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Maybe it's just me but lately for every decently ran SC2 tournament/event, there are 4 events not functioning properly. By that I mean, the live stream almost always lag at some point during the event, there are major delay times, bad audio etc.
I think the last event I actually enjoyed watching without problem was DreamHack Summer 2013, since then I've experienced lags with any other event.
For example, going on right now, there was a one hour delay for the ROG final (on top of the original 90 minutes delay they informed us about), and now the stream lags and the audio is out of sync.
At IEM Shanghai there was almost a 5 hours delay at one of the final days of the tournament.
DreamHack Valencia suffered from major lags for some time during the last couple of series before the finals.
That being said the WCS streams seem to be running smoothly in terms of the stream, but then the players or actual observers drop or lag.
Oh, also! there was one tournament, I don't remember which one it was, where everybody constantly dropped, I think Apollo was casting it with someone, and on a separate stream Nathanias tried to cast some game for about an hour but couldn't and they ended up not casting a lot of the more supposedly exciting matches.
Anyway my point is, this situation, on top of being a complete nuisance to me, really hurts SC2 as an eSport. It is unprofessional, I have a feeling it doesn't help with the sponsors, it is bad for the players, the audience and the community.
I don't know what the situation is with other esports (the moba scene), but what I do know is that it didn't use to be this way. Sure there were a few mishaps, but I don't remember them ever happening at this density, I don't remember the problems being so many and so big.
What happened? Did they switch organizers and the new ones are bad? Do they get less budget so they can't raise the events successfully? And more importantly, what can be done to fix it? Maybe the community can somehow let the people in charge know that they need to find a way to make the events a bit more professional? I mean, raising a live stream event at 2013 by a major company should NOT be this problematic (come on ASUS! if you want people to buy your products, you should show us that you can raise such an event, referring to the latest ROG).
Please share your opinions, and this is mainly a thread to see what we as a community do to improve this situation, and less about pure ranting (even though it is kind of a rant because it IS personally annoying that this happens so frequently).
Thanks a million :-)
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juicyjames
United States3815 Posts
On August 04 2013 06:34 FuxFux wrote:
Oh, also! there was one tournament, I don't remember which one it was, where everybody constantly dropped, I think Apollo was casting it with someone, and on a separate stream Nathanias tried to cast some game for about an hour but couldn't and they ended up not casting a lot of the more supposedly exciting matches.
IEM Shanghai last weekend? Apollo/ToD/Maynarde/Kaeleris were on the main stream, and Nathanias was doing the community stream.
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I think that the reason that tournaments like IEM and ASUS ROG have more production errors than other tournaments is that they run less tournaments than say Dreamhack and MLG. So they have less experience in running these types of events. Also, running events is extremely hard, so it should be understandable if someone makes a couple of mistakes.
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On August 04 2013 07:10 JacobNX01a wrote:
I think that the reason that tournaments like IEM and ASUS ROG have more production errors than other tournaments is that they run less tournaments than say Dreamhack and MLG. So they have less experience in running these types of events. Also, running events is extremely hard, so it should be understandable if someone makes a couple of mistakes.
Isn't IEM run by the same organization which does WCS? They should have more than enough experience.
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I meant IEM has less experience doing LANs when compared to something like DH that has like 4-5 LAN events a year.
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juicyjames
United States3815 Posts
On August 04 2013 07:13 JustPassingBy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2013 07:10 JacobNX01a wrote:
I think that the reason that tournaments like IEM and ASUS ROG have more production errors than other tournaments is that they run less tournaments than say Dreamhack and MLG. So they have less experience in running these types of events. Also, running events is extremely hard, so it should be understandable if someone makes a couple of mistakes. Isn't IEM run by the same organization which does WCS? They should have more than enough experience.
Yes, ESL runs both IEM and WCS EU. I'm not sure if they use the exact same team for both, but I'm guessing there's probably a decent amount of overlap.
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I thought MLG Anaheim and MLG dallas were really fun to watch :D I so far havent really enjoyed ASUS ROG. Does anyone think that there is a little too much starcraft going on?
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I think shows like IEM, ASUS ROG, Red bull you should not be too hard on them they are just supporting gamers advertising their products this isnt their core business, but WCS/dream hack/MLG shouldnt have these issues and besides WCS I dont think they do.
Now why WCS is run so badly thats too many things to list, but mlg/dream hack in general I think are pretty good mostly
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On August 04 2013 07:13 JustPassingBy wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2013 07:10 JacobNX01a wrote:
I think that the reason that tournaments like IEM and ASUS ROG have more production errors than other tournaments is that they run less tournaments than say Dreamhack and MLG. So they have less experience in running these types of events. Also, running events is extremely hard, so it should be understandable if someone makes a couple of mistakes. Isn't IEM run by the same organization which does WCS? They should have more than enough experience.
Yes, IEM is run by ESL and nobody has more experience running tournaments than ESL, outside of korea at least.
It's just that they are choosing the hard way, bringing events to locations as China and South America, where it's just not that easy.
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Blame Twitch for lag. I wasn't beliving when I was watching Proleague finals(I could watch 480p at twitch without major lag) that I could watch it live 1080p in youtube NO LAG! I always knew that Twitch is so shitty crap but after that I was just "Im never gonna use twitch again" I realy REALY hope that tournaments stop using Twitch...please make it happen!
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On August 04 2013 07:50 TheBloodyDwarf wrote:
Blame Twitch for lag. I wasn't beliving when I was watching Proleague finals(I could watch 480p at twitch without major lag) that I could watch it live 1080p in youtube NO LAG! I always knew that Twitch is so shitty crap but after that I was just "Im never gonna use twitch again" I realy REALY hope that tournaments stop using Twitch...please make it happen!
Hope you know it wasn't twitch causing problems for the proleague finals.
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What I don't get is why there aren't any in game tournaments like they did for Warcraft 3.
You played for portraits. It was kinda neat. They held a different tournament(1v1/2v2/3v3/4v4) something like every other week.
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On August 04 2013 07:51 Disengaged wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2013 07:50 TheBloodyDwarf wrote:
Blame Twitch for lag. I wasn't beliving when I was watching Proleague finals(I could watch 480p at twitch without major lag) that I could watch it live 1080p in youtube NO LAG! I always knew that Twitch is so shitty crap but after that I was just "Im never gonna use twitch again" I realy REALY hope that tournaments stop using Twitch...please make it happen! Hope you know it wasn't twitch causing problems for the proleague finals.
Yeah, it's broadcaster fold? ASUS ROG had same problem...DreamHack have same problem...Twitch just lags so fucking much that I cannot even belive..
Who it is then causing problems if its not twitch? twitch just dont work in europe at all.
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This is a Twitch/cable provider problem, not a tournament problem. The current issues affecting YouTube and Netflix also affect SC2 tournaments. Until providers stop being shitheads and actually allow decent peering arrangements, there's going to be lag with streaming media.
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The major issue with ASUS was the venue. It's held at a large lan / demo scene event called Assembly. The main stage is shared all day and the 90 min delay was because of other events delaying the setup time. The sound issue was quickly solved (at least it went away for me after they reset the stream) and the lag issues you've described have been a major twitch issue for a significant time period now.
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You make a valid point....these issues may also explain why dota/lol had nearly 400,000 viewers when a mere 30,000 of us were watching an awesome grand final...
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On August 04 2013 08:11 Chinnro wrote:
You make a valid point....these issues may also explain why dota/lol had nearly 400,000 viewers when a mere 30,000 of us were watching an awesome grand final...
Well at least everyone came back then.
Yeah its weird, SC2 has always been really crazy touchy, the worst moments I have seen have almost all been in SC2.
MLG Dallas, MLG Anaheim 2, Shoutcraft all the ones in the OP.
DoTA2 did have a couple issues though, one where servers went down delaying everything by 10 minutes OMGONOES, but one so serious that they had to delay the soloist tournament until Monday which was kind of a bummer.
Its just a flipping joke that SC2 is so unstable, at this point what I really hope for is Starcraft 2 for Xbox announced. No offense to PC users but God, you know if they made a console version there would be no problems. Did Evo go down ever no. Does CoD or Halo go down ever, no. SC2 on console with special keyboard and mouse controller do it now! 
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I also have the feeling that there are a lot of issues with current tournaments and streams. I had bad experience with Twitch, but I dont know enough about these things to say 100% it's their fault.
I love watching SC and atm it feels that it was less trouble, watching BW over DAUM or Afreeca back in the days. Once you got your Korean only programs running, you had no trouble watching the games at all.
Ofc, I dont want to say it was comfortable in any way back then, but it seems to me that it is not that enjoyable with all the issues.
Today I got up early to watch PL Finals and the deciding game was unwatchable on Twitch. Sadly I live in Germany and cannot watch the stream via youtube... I guess that many people ask themseves if it is worth getting up early or staying up late to watch something with isues like the ones described in this thread.
I hope, there will be some kind of progress and a soulution to the Twitch related problems, since most streams run via Twitch. And I also hope that SC2 gets more viewers so that it is more lucrative for companies to invest into all this.
GomTV however seems to be very great with their stream. While many people were compaining about issues with the Twitch stream during the semis of WCS KR, the actual GOMTV stream ran smoothly and without problems
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IEM Shanghai, Proleague finals and the official ROG stream today were all unmitigated disasters and the problems originated with the organisers and/or twitch tv as I could open 10+ YouTube/porn/whatever streams without any issues at the same time, so I am pretty damn confident my ISP has nothing to do with it.
In the end the buck stops with Blizzard, and if they are serious about their e-sports commitment regarding SC2, they will need to provide a means of high-quality broadcast preferably utilizing the game client or by setting minimum standards for external partners. That said, I am aware that the tournament audience is a small percentage of all SC2 buyers and the people annoyed about stream quality issues most likely a small percentage of the tournament audience. Still they took quite a bit of money in their hands when creating the WCS series and they can't be happy when quite a few alternative tournaments using and promoting their product look as inept as the tournaments mentioned.
ps. I had not a single issue watching several OGN broadcasts during the last few months, they are using twitch as well unless I am mistaken. Their overall production quality is outstanding, so maybe other tournaments can watch and learn?
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EPT
