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Hello TL!
Over in the SC2 Tourney forum we were having a mini-discussion in the TL Open #11 thread. You see, in the finals, there were several complaints about the casting like not having the production tab open and not showing the hitpoints of crucial units and structures at certain times. A couple other people noted that they liked not being shown everything since, in the Korean style, it added more flair and drama to the game that made it more enjoyable to watch.
What do you think, TL?
Poll: How much info should be shown in casts?Quite a bit. Production tab, important unit hitpoints, etc. (291) 71% Limited, Korean-style to add suspense and drama. (120) 29% 411 total votes Your vote: How much info should be shown in casts? (Vote): Quite a bit. Production tab, important unit hitpoints, etc.
(Vote): Limited, Korean-style to add suspense and drama.
But no, you say, there are only certain things that I want to see! Well, good sir or madam, choose which of these popular options you would like!
Poll: Production TabOn (157) 87% Off (23) 13% 180 total votes Your vote: Production Tab (Vote): On
(Vote): Off
Poll: Army TabOff (95) 63% On (55) 37% 150 total votes Your vote: Army Tab (Vote): On
(Vote): Off
Poll: Income TabOn (96) 71% Off (40) 29% 136 total votes Your vote: Income Tab (Vote): On
(Vote): Off
Poll: APM TabOff (121) 79% On (32) 21% 153 total votes Your vote: APM Tab (Vote): On
(Vote): Off
And, finally, how do you like your health bar settings?
Poll: Health BarOn when selected (127) 71% Always on (45) 25% Always off (6) 3% 178 total votes Your vote: Health Bar (Vote): Always on
(Vote): On when selected
(Vote): Always off
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Blizzard gave us these great tools to use not to shy from. Every tab has its time in place to be shown.
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I was actually thinking about this quite recently. I remembered this bw game of EffOrt vs Stork on Outsider where I thought EffOrt was about to die but then he suddenly exploded with like 8 ultralisks and went on to win the game. I thought it was so cool and dramatic. But the way sc2 works, with things like the production tab, it kinda ruins these kinds of moments.
Its so much less epic for a bunch of ultras to pop out and save the day if you watched their progress for like 30 seconds in the production tab.
Edit: Proofreading, i should learn to do that before I hit post. :/
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On January 30 2011 08:15 Plaxy wrote:
Blizzard gave us these great tools to use not to shy from. Every tab has its time in place to be shown.
These tools are great for analyzing a game.
But if you just want to sit back and enjoy the game, I think there should be some suspense factor to make it exciting.
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It doesn't add suspense or drama if I can't see Health Bars / Production tabs.
It just frigging annoys me more than anything. Not having turned on health bars is the worst. Not making use of the production tab comes right after that.
Just being able to see the production tab means I can follow everything that's going on almost perfectly just from that. Income tab is important too, but just at times not permanently.
And well the situations where I'd like to see the unit tab is rare. I mean I can estimate all the infos it displays anyways. Especially when I know how high the production rate of the players is and... well I got eyes.
Edit:
On January 30 2011 08:19 scion wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2011 08:15 Plaxy wrote:
Blizzard gave us these great tools to use not to shy from. Every tab has its time in place to be shown. These tools are great for analyzing a game. But if you just want to sit back and enjoy the game, I think there should be some suspense factor to make it exciting.
I really fail to see how that makes things more exciting -.-
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Casting live games are not for analysis but for entertaining the spectators. Tabs should be shown temporarily only if there no action happening anywhere, or if the information is relevant to the discussion.
Same goes with showing health/energy bars.
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On January 30 2011 08:17 Bibbit wrote:
Its so much less epic for a bunch of ultras to pop out and save the day if you watched their progress for like 30 seconds in the production tab.
It's epic the moment you notice Ultras on the production tab, and even more tense having to wait 30 seconds to see whether they will be in time/manage to save the day or not
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when you can see the health bar, it makes it even more exiting when a tense moment is all about destroying a low hp building/unit, but at the cost of risks.
which could result in a cheer/relief/boooo/awesome moment
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I have to side with turning them off here, as insightful into their play as it is, people shouldnt be able to just copy the builds from the gom vods
it has a side effect of making commentators more exciting and look more gosu
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High ground advantage and now this... I feel like we're in the first week of sc2 beta again 
Things like this should be and will always depend on the style of the caster. While Food and the harvester count are essential information, the caster can also just "tell" the audience instead of showing...
I prefer less stuff on the screen, mostly because on 8/10 streams you can't read the unitcounts anyways (in the Unit/Harvestertab) but i really appreciate it if the caster uses the production tab in "critical" situations like a push "waiting" for stim or lingspeed.
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I do like the tabs, production especially. Since that tab, along with the minimap, allows me to keep tabs on what the players are doing. Even if the observer is looking at something I'm currently not too concerned with. It's especially nice when watching zergs since you can see how many drones/combat units the player is making in reaction to what he sees.
That said I still like being completely absorbed watching some battle, then the obs pans back and it's like (hypophetical example) OMG CARRIER TRANSITON. And everyone screams like the korean fangirls we are. =) So I wouldn't mind having them hidden most of the time either. However I am going to put in my vote for using tabs Quite a bit, since I love having as comprehensive an overview of the match as I can.
Edit: forgot about healthbars, while I use them all the time when playing I prefer having them turned off when watching. Unless there's a massive battle going on, in which case it's the best thing in the world. =P
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It's all personal preference, I think it's really up to the specific caster/observer and how they feel they should handle it. My preference is a little bit of both
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On January 30 2011 08:21 Leviance wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2011 08:17 Bibbit wrote:
Its so much less epic for a bunch of ultras to pop out and save the day if you watched their progress for like 30 seconds in the production tab.
It's epic the moment you notice Ultras on the production tab, and even more tense having to wait 30 seconds to see whether they will be in time/manage to save the day or not
Yep exactly, or imagine, the Zerg canceling the Ultras and making mass Mutalisks instead. (if he has enough eggs left and completely theoretical you know).
Or the moment you see, "darn he just canceled his Nexus... it's a TRAP! 4 gate incoming!!!"
So much more exciting.
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United Kingdom38257 Posts
Limited information for entertainment casting is superior imo due to the extra drama and suspense you can get, though I think some info like hp on units is pretty crucial at times for a sense of OMG unit x is going to get sniped!
If I want to be seeing timings and specifics of a build as it happens I'd rather check a replay.
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I usually fixate on a production tab, but I think that kind of takes away some of the suspense.
If I want to analyse exactly where a game went wrong i can always download the replay so yea spice it up a bit. Also when we dont know everything it makes us less critical of what players are doing and reminds us that players have fog of war.
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I really like it when the production tab is on, it really helps me follow the game. I think even with the production tab open there's still the so much variables and uncertainty in the game that allows for excitement.
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i would go for limited korean style...
We all want the esport to grow... The best way is to make it enjoyable for the watchers.
Bellow is TLO open spoiler .. be warned.
+ Show Spoiler +Lets give some example. Today's TLO final. . We could see both players going for DT's in one game . And it wasn't much of a suspension.
Now imagine this. Wheat concentrates commentating on what is happening on TLO ramp. Get into a discussion with Wolf on how it would be possible to break the ramp. Well wolf would be cheating by having production tab open. Now TLO makes a halucinated phoenix and go and scout. WHeat follows the phoenix with TLO vision on. We see he discovers DT shrine being warped. And go immediately for forge+cannons.This would be a nice tension for viewers to guess what would be faster DT's or the canons...
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Maybe it's just me, but suspense has nothing to do with it. I like to think about the game as it's going. Without the production/army/income tabs, it's tough to have a real sense of what's happening at any given time. I don't want to just know the limited information the observer is showing me. I'm only interested if I can get a decent idea of what's going on.
I have no interest in seeing Ultras pop out when I didn't even realize the Zerg was on hive tech...
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On January 30 2011 08:23 Cyber_Cheese wrote:
I have to side with turning them off here, as insightful into their play as it is, people shouldnt be able to just copy the builds from the gom vods
it has a side effect of making commentators more exciting and look more gosu
1) You don't need the tabs at all to copy a build. That's basically a non-issue in this topic.
2) Why is copying bad? Isn't it cool to see new popular builds?
3) Wouldn't stopping the propagation of builds cause the overall "metagame" (sorry to those of you who hate that word) to slow down and cause everything to "develop" slower and therefore make some things less exciting?
Edit: I should clarify just to be sure. Yes, those tabs can make it easier, but, at the same time, I know that I've copied a few builds without them, too. If you really want to do it, you'll be able to -- at the critical moments in a build order, you're probably just seeing the bases in the cast most of the time so it's not hard to figure it all out.
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+ Show Spoiler +On January 30 2011 08:20 Na_Dann_Ma_GoGo wrote:It doesn't add suspense or drama if I can't see Health Bars / Production tabs. It just frigging annoys me more than anything. Not having turned on health bars is the worst. Not making use of the production tab comes right after that. Just being able to see the production tab means I can follow everything that's going on almost perfectly just from that. Income tab is important too, but just at times not permanently. And well the situations where I'd like to see the unit tab is rare. I mean I can estimate all the infos it displays anyways. Especially when I know how high the production rate of the players is and... well I got eyes. Edit: Show nested quote +On January 30 2011 08:19 scion wrote:On January 30 2011 08:15 Plaxy wrote:
Blizzard gave us these great tools to use not to shy from. Every tab has its time in place to be shown. These tools are great for analyzing a game. But if you just want to sit back and enjoy the game, I think there should be some suspense factor to make it exciting. I really fail to see how that makes things more exciting -.- Okay... Let me propose an example here: A protoss player is making a heavy groundbased push against a zerg player in the late-game. You have seen an ultralisk cavern go up and the eggs are taking a long time to morph. What is most exciting in this case: a) the production tab is open allowing the commentator to pause smoking his cigar for three seconds to remark that as the ultralisks will clearly be done in 3 seconds, the zerg is in no danger what-so-ever and will in fact be able to win the game in just about 45 seconds. He then proceeds to finish up his newspaper and hands it over to his co-caster who makes a smug remark about Obama's last speech. b) The commentators are screaming at the top of their lungs as great storms go on top oif the zerg army and the toss pushes towards the third of the zerg, and right as he begins pounding the hatchery, 10 ultras hatch simultaneously, surrounding and stomping the gateway-collosus push.
tl;dr: I hope to god you were sarcastic, but a sarcastic font sadly does not yet exist. From now on I propose that the following brackets be used when statement is sarcastic: [SA][/SA]
EDIT: Actually disregard my post, except for the part about sarcasm. This thread leaves me very confused as to what people are actually saying.
Example:
On January 30 2011 08:24 Vimsey wrote:
I usually fixate on a production tab, but I think that kind of takes away some of the suspense.
If I want to analyse exactly where a game went wrong i can always download the replay so yea spice it up a bit. Also when we dont know everything it makes us less critical of what players are doing and reminds us that players have fog of war.
What is the actual meaning of this statement?! Is this guy being ironic saying "I don't care about the game or even the minimap for that matter, I just want to see the tiny bars complete and then disappear"? Or is he really so emotionless that he lacks the ability to care about the players or the outcome of the game? Or is he just making a contradiction for the jiggles: "I like the little bars, remove them"?
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EPT
