On August 04 2019 16:55 UnLarva wrote: ... Overall, I think casting of this tournament was good, and I think its not very nice to pour shit upon any caster; twitch chat was shameful in this matter. How many of these whiners could do better themselves?
Regarding "How many of these whiners could do better themselves?," I do not find that a valid excuse for excusing bad casting. I also do not think that should protect bad casters from being criticized. However, I thought that the casting at Serral-con was generally fine.
I thought the Lambo cast was pretty informative. I want to hear more stuff like that, during a cast. It was cool to hear Solar doing some of his interview in English too.
Ok. Fair. "Critizising" can be constructive.
[this would be place for some screenshots to demonstrate the point I'm trying to make, but I refrain from that now]
People have no needs to be complete arseholes to be able to critizise something, or demand better.
Lambi was great, indeed. As well as Solar. And Zhuge the caster/commentator could just start to do that for living in every tournament. He has English skills, international attire, personal charisma, knowledge of game, and natural talent for it, obviously.
On August 04 2019 16:55 UnLarva wrote: ... Overall, I think casting of this tournament was good, and I think its not very nice to pour shit upon any caster; twitch chat was shameful in this matter. How many of these whiners could do better themselves?
Regarding "How many of these whiners could do better themselves?," I do not find that a valid excuse for excusing bad casting. I also do not think that should protect bad casters from being criticized. However, I thought that the casting at Serral-con was generally fine.
I thought the Lambo cast was pretty informative. I want to hear more stuff like that, during a cast. It was cool to hear Solar doing some of his interview in English too.
Ok. Fair. "Critizising" can be constructive.
[this would be place for some screenshots to demonstrate the point I'm trying to make, but I refrain from that now]
People have no needs to be complete arseholes to be able to critizise something, or demand better.
Lambi was great, indeed. As well as Solar. And Zhuge the caster/commentator could just start to do that for living in every tournament. He has English skills, international attire, personal charisma, knowledge of game, and natural talent for it, obviously.
The caster bashing is probably my least favourite thing the wider SC2 community engages in, I find it a bit mystifying really.
I find with rare exceptions tournament casters go from perfectly acceptable to very good indeed, not from ‘unlistenable I had to mute the stream’ to gods of casting, which seems to be how some see it.
But yeah the folks you mentioned were great, I do love it when current pros who are good communicators get in the seat.
On August 04 2019 19:22 Wombat_NI wrote: ... I find with rare exceptions tournament casters go from perfectly acceptable to very good indeed, not from ‘unlistenable I had to mute the stream’ to gods of casting, which seems to be how some see it. ...
It does happen. I do find some casters "unlistenable I had to mute the stream," or I watch the stream in a foreign language I do not even understand.
On August 04 2019 19:37 DeeJae_ wrote: dude, you need to add Time to your list
I do not think we mean for the list to be exhaustive. For one, I have not had the chance to watch all of the matches. Thanks for the heads-up about Time and other player who are good casters. UnLarva also mentioned Zhuge.
Regarding "How many of these whiners could do better themselves?," I do not find that a valid excuse for excusing bad casting. I also do not think that should protect bad casters from being criticized. ...
Ok. Fair. "Critizising" can be constructive.
[this would be place for some screenshots to demonstrate the point I'm trying to make, but I refrain from that now]
People have no needs to be complete arseholes to be able to critizise something, or demand better. ...
I had another comment. I agree that it would be better if people were not jerks. But just criticizing a caster does not make them jerks. I do think that sometimes the casters are just awful. I also do not think criticism has to be constructive. These casters are (usually? almost always?) being paid to do this. It is not our jobs to improve them. If the audience wants to offer constructive criticism, that's fine. However, when criticizing a caster, it does not have to be constructive. If the caster insists that the audience train him/her, pay the audience. (Don't pay me. I don't know anything.)
I do wish they could also just run streams with no caster. Then when there is a caster that is just awful, one could just tune into that. I guess tuning into foreign language streams, where you do not understand the language, could serve that purpose. Perhaps it could also be cool to run streams with no caster, but from a player's perspective. Thus, there could be three streams with no caster. One is just a standard stream which follows the observer, two is a stream from one of the player's perspective, and three is the other stream from the other player's perspective. These would have no casters. These streams probably won't have too much of an audience, because usually the casters are fine. Also, most people seem to like hype-casting. But for those times when a caster you absolutely hate is on, you can tune into one of these no-caster streams.
Regarding "How many of these whiners could do better themselves?," I do not find that a valid excuse for excusing bad casting. I also do not think that should protect bad casters from being criticized. ...
Ok. Fair. "Critizising" can be constructive.
[this would be place for some screenshots to demonstrate the point I'm trying to make, but I refrain from that now]
People have no needs to be complete arseholes to be able to critizise something, or demand better. ...
I had another comment. I agree that it would be better if people were not jerks. But just criticizing a caster does not make them jerks. I do think that sometimes the casters are just awful. I also do not think criticism has to be constructive. These casters are (usually? almost always?) being paid to do this. It is not our jobs to improve them. If the audience wants to offer constructive criticism, that's fine. However, when criticizing a caster, it does not have to be constructive. If the caster insists that the audience train him/her, pay the audience. (Don't pay me. I don't know anything.)
I do wish they could also just run streams with no caster. Then when there is a caster that is just awful, one could just tune into that. I guess tuning into foreign language streams, where you do not understand the language, could serve that purpose. Perhaps it could also be cool to run streams with no caster, but from a player's perspective. Thus, there could be three streams with no caster. One is just a standard stream which follows the observer, two is a stream from one of the player's perspective, and three is the other stream from the other player's perspective. These would have no casters. These streams probably won't have too much of an audience, because usually the casters are fine. Also, most people seem to like hype-casting. But for those times when a caster you absolutely hate is on, you can tune into one of these no-caster streams.
Criticism can be non-constructive, yes. But what are you doing when you're sharing non-constructive criticism? Your only objective is taking your own displeasure and trying to convince others to agree with you. But since that's at the expense of somebody who is generally underpaid and is generally trying to be a better caster, that comes across as extremely selfish: you've weighed somebody else's hard work catering to thousands of viewers against your own thoughts as a single viewer and come out in favor of the latter. You disliking a caster and not willing to provide feedback is one thing, but you actively spreading that dislike with no "this is how I could be convinced otherwise" is just preaching and being an asshole. It's easy to say "that's the cost of being a public figure," but that's a pretty big leap: just because every community has toxic people doesn't mean everybody has a right to be toxic.
I do agree with the idea of a caster-free stream though, I think they're called "clean feeds" and some of them were floating around for a tournament a while back (WESG? Wasn't Maru vs Meomaika, Macsed's "throw" cast after the fact from the clean feed?). I can't say I enjoy all casters either, so I could get behind more clean feeds.
EPT
