I'm not arguing that lack of knowledge of the game by any means qualifies you to commentate. But the aspect of being able to hype or help the excitement of the crowd should not be lacking either. TB is a great example of this. His voice and energy is able to make nearly anything entertaining.
Personalities pop up all the time. What gives them staying power involves more than charm.
So we could argue what is more needed, staying power or broad audience appeal. In my previous example I was sitting at the venue at Blizzcon not for what was currently playing(WC3) but waiting for it to finish. I had no interest in the technical details of WC3, but if I hear the commentators call the game as being over and there comes a big turn around it will definitely pique my interest. Again, this is not me saying game ignorance is ok. But you can definitely tell the difference in professors from the ones who are clearly experts in their fields and give dry lectures and those who are also very knowledgeable but care just as much, if not more, about delivery.
I do agree that Day 9 is a starlet in this, he is a great blend of both. It's hardly surprising that you'll find casters that fall on one side or the other. We shouldn't be so quick to denounce someone who is more talented in one aspect over the other.
At the end of the day the whole 'nobodies' thing doesn't matter at all. The audiences are already there for the kind of people whatshisface despises and they aren't going away. People do not like the same things, it would absurdly boring if they did and in reality what is required are solid play-by-play/analysis/colour teams. This can't happen right now because eSports isn't centralised enough outside of Korea and regular casting teams are forced to use VOIP (which sucks and is awkward to cast over).
As for the whole game knowledge thing. People put way too much emphasis on it. In theory, I should be casting as play-by-play with a pro analysis guy, for best results, but that doesn't mean people don't enjoy my stuff, they evidently do, that's beyond dispute. Analysis guys also have this problem of often being boring, yes they do, sorry. Guys with broadcast experience are few and far between, guys with involvement in broadcast even at an amateur level, there are only a handful in the SC2 community right now. You want those guys to leave just because they're 'nobodies'? God I hope not, talk about wanting to damage the scene.
It smacks of elitism and an unwillingness to accept diversity. Some people have to accept that casters generally can't play at a pro level because they're unable to dedicate the time to do it and pro players that do cast, tend to not take the lead on it because they don't have the broadcast experience or personality to pull it off. Team a guy with pro-gaming experience with a guy with broadcast experience and you have a good team. Demand that the play-by-play guy is also a progamer and generally, you end up with a poor play-by-play caster. Pro-gaming experience is part of it, the other part it being able to get through a sentence without stumbling over yourself and umming and arring because you don't have any formal training in how to speak to an audience.
Since we're talking about casters already, I was surprised last night when I decided to watch random Youtube SC2 matches and found HD casting his ladder games and he was in Master's. I had the general idea that he wasn't terribly proficient at SC2, but was an entertaining caster. I would certainly think that anyone who can hang in Master's must have a functional enough understanding of the game to cast it, assuming they have the rest of the qualifications (good speaking voice, no horrible accent that is impossible to understand, ability to speak without lots of "uhh" and the ability to get the unit name right 90% of the time, etc.).
I just choose casters by who I enjoy watching, and it depends upon how I'm watching it. If I'm watching a high level championship match, I'd like there to be someone with high-level understanding, so that they can point out the subtleties in the game. On the other hand, if I just want to casually watch Starcraft being played, I'm more than happy for it to be HD/Husky. TotalBiscuit is somewhat of an exception, because I would listen to him casting anything and enjoy it, although I do think that accompanying him with a highly technical caster is a good idea for tournaments, and this goes for everyone.
Edit: Goes for everyone that doesn't have the technical knowledge along with the personality, which is practically no one. Sweet, TB even writes better posts than I do!
schmads on
Battle.net/SC2: Kwisatz.868 | Steam/XBL/PSN/Gamecenter: schmads | BattleTag/D3: Schmads#1144 | Hero Academy & * With Friends: FallenKwisatz | 3DS: 4356-0128-9671
VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
edited February 2011
schmads HD is pretty good. not quite pro level but it makes sense he's in masters. he played at I think mlg last time, went out right away but he didn't look bad. if he stopped casting and dedicated himself he could probably make some legitimate headway.
schmads HD is pretty good. not quite pro level but it makes sense he's in masters. he played at I think mlg last time, went out right away but he didn't look bad. if he stopped casting and dedicated himself he could probably make some legitimate headway.
Ahh, that's true. I had forgotten about him trying in MLG as well. I really should have gone to that one. I have no excuse not to go to Dallas this time. It seems to me that HD is doing a good job of being an entertaining caster and also keeping up his game skills to ensure that he is technically capable as well. Plus, I think seeing games from the first person perspective with "why" explanations is quite interesting, so I'm glad he casts those games.
I'm just glad that casting is even a thing. It makes spectating a game like Starcraft a great deal more entertaining than it would be otherwise.
schmads on
Battle.net/SC2: Kwisatz.868 | Steam/XBL/PSN/Gamecenter: schmads | BattleTag/D3: Schmads#1144 | Hero Academy & * With Friends: FallenKwisatz | 3DS: 4356-0128-9671
Hyping a game when you have no idea what is actually not going on? Not so great.
Its like critiquing a work of art without knowing any art history.
I LIKE THE COLORRRRSS
As a person who has taken 3 art history classes, finishing up a 4th, and required to take a 5th, I can say with certainty that I am in no position to critique any work of art.
I did vote for you on HyperX as should everyone else here!
MNC Dover on
Need a voice actor? Hire me at bengrayVO.com
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051 Steam ID Twitch Page
Trying out streaming. Tell me how many dicks it sucks.
12
The video is constantly flashing black.
when was that happening?
Jesus christ, Blobcraft 2: Blobs of Bloberty.
Tom Petty too, holy lol. Get out!!!!!!
What on
0
tuxkamenreally took this picture.Registered Userregular
edited February 2011
There are definitely a lot of people who stream who should not be doing so. That's why I limit myself to text play-by-play commentary on Xeph's stream, so that I can provide commentary and text-to-type services for our visually impaired SC2 fans. I know my limits. \o/
But I would just say that the people who have gathered a following have done so for a reason. It doesn't honestly matter if it's force of personality, in-depth game knowledge, a great rack, a Cockney accent, or what--though TB has a fine rack--they have some quality which makes people want to listen to them as the voiceover for watching SC2 matches. That quality doesn't have to be knowledge. Far be it from me or anyone else to tell people whether or not they should enjoy a caster.
As for the whole game knowledge thing. People put way too much emphasis on it. In theory, I should be casting as play-by-play with a pro analysis guy, for best results, but that doesn't mean people don't enjoy my stuff, they evidently do, that's beyond dispute. Analysis guys also have this problem of often being boring, yes they do, sorry. Guys with broadcast experience are few and far between, guys with involvement in broadcast even at an amateur level, there are only a handful in the SC2 community right now. You want those guys to leave just because they're 'nobodies'? God I hope not, talk about wanting to damage the scene.
It smacks of elitism and an unwillingness to accept diversity. Some people have to accept that casters generally can't play at a pro level because they're unable to dedicate the time to do it and pro players that do cast, tend to not take the lead on it because they don't have the broadcast experience or personality to pull it off. Team a guy with pro-gaming experience with a guy with broadcast experience and you have a good team. Demand that the play-by-play guy is also a progamer and generally, you end up with a poor play-by-play caster. Pro-gaming experience is part of it, the other part it being able to get through a sentence without stumbling over yourself and umming and arring because you don't have any formal training in how to speak to an audience.
TB, I felt the need to lime things for greater justice in your post. I'm a broadcast production major, so I've basically agreed with all of your posts on this matter. However, I suspect some people may just be trolling to get you to come out and say things . At any rate, Keith Olbermann (before he was a pundit) was a very well liked sports caster, not because he knew the game better than the people who played it professionally, but because he knew it well enough to talk about it and had good communication skills. Madden, another famous caster, basically stated the obvious to the audience, but he did it with passion and articulation ("See, you gotta catch the ball in order to make the play, otherwise you can't move the ball down the field" <-- this is really the kind of thing he would say).
A good caster is not someone who knows the game in and out, they're a person who makes it easy for a wide audience to follow along and enjoy the game.
So I'm bored and was musing.... in PvP, immortal/Phoenix would be a LOT more viable if you had a gold expansion. Might be an interesting trick to pull out of the hat occasionally.
There's nothing special about a Gold, you get roughly the same income from it once saturated as you do a saturated blue, it just takes a few less workers to saturate. Terran is an exception because MULEs get even more minerals, but for the other races its just essentially an expansion that gets up and running sooner.
But... that's exactly what makes it attractive and useful in such a scenario? It takes less workers to saturate the base, therefore you receive the maximum income at a much faster rate. In Phoenix/Immortal builds, The really prohibitive feature is the mineral cost of the immortals.
Its not that significant an amount of workers, is my point. Not enough to the point where you're suddenly going to have all these hundreds of extra minerlas.
Wait that's how Golds work? I thought Golds returned more each worker load so a saturated base returned more, not that it saturated with less workers
All because I decided to go burrow first instead of mutas, the guy just totally shut down my OL scouting so I had no way to find out what he was doing, then bam 4 BCs when I was saturating my third and planting a spire. I had extra queens/spore crawlers to fend off his (unsuccessful) banshee harass but damn do anything that aren't corruptors get melted by BCs, I'm pretty sure he'd only need one to kill all my anti-air. Oh well, guess I'll never get anything but mutas in TvZ again so I can actually scout past the 5 min mark.
First time I've seen a BC rush that didn't hit with the first BC though.
Serpico on
0
VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
edited February 2011
well here's another thing
an extremely proficient player may tend to say things like "I don't know if I agree with this" and then go on a rant about how they play and respond to things without even realizing, thinking they are injecting knowledge into their cast.
I HATE that shit. absolutely hate it. and it comes specifically from being well educated in the game.
Oh and also, I have actually never seen a TB cast before (I don't have much free time, so it's either play or watch VODs, so I play).
But that vid linked below where he's commenting on the load status bars, I really enjoyed it and know I will enjoy anything remotely related to sc2 casted by such a person.
I'm definitely going to check out the next "TB is casting" link posted here.
^_^
MMMig on
Witty signature comment goes here...
wra
0
VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
edited February 2011
he has plenty of vods... I know you just said you don't watch them but he's totalhalibut on youtube.
Oh and also, I have actually never seen a TB cast before (I don't have much free time, so it's either play or watch VODs, so I play).
But that vid linked below where he's commenting on the load status bars, I really enjoyed it and know I will enjoy anything remotely related to sc2 casted by such a person.
I'm definitely going to check out the next "TB is casting" link posted here.
I will throw you on the land and hurl you on the open field. I will let all the birds of the air settle on you and all the beasts of the earth gorge themselves on you. I will spread your flesh on the mountains and fill the valleys with your remains. I will drench the land with your flowing blood all the way to the mountains, and the ravines will be filled with your flesh. - Ezekiel 32: 4-6
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
edited February 2011
Sometimes I feel like I should cast a lot more and try to really break onto the scene.
Because I look at so many other casters and just think "shit, I'm way better than you."
Which is not to say that I think I'm a better person or anything, but I can do the excitement thing, I know all the correct names (!!), and more often than not I predict the opening/builds with more accuracy than many casters.
EDIT: This probably sounds arrogant. It's not supposed to. I'm not even saying I'm some amazing, Day[9] level caster or something. But I'm pretty sure I'm better than quite a few out there.
If the other casts are like this, and you don't enjoy it, then you need to lighten up. Take a shot of tequila if you have to, but this is truly entertaining to watch.
(yes I can see how it can be a bit too much for a final match, but I'm sure he could turn serious mode with the light humor and do well)
Sometimes I feel like I should cast a lot more and try to really break onto the scene.
Because I look at so many other casters and just think "shit, I'm way better than you."
Which is not to say that I think I'm a better person or anything, but I can do the excitement thing, I know all the correct names (!!), and more often than not I predict the opening/builds with more accuracy than many casters.
Just be aware, that is literally the exact same thing they were thinking.
Possibly the most important aspect of being a good caster is having good camera control & minimap awareness because, even if you're fucking terrible at everything else, I can at least mute you and still enjoy the game.
edit: I say this as someone who loves watching Korean BW though
It smacks of elitism and an unwillingness to accept diversity. Some people have to accept that casters generally can't play at a pro level because they're unable to dedicate the time to do it and pro players that do cast, tend to not take the lead on it because they don't have the broadcast experience or personality to pull it off. Team a guy with pro-gaming experience with a guy with broadcast experience and you have a good team. Demand that the play-by-play guy is also a progamer and generally, you end up with a poor play-by-play caster. Pro-gaming experience is part of it, the other part it being able to get through a sentence without stumbling over yourself and umming and arring because you don't have any formal training in how to speak to an audience.
Wanting casters to be able to talk about strategy coherently in a real-time-STRATEGY game is, apparently, elitism.
I don't really care that you're casting or your fan base, just like I didn't care about that community of bad casters in BW (who also had tons and tons of viewers). So long as you don't actually cast anything important (TL, GSL, IEM, MLG).
As for duo-casting, it can work (djwheat+day9 for example) but it can also fail pretty horribly (husky+day9, lilsusie/superdaniel+tasteless sometimes). It's safer if both casters know how to play at a high level, even if they choose to divide up the roles of play-by-play and analysis during the actual cast.
Streltsy on
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
edited February 2011
You would really rather have people like TheGunrun casting major tournaments?
Posts
Because that's about how long I think it would take me to bite through my arm/whatever is tying me to my chair.
except when they're talking about zerg at all
but I still watch it because it's here
although now that I think about it, the requirements to actually commentate in the GSL would cut out a lot of the prospective commentators
I stopped reading after the own3d thing
but both are awesome!
http://www.livestream.com/lemming
Trying out streaming. Tell me how many dicks it sucks.
At the end of the day the whole 'nobodies' thing doesn't matter at all. The audiences are already there for the kind of people whatshisface despises and they aren't going away. People do not like the same things, it would absurdly boring if they did and in reality what is required are solid play-by-play/analysis/colour teams. This can't happen right now because eSports isn't centralised enough outside of Korea and regular casting teams are forced to use VOIP (which sucks and is awkward to cast over).
As for the whole game knowledge thing. People put way too much emphasis on it. In theory, I should be casting as play-by-play with a pro analysis guy, for best results, but that doesn't mean people don't enjoy my stuff, they evidently do, that's beyond dispute. Analysis guys also have this problem of often being boring, yes they do, sorry. Guys with broadcast experience are few and far between, guys with involvement in broadcast even at an amateur level, there are only a handful in the SC2 community right now. You want those guys to leave just because they're 'nobodies'? God I hope not, talk about wanting to damage the scene.
It smacks of elitism and an unwillingness to accept diversity. Some people have to accept that casters generally can't play at a pro level because they're unable to dedicate the time to do it and pro players that do cast, tend to not take the lead on it because they don't have the broadcast experience or personality to pull it off. Team a guy with pro-gaming experience with a guy with broadcast experience and you have a good team. Demand that the play-by-play guy is also a progamer and generally, you end up with a poor play-by-play caster. Pro-gaming experience is part of it, the other part it being able to get through a sentence without stumbling over yourself and umming and arring because you don't have any formal training in how to speak to an audience.
I just choose casters by who I enjoy watching, and it depends upon how I'm watching it. If I'm watching a high level championship match, I'd like there to be someone with high-level understanding, so that they can point out the subtleties in the game. On the other hand, if I just want to casually watch Starcraft being played, I'm more than happy for it to be HD/Husky. TotalBiscuit is somewhat of an exception, because I would listen to him casting anything and enjoy it, although I do think that accompanying him with a highly technical caster is a good idea for tournaments, and this goes for everyone.
Edit: Goes for everyone that doesn't have the technical knowledge along with the personality, which is practically no one. Sweet, TB even writes better posts than I do!
12
The video is constantly flashing black.
YEAH THATS RIGHT
Ahh, that's true. I had forgotten about him trying in MLG as well. I really should have gone to that one. I have no excuse not to go to Dallas this time. It seems to me that HD is doing a good job of being an entertaining caster and also keeping up his game skills to ensure that he is technically capable as well. Plus, I think seeing games from the first person perspective with "why" explanations is quite interesting, so I'm glad he casts those games.
I'm just glad that casting is even a thing. It makes spectating a game like Starcraft a great deal more entertaining than it would be otherwise.
when was that happening?
Hyping a game when you have no idea what is actually going on? Not so great.
Its like critiquing a work of art without knowing any art history.
I LIKE THE COLORRRRSS
As a person who has taken 3 art history classes, finishing up a 4th, and required to take a 5th, I can say with certainty that I am in no position to critique any work of art.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
Are they any good at it? Not really, no.
Is Dane Cook funny?
You answer that.
Jesus christ, Blobcraft 2: Blobs of Bloberty.
Tom Petty too, holy lol. Get out!!!!!!
But I would just say that the people who have gathered a following have done so for a reason. It doesn't honestly matter if it's force of personality, in-depth game knowledge, a great rack, a Cockney accent, or what--though TB has a fine rack--they have some quality which makes people want to listen to them as the voiceover for watching SC2 matches. That quality doesn't have to be knowledge. Far be it from me or anyone else to tell people whether or not they should enjoy a caster.
(Except for ragequit. Yikes.)
Games: Ad Astra Per Phalla | Choose Your Own Phalla
For most of the first game when I was watching. Seems to not be doing it anymore, though.
Also: *Comment about your taste in music*
Re: Duld: Of all the songs he's played, you're going to single out Tom Petty? No.
TB, I felt the need to lime things for greater justice in your post. I'm a broadcast production major, so I've basically agreed with all of your posts on this matter. However, I suspect some people may just be trolling to get you to come out and say things
A good caster is not someone who knows the game in and out, they're a person who makes it easy for a wide audience to follow along and enjoy the game.
1. Contacts.
2. Stargirls to stand behind him all the time
Not in that order...
Witty signature comment goes here...
wra
Also re my music choices:
Wait that's how Golds work? I thought Golds returned more each worker load so a saturated base returned more, not that it saturated with less workers
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
All because I decided to go burrow first instead of mutas, the guy just totally shut down my OL scouting so I had no way to find out what he was doing, then bam 4 BCs when I was saturating my third and planting a spire. I had extra queens/spore crawlers to fend off his (unsuccessful) banshee harass but damn do anything that aren't corruptors get melted by BCs, I'm pretty sure he'd only need one to kill all my anti-air. Oh well, guess I'll never get anything but mutas in TvZ again so I can actually scout past the 5 min mark.
First time I've seen a BC rush that didn't hit with the first BC though.
an extremely proficient player may tend to say things like "I don't know if I agree with this" and then go on a rant about how they play and respond to things without even realizing, thinking they are injecting knowledge into their cast.
I HATE that shit. absolutely hate it. and it comes specifically from being well educated in the game.
... I don't have a really good point here but hey
But that vid linked below where he's commenting on the load status bars, I really enjoyed it and know I will enjoy anything remotely related to sc2 casted by such a person.
I'm definitely going to check out the next "TB is casting" link posted here.
^_^
Witty signature comment goes here...
wra
http://www.youtube.com/embed/gfAZ1hE1NxU
Because I look at so many other casters and just think "shit, I'm way better than you."
Which is not to say that I think I'm a better person or anything, but I can do the excitement thing, I know all the correct names (!!), and more often than not I predict the opening/builds with more accuracy than many casters.
EDIT: This probably sounds arrogant. It's not supposed to. I'm not even saying I'm some amazing, Day[9] level caster or something. But I'm pretty sure I'm better than quite a few out there.
<cue the thread telling me I'm awful>
For my first ever TB VOD, this is like him rushing BCs vs my zerglings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMwbYNx2DZE
If the other casts are like this, and you don't enjoy it, then you need to lighten up. Take a shot of tequila if you have to, but this is truly entertaining to watch.
(yes I can see how it can be a bit too much for a final match, but I'm sure he could turn serious mode with the light humor and do well)
Witty signature comment goes here...
wra
Just be aware, that is literally the exact same thing they were thinking.
this is a compliment
edit: I say this as someone who loves watching Korean BW though
Wanting casters to be able to talk about strategy coherently in a real-time-STRATEGY game is, apparently, elitism.
I don't really care that you're casting or your fan base, just like I didn't care about that community of bad casters in BW (who also had tons and tons of viewers). So long as you don't actually cast anything important (TL, GSL, IEM, MLG).
As for duo-casting, it can work (djwheat+day9 for example) but it can also fail pretty horribly (husky+day9, lilsusie/superdaniel+tasteless sometimes). It's safer if both casters know how to play at a high level, even if they choose to divide up the roles of play-by-play and analysis during the actual cast.
Because...wow.