Doing Stuff Interferes With My Gaming Time!

I am heading out of town tomorrow to spend time with my family and take my dad to a concert for artists we both enjoy a great deal. Unfortunately this is a busy weekend for gaming and I will miss out on a lot!

WCS Season 2 (link may contain spoiler alerts!!) finals are happening at Gamescom. Dimli will be watching and sending me updates since I can't really watch it while trying to convince my non-Starcraft 2 watching family that I'm paying attention. "OOOOOOOOOOOOO LOOK AT THAT FUNGAL! What were you saying Mom?" doesn't scream "I'm paying attention to you" to people I only see twice a year for a weekend or so!

I'm just going to get my picks out of the way. I am picking wants, not who I think will actually win. It's more fun this way! I'd like to see Jaedong, MC, Bomber, Polt, (Sorry Grubby!), duckdeok, INnoVation, MMA, and Scarlett to come out for round of 8. After that, I want to see good games with Scarlett doing really well. I can never not root for MC. He is one of my favorite players and is in fact, THE BossToss!

In addition to the WCS finals, I'm also missing the early access for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, which will, forevermore only be known as FFXIV here. Dim, understandably, will not be waiting around for me to play before he takes off into the world of Eorzea. I wouldn't want him too. Okay, I want him too a teensy bit, but that's just unrealistic and selfish. So when I get back he'll be level 25 with other classes leveled, and I won't have even logged into the live game once. Damn you min/maxers! You make me sad.

One other thing I'm missing? The chance for a Heathstone beta key. Getting one isn't likely but I'm already having nightmares that I'll get one and Dim will find it and take it before I get a chance to play. I'm not kidding when I say this is not only a likely possibility It is, in fact, the only way it's going to happen. Oh, he'll help me fish Jewel Danios in WoW, and maybe run an LFR or two for my last two Secrets of the Empire to make up for it. I'm sure he'll also be glad that I don't require flowers or diamonds, just a pocket tank who can help me run old content! But it will happen. I guess I shouldn't begrudge him the chance to play a game I won't be able to for at least three days. Someone should be getting some enjoyment out of it, right?

Whatever happens, enjoy your weekend gaming snf check out the first iteration of the Erratic Fanatic podcast on the blog or our attempt at seeing if we want to incorporate video content with the cast. Yes, it's lame! Sorry. We're having fun learning all this stuff from scratch so give us time to create awesome. We *are* working on it

What We're Playing 13AUG13

Tovin:
World of Warcraft
This week I've been playing, as always, a ton of World of Warcraft (WoW). I am working on:
    -Valor for my shadow priest, who I raid on
    -Leveling my mage (she's level 46 now!) so I can raid with her whenever the new expansion comes out
    -Fishing! I LOVE fishing! I am trying for the tiny carp, got two so far, only two more to go. Then lots for my guildies.
    -Loremaster of Kalimdor achieve, because I'm kind of an achievement whore

There's just so much to do in WoW, I tend to have a hard time focusing on doing one thing at a time. I've started on the PvP achievements, and find it a bit annoying playing with people who all seem to be doing their own thing rather than having a dedicated goal of winning and team over self. Oh well, that's WoW, right?

Starcraft 2
I've also been playing Starcraft every now and then. I mostly do a custom game every few days, though I've been slacking and yesterday it showed, when I lost to a computer AI set on "harder". That was sad, so back to playing at least once every two days! My zerg level is 27 and moving along quite nicely!

Final Fantasy 7
I got Final Fantasy 7 a few weeks ago, but it's hard to sit down and find long uninterrupted time to play. I really don't want to stay logged in and ramp up extra time played!

Faster Than Light (FTL)
I've played a few games of FTL. I suck at it. Turns out I also didn't know how to actually maneuver my people around! Now that I have that down, I'm excited to give it a try. It's a good game to pop in and play for a few minutes, now that my Plants VS Zombies (PVZ) addiction has calmed. I blame the recent re-attack of PVZ on the slot machines in Laughlin that we found that are themed around the game.

Second Chance Heroes
I've been playing in the Second Chance Heroes beta every now and then. This one is fun, though not exactly my style. I am enjoying Abe Lincoln with a chainsaw immensely! If you want in on the beta, check it out!

Dimli:
Dim has been playing a ton of Diablo 3, to get ready for whatever expansion news we'll be hearing out of Gamescom in Cologne, Germany this month. I think it helps that the current races in Path of Exile are happening at times that he can't really make and he tends to enjoy that type of game play.

He's also been leveling his Monk in WoW. He levels so much faster than I do! Probably because I pretty much refuse to do dungeons. I hate them!

I think we've ended the BorderLands 2 downloadable content marathon he went through the last three weeks, since he hasn't loaded it up once over the weekend or so far this week. I guess I just have to wait and see.

He also went through a huge Orcs Must Die 2 marathon a few weeks ago, and I think we've got that craze out of his system.

Looking Forward To:
Not a whole lot on the upcoming game market we're super stoked about. Waiting to see what Blizzard announces at Gamescon. I am excited for a D3 expansion, my hardcore Demon Hunter needs some love!


I browse the the Camelot Unchained Founders Forums weekly and watch with complete non-enthusiasm any news about Wildstar.

Otherwise, just waiting for Labor Day weekend, when my brother and sister-in-law will be down. They're both huge gaming geeks so we always have a blast! Last time we played some rather tipsy Star Tropics (WAY harder than we remembered) and some Mega Man 10 from WiiWare on the Nintendo Wii, lots of great fail laughs between pizza, Cheetos, and refreshing drinkage.

I am open to suggestions on great, relatively inexpensive video games we could play together and have some fun with!

NASL Production Of WCS Season 2 NA Regional Finals

Apologies for both the wall of text as well as the formatting issues. Blogger is annoying, and Blizzard doesn't have any WCS media kits that I can find - and it's late so I can't go take screen shots and stuff. I will plan appropriately in the future!

On to the actual post!

I decided to do some thoughts on North American Star League (NASL) and their production of this weekend's Starcraft 2 World Championship Series (WCS) Season 2 North American regional finals. regional finals went in my opinion.

I should probably start with the fact that we did not watch live, but instead watched the VODs through Twitch. There's just too much going on in my house to watch most Starcraft events live, and pausing is a Godsend, when I need a break to get stuff done.

The Casters/Hosts

I tend to enjoy the NASL casters, when they can stay on target (ha ha). Sometimes Rotterdam and Mr. Bitter tend to go off on weird jokes from personal conversations that the audience isn't privy to. By the time they reign themselves in, the bit has gone from weird, to not funny. It happens very fast! Depending on the situation this can be a complete mood killer, taking away the attention from the match and players. Or it can be oddly entertaining in a WTF kind of way.

The NASL casters are great, and I am really hoping they go back to doing "The Pulse", but I don't see how they can do that as well as nightly content. I do miss that show though, it was a lot of fun and so different from the other options available in the scene for weekly breakdowns.

Mr. Bitter

Other than aforementioned weird tangents, I find Mr. Bitter rather entertaining. His play by play is not always accurate, but I find him to be both entertaining and I love that he explains things in a very easy to understand way. I suppose this could be taken as a bad thing (if you read a lot of Reddit), but I don't understand the game enough to know what most people watching know, so I think it's awesome!

Frodan

It's been fun to really watch Frodan grow from NASL 3 to today. He is fun to watch, and actually really hysterically funny. I enjoy his humor, his style, and his approach to casting. Overall sometimes he misses the stuff I want him to be talking about in game (he doesn't switch topics fast enough sometimes to match the pace of the game), but the rest of the fun of watching him makes up for it.

Gretorp

Gretorp is knowledgeable and brings excitement to the games. He's sometimes a little dry, but he and Frodan make a great duo. I will never forget the 36 orbital command game Gretorp played, I think it was during NASL 4. I enjoy the back and forth they have and think they complement each other well. I find his input on why a player is doing something and the moves it opens up down the road to really make the game easier to watch and much more educational.

Rotterdam

Rottie is fun. Weird, but fun. He, like Mr. Bitter, tends to get off track a little too easily, but at least they make the awkwardness fun to watch. He seems the most...comfortable with being a little crazy and that comes off very well.

Terry the Intern

Terry had some truly awkward moments where you could see his mind thinking "how do I get out of this?!", like during the "Who was the 50th president?" trivia. Otherwise, I enjoyed his appearances and find the strange awkwardness a little refreshing. As I mentioned before he needs to stop with the pushing social media like crack. It's annoying.

Clutch

Clutch needs to stop yelling into the microphone unless he's yelling "ARE YOU READY?!". This weekend I learned that he considers himself an actor and that he interrupted every interviewee for a quick story that somehow steered the story back to him. He comes across a little....off. I can't quite nail it down though, but he's didn't really add a whole lot to the whole production for me personally. Don't get me wrong, he's an awesome announcer, but the other stuff just doesn't seem as natural to him as it does to the other guys. Interview skills definitely need work.

DAY9

Day9 is always fun to watch, when he's not giggling like a crazy person when casting with Apollo. A lot of yelling, since he didn't have to cast the whole gig. This is normal for Day9. A little tiresom, but normal. He certainly knows his stuff and it's *really* fun to hear him talk out what timings could mean and what we need to see for each option to unfold in the right amount of time.I enjoy his casting but you just never know which Day9 you're going to get. A reason why I stopped watching his dailies. I always tune into an event when he's casting though, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much. He's always entertaining, if a little overboard on the enthusiasm.

Husky

Husky gets a lot less credit than I think he deserves for his ability to quickly and efficiently call good play-by-play. There's very few in the industry that I have seen that can do it and get away with it. Husky actually does it really well, but there's still a lot of yelling going on. Husky and Day9 make a great casting team overall, so it was really fun to have them both there.

Production

NASL did a really amazing job with their overall production. They had a LOT of B-roll. A whole lot! And it really added to my enjoyment of the cast overall. Their music was pretty good too, but could have used one more song to add to the rotation. By the end of Sunday I was a little sick of the same song - and of Dimli walking around humming it. I also love that they have countdowns during their downtime, so I can see how long I have to get stuff done before I miss something - though we did watch everything on VOD, so I suppose I could have paused it.

Almost forgot to mention there was no dubstep! Did you hear that?! Other music DOES exist! I loved it!

Also, while there were some sound issues intermittently they were minor and quickly fixed (except for Clutch's mic right there at the end).

One things I did miss was some community stuff like Carbot's Starcrafts, and Temp0's stuff. It wasn't a bad production without it, and I'm not sure if it would have been better with it - but for some reason I did notice it wasn't there.

The B-roll features (that I saw) included:

Interviews with all the players

 Outros from the players ("I'm so and so, and you're watching WCS something something") 

I really loved this and think EVERYONE should be doing it! A great addition that made it feel like I was watching a real production.

Paintball Competition 

This was a really fun and just great entertainment. Less shots of Lauren's ass would have been fine, but I suppose their market is 18-24 year old guys. As an aside, I've been wanting to try paintball, and the injury report at the end kind of ended that for me. A big thank you to NASL for saving me from injuring myself greatly!

Rotti's Wing Eating Competition

This one was....weird, though the commentary of the spectators was entertaining.

Santa Monica Pier Meet and Greet

This was a little short, but was fun to watch the players doing something other than playing. It was just fun to watch.

Walkthrough of the Player House

The NASL personalities never cease to amaze me with their deadpan commentary and general funny stuff they say. I liked kinda seeing the "behind the scenes" how players live kinda stuff. I haven't really seen anything like this except Dr. Pepper gaming house stuff, which just feels like a gigantic advertising waste of time which doesn't tie in to SC2 directly.

Website and Social Media Stuff

I am 100% tired of NASL pushing the social media stuff. ESL does a much better job of making Twitter an organic part of their production. The NASL approach of "OMG TWEET! TWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!" is very tiresome and feels so forced it's just not cool.

The NASL website is pretty easy to navigate, except that there doesn't seem to be a lot there. Even now, the FAQ and schedule says it's coming soon and the newest "news" is the announcement that they were doing WCS Season 2. Clearly, they are focusing elsewhere, but it'd be nice to see some stuff there. They do have a mention of the Santa Monica fan meet and greet, but it didn't make it into the news section. Picky? Yes. Requirement for a site to file stuff properly? Yes.

I do really like that they have an option to turn spoilers off and on. That's a must have!

I couldn't really check out Twitter or Facebook during the weekend because we were always so behind the live event that we didn't want to risk having the winners announced. So I can't really say here, except that they can stop telling me to do it.

Final Thoughts

I thought NASL did a pretty good job on the regional finals that took place this weekend. Part of me wonders if this is because of the horrendous job that Major League Gaming (MLG) did last season set the bar pretty low. Yes, I'm hating on MLG. I thought the overall production value for the  was not as good as it could have been.  I thought could have done more than a regular MLG event for their production. I do realize they were in a bind, and I thought the event was fine - but it wasn't particularly interesting or appealing as an observer. I haven't figured out whether I blame MLG or Blizzard more, but certainly both are responsible.


I know NASLs production value comes in part from having more time to prepare and seeing the mistakes that were made previously. Nevertheless, it was a typical NASL broadcast. It was fun, lots of high energy and lots of great stuff to watch that wasn't always the games. I am definitely excited to see what they come up with for Season 3! And for figuring out Bloggers retarded formatting rules! *points at the "final thoughts" header I spent 30 minutes trying to fix*

Valencia eSports Congress

If you're like me, you missed the Valencia eSports Congress event that occurred Friday before the DreamHack Eizo Open this weekend. I tried watching the videos from the DreamHack Twitch site, but found them pretty horrible in both sound quality and trying to figure out when the event actually started so I was thrilled when SCV Rush posted a comprehensive recap of the goings on.

I didn't really expect anything groundbreaking to actually come out of this event. I think it's pretty understandable that it wouldn't. But the event served as a really great way for different organizations to really show the public where they're coming from, and where they hope to see the scene really evolve and grow.

As a fan it's certainly interesting to see where gaming companies, teams, tournaments, and other "in" folks think we're going. More importantly, it's good to get their take on what the community wants. It's important to consider this statement carefully, because there are a few twists to consider.

Community

     1). The community is not the Team Liquid forums, or the Starcraft Subreddit, though forums and online sites do make up an important part of each community. As a competitive scene, the community is not only the players, whether they're pro or practice league. The community is everyone from spectators who are on the verge of truly becoming part of the scene, but are (like me) being pushed to the edge by the established people already in the scene to folks in online tournaments who just want to have some fun with their friends.

     2). Ask any community manager anywhere, for any gaming related focus from software to peripherals. Just because the community is screaming out loud for something, doesn't mean they want it. If the gaming companies did whatever the flavor of the month change being called for at any given time, usually it would destroy the integrity of what players most love about their game. Of course, this type of change applies to well thought out, debated, and considered ideas that would still alter the main things that players actually enjoy about their game home.

     3). The current SC2 competitive scene community, as it stands now, is not particularly welcoming to new folks posting on their established sites. Sometimes it's like that, and you have to earn your right to participate to a greater level. But in the time I've been a SC2 competition spectator and lurked on these sites, I can tell you, with great candor, that I am wholeheartedly terrified of posting on the SC2 official forums, SC2 Subreddit, or Team Liquid forums. Am I baby? Definitely more so than I used to be. People out there tend to be scary! Maybe it's the competitive attitude players need to have in order to take a loss, blow it off and get right back on the ladder. But it drives people away, and when you're trying to grow a spectator audience it defeats the idea of growing a scene to a larger audience.

Mainstream TV and the "Next" Level

TV was attempted before I got into the scene, so I don't have an opinion worth stating on why it didn't work as well as being unable to provide a good response to why it should possibly be tried again. I can however comment on why I both despise and embrace the idea, and hope that someone who was around when this happened can set me right on why my ideas suck or possibly (not likely) have merit. Honestly, the only thing I really want to do is pause live tournaments and restart them at my convenience. We're getting there but it's sooooo slow!!

     Pros:

     1). TV is mainstream. Yes, people who watch SC2 consume media on their computers, but the rest of us have learned that we can pause TV, walk away and pick up where we left off without dealing with a video on demand system that, for most tournaments, simply suck (looking at you Twitch). Pausing "live action" is something MLG offered during their last tournament and it didn't work for us. By the middle of the second day jumping back the teeniest movement of the mouse meant rewinding 2 hours. Online technology is getting there, but we're not there yet. TV is here and has been for some time.

     Cons:

     1). A huge marjority of SC2 tournaments are not setup for TV. Eight to twelve straight hours of an event really only works when it's the Olympics or you're a crazy fan. Since crazy fans already have an outlet with the current system, TV doesn't seem to be the right choice.

This entry overall has gone on a little long, so tomorrow I'll take a look at the last point I want to bring up. Why I disagree with the panel's judgement of what makes a good eSports game.

On a personal note, I won my first 1v1 against a "very hard" AI on Sunday night. I was thrilled, and completely exhausted, but it was fun!

[Edited for both clarity and ease of reading! One should not attempt to write while both utterly exhausted and trying to watch Monday Night Football. My humble and embarrassed apologies  to anyone who read this before 6:30pm PDT 25SEP12 as it was not an acceptable piece to be published. In my haste to "get something up", I settled for barely mediocre, and I will do my best to ensure it does not happen again!]

Sponsorship (The Monster Effect)

I've never understood how advertising works, and I don't pretend to. From proving return on investment (ROI) to creating positive impressions of brand names and brand recognition, advertising is a confusing world. But somehow it seems to work! Advertisers are putting money into communities and events across the board. Hobbies, education, entertainment, community enrichment, you name it and someone has money somewhere in it. Gaming is no different.

A few months ago I switched from Sugar Free Rockstar to Monster Absolutely Zero based solely on the fact that, to my knowledge, Rockstar doesn't sponsor any SC2 competitors or events, and Monster does. I'd have switched back to Sugar Free Red Bulls, since Red Bull is a major sponsor for many SC2 events, but the heart palpitations I got a few years ago made that a ridiculous choice.

It doesn't matter to me what team(s), events, or Twitch channels Monster sponsors. Nor does it matter that I don't feel that they're a particularly better product overall. In fact, I enjoy the Sugar Free Rockstar drinks more, because they taste like my favorite candy in the world, Smarties! The only thing that matters is that Monster puts money into a hobby I find enjoyable, and Rockstar doesn't. I want to support the SC2 competitive scene and I feel a good way to do that is to show support for those companies that put their money there.

Now I'm not exactly sure how those events or teams show a ROI to Monster regarding my change in product but I know someone, somewhere, does. If only because I'm fairly certain that if they couldn't prove ROI, they wouldn't have sponsorships anymore.For my part, while I wish I knew the details regarding proving ROI and how sponsorship and value to brands actually works, it's enough to know that I'm supporting a scene I love by buying brands that support it.

Now, let's not be crazy. I'm not running out and buying SteelSeries stuff or a Kingston HyperX (whatever the hell that is). But I know their product names now! Hell, I can rattle off the Evil Geniuses sponsors faster than Idra and probably in the correct order! Is that value? I suppose someone somewhere can prove it as such.

Sometimes the sponsorships may seem out of place, as at Major League Gaming (MLG) Anaheim this year. MLG is sponsored by the energy drink Nos. Yet no where in the venue could you actually buy one. Granted Dr. Pepper was out in full force but I was going on 16 waking hours and games were still being played. I was yawning so much I couldn't watch the screen because my eyes just watered constantly. I needed something to at least convince myself I was going to be energetic damn it! In a room full of people that probably drink more energy drinks per capita than any other market the sponsor energy drink (actually, all energy drinks) didn't make an appearance. Who thought that plan up?!

So why am I willing to switch energy drinks and not run out and buy a new keyboard and mouse? Other than the fact that I'm cheap, I don't really have a good response. I've also not yet bought any team or tournament apparel. Mostly this is because the female apparel offered is simply atrocious, but it helps that I feel like supporting one tournament or team over another by selling myself as advertising is a serious thing. I really need to be willing to support my choice, once chosen, 100% win or lose. I'm just not willing to commit to that level yet!

When I am willing to commit, you can be sure I'll be sporting my team/tournament apparel (if they have anything worthwhile that doesn't make me look like a bag) and be more willing to support their sponsors, even if it's a few extra bucks. In the meantime, I'm watching sponsors and seeing who I can support when I can in an effort to show brands that the SC2 competitive scene is here to support those who support us!

Making or Breaking A Tourney Part 3: Event Time

This is the third and final part of what makes or breaks tournament enjoyment for me.

For the first part, Making or Breaking a Tourney: Casters, click here.

For the second part, Making Or Breaking A Tourney: Production Value, click here.

Event Time

Event times are tied to the tournaments location, and thus there's not a lot of options. Europeans trying to watch MLG or Americans trying to watch Dreamhack....unless you take a day off of work, it's just not going to do-able without depending on the video on demand (VOD) system so many tourneys use. Because I cannot stream at work, or access any gaming sites (including Team Liquid and any gaming subreddits), I often don't know the results of matches taking place when I'm not home and specifically watching an event. It's not like it was back when I was playing Ultima Online or EverQuest, where I could stay up all night and then work a 12 hour day. I am no longer 21. I need sleep!!

My main issue is that I have a 10 hour a day job, a husband and a house to take care of. I also enjoy playing video games, and we watch a metric ton of game industry shows, you tube channels, read blogs, and coverage, from Gamebreaker to Kripparrian, Gamasutra to Terra Nova, not to mention all of the SC2, World of Warcraft, Diablo 3, Guild Wars 2, and random MMO and general gaming indsutry shows. All of that takes time. Time I do not want to spend watching something that's already happened even when I don't know what occurred. I am not sure why that makes a difference to me, but it does. As stated in a previous post, now that I have to choose between everything else we already do and American football (both pro and college) and then college basketball and SC2 - I am betting it will be hard to keep up with SC2 more and more. So stuff that isn't happening live when I have a few free minutes probably won't be worth my time.

In direct contrast to the above, there's something to be said for being able to pause a video on demand (VOD) while I get chores done and then come back and pick up where I left off, rather than just missing whole periods of events.The problem is I get less done, and there's always so much to do! I am not sure how this will end up working out. As we just subscribed to Season 4 of the Global Star League (GSL) it will be interesting to see how we work this stuff into our football-centric household.

The other issue I have with event time is the fact that SC2 events seem to announce their venue, caster and player lineups, and dates about two weeks before the actual event. By this time I already have plans. Seriously people? Two weeks notice is not enough time for me to change my schedule - even if you have Tasteosis casting and MC and Stephano playing. No other competition I've ever followed does it like this. Why is it acceptable for SC2 to do it this way?

Surely other SC2 competitive scene fans don't have the time to just sit around and wait for things to be announced at the last second. But maybe there's so many of us that no matter when something is announced there will be plenty of people available to watch.

Oh well. If you have the desire and time to watch everything, good on ya, but I've got to manage my time carefully and in advance. I am not giving up a weekend in Vegas to watch a Major League Gaming tournament, and I can guarantee you I'm not coming home to watch VODs when I can be catching Sports Center instead. I guess to each their own! I wouldn't want ESPN re-scheduling games around SC2 tourneys! It's good we all have a choice to watch what interests us, and many different ways to access it all.

Making Or Breaking A Tourney Part 2: Production Value

In this second part of Making or Breaking a Tourney, I want to talk about production value, and why it matters to me.

For the first part, Making or Breaking a Tourney: Casters, click here.

Production Value

This is such a subjective issue that it's hard to nail down what's important to me. Some tourneys have better production value than others, but I couldn't point to a single tournament and say "Everyone should do it this way!". I probably look for different things than others, but I tend to enjoy the basics done well.

The basics are easily explained. The casters should have a decent sound level that the map sound doesn't completely drown out. Commercials shouldn't be at a volume that tries to blow out my speakers, like Twitch does. I should be able to easily read the economy/food information without moving to within an inch of my screen or paying you $15. Commercials should not take 15 minutes and repeat the same ads four times in a row.

Of course, it gets more complicated. I enjoy player interviews that don't include the question "What is your strategy for the next match?", and I can only watch Clutch yell the player intros so many times before I start yelling "OMG START THE STUPID GAME ALREADY". Don't get me wrong, I loved Clutch at Major League Gaming (MLG) Anaheim! He was superb for the Kespa player intros. But enough is enough. Or in terms MLG can understand, Look, I get it.

I'm also not a fan of countdown clocks between matches, because so far, other than the NASL season 3 finals, nothing I've watched this year is close to even remotely timing their return from commercial times. I won't call out IPL here. They had issues at their most recent finals, and they admitted it - and I'm a fan of learning from your mistakes and moving on. As long as they don't do 20 minutes between matches and then vamping for another 20 before the game starts *ever again*, I'll call it good.

The extras are what make it for me. So far, the NASL season 3 finals did it best. The player reviews, top 10 season moments, the casters in sumo suits fighting each other - I was HOOKED the entire weekend. My plans for actually getting stuff done in the house and being productive was totally out the window and I spent the entire time in front of my computer or TV watching matches and seeing what else they had to offer.

I am thinking that either this type of b-roll production is either too high in cost or manpower, or the hardcore SC2 fans don't really care. Since they outnumber those who watch the scene like I do, I guess I just have to accept that fact. But if anyone is looking into getting the more casual of fans involved and watching - NASL did it right! Way more than a stupid touchscreen TV. Except the MLG contest during the summer 2012 arena. I laughed so hard I was crying.

Making Or Breaking A Tourney Part 1: Casters

As someone who does not enjoy actually playing SC2 but enjoys the hell out of watching the competitive scene, I find that there are a few things that can make or break tournament enjoyment for me. These three main items are casters, production value, and event time.

As with all things important to any person, we have to choose the things that are most important to us and those things get the majority of our time. I enjoy owning our home and having nice things so the job is pretty high up there. I enjoy having a happy husband and a clean home with yummy food and a pleasant atmosphere, and that takes more time than you'd think. Above all, a happy marriage takes work and a massive amount of time. More work and more time than anyone could ever possibly explain to you before you actually get into that situation....but I digress.

I want to discuss both production value and casters in seperate postings, so we'll deal with casters in this one!

Casters

Casters for any particular tournament seem to be the main reason I'm excited for an event before it occurs. I tend to enjoy casters who don't spend 20 seconds yelling "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" and then NOT explaining what is going on. For me as a non-player, I don't understand what the yelling is about. Clearly, something important happened. As a caster, your job is to tell me about it. You can get loud, or even incoherent at times, but completely skipping over commentating for yelling is simply unacceptable. I don't mind loud, passionate, and insane yelling - ask my husband, it's my norm. So I tend to be more forgiving of it when it's someone who brings a great view of the game overall (looking at you Day9/Husky combo), but even then it can easily get out of hand.

There are some casters who are working hard to learn their craft, and they're trying to get better, but they're not my favorites, but they're not casters who will turn me off of an event. For me, Frodan falls into this category. In season 3 of the North American Star League (NASL) finals Frodan gave an interview saying he was still getting used to the camera, and was working to more clearly express himself - and it showed. Both in his passion and clear desire for it, as well as maybe a bit of hesitancy when reaching for words during a hectic battle. It made me want to watch him, to see him improve and root for him. I'm looking forward to watching the next NASL season, rather than just the finals.

Then there are the casters who make me want to not watch an event or match they're covering at all. There's no need to mention specific names, it's not that they're bad people, horrible at what they do and they should quit and go do something else. It's just that for me, personally, they don't make the matches exciting and make me want to spend my whole day watching them. Other people obviously enjoy these folks casting, or they wouldn't still be doing it.

For me, it comes down to time, as mentioned previously. I have to choose how I spend my time wisely. Watching people who don't get me interested in a match when I need to get stuff done in the house on my precious days off...well, that's just not a choice I allow myself to make. If I'm going to do something I don't particularly enjoy, it will be cleaning, cooking, or prying my husband off whatever game he's playing long enough to get him to do something productive.

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.

The Start

My brother used to watch StarCraft games whenever he could find them, often he could only get it with Korean commentators. I used to laugh at him and tease him mercilessly regarding it. Not that I was less geeky - I've been involved in massively multi-player online role playing game communities, media, and events, since we were both little. It was just that our geek tendencies ran in different directions.

When my husband and my brother met, they played StarCraft 2 to a level that startled me. My brother introduced my husband and I to the Day9 Dailies, and while he was an interesting watch - I didn't understand a single word of what he said, and sometimes he was just to bizarre for me to watch for more than a few minutes before logging into whatever MMO I was playing at the time,shaking my head at all the crazy.

Then I attended Blizzcon 2011 with friends and my husband - and during one of the World of Warcraft events a kid sitting in front of us had signatures all over his shirt. The curiosity got the best of one of my friends and she asked who had signed it. His face lit up and he explained that the GSL finals were being held at the event, and that he had gotten his shirt signed, since the players participating had never done an event like this in the U.S.

Later, we wandered over to the SC2 area and took some seats to watch the games going on. My husband actually understood what was going on, but my friend and I just sat there and watched. We thought we'd be pretty bored - but it's pretty amazing how watching a large group of units baring down on a much smaller group of units is easy to understand. The casters made it even easier with their excitement and tone setting the big time battles up in our mind.

We watched a game where the casters were pretty much yelling about how many brood lords were on the field. I didn't know what that meant, but their enthusiasm was easy to follow. Something big was about to happen, and the player without the brood lords was not in a good position. I turned to my husband and said "This is easier to follow than I thought, they do a good job of explaining what we're looking out for!" and he laughed and explained that Day9 (the guy I had pretty much blown off before) was the one yelling about the brood lords. Being the good sister that I am, I immediately took a picture of him and sent it to my brother. What else could I do?

The crowd gasped, the tension was palpable - and then the flying units (the brood lords) simply evaporated into nothing - and the crowd went *wild*. The casters went crazy, the crowd was so loud you couldn't even hear what was going on - and they were playing a video game!! I was hooked!

Almost 11 months later I now understand what a big deal it was that the Global Starcraft 2 League (GSL) finals was held outside Korea. I also watch a lot of Day9, though my aim is to be a better spectator, not a better gamer, as I still don't actually play SC2.

Oh sure, I've tried a few 2 versus 2 against the AI, and even some 1 on 1 against the computer. I've completed one practice game with 1V1and one practice game on 2V2 against other players, but I don't get the rush other people get from it. I just enjoy being a fan, watching the games, and following the industry of SC2 competitive gaming.

I won't argue whether it's truly a sport, I don't care. I won't argue foreigner or Korean, as long as I get good SC2 games to watch. I have my favorite casters, favorite players, favorite events - to me it's no different than watching college football where I can yell at the screen and people don't think it's weird.

I watch a lot of the shows online, while I'm doing stuff around the house - Live on 3, State of the Game, Real Talk, The Day9 Daily, Inside the Game. I've watched some of Apollo's laddering videos, I haven't gotten into anything from The GD Studio yet, and I only rarely watch The Losers Bracket from VvV gaming. I only have so much time to go around!

I attended Major League Gaming Anaheim 2012 earlier this year, and I plan on doing at least one event next year.But in the meantime, I watch the competitions I have time for when the players and casters interest me. So here it is, a place for me to write about what I'm watching and playing, and news and information regarding anything in the gaming industry that happens to catch my eye.

Hope you enjoy!