The constructive "Let's make NS2WC an awesome broadcast" thread
Solaris
Join Date: 2003-05-11 Member: 16213Members
Join Date: 2003-05-11 Member: 16213Members
I admit when I saw the big reveal that was announced to change NS2 forever was another tournament, I was disappointed and skeptic. But now that the NS2WC is funded, and because I still do love NS2, I think we should have a serious and constructive discussion on how to make the broadcast of the finals an awesome event to watch!
The last big finals in Germany were "not very good", to put it mildly. But we can learn from those mistakes (I hope). Some points to get this discussion started:
1.) Be classy. Drop the childish antics. No wrestling, no facepainting. Seriously. It was bad. Baaaaaaaaaaad.
2.) We need professional looking footage to fill the time between rounds. Hearing you people talk is nice and all, but we are a visual species, we want eye candy.
2.1) I suggest short "intro" movies for each of the maps that will be played, showing key locations and landmarks, explaining what makes the map special, and set the "mood" for the coming 2 rounds.
2.2) A "way to the finals" montage for each of the two teams, consisting of clips form the matches during the tournament. Have one for each of the teams and discuss it afterwards in the studio. These videos will a) allow to show of some sweet action packed gameplay, b) convey the enthusiasm of the casters, and c) show (not just tell) the viewers why these people earned to sit in that studio fighting for 1st place!
3.) As much fun as they are on the "regular" casts, please resist the urge to do any kind of live raffle, "pick a clock", etc. They take too long and drive the attention away from the game to a single anonymous viewer while a thousand others have to wait. Waiting - Is - Bad!
4.) Put more emphasis on the community. Not only because this tournament is (partly) a comumnity effort, but because the communty is a big selling point. We know it, pretty much every reviewer noted it, so go and tell the people! Yes this game is hard. Yes this game has a learning curve. But you are not alone! Sure, we got the elitist pricks, the egoistic teamstackers, etc., just like every other game does - BUT a vast part of the NS community is friendly and helpful. We who love this game want others to enjoy it, and most of us will gladly help the "greens" out - if they just open their mouths and ask.
4.1) Yes, this is an "esport" event, but I can't stress enough that the dedicated community IS a selling point or par with engaging gameplay and tactical depth!
5.) "Fillers". To me it felt that a lot of the really bad stuff from the last finals in Germany was there to stretch the broadcast as long as possible. "We paid for 3 hours, we'll get 3 hours"... something like that. Pleas be prepared for that! If one team is completely stomping the other one, have a plan B. Say the teams will take a break to gather themselves, discuss tactics, whatever. And then give the viewers some gameplay! Pick some people from the audience and have them play a round of Last Stand against the Devs who sit at home in San Fransico. Kill the devs, win stuff! Whatever you decide to use as "Filler", please please make it gameplay related! If not Last Stand, pick two guys from the audience and have them fight in the NS2 "Street Fighter" Mod. They can do that on one computer! (And you get to show off the modding posibilities). But always remember 1.) Please please remember 1.)
Ok guys, your turn to get this discussion going. What do you want to see? What do you NOT want to see? And why?
The last big finals in Germany were "not very good", to put it mildly. But we can learn from those mistakes (I hope). Some points to get this discussion started:
1.) Be classy. Drop the childish antics. No wrestling, no facepainting. Seriously. It was bad. Baaaaaaaaaaad.
2.) We need professional looking footage to fill the time between rounds. Hearing you people talk is nice and all, but we are a visual species, we want eye candy.
2.1) I suggest short "intro" movies for each of the maps that will be played, showing key locations and landmarks, explaining what makes the map special, and set the "mood" for the coming 2 rounds.
2.2) A "way to the finals" montage for each of the two teams, consisting of clips form the matches during the tournament. Have one for each of the teams and discuss it afterwards in the studio. These videos will a) allow to show of some sweet action packed gameplay, b) convey the enthusiasm of the casters, and c) show (not just tell) the viewers why these people earned to sit in that studio fighting for 1st place!
3.) As much fun as they are on the "regular" casts, please resist the urge to do any kind of live raffle, "pick a clock", etc. They take too long and drive the attention away from the game to a single anonymous viewer while a thousand others have to wait. Waiting - Is - Bad!
4.) Put more emphasis on the community. Not only because this tournament is (partly) a comumnity effort, but because the communty is a big selling point. We know it, pretty much every reviewer noted it, so go and tell the people! Yes this game is hard. Yes this game has a learning curve. But you are not alone! Sure, we got the elitist pricks, the egoistic teamstackers, etc., just like every other game does - BUT a vast part of the NS community is friendly and helpful. We who love this game want others to enjoy it, and most of us will gladly help the "greens" out - if they just open their mouths and ask.
4.1) Yes, this is an "esport" event, but I can't stress enough that the dedicated community IS a selling point or par with engaging gameplay and tactical depth!
5.) "Fillers". To me it felt that a lot of the really bad stuff from the last finals in Germany was there to stretch the broadcast as long as possible. "We paid for 3 hours, we'll get 3 hours"... something like that. Pleas be prepared for that! If one team is completely stomping the other one, have a plan B. Say the teams will take a break to gather themselves, discuss tactics, whatever. And then give the viewers some gameplay! Pick some people from the audience and have them play a round of Last Stand against the Devs who sit at home in San Fransico. Kill the devs, win stuff! Whatever you decide to use as "Filler", please please make it gameplay related! If not Last Stand, pick two guys from the audience and have them fight in the NS2 "Street Fighter" Mod. They can do that on one computer! (And you get to show off the modding posibilities). But always remember 1.) Please please remember 1.)
Ok guys, your turn to get this discussion going. What do you want to see? What do you NOT want to see? And why?
Comments
I wanted to thank everyone for their personal interest in this event and keep suggestions coming. I will have to admit that most, if not all, of these points have already been addressed in our discussions. Remember, the planning and organization of this event will largely be from myself, WasabiOne, Zefram and a few other community members.
I will say it right here: You will not be disappointed. This will be a high quality, highly professional event with fantastic coverage of the game, the community, and its members/players. We want to ensure you are entertained and that this event is something you all can be proud of being apart of.
Thanks again everyone!
Kind of a workaround for the lacking replay system.
Make sure Blind is there
blind 2014 PLZ
Tht said, please do not hesitate to ask the community for early feedback to your ideas. I know it's important to not show all your cards beforehand, but let's be frank here, the record for "big/awesome surprises, reveals, etc." hasn't been all that great lately. If I learned one thing in my job it's that testing the acceptance of a broad idea early can save you a LOT of trouble and disappointment
Oh totally man, I feel ya!
Intro videos for everything would be very cool. Very professional. Please be as professional as possible
Same as above.
More first person action, please! NS2 is a RTS, but last time it was almost exclusively in top-down view (a friend of mine who is not a NS2 player even remarked this, he found it strange). I'd like to see a bit more first person speccing. Maybe most of it in the editing afterwards, or via picture-in-picture (one caster does top-down, the other first-person).
Putting together a post-round analysis (think Simon Hughes' cricket 'the analyst') with high def recorded demo footage would be amazing to catch those crucial plays from the relevant players' perspectives.
This might require a few casters on hand behind the scenes to compose these, and would definitely require play/stop/ff/rw controls for demos and/or a quick way to record into an appropriate format... Assuming the machines provided are very high spec, demo recording shouldn't be an issue. Actually, the last time I tried 'shadowplay' in the Nvidia drivers, it worked very well, and it records in a nice easy format, too.
It's going to be fantastic, I have faith in these guys
That would be so awesome.
^ Agree
I have been using Shadowplay lately. For those who have no idea what it is. It's a free video capture software by NVIDIA, it is already available to any NVIDIA 600+ Series cards, can be activated with a flip of a switch, has no impact on performance, and makes a pre-encoded H264 MP4, can record at 1080p @ 60FPS. Simply wonderful, Of course that 60 FPS won't be visible on YouTube, but it will allow for nice slow mo's. With all the footage from all the players collected and available, we could make some really good montages, for further promotional material for NS2, etc.
I don't know how this event is going to work (if they're going to a popular LAN or whatever), but seeing how nvidia showed interest in the game with the $8000 donation, perhaps talk to them to see if they'll sponsor the event with 600+ series cards for this purpose?
If this is going to be at an already distinguished event this shouldn't be needed as they should supply capable PC's there, just bringing it up. I'm sure this could be great advertising for nvidia's shadowplay.
A breakdown of the timing of the rock paper scissors tech race between alien and marine (as this will obviously be recorded and used to attract new players. Basically talk about all the complicated things that make NS2 so much fun.
Competitive players don't play with maximum graphics on (except Colt rofl) so I doubt that would fly. All NS2 official promotional material I've seen has used the graphics to the fullest.
I mean, we can all assume there WILL be gaming rigs available at this event, and that the players themselves won't be bringing their own machines or sub-par machine bring provided, so unless the GPU cards that the players are using not 600+ series or AMD's (which would be funny for a NVIDIA/INTEL Sponsored event) I don't see the problem in collecting some footage that has no performance impact on the players.
The consequence is that recordings are going to be varying in resolution, texture quality .. and that's probably it. Everyone runs the game with everything else disabled right?
To that end first person spectator recording would be required, but I have never seen it be accurate enough to really be taken seriously. Perhaps it would be acceptable at LAN? I know it is completely unusable on high pings.
If only there was some sort of system where players could record games of Natural Selection 2 to a file, that could be played back on any other installation of Natural Selection 2 regardless of the settings of computer hardware. A "demo" system of some sort.
Oi, I run with high graphics & max infestation.
'only' div 3, but hey thats competitive
Wasabi and Reddog both have said this event will be highly professional. So let's dress it up! All presenters in suits or at least jackets. Comb some hair, spritz some cologne, wax your eyebrows - ok maybe not that last one. Let's get some espn-esque broadcast up in here!
Oh and +1 to Blind being there. Him and Reddog casting live on the big stage together - that's sure to be epic...
I can tell you flat out that most of the players who will be going to the event will turn down their graphics even if the LAN machines can handle high fps 1080p. Hell... my rig at home can handle 100+ fps on 1080 but I still choose to play on 720p with lowish settings.
You must be some sort of wizard.