Battle of the Beasts organisational improvements

I think Uber might want to speak to @proeleert about some of the lessons PACE have learned from running these things. For one thing, use TeamSpeak to organise your players. For another, when doing games sequentially get the next lobby setup at the start of the preceding game so the players are just waiting on the casters to join, or even set up all round 1 lobbies at the start of the tournament.

Thanks to Brad for updating the brackets in the midst of the stress of running things so I could run straw polls.

Yeah, that would have been preferable. Good thought, bro.

But to whom were they looking? Uber or Zaphod?

That's really the big problem here. It's not so much that Uber had Zaphod on there or a single caster. But that everything was done through Zaphod. As if to say "This is Zaphod, he is much loved by Uber and is the official Caster for them in all respects"(not to say this is true, but it's the idea many people will have gotten).

That's a very dangerous road to take. Uber is making their game for the Community. If the community fractures that leads to a lot of trouble and it can ultimately make the success of PA into a failure.

Well they missed half the chat, they could have "missed this". Anyhows it's over, forgotten with. Apologies to any person that was hurt or offended by my comment about matiz's internet connection. I was annoyed and me being stupid and having no filter ever too kit out on the internet.

I have been quoted by saying I would never let anyone down and tonight I let matiz down. Sorry man.

I don't think that this is driving the community away, but I do agree that we should have more casters. One per tournament is OK, so long as future tournaments feature other ones. Besides, if Uber endorses lesser know casters in the future, I think it would help the community.

I haven't watched yet, but I assume that it will be amazing! Rock on Uber!

Yeah, in hindsight I'm not really sure why I ended up posting that... guess I got too caught up in the possibility of a debate

As we often say here in Canada, sorry.

I've been running PA Matches for... 8 months now? There are a lot fewer casters now than when I started PA Matches. Several casters have popped up, but they all last less and less frequently.

That's specific evidence towards driving away casters. And I've talked personally to several of them on this topic and they point towards not gaining traction because of Zaphod's monopoly.

My main gripe is that this was on Zaphod's personal twitch. That's just bogus. It should have been on Uber's twitch and then I probably wouldn't be bringing this up.

I've only ever seen Uber promote three community things. One was when they shared PA Matches on facebook when it launched. The second was when they embedded one of my videos in their newsletter. The third promotion is the constant promotion of zaphod. A blog post and email dedicated to zaphod, and the hosting of the tournament on his personal channel. Plus all of the times he gets invited to play with the devs.

My biggest gripe is that this was an official Uber tournament that was hosted on Zaphod's personal.

I must say I thought the tournament was pretty good.

Ofcourse their can be some improvement.

As mentioned before. Make the switch to the next match quicker. It gets boring when we have to wait long for the next match to start.

Get some rules up with what can and cannot be done in the tournament (The more detailed the better). Appartently clopse thought he could say it.

Props to Zaphod and Meta for the streaming. Both really added a lot with there commenting.

The last match could sometimes be hard to follow because of the multiple planets. Maybe when performance gets better having more PIP screens open to view multiple important scenario's that are happening (also one that shows the travelling between the planets). Not sure though. It gets hard to fit al that information into one streaming channel.

A commander counter would also be pretty handy. Then you can easily see who lost their commanders and who doesnt.

That what I can come up with right now.

I think it was the right decision to go with Zaphod. This was an important promotional event for the game and Zaphod has the profile, following, and professionalism to see that it was done properly. He did a great job and I think it makes sense to do it this way. In the future i'm sure it will be opened up a bit, but there's no reason for Uber not to continue to grow their relationship with Zaphod. PA needs everything it can get to grow the profile - just because one caster is doing well doesn't in any way prevent other casters from growing a following. Let a thousand flowers bloom and don't cause drama because Uber is cultivating a decidedly good thing.

No need to get jelly bro

You're very wrong on this.

Uber is driving away other casters which means less visibility and a smaller community.

Zaphod is good. But there's other good casters as well.

Other casters aren't going to get their feet off the ground if they don't get any views or anything from Uber. I'm not saying Uber should promote the brand new casters. I'm just saying they should stop with the preferential treatment, promote more members of the community, and let the community grow and mature rather than pump everything into one caster which drives all other casters away.

Again.

This is about the health and growth of the community, which Uber is stifling because other casters are being driven away.

I'm actually not overly threatened by Zaphod. I have PA Matches which is getting a lot more reach than Zaphod is, or will. Some real big plans for it – and Zaphod isn't a threat to those plans.

This is about the health and growth of the community. I know I'm not (yet) in a position to cast this tournament, but other casters are. And Uber is ignoring them and promoting Zaphod exclusively. It's hurting the community.

I think if you have someone who people obviously like using them for promotional will help bring people in. PA is an RTS which means it work get amazing numbers of people playing it as its not the most popular genre.

As you could tell though out the stream they were trying to make sure they could explain the basics as much as they could so if new people were there they might be able to join and understand.

They should use different casters but for the first tournament having the most popular guy doing it will bring in the most people which means work will spread faster thus more copies sold which means more updates ect.

Im not saying other casters are bad but from what I have seen Zaphod is the biggest one. Also just letting people know I dont not like any casters that I have watched so far and that includes Zaphod and im not hatting on anyone here it just the reason why I think Uber choose him.

Sorry if there are grammer errors but I do that sometimes!

The problem is that all this favoritism towards Zaphod is hurting the community in the long run. Its killing of casters because all there effort that goes into making content gets wasted.

In time I am sure they will promote other casters. In fact, they already have - when Zaphod was streaming TES:O, Meta dual streamed with Marshall. The community isn't that big, and this was a big event aimed more bringing more folks into the community. Which is good for all of us - to keep the development going, to bring in new blood for matches, and so ensure PA reaches it's full potential. PA doesn't 'exclusively' promote Zaphod - Zaphod has the largest following (he had a name before PA and is a great caster) and they smartly support that role. It's a two way street. You should chill a bit, you do great work here, but it's extreme to claim that this is 'hurting the community'.

As for not being 'threatened', you sure sound jelly. Chillax dude.

Real jelly. And yah know, the entire front page of PA matches are zaphod casts... so don't bite the hand that feeds you duders.

I think that is pretty hard to prove. I'm addicted to casts and watch many from a variety of casters. Marshall is also a good caster but he isn't regular. There are a few newer entries that have potential. But the honest truth is the majority are American teens with just-post-puberty accents and no idea how to narrate or not zoom in and out like a spazzing monkey with ADHD. I watch them anyway, but the overall quality isn't that high. It will get better, but for now it's pretty obvious that it makes sense to promote the top casters until that happens, or more experienced casters join as the competitive scene grows. For a primarily promotional event like this, Uber's decision makes perfect sense.

My goodness you do not get my point.

You also are not aware of quite a few issues. The entire front page of PA Matches being Zaphod casts is in part to me being very busy as of late and unable to vett all of the casts. If I had spare time this past week, there'd be at least three other casters on the home page – but I simply have been too busy.

And the entire front page of PA Matches being Zaphod IS THE VERY PROBLEM. Do you not get the concept that a single person being the only caster for a game is a BIG PROBLEM. Because that's what's happening. There are very few regular casters and most people who start casting don't last very long.

Bring up an instance where there has been an official Uber promotion of something. Dual casting of meta's personal twitch doesn't count. Find an official Uber announcement that promotes anything but Zaphod. There are none. That is bad for the community.

Seriously. PA Matches benefits from Zaphod. Yes. But PA Matches (and the ENTIRE COMMUNITY) benefits from having lots of casters. Uber's current path is driving away other casters. The main portion of my plans for PA Matches doesn't revolve around YouTube views. My plans are much bigger than that.

(btw. jelly? I thought I left middle school behind.)

But you're suggesting that it's Uber's support of Zaphod which has given him this monopoly, while I'd say it's his monopoly on casting that has led to Uber latching on to him. He's taken a lead because he was doing a cast a day almost from the beginning. That built him an audience. It helps that he's a good caster.

If other casters want a piece of the pie then they're going to need to cast more regularly and work on developing their audience. The recent community tournaments suggest we're not short on casters at all, we had 11 at the last 1v1.

What do you think Meta's 'personal stream is'? He's the VP of business dev at Uber. It's an extension of uber. Everything Meta does here, on twitch, or on youtube is a promotional arm of Uber. And how many events like this have there been exactly? Oh yeah, this was the first one. There are lots of casters. Most of them are pretty amateur. Who would you have liked to have cast this match instead of Zaphod?

Exactly, this is absurd drama queening. Zaphod isn't popular because uber promotes him, he's popular because he's good and they're riding that wave to help promote PA. Take a look at the casting forum. PA matches is full of Zaphod streams because he's the only caster putting them out each and every day. That is what professional means. Quality, on a regular basis.

Can we end this derail and get back to organizational stuff? The stream had over 2k views for 4 straight hours. It made front page of twitch. This is a WIN and we should be celebrating!

You continue to miss (or ignore) the main points.

It makes sense for Zaphod to cast this tournament. I never argued otherwise. Hosting an Official Uber tournament on Zaphod's personal twitch is completely bogus. (which you have yet to address)

However, WPMarshall is an excellent caster, and aside from his (temporary) internet issues is arguably a better caster.

You also have yet to point to an official Uber announcement that promotes anyone or any mod or any community anything or anything that promotes anything aside from Zaphod and the 2 times I was promoted.

You continue to make my points over and over and over again and are oblivious to the fact that you are. OathAlliance puts out daily videos and continues to put out daily videos even during Zaphod's lapses. OathAlliance is a more regular caster than Zaphod. There's also GamingMadeEasy on Twitch who has more Twitch followers than Zaphod and he also puts out very regular content.

There used to be other casters that posted daily, but they all have left one by one. Many of those casters were very good casters.

My main argument is that Uber is promoting a caster monopoly which is driving away other casters.

So thank you for continuing to make my points over and over and if you are going to argue, you should address all of my points since I have pointed out why all of yours are wrong.

You sound upset Brian, maybe you should play some planetary annihilation to cool off. It's a really fun game you might have heard of.

Look, you can't prove that Uber is driving away casters. I'm not going to get into an argument with you about which casters are good or not because it's juvenile and caddy. Zaphod was the primary caster. Why wouldn't they stream from his Twitch? Considering he's been casting daily for 9 months, he deserves some kind of benefit. If he was casting from Meta's page than he's basically doing non-stop PR for them without any benefit for himself. Clearly it worked since there were over 2k viewers. No offense to OathAlliance or GamingMadeEasy, but I seriously doubt we'd have seen those numbers had they been casting. But you are pretty clearly personally invested in this argument, so I leave you to your internet points. I think most of us were very happy with the match, where it was hosted, and who casted it. If you build it, they will come.