Watching SC2 - Macro Down time

We have all watched and enjoyed a lot of SC2 over the last two years. The growth of production has been really impressive and shown a lot creativity within the different leagues. The casting has become more refined and polished. Watching the growth of producing SC2 has almost been has interesting as the games themselves.

However, I have not convered many non-RTS fans to enjoying SC2. People can respect the exciting moments, much of tht time there is a disconnect between what we are watching and what the players are doing. There are times when the observer is following one of the few moving units, while the players push their macro to the limit. This is also the time when Artosis and Tasteless break out the random facts about guinea pigs(god bless them, because they still keep things interesting no matter what is going on) and my friends lose interest.

Personally, I would like to see more switches to the players point of view during these moments. The manic speed that many players move at during SC2 is impressive to anyone who sees it first hand. Most people never even think about playing a game at that speed or attempting the level of multitasking that most professionals and regular viewers take for granted. Once, when watching Nony's stream on my Kindle Fire, a friend looked over my shoulder and said, mouth open in awe "Wait, that is a person? People play like that? How does he even know what was going on?" He watched for around 10 minutes, simply wordless at the speed and the amount of things that were going on at once. Although he does not play SC2, he often asks how the leagues going and if Nony is doing well. His passing interest has been growing over time.

I feel that leagues need to switch it up and show us the players point of view more often. People who do not play need to see first hand what it takes to control these units. It is the only way I can come up with to convey the amount of effort it takes to play SC2. It would also show how vision and fog of war effect the game. When to cut to the players point of view will be a trial and error process that they will need to learn. It would also require more effort on the production side, because cutting between points of view is hard and can break up the flow of a broadcast.

What do people think? Where are the points during a match when a single players point of view would keep things more engaging? Have anyone seen any good uses of this in recent broadcasts(links please)?

Nony on PvT: "It's not imbalanced, the protoss wins and then there is a five minute death animation for the Terran"

Chef June 23 2012 02:42. Posts 9708

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MSL and Proleague always have random cuts to players FPViews. I imagine it isn't beyond GSL to implement something like this. It's only for about 20 seconds tho.

I dunno how valid your points are, but it makes things interesting especially if the person directing it can pick a moment when there is some intense micro. As far as macroing tho... Wrong game for that lol isn't it just one hotkey and then spam the key for the unit you're making? Ideally you don't even look back at your base when doing something like that, so unless you are looking at the bottom of the screen at the queue you wouldn't know. At best you see them shift add 3 gates and a tech building or something lol.

Last edit: 2012-06-23 02:44:23

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FlaShFTW United States. June 23 2012 03:09. Posts 4957

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I think the best fp views that were showed in BW were when there was a critical drop or something coming or some hidden tech and they'd look at the opponent's view and see if he's scouted or how he's reacting or something.

I like the cuts to the players faces too, I remember FlaSh vs Jaedong when Jaedong went for that lurker drop on dreamliner and FlaSh's face was priceless and he got so zoned into the defense.

Never Surrender. Never GG. Always Fighting. BW4LYF. Woo Jung Ho Never Forget.

Clarity_nl Netherlands. June 23 2012 03:22. Posts 3283

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I do wish that for someone just spectating people could see how fast people are playing.
FPV doesn't even have to happen during a crucial moment. Just simply when both players are macroing up would work too!

More gg, more skill.

EienShinwa United States. June 23 2012 05:08. Posts 651

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A lot of the drama and intensity of the games are missing as a result of this. The lack of camera directing really takes away the experience SCBW spectating had, with all the zoom ins at critical moments of the players, random first person views of the player, and the random shots of the crowd. These are all things that made spectating SCBW as fun as it was.

I have a simple philosophy: Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. Scratch where it itches. Alice Roosevelt Longworth

Vragak United States. June 23 2012 07:14. Posts 6

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I would like to think it would be nice to see the FPV even during the early games. I understand the caster's could use this time to talk about the map (attack paths, rocks HY Minerals etc...) but even during this time the pros can have 100, 200, 300+ APM just boxing workers and setting up their viewpoints, etc...

Watching the FPV during some critical fights would even be interesting... are they doing specific things, or are they just A-Moving so they can macro elsewhere.

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