Commentary

Sp1d3r

Sp1d3r

Demon Beaver
Hey, this is directed really at anyone. There are some things I feel that the SC5 community can do better at overall. I mean no disrespect either. The major problem is the video replays. Most of them look really bad and are recorded via a cheap video camera or webcam. I know I seen a thread around here about how to properly record matches and some hardware suggestions as well. The last problem is the lack of commentators for the game. If you've seen a SC replay that did commentating well, please post or linky. The reason why I'm writing this is because if you look at Starcraft/2, the replay+commentators are a big reason why people get invested into the game.. why they even decide to go out and buy it or start playing again. This is a big element we can focus on and make sure that we are doing it right when SCV is released. Oh and if you can commentate then let me know! I'll be looking for someone to dual commentary with soon

sp1d3r
 
You act like StarCraft is popular because of the excellent commentary... this is wrong. The commentary is excellent because StarCraft is popular, not the other way around. When Soul Calibur starts getting $50K tournaments, broadcasted on network television, you'll see the excellent commentary.
 
The FGC community mostly focuses on live commentary rather than after-commentary. The reason for this is the "moment" is the most important thing about the game in the FGC, the hype, the "being there" feeling is what we really trade on and in. Fighting games are just faster paced than RTS in general, so explaining all the nuance that goes on in such fast action is such a daunting task.

On top of that, even as a slight to my own community, I feel like the SC community has a lack of commentators who can be professional, analytical and entertaining at the same time commenting about matches, even in after-match commentary.

The last thing I would want is the spread of misinformation, which to me comes from misinformed commentators alot of the time.

I think those are some of the reasons we haven't done this WELL as a community.

-Idle
 
You act like StarCraft is popular because of the excellent commentary... this is wrong. The commentary is excellent because StarCraft is popular, not the other way around. When Soul Calibur starts getting $50K tournaments, you'll see the excellent commentary.
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Yes! An instantaneous negative reply from the admin. Just one of those days I guess. It's true $50k tournaments will bring in some professional commentators, but how about people like diggity, hdstarcraft, husky, day9 ... all these are regular people that helped make the game more entertaining and brought even more people in to play it. <3
 
Husky is a terrible commentator, HD is even worse.

Fact is, the only reason they're popular now is because they were the first ones to get HD videos up on youtube. Which everyone watched on mute.

Other people, like Day9, actually were "pro" commentators at one point, and he barely does real commentary anyway, or play to a specific niche, like NukeTheStars. Fact is, many live streams will have multiple commentators, and anyone can commentate a replay after the fact -- and more regular replays to work with besides -- so they have time to work on what they do, and most of the good ones fill a niche that the others don't. A good Stracraft commentator is going to spend most of their time setting the game up, talking about the maps, the players, their styles, what's on the line in the tournament, and they usually have the luxury of time to do that. They're either working from replays, or a stream with regular breaks. This type of thing doesn't happen with fighting games, there's simply less time in general, and (unfortunately) often less order.

Though it would be interesting to see more post commentaries done for replays or match vids. That's something I've always wanted to do.
 
IdleMind said:
The FGC community mostly focuses on live commentary rather than after-commentary. The reason for this is the "moment" is the most important thing about the game in the FGC, the hype, the "being there" feeling is what we really trade on and in. Fighting games are just faster paced than RTS in general, so explaining all the nuance that goes on in such fast action is such a daunting task.

On top of that, even as a slight to my own community, I feel like the SC community has a lack of commentators who can be professional, analytical and entertaining at the same time commenting about matches, even in after-match commentary.

The last thing I would want is the spread of misinformation, which to me comes from misinformed commentators alot of the time.

I think those are some of the reasons we haven't done this yet WELL as a community.

-Idle
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I can't agree with you more. The other night I started putting together some of the different subjects commentators can bring up and broke it into 2 categories: On the fly and Canned Talk. On the fly would be stating whats going on currently in the match, technical speech (moves, theory). Canned talk would be history of the players, player quotes, grudge history, placement in a tournament and foretelling winners/losers, discussion about the city of the tournment(I seen a video where the commentator started bringing up how the bums in the area get pissed when you don't give them a smoke lol) and then analysis of the level. It would be insanity if a commentator was nothing but technical nonstop information, and it would be boring if it were only canned talk... blah blah blah .. etc.
 
The best commentary I think, is commentary made by the players themselves, commentary that players like Idlemind, Ramon, or HRD make while playing. I've never seen a "proper recording" with player commentary and shitty video cameras can make the match difficult to see what's going on. I'd like to see recordings with audio from in and out of game and have the video recorded directly from the source.
 
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Well one idea might also be to have team up with other well known commentators from time to time. Mortal Kombat PDP tournament was mostly done by people who handle Street Fighter and Marvel, but were interviewing the top players to provide technical info. I say we get our own team rolling, but maybe do merged coverage with already popular commentators at big events to bolster views until we get more of a following. I have no idea the logistics of that, just food for thought. Pulling SRK fans would do us a lot of good.

Also despite our lack of commentators, we do have some knowledgeable players with a lot of personality, it's just a question of if they can transfer that on to camera.
 
IvyFanboy said:
Well one idea might also be to have team up with other well known commentators from time to time. Mortal Kombat PDP tournament was mostly done by people who handle Street Fighter and Marvel, but were interviewing the top players to provide technical info. I say we get our own team rolling, but maybe do merged coverage with already popular commentators at big events to bolster views until we get more of a following. I have no idea the logistics of that, just food for thought. Pulling SRK fans would do us a lot of good.

Also despite our lack of commentators, we do have some knowledgeable players with a lot of personality, it's just a question of if they can transfer that on to camera.
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Despite not wanting to have anything to do with those SRK mongoloids; I am forced to agree this is a logical and rational approach.

I would still rather see us work on something in-house however.

-Idle
 
I was actually thinking about this yesterday oddly enough. I was watching through some fighting videos and was listening to a certain person. Um Richard Chen I think his name was?(I'm terrible at names of people I haven't really met face to face). While listening to it I was really impressed with the level of actual game insight I heard, and they seemed to take explaining the match at the correct level of serious: to maintain a focus on the match, gameplay, or closely related discussions; while not being too professional and turning away less knowledgable/serious viewers.

I'd REALLY like to see this for the soul calibur community. I would really enjoy if we could provide good quality matches recorded well, an explanation of the gameplay going on, and personable announcers doing it. I'd even be up to trying to myself a few times with Chicago recordings(once we can), and if it works out and others support it I'd do it for tournaments I attended. That said I'm not that charismatic a guy, and while I consider myself to know my stuff I'd probably end up not knowing some of what happens. So really this offer is just to get the ball rolling, hopefully others better at this will be up to it.
 
Sp1d3r said:
PUMPED. Do you by chance have the link from that video for reference?
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Not really =\, when I watch game videos I tend to bounce around a lot. I think I found it purely by chance, it was MVC3. But he's done MK9 stuff too. I'll probably edit the link in if I come across it or another while I'm passing time with videos tonight.
 
I haven't seen too many FG commentators who are decent other than Yipes (and even he gets flak from some people who ignore his insight into games and instead listen only to the jokes he makes). Andc even then, you need two commentators for everything; one person can't talk to himself, can miss things, and can have lapses in judgement/creativity.

I think I give amazing insight, but when I joke around, my jokes are rarely ever PG. SC and the reasons things go on are pretty technical, so the peroom would need to be concise. I do my best when I can feed off a person/crowd.

Other than that, I think Bibulus manages to do a lot as a SC commentator.
 
I think your talking about James Chen? He's a famous OG SF player, and does almost all the EVO trailers every year and recently has taken a foray into commentating. Classy guy.

-Idle
 
IdleMind said:
Despite not wanting to have anything to do with those SRK mongoloids; I am forced to agree this is a logical and rational approach.

I would still rather see us work on something in-house however.

-Idle
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Sorry for the double post (on my phone) but one of my most hating things about this community is the way they've interacted with other communities the few times they've had a chance to. Everytime I've seen these things, the sc reps take sort of a backseat to whomever they've speaking with. I think that, when speaking with someone from the sc, and this will only come with support from the community, that those we're interacting with should feel like 'ok, these guys fuckin' love their game, I don't really know much about it, and they do' not 'fuck yeah, this is my time to let the world know how I feel!'
 
LostProvidence said:
Sorry for the double post (on my phone) but one of my most hating things about this community is the way they've interacted with other communities the few times they've had a chance to. Everytime I've seen these things, the sc reps take sort of a backseat to whomever they've speaking with. I think that, when speaking with someone from the sc, and this will only come with support from the community, that those we're interacting with should feel like 'ok, these guys fuckin' love their game, I don't really know much about it, and they do' not 'fuck yeah, this is my time to let the world know how I feel!'
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You know, at the risk of being self-incriminating here... the people who often get into those positions are not exactly the most charismatic and assertive of people, and don't seem to naturally be social alpha type personalities. I think that explains it, to a degree.

-Idle
 
Yep that's him. Seems to really enjoy doing it too. LP I thought you did a good job for the bit of time you commantated at FSAK. Bibulus is probably one of our better serious people for the job though. I was just offering to try and get the ball rolling, if one region starts it off I'm sure others will follow.
 
Another thing we need to do is focus on key players. A weird phenomenon where we have fighting game celebrities now, and while we know our top community members, the world doesn't. Tom Brady was a nobody till MK despite his history with DOA, but now he is highlighted and people tune in. We need to make sure the commentary also helps sell the players. Right now if you hopped on our site as a new player, you don't have any idea who our Justin Wong and Daigo are so no one knows who they should be watching.
 
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