Battle of the Beasts organisational improvements

As per my previous post i agree with everything except i really enjoy team games. 2v2, 3v3, 5v5, PA can be a great game in all formats

eSports in general is just that. Even normal spots in the end is mostly about big sponsors wanting to advertise stuff.

It is really a sick fact, if you think about it. But it is, as it is.

First off. OathAlliance uploads videos more regularly than Zaphod.

Second, none of us are arguing that Zaphod shouldn't have casted this tournament. I have said several times that he was the right choice. I don't know how many times I need to say things before y'all actually read what I say. The main concern with this tournament was that it was on Zaphod's personal twitch.

Third, it's not just casters that have these issues. I've spoken to several Vanguard members and quite a few other community members that agree with these concerns of the stifling of the community.

Our concerns on this topic are shared by quite a few people and we've had these concerns for long before this tournament was even announced. This tournament isn't the main issue. Y'all keep on ignoring that. The casting community is dwindling and majorly hurting right now.

This is a major concern about the health of the community. Not whining for YouTube views (which isn't even my main focus – which y'all continue to ignore). Casters are being driven away and the community and the game as a whole are hurting because of it.

As for cries of jealousy – y'all continue to ignore the fact that youtube views is not my main goal (which I have stated several times). YouTube views and YouTube ad revenue is small potatoes for my plans – it's just a means to help to an end. Remember, my website is built around the premise of promoting other casters. So stop making the jealousy argument. It has no basis for me.

This is about the health of the community and the game – and I've had these concerns since before the tournament was announced.

Uber has been promoting Zaphod a ton and promoting nothing else in the community – not even mods like PA Stats or Hotbuild2 have been promoted. A few of us have had conversations with Uber and they see what is going on and have said they're going to be working to promote the community.

....

Oki, I just spent 20 minutes writing a long post, that I just deleted, because I realized there is no reason to argue simply because you have your own truth and you are not open to anyone else's opinion. (And later I wrote another 15 minute post that you are just going to read, well poor me, I just cannot help it).

If you have such a great knowledge in eSports and casting, please put that into practice and show me and everyone else that you are not only a forum warrior, but you actually are capable of something big.

I appreciate your work for the community, but you should realize that too much is too much. Because now it really seems, there is some evil plan behind all you do. And the community can agree with me if they wish.

Your and your anonymous buddies are mad at Zaphod sticking his nose into Uber's things, but maybe you should slow down too. Because it is you at first place, who is sticking his nose everywhere.

And I am not sure, why you keep caring about community so much, yet you remain the only one behind PA Matches. Why is that not a community project? Wouldn't that spare you a lot of free time?

Don't take this as a personal attack, but I believe that once you start pointing fingers, you should be able to deal with fingers being pointed at you too.

Maybe if we all start caring a little bit about our things and not other's things, we would all live in peace and healthy community (which we still are, there are very few bad seeds and I like that we can always ... most of the time ... find a common solution).

Please. It's not a personal attack. It's a misguided and uninformed attack.

We're not anonymous. Several have commented on this thread and we've also approached Uber who responded favorably to us and agree with our concerns. Did you not see Liquius join in? He's a Vanguard member who isn't a caster.

You continue to think that my main focus is on getting personal YouTube hits. If that were the case, PA Matches would only feature my videos and I wouldn't go through great lengths to promote other casters and other components of the community.

Evil plan? Woah now. It's not evil. It's not even a secret. I just plan on turning PA Matches into a full fledged business that has tons of free resources for the community as well as some paid services and other cool stuff. It's not a secret, I just don't detail out all of my plans on a public Google doc. Nothing evil. Nothing that other websites for other games aren't already going – except my website is completely ad free (unlike the official Wiki). PA Matches isn't a community run site. It's a community oriented site. It is a site like many other game oriented website but I shall be offering some services. Also, to continue with your misinformation, I am actually in the process of opening up PA Matches in various ways to let content creators (both casters and mod creators) use PA Matches to promote their own work directly. I've just been busy and haven't been able to get things fully setup properly.

I also find all of this curious since you wanted to give all of PACE casting over to one caster which would further harm the community by eliminating all diversity and shutting out other casters.

One final thing that I must correct you on. We're not mad at Zaphod. We all greatly respect him and agree that he is an excellent caster and should have casted the tournament – we just don't think it should have been on his personal Twitch. So stop spreading that misinformation and dissent. It's incorrect and unfounded. I've even said so in the very message you replied to. If you're going to reply to my messages, you should at least read them.

Since you are now going down the aggressive and attacking route by insinuating that all of the free help and contributions that I've made to the community are evil and even spreading further misinformation and community dissent, I am bowing out of this conversation with you. I've already pointed out why you are wrong, but I won't engage in a discussion with someone who basis his arguments on such incredibly uninformed and incorrect arguments. If you have any concerns about me being "evil" then I'll be glad to discuss this with you in a private message.

It never will be. The first thing I'd say is there should be a five minute gap between games, this allows all the cock-ups to happen in the background, and gives you a period in which you can plan to do stuff.

Use this period to review the game with whomever you're casting with. Use the chrono cam. Talk about what worked, what didn't, key moments in the game, what the losing team should have done differently, etc. You can even do some of that zooming in that people want to see Someone should take notes on key moments during the game (ideally the second caster) so you can quickly skip to them.

Another possibility would be requiring players to be available post-game to come on-stream and talk about the game. Ask them what they were thinking when they did X, or why do they feel they won/lost, etc.

If the cock-ups are overrunning, then simply go into more depth in your analysis, interview both teams, throw up another video of the prize, etc.

I thought it was a big mistake by Uber to keep trying to launch game after game after game. That's not how any e-sports tournament works. People expect downtime between games, and Uber should work with casters to generate content to fill it.

On the technical side, one issue was the downscaling you do currently means the spectator text in the top-right is too hard to read. Don't know whether you can resolve this, but might be worth experimenting with different downscale filters and see if you can balance the FPS with readability.

All in all though, great job last night. I'm off to watch the games shortly as I spent so much time setting up polls and answering questions in chat that I didn't see that much

On the other hand, 2v2 is clearly going to make for better multi-planet play taking advantage of one of the major areas where PA clearly differentiates itself from other RTSs, and it makes for some really exciting play. I mean, who didn't love that Commander on a sliver of health escaping by Astraeus? 1v1s are great, but they don't work so well across planets. I believe PA, with shared armies, works far better than any other RTS I've ever seen in team games, there's real potential to have a meaningful competitive team scene because it scales so well! Some of the most exciting games of PA were from when people cracked the 10 player limit because there's always action happening somewhere.

Very much agree with points 4 and 5. Point 4 especially, and I think this plays into Uber needing to lean on casters more to fill downtime. Pause while someone reboots? Have the caster analyse the game so far, talk about it with their co-caster, etc. Point 6 plays into this as well. A bigger break between semis and finals would be nice for the team which just finished playing I'm sure.

Point 7, there were a lot of people in chat asking about whether this was BO3 or 5, etc. It's definitely something people expected and they were annoyed by it being BO1. I would suggest that, in the future, the final should be BO3, or if you're prepared to do a two day tournament then make semis BO3 and finals BO5. People want to see the best teams play for longer, and I think its safe to say that everyone was disappointed with how the final ended.

Can't blame Uber for collaborating with Zaphod, I think everyone agrees that the effort he clearly has put into casting over the years shows.

Except in his POVs, where he gets mad and curses a lot, which frankly is a) not professional and b) not fun and c) makes me not want to watch them. And while I am on the topic of vulgarity, I would like to express my support to Uber on their decision on the disqualification, completely 100% the right decision. Keep that *** **** to yourselves, *************.

Well that is kinda his personality, he encourages himself to perform better by shouting at himself and cursing. I agree that it is not professional, but it only happens in POV and POV are something, that is spontaneous and "as is", unfiltered, uncensored.

So yea, as long it is only in POVs it is kinda ok.

Anyone who has played the game against (or with) human opponents can understand the rage..

Nevertheless, I think taking the game too seriously is off-putting for a wider audience, just something to consider. Nobody wants to listen to angry people.

I think @brianpurkiss raises the legitimate point that Uber should have casted the tournament on their own official channel, rather than through Zaphods. I also agree that Zaphod is an excellent caster and deserved to cast most if not all of that tournament.
I cannot weigh in on thoughts about pushing other casters away, but Brian is involved enough to have noticed these things if they are happening, and besides, why would he just make it up?

I never went aggressive on you, did I? I mildly pointed out, that if you are the one complaining, then maybe you should be also the one to explain some things. Maybe you should stop imagining things or you cannot bear with criticism and want to end is early? Such a shame.

The evil plan was not meant in a bad way and I am glad, that you have plans to open your website for more people. I think it is a good idea to promote videos on one place, I am not saying that what you are doing is wrong, I said that there are some questions about the way you do it. But whatever, things keep improving so do you.

Regarding the "PACE casting", that was my personal opinion that I continue to have. I wanted Zaphod to be a main caster for Commander of March, which I had full rights to decide as the director of the tournament. But that is nothing to discuss here.

You have to realize, that I am not supporting some monopoly here. I only refuse to treat all casters the same way. You cannot be serious to consider some random streamer with peak of 15 viewers to be on the same level as Zaphod. You cannot consider a new streamer to have a same value as someone, who has been in it for months or years. I didn't choose Zaphod, because it is Zaphod. I did choose him, because he is the best and there is noone else capable of the job.

All Youtubers and casters need to grow on their own and not being served by free, without putting any effort in it. Once they prove themselves worthy, they can be considered. Anyone can be invited to cast a tournament, but they need to be experienced and have their fanbase.

And I still don't understand, why it is a problem, that Zaphod casted on his channel. Uber said they want to promote community casters, they just did that. If Zaphod casted on Uber's channel, what would be in it for him? I really don't understand. That is like asking you to cast a match for my Youtube, why the hell would you do it unless I pay you?

And one does not simply stop replying. I don't expect us to agree at the end, but at least we learn the other's opinion. And I am already happy, because you told me something new, that I didn't know about.

Well, I disagree about being angry. When I curse, I am not angry ... it is, so hard to explain, a way to encourage yourself, really, or to release a pressure.

And I disagree about taking the game too seriously. This line goes hand in hand with an excuse that one sucks in the game. I always heared this from someone, who is being a bad player and wants to justify it. Either "I don't take the game seriously" or "I have a real life". It is silly, don't say it. Games are an electronic sports and in sports, you always try to be the best or to do your best.

Cursing is a way to express emotion, that is the whole point of cursing. Usually negative emotion.

That is not quite what I mean by taking the game seriously. What I mean is taking oneself too seriously. One loses, one feels angry, that is of course natural. I guess I'll just skip the POVs.

That or we will have to teach Zaphod to control himself!

I recommend a punching bag.. very therapeutic.

It makes zero sense that Zaphod would cast from Uber's channel. Uber's channel is for Uber. Zaphod is an independent entity - he's not on payroll. And it's better that way for the community. Brian insinuates that this support is bad for the community but he doesn't give any real concrete examples other than vague accusations that this is 'driving away other casters'. Anyone who went away, went away on their own accord. It has nothing to do with who casts the official uber tournament. And if they had selected anyone else, i'd expect it to be cast from their own page, not ubers. Casters cast and Devs Dev. It's crazy to act like Uber has a responsibility to get directly in bed with the casters. That turns them into nothing but advertisers. We need a degree of seperation from the casters and the devs. Brian admits that Zaphod should have cast the tournie but he sticks with this idea that it should not be from Zaphod's channel? What difference does it make? The alternative only hurts Zaphod, which in turn hurts the community. I think you are right to point fingers - the front page is literally covered in posts by Brian. You can't go anywhere without being smothered in his presence. He hawks his non-community backed website in every single reddit thread whether people want it or not. Zaphod IS backed by the community - unlike Brian. Compare the two presences - Zaphod lends small amounts of commentary in the occasional thread and basically just works hard on his videos. Brian insists on injecting his presence literally everywhere, whether he has any content ot offer or not. Brian isn't evil but it's plenty plain to see he's hoping to become the dev behind the number #1 PA site. Frankly i'm sick of the blatant self promotion, marauding as a holier than thou attitude. PA matches is a notch on his belt and it casts aspersion on this supposed holy crusade. It cheapens that actually useful posts and good work that he does here. Lets stop acting like this is some altruistic crusade on the behalf of the poor beleaguered casters. It's just jealousy and self interest and nothing more. If you want PA matches to succeed than make it actually useful and drop this whiney, finger pointing spam game.

I have nothing more to say on this topic. I suggest we let it rest.