Some time ago I made a commentary from the Arena PvP Footage taken from Blizzcon 2010. This is something I will be doing for D3's Beta and post release, and I wanted to get something out there with the footage we had. Well I wasn't completely satisfied with the end result and I decided to re-do it being the perfectionist I am.
I am a Professional StarCraft 2 Commentator and will be shifting into Diablo 3 Commentary once the game goes into Beta. I still fully intend on maintaining my SC2 content, but Diablo 3 will be my focus. I am well aware of Blizzards intentions and that they will not be fully pushing for Diablo 3 as an eSport, but as I've discussed on other boards, the potential is certainly there, and with time and enough request from the playerbase, it is quite possible.
The desire for such content is also evident by the fact that already my Diablo 3 channel on YouTube has a larger subscription base then any other D3 channel, pushing 6,000 subscribers. I am certain a portion of that is spillover from the 42,000 subscribers to my SC2 channel, but either way, the interest and support is clearly there.
Commentary is just a sample of what I intend on doing, it is more for entertainment then anything else. Most of the content I cover in SC2 is geared towards helping players improve and become better, the same will be true for Diablo 3. Once the game is in Beta and I have plenty of content to work with, strategy will be my focus, for both PvP and PvM. My current expected content for video is the following.
- Top End Arena PvP Strategy Discussion
- Arena PvP Commentary
- Interviews with Top End Arena Players
- Encounter Guides (Proper Tactics for Boss Fights)
- PvP & PvE Gearing Guides
- PvP & PvE Talent Guides
There will of course be more but that will be the bulk of the content I will be working on.
I plan to be fully involved with the Diablo 3 community, and want to get your guys thoughts and opinions. Constructive criticism is always welcome.
@Force: I really feel like D3 PvP has potential. I like what you're doing, i've seen you post on the d3 forums before, keep up the good work.
@maka: So play casually! afaik, the PvP system will be a pretty simple click "Join" and you're pitted up against other players in whatever kind of match you select. There's always going to be that person who takes the game super seriously and plays to win, no matter what. It's what makes the game fun! Competition! :P.
I can definitely see how over-competitive hype can be annoying for the casual PvP'er, but they intend to keep those things segregated in the game (unlike WoW pvp-enabled servers). Personally I can appreciate a game that can appeal to different styles of players.
No offence intended, as I see that you are quite serious in your endeavour, but I really really hope that this doesn't happen. I'm an avid PvE-er, but a very casual PvP-er, and nothing ruins the experience of casual players more than a game that has gone overboard in its competitiveness. E-Sports are those games.
None taken! I certainly see where you are coming from, but as Sixen and Apoc said, you yourself can certainly still play casually.
The matchmaking system is going to function much like that of SC2, meaning you are faced against people of equal gear / level / skill, and depending on how you perform against them you move up and down accordingly. This type of system promotes competition and forces people to always face new challenges. As such naturally the more competitive in nature will be at the top of the matchmaking ladder and will be facing players of the like. If you are a less competitive player, you will likely be near the middle to lower end of the ladder, and be facing other none competitive players.
@Force: I really feel like D3 PvP has potential. I like what you're doing, i've seen you post on the d3 forums before, keep up the good work.
Thanks for the support Sixen, means alot. I feel the same way (clearly!) and that is why I am going to be pressing the issue. I expect to have somewhere in the vicinity of 40,000 subscribers for my Diablo 3 channel during the Beta, and then to have those numbers shoot up once the game goes live. With that kind of support there will certainly be players looking for D3 Tournaments!
I would also like to work with Diablo Fan-sites (yes you!) to help promote this. As stated in my OP I am a professional SC2 commentator, meaning I make a living off of it. The tournament scene is just fantastic, for any game really. Before becoming heavily involved in commentary I was a big Magic: The Gathering fan, and went to many tournaments for that as well. A competitive nature for any game is nothing but a good thing in my opinion, and having that for Diablo 3 is something I certainly want.
I dunno. DII was definitely not an E-sport, but it was full of people who took PvPing seriously and were good at it. Getting hostiled in games, camping the exit of towns and waypoints... I was definitely discouraged from trying to PvP because I knew I would just never have the time to build the gear to even be slightly competitive. But now that we are actually given a chance to engage in PvP in a more fair manner (arenas), especially with the pairing and ranking system of bnet (whatever that might entail), I can't see how the old model was more fair or encouraging.
Co-op play is very appealing to me. I can appreciate the solo game style, but it's just more fun when you're with your friends imo. But you will still have your space for that regardless of what goes on in the development of PvP in DIII. The only case that I can think of is PvP-twinked players joining your games, which imo is hardly a game-breaking issue.
Force, glad to see someone taking interest in commentating PvP in Diablo. While I doubt it will reach the competitive level of SC2, I hope it will be balanced enough to make for a fun experience. If tournaments happen, then count me in!
I think the commentary is rather good. However, having watched that same PvP video at least a dozen times now since the Blizzcon, even your commentary doesn't save me from a slight boredom.
I'll promise to give your videos a fresh shot once the beta starts and there's more than one decent quality PvP videos to comment ;).
You promise to give my videos a fresh shot, and I'll promise not to disappoint.
I considered commentary on the 17min 'shaky cam' footage that was posted not too long ago, but the quality and frame width was just too low to make it even worth trying. We will likely have to wait until the Beta for fresh footage, but once it comes, watch out! I'll be coming out swinging.
Force, glad to see someone taking interest in commentating PvP in Diablo. While I doubt it will reach the competitive level of SC2, I hope it will be balanced enough to make for a fun experience. If tournaments happen, then count me in!
Here's hopin'
In terms of reaching SC2 levels, of course not. That game was made SPECIFICALLY for eSports. However, it still has great potential. I'll go back to what I said in a post on the battle.net forums. When WoW first came out there was no semblance of organized PvP. Then what happened? The following progression took place:
1. Large scale player driven PvP at Southshore & Tarren Mill
2. Honor System added with rankings
3. Gear Rewards For PvP
4. Battlegrounds added
5. Arena Matchmaking System
6. WoW becomes a mainstay at MLG's eSports competitions.
Now taking a look at D3, already we have a huge leg up in terms of progression due to the fact that Arenas with a matchmaking system are in place on day 1. While this is certainly no guarantee, it leaves much room for growth.
In terms of tournaments, they will be happening regardless, I can assure you that. I intend on having tournaments during the Beta. The key is getting them sanctioned by Blizzard, because then and only then can we have cash prizes. Right now for SC2 to hold a tournament with a cash prize you need to be licensed by Blizzard to do so.
This is important because having a tangible reward in the form of money is what drives players to devote more time to hone in their skills and improve. In turn this ups the level of competition, which raises the level of viewer enjoyment, which means more views, which means more sponsorships. This cycle feeds off itself and is required for a game to become anything near an eSport. People only enjoy watching competitive matches because the players are so much better then themselves, and gamers will only get to that level of skill (on a massive scale) if there is a financial motive to do so.
Professional SC2 players practice 8-10 hours a day, thats not a joke. Like everyone else in the world they have bills and need to eat, so money needs to be involved to get such high level play. This is how the entire system works and if Diablo 3 is to become an eSport, it is what must happen.
But coming back down to earth, even if all of the above doesn't take place. I will still be commentating D3 PvP and making strategy videos to improve the average player. I'll do so because I know people will enjoy the content. And like I said there will be tournaments, but whether or not money comes into play is what will determine its level of success in the realm of eSports.
I look forward to listening to your commentary on these videos because I'm mostly curious about how the pacing is going to play out. Compared to SC2 there's definitely a lot more intensity and I can already notice from your sampler video that it's going to be a challenge to pick up on all the subtleties just because there is *so* much going on (with the breathers only between matches). As we learn more about the strategies and dynamics of PvP in D3, it will get easier to comment on these matches on a more macro level, which I think will prove to be more insightful than pointing out the obvious "player1 attacks player2".
@maka: I definitely see your point, but seeing as PvP will have a ranking system and will take place in an area thats entirely separate from the PvE world, if you play PvP casually you'll just be put up against other people who play casually (well, people at your skill level). So it won't make it so that other people can't PvP.
I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how well D3 goes along with commentating. As Apoc said, its pretty fast paced.
I'm beginning to imagine that commentating Diablo 3 PvP would, in style, be comparable to that of fighting games. It's a style where the commentators focus on explaining the subtleties, techniques or strategies behind the actions taking place on a screen, rather than a radio commentating style of repeating everything that takes place on screen. A good example can be seen in this video of the Evo 2010 SSF4 Finals. Or an example of a much more chaotic game (I think we can agree D3 PvP is going to be hella chaotic), see the MvC2 finals instead.
Just thinking about it makes me excited to see how the PvP meta game will evolve! What builds will be viable, what class combinations, which runes? Oh man, get hype!
I have never really played SC2, RTS was never my thing. I was hooked on wow for many years simply because of the pvp content. I played seriously for the vanilla stage and ranked commander(didn't have the time to get further) then played in bc and Wotlk sitting around 2k in arena pvp(again as i got further i had less time to play). I'm very excited for Diablo 3 PvP and watching your video really gets me into it!
Although i would never make it to Esports(doesn't help that i live in Australia) but i would love to work with you in some way or another. When i have spare time i either drink grog with my mates or play pvp online games.
As we learn more about the strategies and dynamics of PvP in D3, it will get easier to comment on these matches on a more macro level, which I think will prove to be more insightful than pointing out the obvious "player1 attacks player2".
Absolutely, thats the plan in fact. Something to realize about what I have done already is that this commentary was done with what little play time I had at Blizzcon, and what little is known about the game. There isn't that much to work with (we all know this), so trying to go in depth in terms of strategy and tactics, on something we know little to nothing about, seems rather silly. As more play time is had and more information made available, strategy, tactics, and advice will all be the focus of my casting. This is the style I carry in SC2, and it has garnered much success and enthusiasm from the playerbase. The goal of my content is to help players improve, as well as to entertain.
I'm personally rather curious whether DIII will allow for replays to be saved. Of course the players can always use fraps (or similar video capture software), but an easy way to save replays would save everyone a lot of hassle.
This is in fact quite important, along with the option of an observation mode for any custom Arena matches. It is the only way to set up show matches and tournaments to be casted between teams. I have made a few posts on the battle.net forums addressing the issue, and hope if nothing else that it is taken into consideration. Otherwise programs like FRAPS will be the default method of acquiring footage.
I will likely have high end players sending me footage of their games, the big issue is however that not all top tier players have computers able to record while maintaining a decent frame rate. So there would be lots of great footage missed out on. Even if no replay mode was made available, if at the very least custom games had an observation mode, I myself could record the matches and commentary to be posted.
It felt so weird to hear you comment on everything from a tactical point of view and describing everything that is going on, at a very rapid pace too, when all I see is REFLEX, SMASH, EXPLOSION!! It is the first D3 commentary I have watched and honestly it feels like the action is actually too fast for a commentary to be able to present all that information in an easy-to-understand way. At one point the enemy team ran up to the Wizard and killed her in less than a second. I'm sure there were many things you could say about the mistakes done by the Wizard and the co-ordination of the enemies, but there is no time to even mention that since the battle is still going on and will be over in the next five seconds. Everything is so insanely fast.
As stated above, with so little play time and general knowledge of the game, discussing tactics at this point isn't really possible, outside of straight up theory-crafting.
Also another large issue is that with the selected footage, the camera was fixed. Strategy discussion and explanation, in my experience, requires camera control. For example for my SC2 strategy content, much of the time is spent bouncing around the map to strategic points of interest, looking at opportunities to exploit your opponent, discussing the best points of engagement, etc. This can only be done properly if I have control over the camera. Well the same will be true with Diablo 3, looking at areas of the arena which are best suited for certain engagements, good areas of control, best positioning and places to snare to deny health globes from your opponent, etc etc.
This plays back to the replay / observation functionality. Both are really going to be required to be able to properly show and discuss strategy. A fixed camera just doesn't cut it for such content.
Just thinking about it makes me excited to see how the PvP meta game will evolve! What builds will be viable, what class combinations, which runes? Oh man, get hype!
It is quite exciting indeed, and the aspect of Diablo 3 Arena coverage that I am most looking forward to.
Although i would never make it to Esports(doesn't help that i live in Australia) but i would love to work with you in some way or another. When i have spare time i either drink grog with my mates or play pvp online games.
Keep up the good work!
As always, community support is greatly appreciated. The work I do is aimed at improving as well as entertaining people in the community. So any help or support is always welcomed!
I'm personally rather curious whether DIII will allow for replays to be saved. Of course the players can always use fraps (or similar video capture software), but an easy way to save replays would save everyone a lot of hassle.
I'm not exactly sure, but I can't see it being done. While I think it'd be great (and as Force said, along with an Obs mode), i'm just unsure. They, to my knowledge, haven't added these into the WoW arena, but it has become an eSport anyway. We have the exact same thing for D3.
Shouldn't be too hard to do, though, considering Starcraft II uses a matchmaking system similar to what we expect of Diablo III and the same online platform. While WoW communicates with battle.net the servers it's on work way different.
Shouldn't be too hard to do, though, considering Starcraft II uses a matchmaking system similar to what we expect of Diablo III and the same online platform. While WoW communicates with battle.net the servers it's on work way different.
Well, WoW definitely operates differently because of how the game is structured (just a game server, compared to a Chat/Game server), though with Battle.net 2.0 being released, it seems like they are trying to integrate both more.
Well all they need to do to allow replays in theory is to make a system that saves the stat values of each arena player and then records their movements and actions. Similar to how SCII replay files are done.
Now whether my theory holds in practice is beyond the scope of my limited technical skills to evaluate.
Oh, it's definitely possible, and very simple to do. For the most part, the SC2 Replay system just does as you says and records certain actions; and then requires the actual game for the playback.
My point was whether or not they would actually do it -- because I don't believe they've done it in WoW. I would love to see it though.
They haven't done it it now nor will they simply because of the format, there is not chat channel when you leave the game, you just log off completely. where as battle net you long in, then join games.
Altho blizzard are not targeting arena as an e-sport, if wow did it d3 will too, its in the nature of the players. Everyone loves Competition.
Some time ago I made a commentary from the Arena PvP Footage taken from Blizzcon 2010. This is something I will be doing for D3's Beta and post release, and I wanted to get something out there with the footage we had. Well I wasn't completely satisfied with the end result and I decided to re-do it being the perfectionist I am.
So here is the new Arena PvP Commentary:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ForceD3strategy#p/a/u/0/mIbBejWrx6s
Now for a little background information:
I am a Professional StarCraft 2 Commentator and will be shifting into Diablo 3 Commentary once the game goes into Beta. I still fully intend on maintaining my SC2 content, but Diablo 3 will be my focus. I am well aware of Blizzards intentions and that they will not be fully pushing for Diablo 3 as an eSport, but as I've discussed on other boards, the potential is certainly there, and with time and enough request from the playerbase, it is quite possible.
The desire for such content is also evident by the fact that already my Diablo 3 channel on YouTube has a larger subscription base then any other D3 channel, pushing 6,000 subscribers. I am certain a portion of that is spillover from the 42,000 subscribers to my SC2 channel, but either way, the interest and support is clearly there.
Commentary is just a sample of what I intend on doing, it is more for entertainment then anything else. Most of the content I cover in SC2 is geared towards helping players improve and become better, the same will be true for Diablo 3. Once the game is in Beta and I have plenty of content to work with, strategy will be my focus, for both PvP and PvM. My current expected content for video is the following.
- Top End Arena PvP Strategy Discussion
- Arena PvP Commentary
- Interviews with Top End Arena Players
- Encounter Guides (Proper Tactics for Boss Fights)
- PvP & PvE Gearing Guides
- PvP & PvE Talent Guides
There will of course be more but that will be the bulk of the content I will be working on.
I plan to be fully involved with the Diablo 3 community, and want to get your guys thoughts and opinions. Constructive criticism is always welcome.
Cheers,
Force
http://www.youtube.c...orceSC2strategy
@maka: So play casually! afaik, the PvP system will be a pretty simple click "Join" and you're pitted up against other players in whatever kind of match you select. There's always going to be that person who takes the game super seriously and plays to win, no matter what. It's what makes the game fun! Competition! :P.
Diablo III Analyst
SC2Mapster
None taken! I certainly see where you are coming from, but as Sixen and Apoc said, you yourself can certainly still play casually.
The matchmaking system is going to function much like that of SC2, meaning you are faced against people of equal gear / level / skill, and depending on how you perform against them you move up and down accordingly. This type of system promotes competition and forces people to always face new challenges. As such naturally the more competitive in nature will be at the top of the matchmaking ladder and will be facing players of the like. If you are a less competitive player, you will likely be near the middle to lower end of the ladder, and be facing other none competitive players.
Thanks for the support Sixen, means alot. I feel the same way (clearly!) and that is why I am going to be pressing the issue. I expect to have somewhere in the vicinity of 40,000 subscribers for my Diablo 3 channel during the Beta, and then to have those numbers shoot up once the game goes live. With that kind of support there will certainly be players looking for D3 Tournaments!
I would also like to work with Diablo Fan-sites (yes you!) to help promote this. As stated in my OP I am a professional SC2 commentator, meaning I make a living off of it. The tournament scene is just fantastic, for any game really. Before becoming heavily involved in commentary I was a big Magic: The Gathering fan, and went to many tournaments for that as well. A competitive nature for any game is nothing but a good thing in my opinion, and having that for Diablo 3 is something I certainly want.
Thank you much! No luck is needed, just some good old fashion hard word.
- Force
http://www.youtube.c...orceSC2strategy
Co-op play is very appealing to me. I can appreciate the solo game style, but it's just more fun when you're with your friends imo. But you will still have your space for that regardless of what goes on in the development of PvP in DIII. The only case that I can think of is PvP-twinked players joining your games, which imo is hardly a game-breaking issue.
Here's hopin'
You promise to give my videos a fresh shot, and I'll promise not to disappoint.
I considered commentary on the 17min 'shaky cam' footage that was posted not too long ago, but the quality and frame width was just too low to make it even worth trying. We will likely have to wait until the Beta for fresh footage, but once it comes, watch out! I'll be coming out swinging.
In terms of reaching SC2 levels, of course not. That game was made SPECIFICALLY for eSports. However, it still has great potential. I'll go back to what I said in a post on the battle.net forums. When WoW first came out there was no semblance of organized PvP. Then what happened? The following progression took place:
1. Large scale player driven PvP at Southshore & Tarren Mill
2. Honor System added with rankings
3. Gear Rewards For PvP
4. Battlegrounds added
5. Arena Matchmaking System
6. WoW becomes a mainstay at MLG's eSports competitions.
Now taking a look at D3, already we have a huge leg up in terms of progression due to the fact that Arenas with a matchmaking system are in place on day 1. While this is certainly no guarantee, it leaves much room for growth.
In terms of tournaments, they will be happening regardless, I can assure you that. I intend on having tournaments during the Beta. The key is getting them sanctioned by Blizzard, because then and only then can we have cash prizes. Right now for SC2 to hold a tournament with a cash prize you need to be licensed by Blizzard to do so.
This is important because having a tangible reward in the form of money is what drives players to devote more time to hone in their skills and improve. In turn this ups the level of competition, which raises the level of viewer enjoyment, which means more views, which means more sponsorships. This cycle feeds off itself and is required for a game to become anything near an eSport. People only enjoy watching competitive matches because the players are so much better then themselves, and gamers will only get to that level of skill (on a massive scale) if there is a financial motive to do so.
Professional SC2 players practice 8-10 hours a day, thats not a joke. Like everyone else in the world they have bills and need to eat, so money needs to be involved to get such high level play. This is how the entire system works and if Diablo 3 is to become an eSport, it is what must happen.
But coming back down to earth, even if all of the above doesn't take place. I will still be commentating D3 PvP and making strategy videos to improve the average player. I'll do so because I know people will enjoy the content. And like I said there will be tournaments, but whether or not money comes into play is what will determine its level of success in the realm of eSports.
- Force
http://www.youtube.c...orceSC2strategy
I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how well D3 goes along with commentating. As Apoc said, its pretty fast paced.
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Just thinking about it makes me excited to see how the PvP meta game will evolve! What builds will be viable, what class combinations, which runes? Oh man, get hype!
Although i would never make it to Esports(doesn't help that i live in Australia) but i would love to work with you in some way or another. When i have spare time i either drink grog with my mates or play pvp online games.
Keep up the good work!
Thanks Caniroth for the awesome sig!
Absolutely, thats the plan in fact. Something to realize about what I have done already is that this commentary was done with what little play time I had at Blizzcon, and what little is known about the game. There isn't that much to work with (we all know this), so trying to go in depth in terms of strategy and tactics, on something we know little to nothing about, seems rather silly. As more play time is had and more information made available, strategy, tactics, and advice will all be the focus of my casting. This is the style I carry in SC2, and it has garnered much success and enthusiasm from the playerbase. The goal of my content is to help players improve, as well as to entertain.
This is in fact quite important, along with the option of an observation mode for any custom Arena matches. It is the only way to set up show matches and tournaments to be casted between teams. I have made a few posts on the battle.net forums addressing the issue, and hope if nothing else that it is taken into consideration. Otherwise programs like FRAPS will be the default method of acquiring footage.
I will likely have high end players sending me footage of their games, the big issue is however that not all top tier players have computers able to record while maintaining a decent frame rate. So there would be lots of great footage missed out on. Even if no replay mode was made available, if at the very least custom games had an observation mode, I myself could record the matches and commentary to be posted.
As stated above, with so little play time and general knowledge of the game, discussing tactics at this point isn't really possible, outside of straight up theory-crafting.
Also another large issue is that with the selected footage, the camera was fixed. Strategy discussion and explanation, in my experience, requires camera control. For example for my SC2 strategy content, much of the time is spent bouncing around the map to strategic points of interest, looking at opportunities to exploit your opponent, discussing the best points of engagement, etc. This can only be done properly if I have control over the camera. Well the same will be true with Diablo 3, looking at areas of the arena which are best suited for certain engagements, good areas of control, best positioning and places to snare to deny health globes from your opponent, etc etc.
This plays back to the replay / observation functionality. Both are really going to be required to be able to properly show and discuss strategy. A fixed camera just doesn't cut it for such content.
It is quite exciting indeed, and the aspect of Diablo 3 Arena coverage that I am most looking forward to.
As always, community support is greatly appreciated. The work I do is aimed at improving as well as entertaining people in the community. So any help or support is always welcomed!
Cheers,
Force
http://www.youtube.c...orceSC2strategy
And which side are you cheering for?
I've been to that stadium before, but it was a boring game 0-0. Sporting vs (I can't remember).
Diablo III Analyst
SC2Mapster
Diablo III Analyst
SC2Mapster
My point was whether or not they would actually do it -- because I don't believe they've done it in WoW. I would love to see it though.
Diablo III Analyst
SC2Mapster
Altho blizzard are not targeting arena as an e-sport, if wow did it d3 will too, its in the nature of the players. Everyone loves Competition.
Thanks Caniroth for the awesome sig!
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