Hi guys, I thought I'd write a blog on ACL too now that Dox is taking questions and addressing some issues that ACL had running its first ever sc2 event within the league.
Atmosphere: 9/10
Fantastic, there is nothing quite like being in a room filled with some of the best sc2 players in the country! It was great meeting a few people for the first time (Rossi, Iaguz, Phoneheha) and it was great seeing people that you'd met at other events and/or talk to online all of the time (Signs, System, Pig, Hectic, Sensei!!!!! etc). These kinds of reunions I always appreciate and hanging out with the JesseS_Family is always fun. You could really tell the difference between the FPS players and the sc2 players, the FPS players would scream and yell and the sc2 players were talking, quite conservative and clapped after every game.. really if you were to compare it to real world sport, we were the tennis players and they were playing NRL. We watched a duel between players and they... well ... we all know what hardcore rugby fans are like. Also, it was awesome to see the fps guys come over and watch sc2 being played, you could tell that they had a huge respect for the sc2 players (although I'd say it was mostly unrequited :P)..
Coverage: 8/10
First up, I'd like to say I only watched day 2 (play-offs).. now that's out of the way, I'd like to express my concern in the idiots in chat who complained about health-bars being switched on. WHO GIVES A SHIT YOU DUMB IDIOTS! THEY ARE HEALTH BARS. (end rant). Anyway, I felt as though the production quality was decent, considering Australian internet and the fact that this was ACL's first sc2 event. At the event there were cameras everywhere capturing footage of the event, and I felt the player cams were a nice addition to the event. I'm looking forward to seeing the HQ footage of the event too! You also need stream chat mods, Zanooku was on and so were a couple of other douchebags that needed to be served by the banhammer.
Suggestions:
IF I had to make a couple of suggestions, I think you need a separate person to do interviews that has a weird personality and can make for some interesting topics (AHEM DOX GOD DAMN LET ME DO IT! ).. oh and also a couple of other commentators to perhaps switch in for doble and maynarde throughout the event.. I know that is a huge ask considering they have to fly out for the event etc, but if you were going for more than one stream next time or you wanted to give them a rest (like you did at the end of the cup) that is one thing you have to do, I could tell they were getting tired towards the end and it's a huge job for the casters to do that much. Personally I'd suggest picking up someone local to where the event is (like if it were in Sydney getting CheekyDuck and Livi to cast).
Also, hype the shit out of the event... I had to personally hype a whole bunch of my friends into coming because they literally had nfi what ACL was. SC2SEA should jump on board and post a banner or something on the weekend that ACL is just to hype it a little more.. We had like... 500 viewers at one stage? We can definitely do better than that. We need to talk to some TL admins and see if we can get ourselves a frontpage article or something, because this is an event that the SEA region can rightfully hype and say to the world 'look, this is a true SEA event' and they can and will enjoy it.
Summary:
I'd like to say that from a spectators point of view, this event was easily more well done than the first couple of MLGs. Secondly, I'd like to say that Dox is some kind of superhuman and really deserves every bit of respect that he has in the community and I would gladly recommend him to organize ANY event in the SEA region over anyone else. The ACL guys like vanzr were also extremely helpful and polite, which I thought was awesome, they were patient with the players and everyone showed a keen interest in sc2 (especially when pool play came around and the big guns like iaguz stepped out). The sc2 event was awesome, and I'm so sad that I had to leave early (I had a bad head cold returning, which unfortunately has gotten worse over the past few days). But that also gave me a spectators perspective from home as well, which I'm glad to have had. Thanks for the awesome event ACL.. Huge shoutout to Dox, Vanzr, Maynarde and Doble (alongside the rest of the acl queue) for an excellent job on the production side of things and I'll see you guys in Sydney!
Edit: Fixed some grammar mistakes, but I'm too lazy to fix them all.
___________________________________ #ForeveR, Twitter: Solisgames Solis.286 (add me for games)
Good read, I'm glad you enjoyed it! I'll be at ACL Sydney (and most likely Melbourne) and it would be awesome if you came to that as well.
Quote:
We had like... 500 viewers at one stage? We can definitely do better than that. We need to talk to some TL admins and see if we can get ourselves a frontpage article or something,
I submitted both days of ACL GC to the TL.net calendar, but the event disappeared before the stream was linked.
On the second day, the stream was listed on the calendar which brought us up to ~500 viewers. Later on, the stream crashed, which caused the TL.net bot to remove the event. So, we had no event listing for the semis or finals
We were pulling 500+ with the listing for early pro-bracket games. I can't wait to see how many we'll get for future events!
I'm actually considering entertaining the idea of you doing interviews. I think that'd be extremely entertaining! Please, do come along to ACL Sydney. I'll film you myself, if I have to.
I had heaps of fun as well. Despite not sleeping at all before the event (was playing my matches being awake for 26 hours) I still had a blast. I appreciated that the higher up players didn't mind mingling and talking with the scrubs like myself which is always a bonus in an already great community. I do think the interviews would be a good idea :3. I'll try and come to ACL Sydney but no promises just yet. After all, if I don't turn up who's going to sport the hello kitty keyboard, mouse and mousepad?
Cheers to ACL and Dox for a TAHectic event ^_^
___________________________________ eLim | iNFENSUS eSports NA
[TheFavez] mOOnGLaDe, PiG, Nv
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