3 tournament and players had to warm their hands with a space heater placed next to the computer while they wore their winter clothes indoors. The pictures were hilarious, refugee level esports.
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On May 30 2013 12:12 StarStruck wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2013 11:17 StarVe wrote:
All tournaments should just follow TitaN's advice. :D
Seriously though, great compilation of opinions, I guess there's hardly anyone outside of the pro scene who'd get so many responses from so many pros, so it's great that one of the pros themselves did the work to make a survey or whatever on an interesting topic. To me all he did was preach WCS when I believe it could be a lot better. ._. How many other tournaments did the chap compete in? Not entirely sure. I think he mostly sticks to the tournaments in Europe, no?
What did WCS lack in this matter? The only negative thing I've heard was from Ret when he came a bit late for breakfast and the pancakes were out, but you can't blame that on the organizer. :p
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Good read. You'd think a lot of the stuff is pretty straightforward.
It was great initiative and effort to contact so many of the pro players to get their feedback. Also, very cool that so many players went out of their way to answer!
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Russian Federation325 Posts
Great compilation, let's hope tournament organizers organizers will take note of it.
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Great read!
I was at NASL when they were in Toronto as a Manager for one of my players attending the event. I was not able to go into the very back area and see what they were doing to the higher profile players. But from what I saw there layout of the venue was very well done. They had a nice area just for players who was assigned there computer, as the day went on and players left there was room for other players to take a spot as well. They also provided water to the players. Provided shuttle service form the hotel to the venue.
I hope I get to attend some other tournaments and have a better understanding of what goes on behind productions.
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On May 30 2013 11:08 Chairman Ray wrote:
Some of them are really picky lol, but hey, the best deserve the best. Hopefully tournament organizers will take this advise when setting up a tournament.
Flash is still filling out his feedback
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On May 31 2013 09:07 Jragon wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2013 11:08 Chairman Ray wrote:
Some of them are really picky lol, but hey, the best deserve the best. Hopefully tournament organizers will take this advise when setting up a tournament. Flash is still filling out his feedback
The indentation in the feedback form is off, so the reply can't be submitted.
+ Show Spoiler +
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One thing that i've never seen used for tournaments that used to / have big open brackets...
A big clear wall around the player area. Meaning something the auidence can see through, but they can't touch through, and something thick enough to at least muffle near by noise a bit. Something in the neighborhood of a 6ft tall clear wall at least half an inch thick would probably be more then enough, and not excessively expensive to add.
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On May 30 2013 18:31 Absentia wrote:
A dialogue between the major tournaments regarding the standardisation of equipment (including the ability to adjust chair/monitor height) I think is an important point that is, in general, overlooked. This seems like it would go a long way to solve a lot of the problems raised by the players.
That’d be really important. If there were standard chairs/monitors/etc., progamers could buy them for their personal setup at home …
On May 31 2013 09:07 Jragon wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2013 11:08 Chairman Ray wrote:
Some of them are really picky lol, but hey, the best deserve the best. Hopefully tournament organizers will take this advise when setting up a tournament. Flash is still filling out his feedback
^^
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This is a great initiative. I hope this will help improve conditions for the players at tournaments in the future. I've read some players complain about poor conditions in the past, and I feel this really impacts their play at a tournament. For the best matches, both players must have the best conditions. It's that simple really :-)
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I still remeber that interview with ToD where he said its too hot and he can't play.
Great blogpost by ToD however, especially the desktop pictures and the interviews
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/80Fn7.jpg)
