Of course not, I don't mean we have a right to cover it. What I'm saying is that we have been covering it for a long time. I would have thought it would be a nice thing to do from the point of two organisations who are here to help benefit the game of Team Fortress 2.

Wrong. This is how I believe things should have been played out.

1st - VanillaTV usually cover these events. If TF.TV wanted to cover it, they should speak to us.

2nd - VanillaTV and TF.TV should have tried to work out a way that the whole community could benefit, and put on the best show possible.

3rd - If these talks couldn't amount to an agreement, then TF.TV should send in a coverage proposal to Multiplay. VTV then respond. Multiplay then decide who should cover the event.

-----------------------------

The problem that I'm trying to point out, is that TF.TV skipped the first and second step. This is a hostile approach towards us, rather than one that actually looked at what would benefit the community the most.

There are calls for us to allow commentators and crew to come help out at i49. Honestly, I still think this is the best option, but can't you even see why I'm having trouble agreeing to this, when people attempt to shut you out of the game like they did?

I wasn't moaning about having to write a proposal out. I'm moaning that TF.TV decided they didn't want to try and work with us to produce something spectacular, they wanted to just... take the event, discarding the work VTV has put into hosting these events over the years.

Their goto solution was to send a proposal directly to Multiplay. My frustration is because this should have been the last resort, if they truly wanted what's best for the TF2 community, they would have attempted to unite the two coverage organisations and pull all our resources together. But I imagine the proposal was lead by Skyride and Comedian who have a personal vendetta against VTV. It's a shame.

Nothing is wrong with it. But surely the better solution would have been for the organisations to work together?

They posted it in a previous thread here:
http://teamfortress.tv/forum/thread/6790-lange--i49/3#post-119470

Yeah... From before or after you sent your coverage proposal to Multiplay? If it's after, then obviously it goes with the point of this thread.

See above!

Frustrations vented. Thank you to the people who read what I had to say and understood what I was getting at <3.

You kissed a girl and you liked it!
Except one of those words is incorrect ;oo

Going to refrain as much as possible from participating in this 'discussion' as it's pointless and unprofessional, but there's one thing that I have to say.

The VanillaTV organisation were originally discussing how we could workout a partnership with TeamFortressTV to provide the best possible coverage for what is expected to be one of the biggest, if not THE biggest Team Fortress competition to date. But before we could even approach you guys, we get an email from Multiplay telling us how you've decided to speak to Multiplay directly to try and get the contract for coverage away from us, instead of trying to work with us. So naturally we put forward our own pitch, and Multiplay made their decision.

Wanted to clear something up.

Firstly, me and Beta do not dislike gravelpit, in fact, it's one of the most fun maps to spectate (although I don't really like playing it too much).

Secondly, me and Beta love casting gravelpit! For a commentator who focuses mostly on play analyzing and strategies, gravelpit is pretty much commentating heaven!

The reason why the grand final at i46 was different, is because you can't give away any information to the enemy team. Literally, mentioning the word kritz could mean a team reacts slightly differently on hearing this, which could alter the time set by a few seconds (or even a lot depending on the play.

Same thing goes for a sentry gun. If they here you talking about there even being a sentry gun, a team can react by sending players to suicide on it early, where as if you don't mention it, they have to scout it out first. More importantly, if you mention that the enemy team is running two scouts, then you've just saved that team having to scout out a sentry position, meaning they could put more players on point A, reducing their final time. I've seen a large number of games that with times that came down to within 20 seconds of each other, so it is a BIG deal.

Literally, tiny bits of information can completely alter the result of a game of gravelpit, and the last thing we want to do is be responsible for a team losing a map or event the tournament.

I'd like to challenge the commentators in this episode to commentate a game of gravelpit, without mentioning _anything_ the teams do not know. This means you can't comment on which route the attacking team are taking unless it has been scouted. You can't mention if they are rotating around unless it's scouted. Can't mention classes, uber/kritz, spy plays, snipers, sentry positions, suiciding players. This is especially important in setup time, when there are very few game sounds going on and players can freely concentrate entirely on what the commentators are talking about.

Gravelpit is a great map, a great commentating map, and even a great stage map (can be a thrilling ending), IF the players can't hear you, but with the setup at i46, that's not the case. It makes things a bit more difficult, which is our only complaint about the map.

Sal literally just said exactly what I was going to add.
You will not be able to cater for all audiences, because some viewers only enjoy highly informative casts, while others enjoy crazy screams of excitement. You just develop the style you think you prefer, for the people who enjoy that style.

Hey there Marxist, it's always awesome to see new people get into commentating. I'm sure there are a few hidden gem commentators out there, who just, never actually take the step into casting, but could be absolutely amazing at it with a few attempts.

I assume you would want some sort of constructive critisism, so I've had a watch of parts of the video and I'll let you know my views.

Firstly, commentating without a partner is quite hard, not because of the lack of words, but because viewers can get very tired of just having one voice talking to them for prolonged periods of time. There are a few tricks to keep viewers interested in a solo cast, the first being to change your excitement levels and voice tempo throughout the match.

If you're always just relaxed and explaining things, it can sound a bit like a University lecture, and if you're always shouting and screaming with too much excitement, it could sound like you're just crazy. By mixing it up, you draw people into the potentially exciting moments of the game as they happen, and then you can move into strategy and other information in between those moments. I think you needed a few more moments of excitement in your casts, but the information was perfect. You have good understanding of the game.

The second trick as a solo caster, is you can attempt to speak directly to your viewers. This also keeps viewers interested as they find themselves subconsciously answering your questions. For example, you could say:

"Oh my god guys? Did you just see that?"

or

"I don't even know what just happened there... did you see what happened? Because I certainly didn't!"

Both of those are interacting with your viewers, even though you can't hear their responses. It adds a slightly more personal touch for them and changes the vibe of your cast from being just a tf2 lecture.

Still, it's a very informative cast with good game knowledge, so I can only applaud your work :). Keep it up dude!

I think we honestly need more opinions from public players. All of us competitive players have ideas as to why they have no interest in competitive TF2, but we are competitive gamers. Last time I had a chat with a friend of mine who plays TF2 about watching the competitive game, he simply turned around to me and said, "Why would I want to watch someone else playing a computer game, when I could be playing it myself?".

Mid - High level competitive gamers from other games aren't going to move over to TF2, because of the lack of prize tournaments, and because they are like, 5 years behind the best players, meaning they would need at least a couple of years playing time to catch up.

Public players are partially our market for growth, as TF2 does have a LOT of them. We just need to make them see that playing in a 6 vs 6 game can be more fun than playing in a public server. My opinion on that is that it's pretty hard to do, considering how locked down 6 vs 6 is with classes and unlocks, but that's not the point of this post. If we can make them realise the same love for competitive TF2 as we all have, then bingo, our scene becomes huge.

Match times are one of the bigger issues at the moment, especially in Europe. All teams play at the same time. Our biggest audience is competitive TF2 players. All of which are playing the game when the big matches are being played. If we forced the top end... covered teams to play at a different time, or on a set day, and even forbid other official matches to be played on that day, you would get so many more spectators on the streams, because current competitive gamers would be available to watch the 'pros' in action.

The other issue of course is that we have a massive competitive scene, but a very tiny 'pro skill' scene. We need lower skilled teams to get better to make the top end of the scene more competitive and therefore more exciting. Way down in the lower divisions, it's ridiculously competitive, it's just pretty crap up the top.

Oh and one last thing. Anyone who has quit smoking before will understand...

But OMG, the dreams!!! They are some fucked up shit when you quit smoking!!
I've had dreams about being a penguin with cactus hands that stabbed cigarettes to hold them, or being back at school revising for exams while chain smoking pack after pack with friends to the point where we went out to restock and filled the entire car up with packs.

Nicotine is some powerful shit, but honestly... the dreams are hilarious!