Editorials

Critical Edge: Building Your Own Stream (Part 2)
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  • Live Streams
  • Jaxel
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Building a stream setup is an incremental process. First you need to put together a system to record your games, then you need to add vocal commentary, and finally you take all that it do it live. Last week, I went through the basics on how to record your video games. The first thing we accomplished was a setup able to handle the recording of video from your console to your computer.

However, just recording video games isn't enough; you need a way to infuse commentary into your recordings. There are many ways to add commentary; if you were just dealing with recordings, and not a live stream, you could simply add a voice over in post-production using a PC microphone and a video editing program such as Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas. However, since the end result of these articles is to have a live stream, this just isn't good enough.
Hate Speech: A Christmas Miracle
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  • Dr. Hates
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Editor’s Note: Every year around this time, Hates returns to Oklahoma, land of his birth, in order to spend time with those members of his family still willing to speak with him. Already a stressful time for many of us, as suicide statistics clearly indicate, the holidays are an acutely difficult time for Hates. The intersection of cold weather, good will toward men, and overt religiosity leaves him in a state of severe agitation. Despite such hardships, Hates maintained that he could stick to his writing schedule, and the Hate Speech Editorial Cabal remained optimistic..

Optimistic, that is, until the Associated Press began picking up stories of rum and eggnog-fueled chaos in the Tulsa area, including the following: swinging from holiday lights, ham theft, unlicensed freestyle caroling, and fleeing the scene of an altercation with an inflatable yard Santa...
Critical Edge: Building Your Own Stream (Part 1)
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  • Jaxel
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Fighting games are getting more popular, and as fighting games get more popular, the number of tournaments increases. Something we've witnessed in the SF/MvC community is that when there is a glut of tournaments, the tournaments without a live stream of the events often feel "less important". Thats not to say they in fact, are less important; but they get less exposure and consequently often feel less credible.

As most of you know, we have our own live stream. And while the lack of Soulcalibur on the stream is credited to the decline of popularity in the game, I have still incrementally improved on my equipment so that when Soulcalibur does get popular again, we'll have something special. I often get emails and private messages from people asking what kind of equipment I use; so I figured I would use this column to outline whats needed to give a decent quality stream.
Hate Speech: We Are the World
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  • Dr. Hates
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I initially had something else altogether planned for this week, but some recent discursive trends in our happy little corner of the Internet make me think I should intercede with everybody for a moment and make a few things crystal clear. I’ve said in the past, both implicitly and explicitly, that this is a very exciting time to be a fan of Soul Calibur.

We’re just weeks away from the release of what looks like it will be an amazing game, we have a solid infrastructure in place as a community that will help people meet up, compete, and improve, and plenty of folks seem legitimately interested in SC5—even people who’ve never picked up any prior SC game seriously.

Given all of those good things and the potential they represent, those of us who have been around for a long time have an obligation to maximize the benefits of all that hype to the best of our ability. Or at least we shouldn’t torpedo everything. Sounds difficult? Never fear, I’m here to share some simple rules which will help immensely.
Critical Edge: Cut Off Your Nose to Spite Your Face?
  • Editorials
  • eSports
  • Soulcalibur V
  • Jaxel
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  • 26,314
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If you were watching my Salty Battles #08 stream yesterday, you may have witnessed that sometime during the event I was informed of a new "hot topic" within the fighting game community (FGC). Admittedly, I have done zero research on this topic; but the facts on the issue are not nearly as important as the public perception and what they believe to be true.

My knowledge of the topic in question is directly related to discussions (or should I say, arguments) with the stream monsters on the twitch.tv/8wayrun channel. Readers may say "but thats not true", or "he/she never said that"; but as stated before, its all about perception. This article is my entry into the ongoing and current debate known as "eSports VS FGC"... Don't want to hear what I have to say? Well I have a website, so I have a voice.
Hate Speech: Of Clean Hits, Designs, and Time Travel
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  • Dr. Hates
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  • 18,174
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It’s time once again to fire up the Hate Speech Wayback Machine for another field trip back in time. Today we’ll be going back into the hazy, primordial era known as “oh, the last couple of weeks or so.” It was a simpler time. A better time, back when men were men, women were men, and all children were manly children.

Though records from this dark age are few and fragmented, some bits of its knowledge have been passed down to our modern age in the forms of myths, legends, and hushed whispers around our campfires. One such tale is that of the beast known as “Clean Hit,” and that is where our journey will begin.
Hate Speech: The Best Laid Plans...
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  • Dr. Hates
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As I write this, the tail end of the NEC-XII Soulcalibur V exhibition is streaming on my computer. My initial plan was to be there in the thick of things, but I’ve been sick enough that I’ve barely managed to stagger out of bed for the last few days. So it goes…

In any case, the war report I’d hoped to give you guys ain’t happening. On the plus side, we got to see plenty of SC5 action and we’re going to have lots of information coming our way thanks to Bibulus’ interview with Daishi, but where does that leave an intrepid columnist who wants to talk about something topical? Well, in the spirit of making the best of a bad situation, I present the following eclectic series of thoughts for your reading pleasure.
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