GSL Season 4....or American Collegiate Football

We signed up for the Global Star League (GSL) season 4 last night. This will be our first experience with what seems to be the foremost tournament in the SC2 scene, and I'm very excited for lots of different reasons, including getting to watch Tastosis!

The Code S matches start on 03SEP12, but in the meantime, the up/down matches are taking place, so I'm watching a few of those today - the last non-football Sunday in a long while.

I'm enjoying the production value immensely so far. The casters, Wolf and Khaldor, seem to talk a bit fast, but cover everything efficiently and easily enough for a non-player/noob to follow at least relatively closely. This is an important point for me. I love sets of casters based on how easily I can follow the game by listening - since I don't always really understand what is happening by actually watching the game. Tastosis makes it really easy, and Tasteless often adds in lots of little "if you didn't know, this is why it's important" kind of notes - an important reason I love watching MLG games they commentate.

Side Note: I thought I'd really enjoy djWHEAT and Artosis casting for this reason, but they where so technical, mentioning upgrades by their names (carapace and ventral sacs) as if I knew what that meant, during the entire match. I was so lost I couldn't really following what was going on. I was rather disappointed since I love both of these casters with different co-casters.

My initial take on the up/down matches production value is that it's distracting to hear the Korean casters in the background while trying really pay attention to what Khaldor and Wolf are saying. Distracting, but not all experience ruining. On the UI front, I can't figure out how to change the volume while the video is in full screen. I can mute, but can't seem to actually adjust the volume slider - which may be more me not seeing it than the slider not being there. [Edit: I found the slider, you have to actually click the word "sound". I'm a smartie!]

The GSL up/down format seems a bit hard to follow, as I'm not sure if it's best of 3, or 5. A quick Liquipedia search does not really help - but I guess it's not as important at the moment as really getting used to the formats. Following the different GSL matches (Code S, Code A, up/down matches) as listed on Liquipedia is hard enough without trying to understand each individual series.

I'm really excited about getting to watch more SC2, but I am worried that between being a huge college football fan, and a huge Denver Bronco fan - I am not going to have much time to actually get anything done on weekends. I am not sure how I'll split my free time for watching football versus SC2, but I have a strong feeling football will win out simply because my husband doesn't mind near as much when I yell at the TV during a football game. I have a hunch he'll hate it if I did that while watching a SC2 game, because he'll probably be trying to raid in WoW or doing loot runs in Diablo 3 while we're watching SC2. I guess we'll see what most catches my eye during the football and upcoming college basketball season.

I don't see that being a fan of video games for money has to be in direct conflict with American collegiate football and basketball (except that Day9 seems to bash traditional sports at every possible opportunity), other than my off-time is limited and I've been emotionally invested in San Diego State athletics since I was 6 and grew up attending The John Elway Show taping in Greeley, Colorado when the Denver Broncos did their spring training at the University of Northern Colorado campus. It's hard to imagine choosing SC2 over these loves, as I've only been inolved in the SC2 competitive scene for a year.

It will be interesting to see how we work GSL into our lives this season, with everything else going on. Hopefully, it will be a fun addition, while still being worthwhile when we choose to only pay attention intermittently.