lordofdabu ([info]lordofdabu) wrote,
@ 2009-02-02 14:45:00
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Justice has come
Mr. Bauman (ebaumsworld.com) himself actually got fired from his own website. Since he sold the name of it as well to the new parent company they are still keeping the old name, so most will never realize that he's not in charge anymore. He actually blogged about it on his new website: http://blog.ebaum.tv/2009/01/so-this-is-how-it-all-went-down.html

I think it's great that someone who stole content from every other site for ten years and watermarked it as his own finally had the same thing happen to him. This is long overdue, as far as I'm concerned.

The comments there are the best. He and his team were probably expecting sympathy but 90% of them are overjoyed at their departure.

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(Anonymous)
2009-02-02 10:42 pm UTC (link)
Totally off-topic to your post, but part of my own post reminded me...

Have you ever considered doing YouTube commentaries, for Starcraft or otherwise?

I've really gotten into listening to 4-5 of the best English Starcraft commentators on Youtube. They're all around our age, probably not too much better at the game than we are. They seem like they have a lot of fun doing it, and they have huge fan bases (to the point where some of them are toward the top in subscribers for their respective countries). Most of the feedback is extremely positive toward them, even when they make mistakes. I made a couple of practice commentaries which I thought were roughly of the same quality as the "worst of the best" commentators out there, or at least could be if I practiced, followed the players more closely and learned some map percentages. I'm sure you could make comparable commentaries or better yourself, given your knowledge of the game.

I'd like to start making commentaries when Starcraft 2 comes out, because then I'll be on equal footing with everyone else, but I'm not sure whether to do it with Starcraft 1. There is a "Commentator Idol" going on right now, which looks really fun and for which we could certainly be in the running. I intended to enter, but I didn't have a microphone when it started, and you really need a good one to do good commentaries.

-Dan

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[info]lordofdabu
2009-02-03 01:31 am UTC (link)
There's two type of commentators: Those who speak very well and those who actually know about the game. I know Tasteless does commentary (and he actually knows what he's talking about) but I'm not familiar with who else does (but from what I've heard almost all of them fall into the first category).

Back before the days of youtube I once made a "replay with audio" (basically an audio track to be played while watching a replay) and it was fairly well received by the audience I released it to. I don't know how well I'd do now, considering that I hardly play anymore and I barely know this year's maps at all.

I played some 2v2s over the summer with a friend where we used ventrilo to communicate. I was surprised at how much better we played with it, and I think we both learned quite a bit by using it.

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(Anonymous)
2009-02-03 03:22 am UTC (link)
That's true, although most of the technical knowledge required for these matches is related to the player histories, map features/stats, and opening build orders. Those could all be learned and memorized within a very short time if one were really committed to doing so. The rest of it is speculation, play by play restatement of the obvious, and what they call "color" (humor, analogies, etc.).

I used to be very weak on opening build orders, but I've learned a lot from watching other commentators. You just have to watch for anything unusual and recognize it when it occurs. Technical knowledge would still be my weakest area, since I was never that great of a player, which is why I'm reluctant to commentate on Starcraft 1 right now. Sure, I could BS the aspects I didn't know, which many/most of the commentators do, and most viewers wouldn't know the difference, but I'd feel like a bit of a fraud and besides, it's much easier to commentate when you really know what you're talking about. This week on Commentator Idol they had a (purportedly) really good player named Chill as a guest judge, and he tore into many of the contestants for making technical errors. At the time, what the commentators said seemed vaguely plausible, but after I heard Chill's criticisms, I knew that he was definitely correct and the commentators were wrong. I wouldn't want that to be me, however well I could make up for it in other areas. I'm excited about commentating Starcraft 2, again, because everybody will be on fresh ground and I'll be able to learn the intricacies of it, the maps, and the players along with everybody else. Maybe you could do it too, or we could do some dual commentaries.

I'm sure you have enough technical knowledge, provided you looked up map and player statistics before each match. They're listed somewhere, but I never bothered to actually find them. I don't foresee any problems you would have announcing. The biggest problem people have is getting nervous and feeling like they have to have some brilliant insight every second, causing them to panic and stutter, but neither of us would suffer from that.

My favorite commentators right now are Rise and Cholera. They're laid back, intelligent, have unique casting voices, and funny. Klazart used to be the best of them all, but he hasn't had one out for a while. Interestingly, a lot of commentators who started out very poorly became some of the best with practice, including Cholera. I've never seen a commentator who didn't vastly improve with practice, and surprisingly, the youtube users are overall very supportive and positive (probably due to the self-selecting nature of starcraft). I'd like to do it, besides for the fun of it, just to improve my public speaking as they have done.


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