I feel like tourney game observers can really improve the way they're showing games to the viewers. I never saw a thread talking about this specific subject on TL and to me, as a simple viewer, it is very important.
What I'm seeing atm is game obs showing the game in the same way we're all watching replays on our own personal computer (mass clicking on buildings/units, using mouse scroll at high speed on long distance, spam boxing groups of units, changing locations every second and so on). That's not how it should be done because as a viewer it's not a good experience to watch a game like this.
Watch how professional korean games were obsed to compare, they were more focused on the "game story" than showing every single little things to the viewers. - No spam of any kind. - The mouse (border) scroll is used at the minimum and at the lowest speed. Instead they're using the arrow keys. - Clicking on a unit/building is only used when it matters. - They try to hide the mouse cursor as much as possible. - They click on the mini map to change locations. - And many others little tricks here and there.
What it's doing is viewers can easily figure out the pace of the game without beeing constantly eye spammed and it makes a BIG difference.
It would be really nice if game obs try to improve on this area. Look few pro games and focus on how things are done obs wise. I know that nowadays game obs & caster are usualy the same person so it makes it even more difficult to do but it's worth it.
Either way, I think no Caster/Commentator will cover more than 90% of the game, what I think more useful, is if those Observers could upload the .rep of the game they comment on.
I agree, I think to be a good observer you need to play the game at a high level as a prerequisite. For example Shine observing is amazing compared to others. High level knowledge of all matchups allows the observer to highlight important timings and good minimap awareness means few key moments are missed.
I think all current foreign obs have enough knowledge to do it the right way, but they're just not aware of the basic rules since no one ever talk about them. It's a very hard skill to master tho,I agree.
Outside of professional offline settings most of the time the caster is the observer and it's hard to cast and obs at the same time especially when it's much much harder to actually cast that it takes a lot more effort, effort that is taken away from better obsing leading to casters going to their regular rep viewing habits.
One thing that makes this exceptionally difficult is most casts for foreign events do not have a dedicated obs. Only the really high production ones like Zotac have someone whose only job is to man the camera. If you are trying to cast a game solo or duo and broadcasting your view, it's impossible to show the screen as you describe and speak intelligently about the game at the same time.
I do agree that it is a better experience and I hope we can have more events with dedicated obs in the future.
Have you seen any tournaments I've observed op? I try to stick as close as I can to the korean style as I can but perhaps I'm not doing it without realising.
Qikz I think you're doing a good job, I was not pointing at anyone. I'm a huge fan of foreign events and I'm following all of them.
For exemple just watch this game : (starts at around 28min) Look how the obs makes it really simple, zero spam, just do the minimum, only show where the actions are. For me foreign obs losing too much energy on small things. Makes it simple !
i didn't mind the BSL vods and that was a one man team, he seemed to do alright (although i didn't listen to the cast itself, but i never listen to commentary so nothing against if it was good or not)
Some really good points, thanks. As someone who has done some piss-poor observing I definelty see what you mean. I will try to improve the basic things. While I think the casting while observing is far less than ideal, there are certainly a few things that make the experience a whole lot better, like no spamming and fluid camera movements.
It's incredibly annoying if you talk only about what is already visible to the eye. Of course, some situations can be explained, but what's the point in listening to a cast which only states the obvious (e.g. "oh nooo, he's losing all his zerglings!" or just "He's building a gateway now"). Use this information to continue with an analysis (why has he lost his zerglings, what does it mean for the rest of the game, are his expansions now unsafe, what options does he still have?). And what's lacking most in all casters is the ability to tell a story besides the game. I don't mean useless offtopic banter, but informations about the players history, their rivalries, their previous results, strengths and weaknesses. This can build up hype, also helps to make players more memorizable.
On February 18 2018 21:21 CoL_DarkstaR wrote: May i add some advise for foreign casters:
It's incredibly annoying if you talk only about what is already visible to the eye. Of course, some situations can be explained, but what's the point in listening to a cast which only states the obvious (e.g. "oh nooo, he's losing all his zerglings!" or just "He's building a gateway now"). Use this information to continue with an analysis (why has he lost his zerglings, what does it mean for the rest of the game, are his expansions now unsafe, what options does he still have?). And what's lacking most in all casters is the ability to tell a story besides the game. I don't mean useless offtopic banter, but informations about the players history, their rivalries, their previous results, strengths and weaknesses. This can build up hype, also helps to make players more memorizable.
On February 18 2018 21:21 CoL_DarkstaR wrote: May i add some advise for foreign casters:
It's incredibly annoying if you talk only about what is already visible to the eye. Of course, some situations can be explained, but what's the point in listening to a cast which only states the obvious (e.g. "oh nooo, he's losing all his zerglings!" or just "He's building a gateway now"). Use this information to continue with an analysis (why has he lost his zerglings, what does it mean for the rest of the game, are his expansions now unsafe, what options does he still have?). And what's lacking most in all casters is the ability to tell a story besides the game. I don't mean useless offtopic banter, but informations about the players history, their rivalries, their previous results, strengths and weaknesses. This can build up hype, also helps to make players more memorizable.
Good point
To have the ability to talk about the history of the players is almost impossible to do for non-professional casters, because there are quite a lot players and the casters usually only see a small part of the games and there is no up to date TLPD for foreigners to easily check past games.
On February 18 2018 21:21 CoL_DarkstaR wrote: May i add some advise for foreign casters:
It's incredibly annoying if you talk only about what is already visible to the eye. Of course, some situations can be explained, but what's the point in listening to a cast which only states the obvious (e.g. "oh nooo, he's losing all his zerglings!" or just "He's building a gateway now"). Use this information to continue with an analysis (why has he lost his zerglings, what does it mean for the rest of the game, are his expansions now unsafe, what options does he still have?). And what's lacking most in all casters is the ability to tell a story besides the game. I don't mean useless offtopic banter, but informations about the players history, their rivalries, their previous results, strengths and weaknesses. This can build up hype, also helps to make players more memorizable.
Good point
To have the ability to talk about the history of the players is almost impossible to do for non-professional casters, because there are quite a lot players and the casters usually only see a small part of the games and there is no up to date TLPD for foreigners to easily check past games.
While that is true I think the larger point still stands, purely commentating every little action becomes very dry, even if we can't know the backstory of the players there are still steps that can be made IMHO, this is based off of self-observation also.
On February 18 2018 21:21 CoL_DarkstaR wrote: May i add some advise for foreign casters:
It's incredibly annoying if you talk only about what is already visible to the eye. Of course, some situations can be explained, but what's the point in listening to a cast which only states the obvious (e.g. "oh nooo, he's losing all his zerglings!" or just "He's building a gateway now"). Use this information to continue with an analysis (why has he lost his zerglings, what does it mean for the rest of the game, are his expansions now unsafe, what options does he still have?). And what's lacking most in all casters is the ability to tell a story besides the game. I don't mean useless offtopic banter, but informations about the players history, their rivalries, their previous results, strengths and weaknesses. This can build up hype, also helps to make players more memorizable.
Good point
To have the ability to talk about the history of the players is almost impossible to do for non-professional casters, because there are quite a lot players and the casters usually only see a small part of the games and there is no up to date TLPD for foreigners to easily check past games.
While that is true I think the larger point still stands, purely commentating every little action becomes very dry, even if we can't know the backstory of the players there are still steps that can be made IMHO, this is based off of self-observation also.
Of course you are right about the rest, but this will probably not change either, because often the caster just doesn't know what the reasoning is or how the follow-up will look like. You have to be a pretty good player with all races to do something like that (see Kogets cast during the Italy lan).
TBH I think this is just asking for the cherry on top. The vast majority of foreign casters that I see in foreign events don't get paid, spend an enormous amount of time and effort and often work solo, and often doing their own tournaments that they have to organize themselves. This is such a small thing that while it's something that "would be nice," I rarely if ever struggle to follow a caster who is watching the replay at 1x speed and is observing it the way they normally observe the game. I guess what I'm trying to say is, it feels a bit entitled to be asking that all foreign casters adhere to these rules given everything else that they have to deal with.
About dedicated obs, the issue is in my experience that even when there are dedicated observers and one or two casters, the observer pretty much has to constantly be playing "catch up" with the casters who mention x happening here, y happening there (which in turn means the observer can miss split-second moments, and that the casters constantly have to reference a location like "look at 3 o clock he is throwing down his Nexus,"), etc. Meanwhile, because the stream is always on a delay relative to the casters, the casters can't react to what the observer sees because they are usually in-game themselves and watching the replay/game as they normally do and not following the observer's delayed stream. To circumvent this, the observer would have to stream his FPV to the casters, who then re-stream it, which is again too much hassle and would likely cause data loss.