My post-NS2WC post
meatmachine
South England Join Date: 2013-01-06 Member: 177858Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Supporter
South England Join Date: 2013-01-06 Member: 177858Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Supporter
First of all, let me congratulate wasabione, reddog, hugh, blind, generally everyone that put so much effort into making this a success. You really did a great job!
The planning, funding-arranging, people-managing and everything else an event like this requires is monstrous, and you have really pulled it together.
Seeing wasabi and reddog for the first time in front of a desk, with mics and suits and everything, just reminded me of the presentation you expect from WCs of massive titles like LoL and DOTA, you really looked great and it was nice to see NS2 associated with such a polished set!
Hugh kinda looked like he was on his way to a friends kids birthday party, but even that could not spoil it!
It was great to see requests from the community listened to, like the SWS feature, lots of first and third person views of engagements, and no face painting
Instead, the facebook picture competition was a great filler... Wait, I can't remember there even being a winner announced. Maybe I missed it. Oops.
The matches were intense the whole way through, and the commentary kept its momentum and was great through to the very end- its really an achievement to keep me occupied with anything for a full 7 hours!
The strategic rundowns and commander profiles were a great addition too, they were good tools to give new viewers an insight into the depth of the game, past ISE's introductory video.
All in all, you've really outdone yourself. Hats awf!
Charlie's "maybe" about next year's WC was not satisfactory however. Lets make it happen
The planning, funding-arranging, people-managing and everything else an event like this requires is monstrous, and you have really pulled it together.
Seeing wasabi and reddog for the first time in front of a desk, with mics and suits and everything, just reminded me of the presentation you expect from WCs of massive titles like LoL and DOTA, you really looked great and it was nice to see NS2 associated with such a polished set!
Hugh kinda looked like he was on his way to a friends kids birthday party, but even that could not spoil it!
It was great to see requests from the community listened to, like the SWS feature, lots of first and third person views of engagements, and no face painting
Instead, the facebook picture competition was a great filler... Wait, I can't remember there even being a winner announced. Maybe I missed it. Oops.The matches were intense the whole way through, and the commentary kept its momentum and was great through to the very end- its really an achievement to keep me occupied with anything for a full 7 hours!
The strategic rundowns and commander profiles were a great addition too, they were good tools to give new viewers an insight into the depth of the game, past ISE's introductory video.
All in all, you've really outdone yourself. Hats awf!
Charlie's "maybe" about next year's WC was not satisfactory however. Lets make it happen
Comments
The event seemed very well managed overall and I am very pleased with how it turned out.
Just 3 very minor things I missed:
1. I would have liked to see the art competition winner announced before the stream ended. The crochet hydra was adorable.
2. I was a little confused about how the prize money ended up being a round number ($5000 and $2500) if shoulderpad emblem sales were continually adding to it until the end... Did UWE just take the final number and round it upward, filling in the gap themselves?
3. Speaking of shoulderpad emblems, did they ever announce the final numbers on the kills/team support from those?
He looked fabulous, don't hate.
Joking aside, I agree, the event was amazing. It felt like I was watching a professional sporting event on TV.
Marines won every single round, bar one.
And I thought that fact kinda makes the game look bad/imba.
UWE plz fix in time for next NS2WC :P
Imagine how fun it would be to actually have a chance of reaching the finals?!
It was on the front page of twitch.tv for I think a couple of hours or so exactly at 5PM CET. That was around the time when viewers spiked to 5000-ish. By the second semifinal it was down to about 3000, and towards the end just over 2000.
Well aliens won 3 round actually. But still, thats 3 rounds out of the 15.
The final skulk rush was a bit of a letdown, though. I mean - I understand it and would have probably done the same, but it feels a bit cheap
(And I was rooting for Titus
If there's a similar event in Cologne next year (and I hope there is!), I will definitely come again!
As regards the skulk rush, I think everyone was convinced it had been denied, the going back to bite on the powernode was a stroke of genius. It convinced the marines the rush was off, well executed, great stuff
Both teams played exceptionally well, and it goes to show how hard this game is to balance. At the top of the tree, this game is marine sided, everywhere else it is alien sided.
Overall it was a great experience, but the whole media section was very cringe-worthy. I felt really sorry for the girl hosting it, as she seemed to be completely out of her depth, and made it seem as if she was just there for eye-candy. Also, did anyone else notice the cameras seemed to focus on Rantology for an overlong time, in comparison to the rest of the players?
I think those two things tinged the experience a little, and pandered to the stereo-typical images of male gaming communities. Overall though, it was a very enjoyable experience.
BTW, what about art contest? Winner never announced
It was a blast seeing all those people you only know from pics and vids live in front of you, Flayra (who is an exceptionally nice guy, and exactly how a European imagines a nice american guy (that's a compliment)), Hugh, Wasabi, RedDog, blind, and to meet some of the guys and girls you whack or be whacked by digitally in person (without whacking). Felt like meeting people you already know.
And those games, those games! Saunamen VS Titus, ending it with Jambi and an alien win??? How did that happen? Titus VS Snails must have been one of the greatest battle ever (so far), and ending it with an alien win was the dramatic turnaround this needed. Come on, this wasnt cheap. If this was won by another marine win, it would only have been a play by numbers "Marines win all the time". I think it was almost perfect (It would have been perfect if it had ended with a 40 minutes swaying battle and an alien win).
Anyway, loved it, good work organizers! Please do it again!
Afterthoughts: Great games, poor shellshocked Godar, Rantology is unexpectedly sweet (so much indeed I didn't dare to talk to her
This 1000% ^ Please don't put anyone through that again. It was worse that watching a 3hr marine turtle.
I would also agree with the "Creeper Cam" shots over the PC monitor, they were just kinda uncomfortable. If they do this again next year show that player's screen with a player picture / stats or history.
Almost everything else was excellent and far beyond my expectations. Congratulations to everyone involved on running a very good show.
This all over, BUT...
@Flayra! I WANTED A T-SHIRT! Do you have any idea how expensive shipping to Europe is?
That first game of the final. Getting dual PGs in HUB and then that ARC placement... genius. That was without a doubt the best game I've ever seen. I applaud everyone from Titus Gaming for an amazing performance and hope to see them again next season.
Also, that poor social media girl lol. That was hard to watch but the crochet hydra was pretty cool, and the lego exo.
Sure there are very small details that we notice like the rest, but overall we could not be more proud of what we all produced, this includes all of those that contributed. You trusted the team we assembled to make this happen and before we even began last night Reddog and I felt it was going to be amazing, we were not disappointed indeed
See you next time?????
Absolutely!
This was something we all found out very quickly during LAN. The game itself is fairly balanced but on 0 ping, marines land all their shots that they might miss during a normal 100 ping game. In the 2 week period up to the event, Snails and us were trading alien winning scrims all the time.
Regardless, big thanks to Wasabi, Reddog, and Zefram for doing the main chunk of planning for the event. I have not had a chance to watch it yet but everything went very smoothly. ISE's videos were top notch as well.
If we were to balance the game so that aliens and marines had 50% winrates in div 1 play, aliens would likely win 70-80% of all pub matches
Of course!
Regardless, they were good games and the event was well coordinated, congrats to everyone that was involved.
Are there different tradeoffs in lag compensation that could favor marines in high ping situations as well, so we could balance the game in both circumstances?