ill try and jump on from time to time. not the greatest, but i should help out and offer insight
Stream:
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Commentators where not commenting on match appropriate things most of the time. It was faaar better last saturday than any time before so I assume that this will quickly remedy itself but in the beginning most of the commentating was sort of a ‘inside joke’ deal where if you weren’t from AZ you wouldn’t get it.
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Commentators need to always make sure their MIC is on. In fact, this should be a non-issue, can we not disable the option to turn them off? Is this a sensitive switch or something? I am sure I will find out this saturday
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Commentators need to pay more attention to the chat room. The chat room is the audience we are here to entertain. We need to please them to make sure the have a good time and return to view us once more next saturday. The problem with this is that even now, all the commentators I saw always ignored the chat room until much much later. Sometimes I would respond to a question that was asked by a commentator (ie. Can dormammu do that? and I type in chat “Yes he can do that”) and then 10 minutes later the commentator is asking what I am talking about. It made a lot of people not want to get involved because quite frankly the chat got ignored waay too much.
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Not every match needs to be on the stream. This is something that we DO need to think about unfortunately, and it’s something that Hazem has to ultimately decide about, but let me say that when some of our more beginner players got on the stream alot of the stream monsters started to trash it hard. On the other hand it is important for people to play on the stream because who isn’t going to try fucking way harder when you got spectators watching you with your name on your skill up on the line.
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Back ground for commentators. I know a lot of people like to put like posters and logos and shit in the background for the commentators. In our case we get a nice view of the kitchen area and people walking in and out of the door. Seems kind of unprofessional but not really a big deal… maybe we can face it against the wall? Just a thought.
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Up to date player names, and to start putting scores up. It was SUUUUPEEEEER annoying when watching the stream trying to figure out who was who, and what the score was. I remember seeing Sabr3 and Danimitsu’s names up after the 1v1 tournament for a good chunk of the 2v2. They didn’t change it for a long time. Paired with the fact that the stream chat is ignored all the time, getting scores was retardedly hard.
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Shoutouts need to be re-thought. How it went down (and this was very awkward), was luey was handed a huge mf’in list of names to start “shouting out” to. It was very unnatural, and you could tell that we really didn’t know some of these people. Try dropping a few of these names in between matches, and hype it up a little bit. Doing 3 shout outs every now and then in between matches over time is WAAAAAAY better than doing the 20 or so names that luey tried to do, in a monotone voice, IN A ROW!
Like I said, i watched the stream religiously because I really want us to grow and having an opportunity to watch it from another state really helped test the quality of the stream. I really think its fucking sweet and almost feels surreal how good it turned out. I think the above comments can be EASILY fixed and will probably happen as we get more experienced setting this shit up.
Congratulations to Team Hazmat because this shit is pretty much ready to be shown to the world!
pay more attention to stream chat? you know most streams almost ignore the stream chat entirely? do you also know that every top streaming crew doesnt even have a window open for stream chat? the commentators certainly dont have a window for stream chat. with the chat this small, its not a big deal. when you have hundreds, you cant follow that, plus its all stream monsters, just spamming uncontrollable amounts of garbage that its a waste of time. if its a legit question, im sure there is someone also in the stream that may know the answer. other than spooky, no one pays any attention to the chat. and even then, spooky only pays attention to it during down time or to see if the stream is working for everyone. not to answer random questions. there is no need. thats what emails and shit are for
I also think we should mostly ignore the stream chat. If anything, I think the time for commentators interacting with the stream should be during button checks, or after a match while figuring out who is playing next. But the reality is like how Scott said it. Most of what anyone says in the chat is just going to be standard internet bile, so there is almost no reason to acknowledge it. If the stream continues to grow, then being able to find the legit questions amongst the rest of the chat will simply become a waste of time.
Also, I know that I am terrible at this game, so I think having outside spectators watching will hopefully keep me motivated to actually practice and give a better performance each week. I would also hope that everyone in the scene shares that mentality no matter how good or bad they are. I’m not looking to embarrass myself with how I play, but if I can’t level up then I deserve whatever the stream monsters throw at me.
Just so you know Armando, not every match is on the stream already. We only have so many high level players right now anyway, so odds are we are going to be putting on some mediocre displays more often than not. That is on the people in our scene to level up. I’d rather have an honest portrayal of the scene than try to fluff it up to gain viewership. That sort of thing will just wind up getting exposed sooner or later and make the scene look worse.
You do need to pay attention to the stream chat when the mics are turned off and we can’t hear anything.
Also one night I think it was thursday, there was a super high pitched noise that was transmitted over the stream and they didn’t even know.
That shit is important to know about.
Also when starting out, I think interaction between the chat and the commentators is important.
If you got 100 people, they can fucking entertain themselves, but when you got only like 20 in the chat asking and posting legitimate things like “Yo dude, your mic is off” then that shit is important enough to say that they should pay attention to it more.
In the future of course, priorities change, but for now it is something that I feel needs to be done.
Yeah, stream chat is useful right now because it’s mostly only local players giving feedback and helping tighten things up, but if I were running a major stream, I’d shut it down entirely. I don’t know how evo/levelup/whoever can expect to court a major sponsor when 1/2 their web page is people calling each other ******.
That said, I think Angelic does have a point that the commentators are mostly talking to each other right now, but during down time or when there’s only one commentator, they need to focus more on talking to the viewing audience and not the people in the room with them. Pretend you’re on a phone call with the stream monsters or something. I think Reece and Diante are doing the best job of that right now with Reece filling kind of the Spooky role of telling viewers what’s going on and Diante being Diante.
I think with the play-by-play, I like it most when you describe why someone is doing something rather than just tell me what moves they’re doing. 99% of people watching know the moves, but maybe they don’t know the strategy / matchup / player style.
Shane’s play by play is probably my favorite. Good mix describing the action + humor.
There were a couple times when commentators stepped on each other’s toes and there were 2 people doing simultaneous play-by-play. That stuff will probably go away as everybody gets more comfortable with each other.
Player names are hard to see. Maybe that’s something I can help with.
A score on screen would be REALLY nice, maybe not needed for 2/3, but definitely for 3/5 or first to 5.
The stepping on each others toes I think is mostly a result of not having headphones. Sometimes it is really easy to just not hear the guy next to you start talking with all the noise around.
Good to know. I’ll donate some headphones. I have at least 1 pair of over the ear ones. Not great, but they’ll do the job.
Comprehensive list of things the stream needs:
- More Arthur.
My avatar agrees.
ok, since we are all up on the stream talk, ill leave this here: New bill upgrades unauthorized Internet streaming to a felony
Hopefully that bill falls through, otherwise looks like Hazmat streams, and 95% of the streams up on SRK are done, at which point all this was for nothing, and I’d hate to see haz have to eat the cost of all the equipment, as selling it if that bill passes will probobly be much harder. that said, the bill also touches on unauthorized tournaments, which technically, all the ones we throw are illegal and without capcoms/namcos/arksys/warner bros. permission. Lets hope all this attention fighting games have garnered havent finally caught the eye of the law/government. Majors should be ok, just means more bs to go through for a license and or some sort of authorization from the companies, but it could definately impact the scene, if they crack down and try to monitor them. That said, i do believe that will be next to impossible to stop them all even if it does pass, I doubt cops or capcom are gonna be showing up at haz’s doorstep, but it could mean that we will start to run out of places to have them outside of homes, such as our current ranbats and lan speed games, or our last season at the pizza shop, as it could bear legal implications upon the people who are kind enough to allow us there.
im curious to see how it all pans out.
armando you made some good points.
commentating on the match or the game is not always necessary. During boring matches or down time are definitely times to talk about something else. Also some of the best commentary ive heard recently isnt even about the matches its just dudes talking shit about the players or something else. Sometimes talking about the game without break is incredibly boring…
because of the switching of commentators, once one would leave they would turn off the mic to prevent static noise until the mic is once again in use…
the chat room should be monitored on occasion but not by the commentators unless on downtime. whoever is controlling the cams and such, on sat it was reece, should look at it from time to time, which he did. There were a few times hed read an interesting post about the game or match and ask who ever was on the mic to answer…
not every match was on the stream, in fact reece did a excellent job of using the streamed xbox as just an open station for anyone to play. I know your concern about putting scrubs on the stream, I felt the same way, but it gives them chance to step up as well, as you mentioned. Personally fuck 80% of what the chat says anyways, THEY are not the target audience, the target audience is anyone who enjoys watching high level Marvel and that is what most of us are trying to accomplish…
in time who is near the computer will update the names and what have you and again reece did a swell job for basically his first time through. I do agree that score counter is a good idea. watching those llllllllloooooooooonnnnnnnnngggggg dan sabre games i forgot the score…
background…? Haz talk to Rob, maybe get some shit goin with HAZMAT and DEV…
shoutouts was weird, BIG thanks to scott for helping out with those. Personally i dont like shoutouts or even the term shoutouts but Haz asked and we couldnt fit them in until the end which i dont think was a bad idea at all. Most shoutouts happen after a tourney or during BIG breaks between matches. I think Haz and Haz alone should do shoutouts as he knows most all of the people on the list, but again haz was busy playin and starting random team tourney…
good looking out man
yeah shoutouts were weird. it didnt feel natural. i wasnt sure why we were giving shoutouts to certain people, except for giving shoutouts for the sake of giving them shoutouts cuz we know them, or something.
armando: no doubt man. im not disagreeing with someone looking at stream chat from time to time to make sure shit is working on their end, which is what i was kinda talking about in my post in regards to what spooky does. but what can also be done, since the streamer has the stream also running on the pc(you have to in order to see streamchat) they can check up themselves if its working. or someone thats watching that knows us, can shoot us a text on our cell phones to let us know what the problem is, since im sure there will always be friends that know us personally, watching, that have our cell#.
robb: its nothing new that streaming is somewhat against the law. capcom has shut down streams before(early ssf4 streams with leaked copies). I think gaming streams will be fine, but it depends on how this plays out. Will it be up to the government to shut down streams and press felony charges, or will it be up to the copyright holder to press charges? if it’s the government, there may be issues. if its the copyright holder, we have nothing to worry about. The developer/publishers of games have always embraced the streaming communities since its basically free advertising. capcom, bliazzard, namco, netherrealm studios, arcsys, etc already support the streams and tournaments. They are smart, they know they dont lose any revenue by these streams existing, if anything it gains potential revenue. I think this bill is mostly pointed towards streaming of ppv events like ufc, or movies tv shows, sporting events, etc which definitely impact revenue. These types of streams are of a fixed nature. you can basically watch that content once, and be done, and never have to watch it again, cuz its always the same thing every time you watch it. whereas, a video game, is never the same, atleast a competitive game. you always have players engaging the game completely different, never resulting in the same thing. theres interaction, always different outcomes, etc…
i think thats what the big difference is. the publishers love it. the only way it will stop is if the gov’t intervenes and ignores the copyright holder’s intentions
Fucking scott, get some glasses old man, that wasnt robb. <3
AND F.Y.I. you CANNOT stream or even hold a tournament for a blizzard game, without a license from blizzard. you have to contact them, tell them about said event, how many might be attending, and then basically they decide if you get it for free, or if they want a piece of the pie. blizzard will sometimes charge for the license, other times it may be free, depends on the event. learned all of that during a dev meeting where sir scoots was talking about it as him and djwheat run/stream those starcraft 2 tournies.
like you said, its always been somewhat illegal, just was ignored. The link I posted was fresh form the front page of SRK, where this apparantly could be a potential issue.
I was just dropping that there as an educational resource for those who care, not as some doomsday "OMG NO MORE TOURNIES!!!11!1"
post.
As i said, i just hope the fgc hasnt finally caught the attention of the law/government, its been working great as it is for years, no need for them to come and rock our boat.
I agree with that. I watch WNF/Guard Crush week in and week out and they do address the audience when they have time. At PDP, Spooky handed it off to Justin Wong and Perfect Legend and those guys spent the entire time answering questions from stream chat. It got more hilarious as it went down!
I understand that most top streams don’t pay attention to chat during the event or whatever but there’s no reason to treat viewers (even those that spam random shit) like second class citizens. The point of the stream is to show it to a wide audience interested in the subject material whether they be top players, casual players or someone just wanting to watch some matches.
Some of the comments in the chat do matter. I remember one match at WNF where someone forgot the handicap, a stream viewer caught it, notified via chat and it was taken care of. In my opinion, it depends on what’s going on and what’s being said. If there’s someone reading the comments and can answer, cool, if commentators are too busy, they don’t have to respond.
You’re gonna see a whole slew of legislation in the next couple years pertaining to online content, distribution, etc… etc… The current model the world uses for entertainment is falling apart, and the entire world has to change. When I say world, I mean this effects everyone from the people who make the shows, to the writers, advertisers, sponsors, sporting events, viewers, etc…
Many VERY popular shows are being cancelled because people are streaming episodes, downloading seasons, and saving stuff to watch another time. Ratings are no longer reflective on who is watching the content, and this is causing sponsors to withdraw advertising dollars since most people fast forward through commercials, or watch stuff on Netflix where there IS no advertising.
With video games, think about it this way. If you are Blizzard, Capcom, or any other company that has made a competitive game, and a company forms called “We Do Tournaments Inc.” and broadcasts the tourneys live, they can sell advertising and make money off of someone elses property. I think this is fine, since they’re putting the work together to promote their product and should benefit from this, but I also have to understand the other perspective. They wouldn’t be making the money if not for Blizzard. It’s a tough situation.
But litigation won’t fix the underlying issues at hand. You can go after people who stream illegal content, you can go after people who download seasons of shows instead of watching them with advertising. It’s not gonna change anything. Netflix and Hulu both stream shows legally. Advertisements are shown RARELY on Hulu, and not at ALL on Netflix. Without advertising dollars, your ratings don’t matter. And the companies who would normally make a commercial to sell their product, are getting less exposure causing even bigger global economic problems.
You think you wanna see how this is gonna play out? I FEAR how this will play out.
In the meanwhile, keep streaming. It will be a LONG time before anything happens.
(TLDR: Good shows are being cancelled, companies aren’t making money, the world is falling apart because of streaming services)
cory, my bad, get a fucking different looking avatar =)
Hah I do the same thing Scott. I don’t read the persons name, I glance at the avatar as I start to read their post.
i admit, i didnt know that about blizzard. i guess it makes sense tho. the sc2 streaming/tourney business is big dollars.
dorion, you are absolutely right. im actually almost suprised that publishers allow rental businesses to exist. sure netflix and others buy a crapton of copies for their business and pay a license. but damn, thats a lot more copies that could have been sold and gone straight to the publisher.
pretty soon, there will be more commercials in your streaming content. it is happening now. more legit streaming sites are expanding the ads. a year ago, it was a short 15 second ad, now im starting to see 2-3. also its the internet, ads dont have to be solely with video content. its damn near integrated into every part of the internet already.
i think tv ads are still doing fine. i just think the archaic neilson ratings system is ridiculous. yeah dvr and internet changed the game. but millions of people still watch tv, live. the audience is still there. its just the ratings are so ridiculously flawed and outdated. with digital cable and satelite. they should be getting insanely accurate readings on who is watching what and how many people tune in to specific shows, then the advertisers know where to put their money and know what to sponsor, more accurately.
its a shift in entertainment for sure
Same here.
Cory go back to the transformers avatar…
Also good looking out for the chat… I just wanna see this shit take off.
I thought about calling luey but he never answers his goddamn phone and he might freak out since i’m calling from oregon…
edit: he never answers it while hes playing marvel.