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Tonight I watched TSL3, as most of the people that will read this post did.
I was especially looking forward to tonights' games beacuse Chill, a commentator I love was going to commentate. He is not afraid to say his opinion about players and their playstyle, and he gives credit where credit is due.
Also, the matches. Three of the finest koreans(mvp, genius and nestea) was facing three of the finest foreigners.
Now I was cheering for the koreans, as I always do, and having watched most of the "koreans vs. foreigners" tournaments since beta, I did expect alot of conclusion being made as far as the legendairy "skill gap" goes, but boy was I suprised.
Without making any statements about the situation in the BW seen vs. the current SC2 scene, I know that the gap in BW has always been huge and that now with SC2 being a fairly new game, foreigners are doing pretty well.
I also understand and have to agree with people getting excited and emotional when foreigners happens to take matches of koreans, but what I watched tonight(TSL3), took this to a new level.
The skill gap seemed to dissapear after an hour of Chill talking exclusively about how the foreigners are finally almost, if not as good as the koreans. Every single move, every single engagement, every single match and the reflections made based on the outcome was focuced on the korean players nationality.
It was so obvious and eventually took over almost all the commentating, from Chills side that is and ended up coming off a little unproffesional for me.
Husky was somewhat keeping his cool and commentating the games and Chill was still doing awesome analyzis and all, but at one points nothing could go by without something being said about the "korea vs. the rest" topic.
I mean arn`t commentators meant to cast the game between to proffesional players that is undeniably extremely skilled at a game and to some extend put aside their nationality/background?
If we look at a couple of statements I presume is correct:
- The foreigners probably practiced harder than ever before
- The foreigners has so much info to work with concerning the koreans playstyle
- Without knowing too much about their preperation, I do not think the koreans prepared alot specifically for this tournament
Now, the foreigners played great do not get me wrong and so did the koreans, but there were no mercy for the koreans what so ever and the commentators, especially Chill made huge assumptions after every single engagement and/or match concerning the skill gap betweem the scenes being crushed.
IdrA, Jinro, MorroW has lost games to way lesser players countless of times, yet we don`t jump yo conclusions about the lesser player catching up skill-wise, beacuse let`s face it; anyone can have a bad day or get unlucky positions, die to a suprising timing-push or something similar.
What I`m trying to say here is that tonight, without trying to target Chill in any negative way concerning his casting or him in genereal, he made me feel like I was watching a series of games where the main focuse was to emberass the koreans.
This may seem abit too harsh, but I found it quite unproffesional actually to make the conclusion(s) Chill did.
Now I love Chill and that may be the reason why I am abit dissapointed in tonights commentating. He commentated extremely well, but the koreans vs. foreigners thing was abit too much.
Just commentate the game as what it is, a game between to proffesional players that represents themselves as players and should be treated as such when being commentated.
Loving TSL3 so far, but would appreciate future casters to maybe tone the war between scenes abit down^^
This goes for alot of other tournaments and casters ofc. The TSL3 tonight was just the example of my choice. No offence intended to Chill or the TSL tournament in general. Keep up the good work!
cheers for reading.
EDIT: I am in no way offended by the commentating. It simply took a huge bite out of what should have been proffesional commentating of the games.
It made it sound unproffesional to me.
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The TL official twitter was kinda annoying as well...
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I watched all the matches and didn't get that impression, but the games were really interesting so maybe I wasn't paying full attention
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On March 27 2011 08:06 duck.fit wrote:
I watched all the matches and didn't get that impression, but the games were really interesting so maybe I wasn't paying full attention
They said something along the lines of "foreigners really showing they can compete with the koreans now" every 5 minutes or so. Doesn't really bother me as I know it's false but whatever.
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There was a bit of it, but not excessive in any way I think.
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Personally I really enjoy biased commentary, even if the commentators are rooting against the player I want to win. The cast is done with way more excitement and enthusiasm, even when the game is at a stand still and theres no action.
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On March 27 2011 08:07 rysecake wrote:Show nested quote +On March 27 2011 08:06 duck.fit wrote:
I watched all the matches and didn't get that impression, but the games were really interesting so maybe I wasn't paying full attention They said something along the lines of "foreigners really showing they can compete with the koreans now" every 5 minutes or so. Doesn't really bother me as I know it's false but whatever.
Theres enough evidence now showing that foreigners CAN and DO compete with the top koreans. The skill gap just isn't that big.
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There was none, people are just nit picking at everything the commentators say. Since the foreginers are underdogs obviously the commentators are gonna make a big deal out of it when they win.
Blaming it on bias is just silly.
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Agreed, it sounded like I was watching a WWE match and the Koreans were the jobbers.
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I agree with OP. Chill, and, to a lesser extent, Husky both came off as kind of taking advantage of the Korean players's lag issues to praise foreigner play and make them sound as if they actually beat a top Korean pro in a fair environment. Chill and Husky aren't stupid; anyone who's casted as many games as them know what good stutter step micro looks like. They know that any competent player, let alone a GSL Champion, wouldn't let a Reaper or Marine get surrounded and killed by probes that early in the game. And they kept saying stuff like "Oh, and looks like Nestea is going to just waste all his roaches", as if lag didn't slow down the retreat a bit at all. It was really annoying to see absolutely no acknowledgment from the casters.
Oh, and before anyone quotes me saying, "What do you expect the casters to do? Just make lag the big issue throughout the game and take away from foreigner accomplishments?"
No. I just expected the casters to at least say something like, "And wow, it looks like MVP's stimmed marauder kiting is being affected pretty badly by lag..."
It was simply a very painful elephant in the room that none of the casters even mentioned. In fact, they kept trying to make the viewers think that, since the games are on the NA server, that the playing field is even, which came off as either dirty or at least uninformed.
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So do other casters, especially Day9 and Husky. I always root for foreigners to win, but castings are so biased, misleading, and so unprofessional that reminds me of watching Fox News. For example, when MVP decided not to engage (which is a tactical thing in pro games) and pulled his army back, Husky was like: "MVP is so freaking scared that he's stimming his army as fast as possible back to his own base". Also, reports on supply were so wrong.
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I would argue that the Korean's who played today played poorly. They lost early scouts, they needlessly sacrificed armies, and just seemed to be going through the motions.
I don't know if this is due to unfamiliarity with the players, or whether it was because they either overestimated their own skill or underestimated their opponant's skill. All I have to say is that MC better be prepared for White-Ra.
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I don't know, I always love unprofessionalism in these kind of things, one of the reasons I think PsY is an awesome caster, he lacks any notion of professionalism. He just speaks his mind without thinking of what he's expected to say. It's all so much more... gonzo.
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I've seen just as many comments, if not more, about how IEM showed that koreans are superior as I've seen about how TSL is showing that koreans are not superior so personally I don't really care if the commentators puts a lot of emphasis on the koreans vs foreigners thing. Though I must say I really didn't find it that prominent in the cast.
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On March 27 2011 08:11 HolyArrow wrote:
I agree with OP. Chill, and, to a lesser extent, Husky both came off as kind of taking advantage of the Korean players's lag issues to praise foreigner play and make them sound as if they actually beat a top Korean pro in a fair environment. Chill and Husky aren't stupid; anyone who's casted as many games as them know what good stutter step micro looks like. They know that any competent player, let alone a GSL Champion, wouldn't let a Reaper or Marine get surrounded and killed by probes that early in the game. And they kept saying stuff like "Oh, and looks like Nestea is going to just waste all his roaches", as if lag didn't slow down the retreat a bit at all. It was really annoying to see absolutely no acknowledgment from the casters.
Oh, and before anyone quotes me saying, "What do you expect the casters to do? Just make lag the big issue throughout the game and take away from foreigner accomplishments?"
No. I just expected the casters to at least say something like, "And wow, it looks like MVP's stimmed marauder kiting is being affected pretty badly by lag..."
It was simply a very painful elephant in the room that none of the casters even mentioned. In fact, they kept trying to make the viewers think that, since the games are on the NA server, that the playing field is even, which came off as either dirty or at least uninformed.
You wanted to have the commentators point when lag was affecting the game? So what, whenever a korean made a mistake the commentators should say "well looks like the lag is getting bad now".
Not only would that totally ruin the experience, it would be impossible for them to know when there is lag and when there isnt.
I'm speechless.
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3 Lions
United States3705 Posts
i can see why the OP is disappointed w/ the commentary if what he described was not an exaggeration. i was unable to tune in and will watch the vods to make my own personal judgement.
personally, i believe the top players from the korean scene would absolutely dominate top foreigners if they prepared specifically and seriously. i guess we'll have to wait until the world league to see who's right about the supposed disparity in skill
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On March 27 2011 08:11 HolyArrow wrote:
I agree with OP. Chill, and, to a lesser extent, Husky both came off as kind of taking advantage of the Korean players's lag issues to praise foreigner play and make them sound as if they actually beat a top Korean pro in a fair environment. Chill and Husky aren't stupid; anyone who's casted as many games as them know what good stutter step micro looks like. They know that any competent player, let alone a GSL Champion, wouldn't let a Reaper or Marine get surrounded and killed by probes that early in the game. And they kept saying stuff like "Oh, and looks like Nestea is going to just waste all his roaches", as if lag didn't slow down the retreat a bit at all. It was really annoying to see absolutely no acknowledgment from the casters.
You expect them to talk about how lag might be affecting the game in their own tournament? I'm sorry but that's shooting themselves in the foot.
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American Tourney with American casters... What do you expect... On a similar note, did you happen to watch the British commentary of the USA v England World Cup matches last summer... THAT my friend was bias.
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Why is there always 5-6 topics after every TSL/GSL about something that is "wrong?"
Why do we always get stuff like this:
"Forcefields, biggest problem in PvZ?"
"SC2 will die unless Stim is fixed?"
"Chill, trying to start a all out war between Foreigners vs Koreans?"
"Mech, wrong way to play the game?"
"Day9 coughed during casting, death of E-Sports?"
"Top 10 reasons why SOTG will destroy SC2 and TL.net"
etc etc
All these topics seem to me to be trying to create drama out of thin air, is it sophisticated trolling or just people nitpicking at everything?
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If you didn't follow competitive Broodwar, you wouldn't have the complete context in mind when watching the TSL. In BW, the skill gap between Koreans and foreigners was insurmountable. The best foreigners were worse than Korean b team players. This is where the hype of Koreans vs world comes from. Finally we, old school BW watchers/players, are seeing foreigners in SC2 legitimately competing against Koreans. Maybe our mindset is outdated, but the feeling of seeing top Koreans getting eliminated by midlevel foreigners is amazing. I can completely empathize with Chill's awe and enthusiasm during today's event.
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EPT
