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On June 08 2013 02:57 Sissors wrote:Show nested quote +ALSO STOP PREDICTING FIGHTS CASTERS. YOU NEVER HEAR A SPORTS ANNOUNCER PREDICT SOMEONE TO WIN WITH 30 SECONDS LEFT IN THE GAME WHEN THERE IS STILL ANY CHANCE. Actually, you do. Besides that it is also kinda stupid to have people again complaining that SC2 casters aren't good enough players and don't play enough, and at the same time we are again comparing it with regular sport announcers now. Most of them really won't be any good at the games they cover. Not to mention I believe most casters are fairly good players also.
It's not that they aren't good enough players, it's that they don't know the game. It's like saying, I could beat my boxing coach in a match, doesn't change the fact that he's an amazing coach that has produced countless champions and has forgotten more about the sport than I'll probably ever learn.
It's a lack of knowledge, not skill that's keeping them from casting better and making them fall back on buzzwords and vague statements because they are worried about being called out for saying the wrong things.
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Apart from a select few casters, the entire SC2 casting scene is a big joke. It's just a bunch of people that want recognition from the game but are not good enough, skillwise, to compete with the best (or to even compete within masters league for that matter). What ends up happening is that they turn to commentating as an avenue for their own fame and recognition with a severe lack of skill and/or personality.
I'd honestly rather read subtitles of the korean casters than have to listen to the junk that comes out of 95% of the english casters who just spit out buzzwords and have no idea of the depth of gameplay that is unfolding before them.
I'm glad someone voiced this issue in a coherent manner though. Great job OP!
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I think you are totally en-point with this. Thank you for putting this into correct and polite words. Hopefully casters will understand and step it up.
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what turns me off way more are the "analytical" casts for the sake of trying to say something clever because it is expected of you. Very often the casters that get classified are just trying way too hard and miss the point/read something wrong into a situation/point out the obvious and try to make it sound clever. You are not there to take 5 minutes to explain to me for the third time how a player won the game with a beautiful arc when you cannot even tell the other guy move commanded by accident, or how clever he is for using the manual attack of a colossus on his own zealot to get rid of burred zerglings in his base when there is an observer straight above and the zealot takes no damage. Stuff like that gets me quicker off the stream than if you were to have technical difficulties and the screen would die. You are there to tell me what that gas timing indicates, what would be the logical follow up to that opening, how a pro player evaluates the situation given his scouting and what a reasonable response will be, given the current meta game which you should be fully aware of (like ZvZ currently changes every week completely). Stuff like that requires you to play at the top level, otherwise you will not get that insight by braining hard alone. For example, I am really impressed by how knowledgable Khaelaris often times is, and I partially blame it on his excessive casting of pro games but also on him being quite high on the ladder as a random player. And if Artosis does not know what is going on he is honest enough to most of the time not make shit up, but to tell you outright that he has no clue what is going on. This is no problem for me. Just don't try to sell analysis by force, most games still get won by the other guy making a crucial mistake, not the winning guy playing a better strategy.
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we need the guy from esl who makes the videos for IEM/HSC, theyre by far the best in sc2
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Just watched and they gave me chills. I really wish I was into professional BW back when it was in its prime.....
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So true.
I listen to Korean commentary for the hype and because I'm used to it from BW.
I listen to Chinese commentary for decent analysis and humor.
I mute all English commentary except for ones from Artosis and Idra.
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My biggest gripe with SC2 casters in general is their lack of vocabulary. They use certain words of terms over and over and over and over, sometimes 2 or 3 times in the same sentence! I know esports is still in its infancy and all but you'd never get that from the best of the best in traditional sports. Al Michael's isn't repeating the same word or phrase constantly during Sunday Night Football. I understand he's a thousand so he's wise and been doing this forever but it rubs me the wrong way to hear casters do it.
I'm not going to harp on anyone specifically since I don't want to come off as a twat. They all do it to some extent, and some are worse offenders than others. "Player X is massing up for an early aggressive push, BUT player Y is starting to make roaches to hold this off, BUT player X is teching into banshee to follow this up, But player Y is now starting his lair tech!" There are a million words you could have replaced those 4 buts with to make your run on breathless sentence less cringe worthy. That's just one minor example of a tiny 3 letter word being over used, but it happens all the damn time!
I know the main crop of casters aren't dumb people. I don't know exactly why they get stuck in this box but it happens to the best of them. They'll repeat a word when there are plenty of synonyms to change it up with. They'll repeat a silly catch phrase ad nauseum. Maybe I'm just picky but I expect the best commentators to be masters of the language and oration. You should be able to paint me a picture with only your words and you should be able to do it without repeating certain words too many times let alone in the same breath! Have you ever listened to a good sports caster calling a football game over the radio? He's able to describe everything in detail as if you were actually there and do so quite beautifully. It is possible to do, that's like another level of casting beyond what we actually need since we obviously have TVs and computers to view the games on. There's no reason our casters can't aspire to be like TV sports casters though.
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I have to agree that the casters for WCS finals were absolutely disappointing. I constantly found myself thinking that they spoke very much but had very little to say. It felt very fake to me. And to the people who think it's not okay to criticize the casters, remember that just finding 3-4 good, professional casters on the level of Artosis and Tasteless would do wonders for the growth of Starcraft as a competitive sport.
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Canada5565 Posts
These are definitely valid points. I think that, as a language, English might be too technically limited for effective StarCraft casting.
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On June 08 2013 06:05 NonY wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2013 05:54 Reborn8u wrote:
What a great problem to have. "Some of the massive amount of free content I get from this awesome game, and it's awesome competitive scene, doesn't measure up to my standards". The pursuit of excellence is one of the few things in this world you can't denounce from any angle. And this criticism was written voluntarily and given freely, same as the content.
For the record, I love you and the free content you produce as well <3 Yes, we should continue to strive for excellence, but I stand by my point. What an awesome problem to have in light of how things were just a few short years ago!
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I agree with many of those points.
Too much genericity in today's most popular casters.
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I was looking at the WCS portal the other day and found a video recaping the WCS korea finals that I never got to watch.
( http://wcs.battle.net/sc2/en/articles/check-out-the-american-and-korean-finals-recaps-wcs-today-june-3-2013 )
Overall I have to say that I was kind of pleased with that recap. I mean it was fast and of course not in depth, but it gave me more than liquidpedia would have. So that was good.
Otherwise I agree with the hype thing. I have had some issues with IPL productions in the past, and to some extent the MLG ones, without really being able to explain why they annoyed me so much. This is probably an important reason why. It sounds like the casters on occasions are trying very hard to sound professional, and the whole flow of the words are nice sounding (even without listening to the buzzwords), but I can't help but think that this shallow beauty comes at the cost of substance.
I think the solution to this is to show more personality, by being more honest while casting by for example being excited when there is actually something to be excited about. When Artosis is really excited about something I believe him (overall), but that's also because he isn't super-excited about every single baneling that explodes. It can't always be 100% "AMAZING", and instead it should pick up and slow down much like the game itself does. I get that a caster needs to be more engaged than the casual viewer, but it can just become too much and obviously fake. Apart from that what I call "showing personality" would include basically anything that makes the cast less generic-smooth-sounding, and likely different from other casts. Like the dynamic and choice of subjects to discuss between some casters like Mr Bitter and Rotterdam.
So close to OP on this but a somewhat different take.
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I feel like casting isn't bad with the exception of the fact that many of the analytical casters seem to be doing a poor job, and the exciting games just don't feel that way. The casters aren't getting into it in many cases. I see Tobi on Dota, the old BW casters, and LoL casters getting really excited when they cast, to the point where they are shouting. I don't mean to say that we need our ears blown off, but maybe a little more excitement? I was watching the WCS Korea stream and it was so monotonous. I just can't do that. I love sc2, and while I don't play very much anymore, I still watch, and I just wish that we could have casters that want to make me watch. Tastosis are said time and time again to be the best, and I think the reason why is that they show emotion or at least tasteless shows enough for 2 people.
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Great points, agreed with a lot of them. The hype really seems hollow and ridiculous at times. Particularly the last GSL final with Soulkey vs Innovation. Tasteless was riding the hype train so hard in that one. So often I hear commentators talking about the game in terms of meaningless adjectives like sick, awesome, ridiculous etc. Maybe they cast too much and have just fallen into patterns of hyping without really feeling it, and discussing things without really saying anything. Basically it's become a stale job for them and they're just going through the motions. That's one thing I love about incontrol's casting. It's fresh, he always seems to be having fun, cracking jokes and telling it how it is. Khaldor's another who still seems to really enjoy what he's doing.
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On June 08 2013 09:00 SnipedSoul wrote:
I'm pretty tired of stuff being so overhyped. I don't need to hear that X player is "THE BEST IN THE WORLD!!!" every single minute of a cast.
I think we need to differentiate hype and excitement. Not ALL hype is false and phony some can make it very exciting like those hype videos posted. Excitement can be contagious, from the content, down to casters and then players. 2/3 ain't bad, lets face it not all players will be charismatic, can't change that. Callingsomeone the best can be true but I agree, why isn't being the best in Europe good enough to impress? I feel like everything has gotten blown out of proportion.
There are really good stories about farm boys who worked hard to go pro too, not every story has to be world dominance.
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On June 08 2013 14:04 Scarecrow wrote:
Great points, agreed with a lot of them. The hype really seems hollow and ridiculous at times. Particularly the last GSL final with Soulkey vs Innovation. Tasteless was riding the hype train so hard in that one. So often I hear commentators talking about the game in terms of meaningless adjectives like sick, awesome, ridiculous etc. Maybe they cast too much and have just fallen into patterns of hyping without really feeling it, and discussing things without really saying anything. Basically it's become a stale job for them and they're just going through the motions. That's one thing I love about incontrol's casting. It's fresh, he always seems to be having fun, cracking jokes and telling it how it is. Khaldor's another who still seems to really enjoy what he's doing.
I like Incontrol as well. I remember some tournament he casted a long time ago with Nada vs some terran. Incontrol was genuinely blown away by Nada's macro and how easily he rolled over his opponent. The excitement and awe was readily apparent in Incontrol's voice and manner, so it got me excited as well.
Repeatedly screaming about how perfect and godly someone is doesn't do it for me.
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i absolutely loved this thread, very very well done
I feel absolutely the same
I wanna write something ,things which have been said but just something i feel
About almost every caster out there
So many words but so little in it
Talking what is happening on the screen is pointless, I have eyes my own
I talk alot, therefore iam a good commentator, this is very false
Repeating words is really annoying, describing things with alot of words is also annoying. Dont drag out on things please
Explaining something with few words is Good
But dont go in general things "he is so good" , the thread pointed this out very nicely
So all i say is saying that sentence doesnt provide any information for me whatsoever
All it do is giving me " so you think he is good, ok"
Sort of.
And also, many commentators they say things which the other commentator already said. Wtf? Thats absurd
And very many things get dragged on for a long time
I see many faults with these commentators
General faults. You do not need to be excellent at the game or know very many details.
You can still entertain
So instead of literally explaining what is going on and trying TO GUESS things "i think he is gonna win this" Just tell his next move or something i cant teach you everything.
I have a hard time with my emotions personal reasons, i have good things to say but i have a hard time saying it, but i tried
i hope this gives something.
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I think rather then people focusing on the casters being at fault when they don't know everything about everyone. People should start holding leagues more responsible to support the commentators with information.
Let me put it this way, how hard would it be for leagues to have 1 or 2 salaried employees who's only job is to do research on players coming to their events. Maybe in the case of an open bracket MLG at Anaheim not every single player, but at least the players most likely to be on the main stream.
These 1 or 2 people put together talking points for all the players. How they like to play, interesting background information, anything they can get directly from the players, recent results etc. You take those talking points put them in a giant packet and hand it to all your commentators. Now anytime anyone is playing it becomes as simple as flipping to a page in a booklet to have information at your fingertips.
I personally used to do some of the above when I did casting, but frankly it was way to much work to have more then a few key players for say a weekly tournament prepared to go. I can't tell you how much better I thought a commentary with that kind of information went compared to one with players where at best they had a liquipedia page to go off of.
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EPT
