I have returned: StarCraft II

[Serra]

So this one time Ondori made a bunch of vids of his LS killing Sky HNMs and Dynamis.

Then people went to the website he always mentioned at the end of the vids because they couldn't figure out what the song was in that Kirin video.

Lol, I think I still have those videos on an external HD..

[Sonomaa]

So I got a question, how big/well known is BG? I only started lurking during the height of the FF11 days, but was this place around before then? Also wondering how it became so large when other sites like Alla and KI did similar stuff but stayed kinda insignificant in general.

We need a BG History thread.

To give you an idea of the size, once the BG forum database was fixed, it was about 30 maybe 40 megs. It had been bloated with dev mode left on and a corrupted search system when we first got it, about 700+ megs in size but it was all fucked up data. Once we shifted to a proper server after two mis-starts on hosting from BFG Servers then a godaddy shared hosting which lasted about 3 days and then 3 weeks, we arrived at a full dedicated host that we outgrew about once every 9 or so months. The growth of BG has gone from a single P4 to a dual core 2, a quad core, an extra processing server, and now to a quad xeon CPU (as I recall, Im going off a fuzzy memory). We now run the main forums on a primary server with a secondary image server that doubles as a minecraft and my personal FTP.

This last donation drive was the first time we werent running to the wire and rushing to replace the server as we outgrew it. While BG has not reached its peak in size and keeps growing, the growth is not in the FFXI section but in the other sections of the forums. Anime got a recent split out of the entertainment forum, general still remains by far the most active forum. We launched a blog system a few months ago, not sure if anybody noticed but its at the top and we have a few writers but not nearly enough. We average between 800 and a 1000 users active at any given time except during the darkest portions of the night. SE along with several other major game developers have taken special interest in our forum, specifically how our community reacts to certain game announcements. I personally have spoken to people at gamestop who recognized BG specifically back during the FFXI days (back when it was actually hard, before abyssea ez mode).

BG has made an impact and is still well known in the community, its not going away at all and will keep going. Ill try to get some facts from Ragn about forum sizes and growth to give you a better idea of how things have come but what I do know is after people quit FFXI they didnt stop coming to BG, they needed their random images and their daily reading of whatever game tickled their fancy. Our BuySellTrade forum has been fantastically popular and Id like to think we keep it pretty well policed and safe.

(not sure how it is now. Quit at the end of CoP)

Same shit, different posters, Alla/KI/Wiki never changed, and while BG didnt always stay on topic, we did produce the best answers and facts to almost all the questions out there.

[Not Kuno]

BG attracted endgame because of bigkills. It was a place to see cool things you might not normally see and if you were fighting them, talk about said NMs. I was here since the start of the forums, but didn't register immediately. These forums were really really small, but it didn't take long to have an active FFXI section. I remember when BG only had 4 forums lol (general, ffxi, bigkills and wiffleball).

[Correction]

I remember when BG only had 4 forums lol (drama, ffxi drama, fafnir drama and wiffleball).

fix'd

[synistar]

And back when drama involved MPKing BSTs and curebombing spike flails!

But I digress and will try and rerail.

They talked about the prospect of having Starcraft on cable TV on SotG.

I don't see it happening anytime soon since advertisers would desire a good chunk of viewership, say something like on TNT drama hours, before any large commitment. I remember back when I occasionally watched G4TV, they had a show called Arena or something which was basically LAN FPS matches in multipe games. Seeing as how it has since disappeared from the lineup and has such been filled with endless episodes of Cops, don't think the LAN gaming scene will show up anytime soon on TV.

So how long will most Starcraft 2 tourneys be on Justin.tv? Will some group be daring enough to even think about taking a jump to cable TV?

[Correction]

It's hard to get good, knowledgeable and engaging commentary for live competitive events, which probably discourages most show runners from televising competitive gaming. Gom is an example of doing it right, but I don't trust american networks to get it right, they'll probably just put Sessler behind the mic and then scratch their heads when they can't reach their target audience *COUGH*EVO*COUGH*

You also just can't put fanboys screaming 'godlike' into a microphone for 3 hours. It's a tough balance.

[Not Kuno]

fix'd

Meh.. GD was pretty tame back then. Big kills didn't have a lot of drama. Nobody really posted in there.


I'd watch sc2 on TV but I'm in a minority for that, probably.

It's hard to get good, knowledgeable and engaging commentary for live competitive events, which probably discourages most show runners from televising competitive gaming. Gom is an example of doing it right, but I don't trust american networks to get it right, they'll probably just put Sessler behind the mic and then scratch their heads when they can't reach their target audience *COUGH*EVO*COUGH*

You also just can't put fanboys screaming 'godlike' into a microphone for 3 hours. It's a tough balance.

They would need Day9 to do it. I can listen to that guy commentate anything.

[Correction]

Meh.. GD was pretty tame back then. Big kills didn't have a lot of drama. Nobody really posted in there.

THAT WAS A TEAM UP KILL PLS REMOVE THEIR TIAMAT CREDIT

Day9 would be an idea commentator but will they pay him? Also, as fun as Day9's youtube vids are, broadcast needs 2 people at the booth. Artosis is taken. Who will be Day9's second?

[Not Kuno]

Artosis is taken? What happened to him?

uhh... Husky? People seem to like him. >.>

[Correction]

Artosis is taken? What happened to him?

He works for Gomtv

[synistar]

The major stateside casters, who also do MLG are Day9, DJWheat, and "JP"McDaniels. Other popular shoutcasters inclue Chill, Husky, and to a lesser extent but quite well known, TotalBiscuit (I know, a brit but meh he's still known in the West).

Considering all the flak InControl and Gretorp have gotten from NASL's infancy, it will be a long ways away to get a considerable shoutcasting talent pool that's widely accepted by the community.

For a more extreme example, see Kelly Milkes casting Code A. Most people rate her low due to being a non-native English speaker. But with her in-game knowledge she can do ok. She's just not English broadcast quality yet but everyone already has labeled her as a bad caster.

And Day9 would be a good overall person as a commentator and as an even a greater role in overall production. He has gotten his masters degree. And his project for that degree was his website blip.day9.tv. He works well with everyone, even being 3rd wheel at the last Blizzcon casting the World Tourney with Tastosis.

[Thulius]

I remember Arena, but I think that fell short mainly because competitive FPSs just aren't that fun to spectate. There are too many players that all have a lot going on individually. You either go with free cameras that don't give a good idea of what's happening and require incredibly good control to look smooth, or first person cameras constantly zipping between players on opposing teams which is way too frantic.

I honestly think that, at least with starcraft, it could be pretty successful on TV. The only problem is it doesn't have a way to grab someone that's just flipping through channels. People who don't actually play starcraft aren't going to pick up on what's going on unless they catch a game from the start, and even then they'd have to watch for a good 5 minutes or so to even get an idea. Granted, that's a pretty major problem.

As far as casters go, I'm fond of the Day[J]Wheat duo. I think they're both well-spoken enough to hold the attention of your average viewer while still having enough knowledge between them to avoid the total hurfdurf moments that some other casters tend to have.

[Thunder]

She used to interact? She used to be one of us, lol

Hey man, I said I guess since I had no idea!

And SC on TV? I don't think that'll ever happen since it seems like a step backwards from online streaming. All the big points were addressed on SoTG(time constraints+commercials being a big one; it isn't a timed sport.)

Typed out two huge paragraphs of my opinions of casters so I deleted and will try to keep it short and sweet...
The preferred setup is to have a shoutcaster + analytical caster. Like artosis/tastless; people, I think, gravitate towards one or the other and not so much both. MANY shoutcasters make the mistake of being completely retarded in games and say things like the protoss GGd because his warp gates were on cooldown when the stealth banshee was wrecking probes with no robo out(-totalbiscut). Only few of these guys are good, and right now only djwheat and tasteless come to mind.. tasteless has his moments sometimes but artosis does set it straight while djwheat just knows when he's supposed to throw the convo to the analytical guy.

I really want to see more really good players casting along side a shoutcaster(ala idra in NASL/EG master's cup). I'd want to see what a tyler has to say about some games since he's always got good things to say during SoTG when they discuss protoss. And he, like day9 and idra, are pretty good at analyzing the finer points of SC2. They, for example, would be able to thoroughly explain why carapace on mutas instead of attack is just dumb(god damn moletrap/doa saying it's to retain mutas).

[geno]

Yeah shoutcaster + analytical is definitely best. I'd pretty much echo the sentiments about the options to, wheat being my favorite for the shoutcaster role by far and an analytically strong player/day9 type by his side. Events that have been casted in this format with these guys have all been amazing. For a TV specific venture, I think Wheat and day would be the best choices. Wheat would be a more familiar face with more experience in other games, so he could help draw in other gamers (which I'm sure would have to be target demo priority #1). Day9 has always been one of the few key figures who is extremely likeable to new SC fans without drawing the least bit of hate from the hardcore community. It also helps they are pretty much the most known figures for the roles of shoutcaster and SC2 analysis around.

That said, I'm not sure SC2 is right for TV. I'd definitely watch it and it would be convenient as hell, but the benefits of internet streams are just too numerous for the format. The intermittent nature of tournaments in the US (as opposed to S.Korea with the GSL as a lengthy drawn out and regular tournament, MLGs and many other US tournaments are short and sweet) and the unpredictability of game length both play a part in making it a bit harder for TV. Even if it were easy though, in a lot of ways the internet is becoming better, with the ease of use streaming now offers, the availability of chat rooms and live report stuff to discuss the games, the instant access vods, the shorter but more targeted commercials... there is just a lot going for streams and it's only getting better.

[Salodin]

That's actually pretty interesting sonomaa. If you could, definitely find that info and post it some where.

[LinktheDeme]

to dissonance (can't remember your BG name if you read this) he might have pfed his natural because on the side red was on theres a backdoor with rocks so might have wanted the fortress to stop the lings and to save rines in case of backdoor? other than that not sure blue had lotsa cannons tho and didn't really have units

[GRT]

haha, how did the SC2 thread turn into BG history 101?

obviously it's time to shift BG's primary gaming focus from FF11/14 to SC2

[Salodin]

I wish BG did =(

So I've never seen SotG before. An hour into the latest EP and while I think they'd benefit a lot from better planning and coordination, I like how they have decent ESPN like talk about pro gaming while not taking themselves too seriously. These shows are pretty damn long though...

And Idra outside of game is hilarious and awesome. I like him all of a sudden. Any one else gonna donate to the Star Nation documentary? It looked pretty good.

[geno]

Most of the sotg's are 1-2 hours, this one was a special episode for mentioned reasons. I'd say it also has better planning/coordination normally too, JP is traditionally awkward with transitions but he gets through the show pretty smoothly. The only difference was he tossed those responsibilities over to Geoff for that particular show since it was his last as a host. Also, I'm sure it didn't help they were all drinking lol.

[Not Kuno]

That's actually pretty interesting sonomaa. If you could, definitely find that info and post it some where.

The forums back then were unsecure as shit. I believe we had a phpbb, but the problem is ondori had no idea what he was really doing. I guess part of it was nobody really expected the forums to take off like they did. Ondori left a bunch of files used to install phpbb still on the server, which are supposed to be deleted after you install the forum. Also certain members (ie Xavier) had really shitty passwords and they got hacked into. Sono/ragn might have more info after the split, but everyone seems to forget I'm the oldest BG member that still posts on the forums >(. I'm bad at "general history" sort of posts, if anyone wants to know anything more specific I can tell you.

We had a forum for SC2 but everyone was all "blah I'm gay and i dont want to post" so it got axed. You have nobody to blame but yourselves.