EPT
.1
Beauty is in the Eye of the Observer
The player is the star of the show. His name is on billboards, in posters, and on the screen. He receives the applause, the trophies, the checks. He plays the game and entertains us.
And all we have to do is tune in and watch.
Unfortunate that we sometimes forget that we are watching our stars from someone else's lens, distilled by his opinion of what must be seen. Our opinions of games are indelibly affected by the quality of his observing, and his broad strokes influence what we see and do not see.
We remember 10 carriers vaporizing a planetary fortress. We remember the gold base wall off at 29 minutes. We remember the 4gate against 4hatch. We remember the moment when drones beat zealots.
He is the artist and they are his actors.
And they aren't very different after all. There is decision making, positioning, prioritization. There are hotkeys, control groups, and multitasking mechanics. He shows us build orders, production queues and all the information we need. He shows us building placements, army movements and key strategic decisions. Where engagements occur, he is there. When there's a drop in the main, a runby near the fourth, and a big battle in the middle, he is everywhere. And we are his audience.
He is Gunnar Fischer. He is Miyagawa Kazuo. He is Christopher Doyle.
He is the man behind the camera. He is the eye of the observer.
.2
Observing the Observer: An Interview with inFeZa
.3
Transcribed Interview
Meru: Hi inFeZa, How are you doing today?
inFeZa: I’m pretty tired, but I’m good, and happy that Flash just won IEM. I was hoping for him to come out with a big tournament win.
Meru: Finally, everybody has been waiting for this for so long…
inFeZa: Especially me since I’m a very big BroodWar fan!
Meru: Since you brought that up, How did you get into StarCraft?
inFeZa: Actually one of my friends back in my hometown Melbourne, he actually introduced me to GomTV, when Tasteless and SuperDanialMan were casting old Brood War back in the day in about 2008, and he just linked me the stream and I was like omg I used to play StarCraft for hours every day, just sitting on BattleNet when we had 56k internet in Australia, using all my phone line. I got back into the game knowing that there’s a competitive scene, and it just went from there
Meru: That’s great! Now, you said that you’ve been playing for a very long time, since BW. How did you get into observing specifically?
inFeZa: Well, a little caster called Maynarde. He casts ACL, which is the Australian Cyber League, it’s what we have down in Australia. I was actually playing in the tournament, I made it to the group stage and dropped out of groups. So I was watching Maynarde cast and he was observing too, and he was terrible at it. So I said, “For the next one, I’ll step in and I’ll do the observing for you, so that the people watching at home won’t miss anything.”
A lot of times when a caster tries to cast and observe at the same time, it’s very easy to miss things
Yes it’s very difficult. Essentially I’m kind of like a third caster who doesn’t really speak. The way I speak is through my mouse.
A lot of times when a caster tries to cast and observe at the same time, it’s very easy to miss things
Yes it’s very difficult. Essentially I’m kind of like a third caster who doesn’t really speak. The way I speak is through my mouse.
Meru: How do you think a good or bad observer impacts the quality of the cast?
inFeZa: It depends on the quality of the casters as well. Our casters today have so much experience especially with observers and it really helps that they know the observer’s style and kind of know what the observer’s going to show. Most casters like to look at the game themselves so they can relay the information to the stream at home, but it might not be something that I show because it might not be viewer friendly. That being said, I think that having an observer is crucial to have 2 good casters that can focus on 1 job.
Meru: I think we definitely agree that having an observer makes a night and day difference. How do you think casting has affected your own game play?
inFeZa: To be honest, it really helps my gameplay. Because I steal builds that I observer first hand. Like coming out of IEM today, I’m a Protoss player, and Zest played phenomenally. I watched all of his games and I know which games I want to take his builds on because they looked really solid.
Meru: So what build are you gonna try now at home?
inFeZa: I really want to try his PvT build, because I’m having some trouble with PvT match up right now, the quick blink into colossus, that’s very my style.
Meru: You mentioned that casters should get used to the observer’s style. Do you think there are different styles in observing right now?
inFeZa: Yes, I think the two main styles right now I’d say are the Korean style and the foreigner style, kinda like the gameplay in StarCraft itself. I talked to Artosis about this a lot, and he says and I agree with him that, the Korean style emphasizes on the surprise of the game, so they hide production and information and have a big dramatic reveal. For foreigners, we like to know more of what’s going on in the game.
Meru: Which style do you prefer?
inFeZa: I prefer a little bit of both because the casters have control themselves and talk about the information anyways. It’s like well, I might as well show the information.
Meru: Now, we have a question for you. How does an observer improve?
inFeZa: That’s actually a really good question. I think playing a lot of ladder is a good way to improve. I personally go to replays and watch them silently and pretend cast in my head. I know different casters have different styles and it really depends on who you are casting with. But I think mostly the way to improve is to practice and experience it. It’s kind of tough to get into observing, a lot people think that anyone can just jump into the game and watch the game, but there’s way more to it. Even for myself I’m sure there’s tons of things that I miss, there’s tons that I can improve on. That’s why I watch my own VoDs and replays and see “oh maybe my scrolling isn’t as smooth here” or “Oh I missed some information here”
Meru: We all know that you’re from Australia, can you tell us about the current Australian eSports scene?
inFeZa: Yea, it’s actually up and down at the moment. Australia obviously always has a tougher time getting their players out there or even getting premier level tournaments down there. We did have WCS 2012 which was the biggest eSports tournament in Australian history, which was fantastic. Artosis came out, huge prize pool. Since the WCS restructure we now have 2 slots going into WCS America. Actually iaguz has taken one all the way to the RO16 in Premier league and I’m very happy for him and I’m sure he’ll put on some great games. That being said I’m actually doing a little film myself. A little bit of a plug here. It’s called “Mates of StarCraft” and it’s all about the scene in Australia, nothing sugar coated. I just want to show that we have some really passionate fans even though we don’t have a big scene, we have the people with passion to keep it fresh.
Meru: What is your favorite match up to observe?
inFeZa: It actually fluctuates between the meta game. Currently I’m probably swinging towards TvP
Meru: Not ZvZ with a million swarm hosts?
inFeZa: Swarm host games can be good but then again they can be a little too drawn out. Snute actually put on some really really amazing swarm host play. It was very well thought out, not just turtle up with your SH. That being said I’m really liking TvP currently simply because I really enjoy the ghost/high templar battles that go on; the storms. Even something like mixing in some mines can really excite the audience.
Meru: Do you have one game that’s engraved in your memory as your favorite game that you’ve observed?
inFeZa: I think it was WCS 2012, we had a game mOOnGLaDe vs. KnighTLighT who’s name is Tilea now. They had an hour long game, and it was like 20 nukes and it was action packed and it was an amazing game.
Meru: For the last question now I have to ask… Tell me how you really feel about damage health bars?
inFeZa: Ah this is a widely debated topic within the Starcraft community. Obviously I think that damaged health bars are good for playing, and kinda good for solo casters who don’t have an observer. But if you do have a dedicated observer there’s no reason for you to use damage health bars, simply because it doesn’t really highlight the units that you want to highlight on the screen. So you might have some high energy ghosts and high energy templars, and they try to get key EMPs and snipes off. With damage health bars you might have a few marines that are damaged and they clutter the screen, and you can’t really see anything. That being said, it takes a lot of practice and good control for the observer to select the health bars that need to be selected. There are some key moments that can happen really fast in Starcraft that something might die super quickly and you may miss it. Having the health bar is pretty key for the observer.
Meru: That’s very true. Now do you have any last words for the community?
inFeZa: I just want to thank you for doing the interview, and give me a follow @inFeZa!
Meru: Now you have it. Thank you so much!
Whoever did this is a hero.
