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PC Games (Games)

Pro Gaming Commentators 27

HatTriQk writes "Maybe if your skillz are lacking you should become a Counter-Strike tourney commentator? The BBC has an article on the role of the Pro Gaming Commentator." From the article: "E-sports, sometimes called v-sports, are growing at a dramatic pace with games such as Unreal Tournament, Quake and Counter Strike letting gamers not only participate in online duals but also spectate online. The games are played at a frenetic pace, making real sports such as football and rugby look like petanque, and often it can be difficult to follow the intense action."
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Pro Gaming Commentators

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  • by keiferb ( 267153 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2005 @12:44PM (#11608067) Homepage
    "To cover this event we go live to Xander the Doomslayer who's watching the carnage live from his mother's basement! Xander?"
  • Wow. There could be a whole new area for sports commentators to use home-spun expressions.

    "Wow, his supply of plasma grenades is lower than a doodle bug in Aunt Tillie's root cellar."

    GOaaaall!

  • Do you have to own a copy of the game to spectate on line? I don't have time to master some of these games but I would enjoy watching skilled players.
    • Do you have to own a copy of the game to spectate on line?

      Live? Yes. In theory, people can record what happens in the game and then, afterward, convert that to an mpeg or somesuch. Creative googling may even turn some up.

      We're several years (at best) from this being anything other than super-niche. A small portion of people who enjoy the game (who are a small portion of the population) would watch these more than just to see what they're like.
    • Nope. I've watched competition matches of Tribes 2 and Tribes:Vengeance Shoutcasted to Winamp 5. Even before the advent of video casts, you could listen to audio casts of games.

      Of course, there was also T2TV, which let you watch games in the Tribes 2 engine. You could even get recorded demos of matches and watch them in the engine, while a synched mp3 of the commentator's shoutcast played on top of it.

  • Quoted from the linked article...

    The games are played at a frenetic pace, making real sports such as football and rugby look like petanque

    Egad, did I just read a UKian write that Soccer (the big UK sport) seems like a French game? It looks like the Beeb is getting into the trolling act itself...

    Then again, imagine if this was a USian article refering what we call "football." That kind of talk could start a war... (You want freedom fries with that?)

  • I know theres a ladder system in it, but does anyone know if there will be big money tournaments for it? I'm trying to figure out which FPS I want to pick up and get good at to pro-game.
    • There was a rather unknown UK wide tournament for Halo 2 a couple of months ago, the i-series LANs tend to hold a small Halo 2 tourney.

      It is very unlikely that Halo 2 will become a big pro game, even when it hits PC (though, with the CPL the mind wonders, they did run Halo PC last summer).

      Still, Halo 2 will not compared to the likes of CS, WC3, UT2004, PK etc
      • I went to the CPL and they will be having WC3/CS/Halo 2 tournaments this summer. Technically I should go back to WC3 where I was owning house, but I think it'd be more fun to take up a new hat.

        Besides the CPL, are there other leagues to pay attention to?
  • Petanque (Score:3, Informative)

    by nekoniku ( 183821 ) <justicekNO@SPAMinfosource.info> on Tuesday February 08, 2005 @02:01PM (#11609076) Homepage
    Just in case you wanted to know what petanque [petanque.org] was...
  • The problem I see with pro-gaming commentators is that there's no real way for them to watch everything at once in order to be able to announce the good stuff.

    In real sports, you have centralized action that everybody can watch, and its easy to see where the action is. In FPS, you have lots of corridors, different elevated levels, ect.

    There's no possible way for a spectator to track all this let alone a commentator. Seeing as how the sole purpose of a commentator is to talk to fans about where the action'

    • Of course, that depends on the game. Some of them do have a central point of action.

      What I see happening are multiple commentators, each focussing on a particular area or player, and then an overall director who decides what should be on the "main" show at any given time. Almost like watching a Royal Rumble wrestling match.

      Of course, games have the added bonus that if you really like one player or aspect, you can choose to follow one of the more specialized commentators exclusively.
    • if I was a professional game commentator, I'd have more than one machine, with several monitors in my face, and easily controllable camera macros at my fingertips.

      I'd want to be able to track about 4 point of views at a time. Any less and I'd be afraid I missed something. Any more and I'd just be at overload. I'd probably have my camera macros set to cycle through a few different settings. various angles on players, the different players and static cameras that are in places that I've already found to be

  • Once again - which is better - watching some overly adored punk demonstrate the twitch skilz that have kept him out of a real job (do you realize that youre promoting this lifestyle?!?!?) or playing the game yourself?

    No good at CS? Halo 2? Get some friends together, and play. Thats what these things are designed for - to PLAY. Not to watch.

    Spectators belong on the BotServe

  • I always felt the commentary made that game much more enjoyable. However, since Powerball typically only had to focus on 1 ball, I imagine it was easier for someone to provide play-by-play commentary on that, versus a FPS deathmatch frag-fest. Even the automated frag/suicide messages in FPS games are hard to follow, and I can't think of what else someone would need to know besides who killed who?!?
  • Like that japanese translated show MXC on spikeTV, I'll dub all the characters voice. It'll be the best commentary when I make every match "telephone workers vs. circle jerkers".

  • ... I was just musing how there couldn't be a bigger bunch of dorks than professional gamers - and then this come along.
  • A Rant (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Mitaphane ( 96828 )
    Can we stop using terms like "cyber-athelete" and "e-sports" when applied to competitive gaming. I know in a lot of people's heads "sports" and "games" are mixed together but they are two seperate things. A sport is an athletic game. Not only does it require skill of the game but it also requires all the other demands of being in good physical shape. I don't mean to belittle the skill that some proffesional gamers have, but the comparing a game Counterstrike to a game of Football or Hockey is ludicrous.

    Tha
  • Warning: I am not a sports freak.

    What is the point of these annoying commentators anyway ? Do I really need someone to tell me what I'm seeing ? Do I really care that some poor russian hockey player can't drive his Ferrari because his dumb highness got arrested for DUI, but he can drive a puck like nobody's business!

    Just imagine this redundancy in the gaming scene: we already have all the info we need onscreen. Do I really want some greasy kid repeating "XSlayer fragged BillcoPC, respawning in 10 secon

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