NAC2 - Feedback thread

[nC_Andorin]

This is what I liked in this event:
Organization effort/professionalism, meetup, diversity of casters, friendliness of all the people present, Nilis hospitality.

This is what I think could be improved:
The public viewing in general: you could only really see what was going on in the first 2-3 rows and had to really listen to what the casters were saying to follow the games.
A slightly bigger location and a bigger canvas might be needed for next time.

More variety during the breaks.

This was my favourite moment:
Memb & Jordans casting, hanging out with the players and other Aoe fans.

General notes/ what I also wanted to say:
NAC2 was a big step up from NAC1 in terms of organization and all around professionalism, thank you for making this happen Nili!

 

[buhanisson]

This is what I liked in this event

-The variety of casting duos, some crazy, some more analytical, some just totally ridiculous, made the event constantly fresh and surprising
-All the entertainment in-between matches, the videos, Q/As etc

This is what made me tune in:

-DauT
-Jordan
-Memb
-mbl+liereyy casting duo

This is what I think could be improved:

At least in the beginning there were too many sound problems.

This is what made me turn off

I'm a bit ashamed to say, but: Viper being too good. I mean, just the too easy predictability of some of the match results.

This was my favorite moment:

Probably Memb+Jordan missing the 10k donation and chat going nuts.

The RBTV was also great, and everything with DauT.

General notes/ what I also wanted to say:

--

 

[iViktorius]

This is what I liked in this event:
- The different casting duo's (some you like some you don't, but you know there will be a new duo the next set);

This is what made me tune in:
- High level game play and high level casting;

This is what I think could be improved:
- Player cams synced up;
- Add some mirror matches, too many clear civ+map wins;
- The meetup place was out of beer at some point ;

This is what made me turn off:
- Was doing stuff with others while I was there (mostly drinking and sisha) (I didn't really watch all that much to be honest 11);

These were my favorite moments:
- Mibble/liereyy duo cast;
- The near comeback of TaToH in the finals;
- The NAC2 meetup in general, great moments with too many ppl to name;

General notes/ what I also wanted to say:
- What a sad life it would be without AoE2 meetups;

 

[vrubson]

This is what I liked in this event:
Organisation/ no delays
various casters
NAC2 was better than NAC1 (and that wasnt an easy task.)


This is what I think could be improved:
-seeding and brackets / bucholtz was not clear for many people, how its actually working.

-casting was on the great level - and i think there should be always atleast 1 proplayer as caster.

- in set BO9 one mirror matchup + one hidden civ pickup / rest based on the draft its ok.

This was my favourite moment:
Incas vs Magyars
spanish vs malians
Memb & Jordan
Nili & Viper (for me it was really fun, cause its stand with style so opposite to the rest, even though one game is enough )
Mbl and Liereey -> they were so great and entertaining - great balance between casting/ analizyng and making fun..

This is what made me turn off:
Daut and Fire cast
I didnt get any hype for rocketbean (but this is my personal opinion)

 

[Bowserlord]

This is what I liked in this event/This is what made me tune in:
- Pro-Player Casting-Duos
- Whole idea of a Lan-Event
- Webcams/microphones and funny stuff between all casters and all the players
- Drafting-System
- New nice maps like: "Coast to Mountain"
- Really high pricepool (14k) --> Really big and important Aoe2 Tourney


This is what I think could be improved:
- Interviews: Better preparation/questions due taking notes during the matches (like Killer_B)
- Funday: Most settings were really boring (subjektive!). I would like to see some "Hot-seat" matches there.


This is what made me turn off:
- Bad casting like Fire/Daut and Jordan/Daut


This was my favorite moment:
- Larry vs Viper in Group stage (whole series was just awesome)
- MBL vs Viper in Group stage (whole series was just awesome + >11k viewer record)
- Jordan Casting
- Larry/MBL Casting
- Micro-Tournement (this was really funny)
- Finals after 5-0 (great and emotional casting by nili, expecially the RF game)

General notes/ what I also wanted to say:

THANKS FOR THIS AWESOME WEEK OF AOE2! BEST TOURNEY I EVER WATCHED! NAC2 > NAC1!
Sad that most players seemed to be not good prepared --> some one-sided machtups
People i would like to see in a next possible NAC: Hera, Hearttt and Yo.

 

[Tarsiz]

Feedback for my online experience from the swiss rounds, as I missed some parts of the later rounds due to being in Hamburg:

This is what I liked in this event:
- LAN experience with people from 7 different countries meeting up and playing against each other in prime conditions
- A healthy variety of casters that lead to great pairings (Memb & Jordan for example, but I think OrnLu and BBQ Turkman also got a well deserved part of the spotlight)
- Getting to know more of the players, seeing them interacting with each other and having fun

This is what made me tune in:
- High level games played on a variety of maps (even though not all of them are, in my humble opinion, suited to the settings of the tournament)
- Players interviews after the games
- Great casting pairings: the casting ranged from dead serious to drunk chaotic and it was good to have some light-hearted casts that remained actual casts (MbL + Liereyy was probably my favorite)

This is what I think could be improved:
- Less "one-dimensional" maps that heavily favor one civ over all the others: Land Madness (Franks), Rehydration (Indians)... Same problem as with Dry River in the ECL.
- Have an expert map scripter fix Gold Rush to make it perfectly fair, or at least fairer
- More hidden free pick (with a "no repeat" rule if necessary)

This is what made me turn off:
- Daut & Jordan cast (sorry, I'm a boring person, but hearing the same joke for the 30th time made me feel like I was back to junior high school )
- Tidepool & Regicide Fortress

This was my favorite moment:
- Nili interviewing MbL and Nicov were by far my favorite interactions
- Meeting Flow (and everyone else) in Hamburg

General notes/ what I also wanted to say:
Overall, awesome tourney with an incredible production value, despite the totally understandable hiccups of the first half hour, everything went super smoothly. The picking of maps and drafting of civilizations obviously took quite some time but brought an additional layer of strategic thinking that, I think, overall benefitted the tournament experience. I think it's absolutely amazing that in 2019, almost 20 years after the release of the original game, people from Argentina, Brazil, Spain, Norway, Serbia and Austria get to go to Germany for a LAN tournament with a $14k prize pool. Not to mention the huge number of people who went to the meet-up, I know a lot were from Rocket Beans but it was awesome to meet so many great people from all around the world. Nili said people were flying from as far as Paraguay to attend and I think that is just a testament of how great of an occasion for the community to meet-up the tournament was.

 

[Huehuecoyotl22]

I can't fill out much of questions, as I only had time to watch 2 games, less than 1 h after-game interview and some minutes of one of Memb's Youtube videos.

But from everything I have read, it was a great event and it couldn't have been much better. Now you have to think, in case you plan a next one, which I hope, what you will change, so it will not be too repetitive. I think the maps should be totally different, possibly less of the same people with safe spots, maybe only the top 4 of this time. I think if you will take different maps, it will have less clear results, even if player 5-8 are not the same. Because for the people attending it will always be fun, but for viewers changes are needed.

I wish I could somehow be part of one event, but this time, with a 1-month- and 2-year-old child, it was a better choice to not go. So I hope you can make this like once per year for multiple of the coming years.

 

[andae23]

This is what I liked in this event:
- Top players playing at their best.
- Lots of series.
- Good casting (compliments to Memb, Ornlu and Turkman in particular).
- Getting to know the players when they're not playing.

This is what made me tune in:
High level aoe2 in LAN setting.

This is what I think could be improved:
- What's special about NAC is that it's a very intimate setting, so I was expecting a lot of player interaction. I think we only really got to see that when they were casting together and during the post-game interview. There's a lot of down time in between the series, which can be used to go 'behind the scenes', like the IRL streams that various players did during the event.
- A lot of games were very predictable, either because of the skill difference between players or because of a superior civ. The former can not really be addressed, but for the latter I would maybe give players the possibility to draft the same civs. It means there will be a lot of mirror match-ups, but in my opinion those are more interesting than watching Indians vs Japanese on Rehydration for example.
- The overlay designs looked alright, but the casters didn't seem to know how it worked. Either the interaction needs to be easier, or the casters need to be briefed better.
- The issues with the audio were annoying. Again, most issues would be solved if players would be briefed about microphones usage.

This is what made me turn off:
- Drunk casts.
- Civ wins.
- Predictable series.
- A couple of uninteresting maps (Tidepool, Flooded cross).
- Long down time in between series (including civ/map drafting).

This was my favourite moment:
MbL beating TheViper on Sunday night.

 

[sergew]

This is what I liked in this event:
- great set of different maps
- interaction with player before and afther games

This is what made me tune in:
-great games, good casting( caster going crazzy)

This is what I think could be improved:
- sometimes I saw player talking to each other between the games would love to hear what that say to each other ( i know this might be difficult)

This is what made me turn off:
- notting ( except that i needed to go to work)

This was my favorite moment:
- the meet and greet on saterday

General notes/ what I also wanted to say:
- congratulation was great!

Idefix512

 

[100Dragonstar]

U KappaPride

 

[jive36]

This is what I liked in this event:
1. Organization - It seemed like you had prepared as much as possible ahead of time
2. Qualifiers - I really enjoyed the qualifiers and thought they couldn't have gone any better from a gameplay perspective
3. Bo5 for the group stage seemed like the correct series length and in theory a Bo13 finals is fun
4. The "filler" content was great, even if repetitive I thought it was great and gave a sense of professionalism and smoothness
5. Felix - It made a lot of sense to have someone available during the whole event that was not casting/playing and could be focused on the behind the scenes stuff.
6. Using different color Xs on the draft screen was nice

This is what made me tune in:
1. Top level gameplay
2. Great casters
3. I have a self diagnosed addiction to AoE2

This is what I think could be improved:
1. Qualifier length - at some point you mentioned possibly doing weekend long qualifiers for future events and I think that would be great. NAC2Q2 took a long time to complete (darn holidays)
2. Prerecorded interviews. I liked the filler content but think it would be cool if you had a prerecorded interview with each of the players that could add variety to the filler content.
3. Player colors - I think if you ban orange, grey/black and don't allow green/red matchups it could work. I understand why there has been a move towards team colors/friend foe colors but I miss seeing player colors
4. Civ Draft - I hate complaining without offering a solution but the civs felt repetitive and I don't think having civ pools is a fix or going pure free pick no repeat is a fix. I thought possibly letting players draft 8 civs total for Bo5 and either player can use any of those 8 civs could work but it doesn't fix the repetitiveness and probably only makes it worse. So this is a complaint for someone smarter than this pleb to solve.
5. Co-caster pc - One of the things that works really well in non-LAN settings is having the co-caster being able to monitor a completely different aspect of the game from the main caster. Sharing the casting PC eliminates that ability, casters learned how to work around that as series went on and there probably isn't space for a co-caster pc. Maybe this can happen when it is NMC (Nili's Mansion Cup)
6. The red text on the blue overlays. During the group stage when maps were banned I struggled to see the red BAN. Either the font needs to be bolder or the text bigger. The white shows up nicely on the blue background but I struggle with the red text.
7. Hotkey listing for the casting computer
8. Print out of draft/ban order at the player computers for them to reference.

This is what made me turn off:
1. Work - Family
2. I thought I would be filling this in with certain casters but I was really impressed with everyone, even the drunk casts.

This was my favorite moment:
1. the excitement day 2 of the viewer numbers constantly climbing
2. Favorite Series - Viper v MBL
3. Favorite game - Liereyy v Viper coast to mountain
4. Favorite interview - MBL; completely changed my opinion of him from no real opinion to a guy I'd root for going forward

General notes/ what I also wanted to say:
1. Thank you Nili for all your hard work. This was a great event
2. Thanks to the players for giving us great games and giving up 9 days to participate in the tournament.
3. Thanks to the casters that made things entertaining even when a series was lopsided
4. Thanks to the community, especially MattSalsa for supporting this event and making it possible.
5. I know I listed a bunch of improvements but those are not to say I didn't absolutely love the whole thing but more of a wish list for potential future events.

 

[Laaaaab]

This is what I liked in this event:
Best players together, innovative competitive format, quality gameplay and casting, good chemistry from start to finish and larry actually looks cool smoking shisha. Awesome event from start to finish.

This is what made me tune in:
Suprising casting duos & Drafting mind games & Viper vs MbL & Jordan being nice & Nili trolling with random questions

This is what I think could be improved:
Needs more living room stuff.
Viper n MbL need a show match or should face off again in ECL Kappa

This is what made me turn off:
I don't have a turnoff point, but Daut and Joadn drunk casting really made me cringe a bit LUL

This was my favorite moment:
MbL n Lierrey casting together.

General notes/ what I also wanted to say:
Thank u thank u thank u, next!

 

[neet__]

This is what I think could be improved:
I had a blast with Daut's drunken casting, but I really did not pay any attention at all to the games lol, so I imagine why so people did not enjoy it.
Personally, I think casting should ideally always be with Caster/Caster or Caster/Player. And I personally prefer the Caster/Player combo.
Speaking of casters, I gotta say Memb was legendary this tournament. I was very impressed with BBQ too, he's very interesting and eloquent, and his interviews were never awkward.

I appreciate how much the production and technical side was improved from NAC1 (just the addition of the mics had a world of difference). But, ideally, I think Nili should have yet more production help, and focus 100% on being the stream host & casting without being too much worried about other things.

 

[aces]

This is what I liked in this event:
Almost everything. I've been not paying much attention to AOEII scene for past couple of years due to personal ****, but NAC2 and KOTD2 have brought me right back in. Now to learn all these new civs! But yeah, great event overall, loved the casters, players, webcams.

This is what made me tune in:
Long time Memb sub on Twitch, long time BBQTurkman sub on Youtube, so was awesome to see them both there. Wasn't familiar with Ornulu but following him now and thought he was excellent. Big fan of most of the players too (and Nili), so it was a no-brainer to tune in. I missed the final live but watched the vod back of course.

This is what I think could be improved:
Interviews could be a bit better structured. Less asking the players "how they feel" and more about specific details from the games. I guess note taking during the game would help that.

This is what made me turn off:
Daut & Jordan cast and Daut & Fire cast. Think they are all great people and players, but I thought it was kinda lame and immature behaviour with the trolling and **** talking instead of covering the game action. Some people liked it too, just my personal taste. Similarly didn't really dig the Mbl/liery cast either. I think one caster + one pro is the best mixture.

This was my favorite moment:
Memb & Jordan cast
Half time analysis during final with Ornulu, Jordan, Daut was great - more of that type of thing for next time!

General notes/ what I also wanted to say:
Grats on putting this all together and making it a success. Hope to see a NAC3.

 

[Fall]

This is what I liked in this event: Jordan and Memb casting. High level of play. Varied maps with some classics (Arabia and RF are always great fun to watch as well as play).

This is what made me tune in: High level AoE as well as seeing the players having a good time and enjoying themselves.

This is what I think could be improved: Maybe change it so that 4 players are invited and 4 qualify in future?

This is what made me turn off: Certain caster combinations. Generally 2 casters isn't as entertaining as one caster + one player. One caster in particular was often just straight up wrong too.

This was my favorite moment: Memb and Jordan's first cast breaking the 10k viewers.

General notes/ what I also wanted to say: Part of the appeal of this event to me is that it seems "natural" and the players are able to enjoy themselves. I hope that you can keep that spirit in future and don't make things too sterile/clinical and boring. IMO that kind of thing doesn't suit our scene or community.

Both NACs are my favourite AOE2 events I've ever followed.

 

[vectorfield]

This is what I liked in this event: Expert + caster as a duo, one providing insights and discusses strats while the other shows/tells us what is happening at the moment, Tatoh making the finals <3, RF, the half time "show" during finals

This is what made me tune in: Seeing the players live, close match ups like Tatoh vs mbl, seeing Viper play, hearing Daut troll

This is what could be improved: Map settings, 1st day production quality

This is what made me turn off: My work break ending, as Nac was mostly on afternoons; Nili trying way to hard to troll Viper when they were casting together

This was my favourite moment: F1re winning in the "who is more handsome" contest vs Daut

 

[hrhippo]

This is what made me tune in:
NAC being a LAN event at your apartment: Please don’t give up on that idea. It’s what makes it unique.

This is what I liked in this event:
The length: Those 9 days are the absolute sweet spot for such an event. Two weekends surrounding a work week are long enough to get people hyped, but still short enough to keep them with you until the end. And I know that it’s only one week of coming home earlier from work, staying up longer and getting less free time for other things.

Swiss System / Buchholz: I already liked the format of NAC1 with the final stage where players could play themselves up the ladder in the end. That felt fresh and I hadn’t seen that before. I think using the swiss system and Buchholz this time worked pretty good as well. We saw that day 5 already had a lot of non-decisive and one-sided matches which would have probably dragged on to a potential day 6 and 7. The only promising matchup we did not see was Nicov vs DauT because the other one missing from group stage (TaToH vs Nicov) then became a quarterfinal. Starting playoffs with a “wild card round” also felt perfect to me in rewarding the best group performances accordingly.
An idea would be to fix the group matches to be played according to players seeds so that the top-most don’t play the bottom-most and middle-bound players play each other. But I would still go with the Swiss System as I think it worked out very well.

People: This is where NAC is indeed better than the football (soccer) world cup or other huge events: Getting to know the world’s elite (at least on stream). Having each player bring and show their personalities over more than one week is what makes it so great.

The meet and greet: I couldn’t be there, but I watched polskafans livestream for some time and from what I could see and heard the people say afterwards it was great Community-work that should pay off in the future.

Additional streams: I watched one of Memb’s livestreams from the shisha-place which made the event and people even more accessible, elevated by the way Memb interacted with people.

Also:

• The visit to RBTV was great again – it was a pity the first 40 minutes got wasted on technical problems.
• I liked your interview with MbL a lot. I never thought the two of you would talk so openly on quite personal issues and it made me root for MbL some more. In general I am positively surprised by how you answer like 95% of the questions people ask.
• Interaction with chat and integrating their ideas.
• A special shoutout to Ornlu, who did a great job and seemed to be very sympathetic.
• A whole lot of stuff I surely liked, but can’t remember right now.

This is what made me turn off (I did not actually turn off):
One-sided games: Of course, this is nothing you can act on, but still it’s what I liked least about NAC2. I will not bring up any ideas of nerfing TheViper, to me that would be simply not fair and not professional. But after all – if my NiliMath is correct – more than half (13 of 25) of the series ended in sweeps, only 3 of 25 series had the loser win more than one map. If not for TaToHs comeback from 0-5 this would have felt even way worse.

Please stop banning people yourself: This one is quite personal. I really admire all the work you do for your stream and the game. But I also appreciate you very much as a person, I also watched non-AoE content like the video about your North Korea trip because of that. That’s why it takes away from the image I have of you as a person seeing you ban people for minor things. I also witnessed this some times before NAC2 and every time it felt weird and negative to me. I don’t want people to go crazy and insult others on chat. But I feel like you’re sometimes banning people for making bad jokes that don’t connect or asking the wrong questions. It completely breaks immersion and shifts the focus from you entertaining thousands of people to you punishing one little guy in a chat. You have a great team of mods. Let them handle the bans and concentrate on the things you do as a host. By the way: I was never banned (yet), this is not an act of defiance.

This is what I think could be improved / Some ideas:
Website: What about a website especially for NAC? Reading up info on aoezone is alright, but it always includes a process of searching for the info I wanted, because it is a message board for all of AoE after all. I guess you know a lot of people who are willing to support you in creating a website dedicated to NAC with all the important information at a glance and a lot of other possibilities this would offer.

More emphasis on Drafting: I heard some people wishing for mirror matches. But the way I see it, drafting maps and civs is an essential part of the game. I see that you made some changes from NAC 1 to 2 by giving the players microphones and used them at least in the first few days. I guess it didn’t work out because the players couldn’t hear the casters and there were a lot of misunderstandings.

My suggestion is to have a little pre-show with the casters and players together watching maps and civs on a common screen and talking over it. Maybe have some pre- and post-draft-talk and for the actual draft itself add a little clock with a 30 / 60 second timer like the NFL Draft.

Player Casting: Despite all the experience and passion professional casters bring to the mic, I personally enjoy the inside-stories and fun that the casting players add to it a little more, especially DauT, Jordan, F1re, Liereyy + MbL. So my recommendation would be to keep the professional casters, but always pair them up with a player (so no caster+caster combos). And of course give the legendary combos some Player+Player casts as well.

Get Jordan: I have no idea what Jordan is about to do in the time coming up. But if he shouldn’t be able to qualify for a hopefully upcoming next event, please still invite him as caster. I’m glad the AoE community is very international but I guess you also have a lot of supporters in Germany and having a local hero in there is very enjoyable.

Maybe cut the finals down to bo-11 or even further: A possible 8 hours series as you estimated yourself is a whole lot of time and I can’t think of any other single (e-)sports match that long outside AoE-context except Cricket. And I don’t watch Cricket. It’s hard to keep the excitement for that long.

This was my favorite moment:
11k

General notes/ what I also wanted to say:
Thanks once more for an amazing NAC2! I hope you can appreciate my feedback. And I also hope NAC3 will happen and be even better.

 

[Toom03]

This is what I liked in this event:
high level gameplay
top players
top casters
different maps (open/closed/water/hybrid)

This is what made me tune in:
top gameplay and different casters
the atmosspahre

This is what I think could be improved:
the public viewing event in terms of the "screen"
civ draft without banns (banning always ended with the same civs)

This is what made me turn off:
F1re&daut cast, dont think i neex to extend it here
one sided series which we will have almost in every tournament

This was my favorite moment:
mbl winning against viper :D

General notes/ what I also wanted to say:
meetup was awesome
i really liked how the community worked arround the offical parts
i was suprised how good memb fit into nac, he did a great job

 

[nimanoe]

This is what I liked in this event:
Players playing without lag, which lead to some sick moments
Meetup of course

This is what made me tune in:
Different casting duo's with lots of the pro's cocasting as well
Amazing games
The personalities of the players and the casters

This is what I think could be improved:
Public viewing could be improved (bigger screen, bigger place, more beer)
Civ draft, there were a few maps where 1 civ is really dominant, which meant they either get banned or will most likely result in a one-sided match.
Swiss system, I think it would be better to if players qualify or get eliminated after 3 rounds, similar to BoA. This would result in fewer group stage matches, so you could make the matches longer or have a longer playoff stage.

This is what made me turn off:
Nothing really, I watched pretty much every bit if I had the time.

This was my favorite moment:
Many moments, but the meetup in general was the best imo.

General notes/ what I also wanted to say:
Please get some rest, you deserve it :D

 

[VerlocVerlocVerloc]

I have not read any other replies yet, so this might or might not agree with others.


This is what I liked in this event:

--In general: almost everything! Specifically: the high level "this really counts!" fierce competition with money on the line, yet still a fun and informal feel, the proximity of the players, the novelty of the format, the passion for the game, the interest from the community, the cameras, the "World Cup bar crowd" cam.

This is what made me tune in:

I am an AOE2 fanboy, and I watched EVERY MINUTE of NAC1, which I very much enjoyed. I watched maybe 60% of this one.

This is what I think could be improved / This is what made me turn off:

I write these suggestions out of love and a belief in everyone involved.

#1 What was going on in the "Funday"? I tried to watch, and there were three different pairs of people all speaking to each other and laughing at the same time, making all six people completely unintelligible. I gave up very frustrated and felt that I had completely wasted my time trying to watch that day.

#2 Every caster was great in their own way (really!) but watching 2 random PLAYERS try to cast a game they DONT CARE ABOUT was kind of a fail. These conversations had their fun moments if you are a fanboy like me but often they lost even my interest, and I imagine that casual viewers would be really turned off by this inexperienced casting. Perhaps keep "player only casting" to a minimum, and perhaps replace it with "1 player 1 caster" casting lineup. At the very least, have casters do the interviews afterwards

#3 The interviews were very awkward, something the chat picked up on. The winner, loser and 1-2 casters cramped together in a narrow area not knowing where to look, and usually trying not to sound too boastful (as a winner) or too emotional (as the losing player). The interview style seemed to change throughout the tournament, and it was probably better by the end as casters + Jordan put real effort into thinking of better questions. I still think it could be improved in future events. Possibilities as I brainstorm: The players could speak directly to each other: what surprised them most? do they have questions for each other? what did they try that failed and why didn't it work?. Or, there could be a short loser's interview (1 on 1) then a longer winner's interview (1 on 1). There has to be a better way, and I trust Nili to come up with a better way.

#4 As I mentioned, the casters did an amazing job. I felt so lucky that you brought in all the top notch casters. One little area where they could do even better is telling more about the players themselves. I watched hours of F1re's games (not all, I admit) but I could not tell you much more than a) he is a great AOE2 player but not top 3, b) he is from Brazil and c) he likes to stream without a shirt on. That's about it. More funny details, please! like that part c, or "Tatoh has a sister who plays AOE2" to give 2 examples

#5 Nili, your casting is on point so keep it coming but your demeanor changed every time you were answering Twitch chat questions between games. You seemed annoyed or bored or something. Maybe link a FAQ or skip entirely all the questions you don't like. I do understand that the chat trolls obsessively and asks stupid Qs haha.

#6 A suggestion for casters: spend some time describing action, especially early game, to audiences of different skill levels, including noobs like me. one time Jordan noticed TheViper had put 4 on wood instead of 3, and explained clearly what it means, which was cool but I would like more of that. I don't mean to ask for you to stop the high level "thinking five steps ahead into how these civs will perform in post-imperial age" analysis, only to talk a bit more about some basic concepts, like how to drush or whatever.

This was my favorite moment:

When you were talking about the 10k donation and all the small donations and sharing your emotion and passion for the game, yes it's incredibly cheesy but after spending many many hours watching NAC1 and 2, I really shared the excitement about where AOE2 is going.


General notes/ what I also wanted to say:

Thank you! Thank you! I loved watching this event overall. I hope you bring the magic back again next time, with a few tweaks especially in the areas I mention above. You made this event from scratch, so trust yourself more than anyone on how to replicate it and improve it even more.

 

[_Andrew]

I think the novelty of Daut has worn off. His performance was really poor in both NAC and although he seems like a fun guy in real life, I don't feel like he adds much in the way of competitive games at this point. So unless you just get a kick out of watching drunk people on stream, I don't really see what he's bringing to the table at these events. At least from a viewer perspective.

Also, maybe instead of a somewhat arbitrary seeding system that resulted in the favorable draw for Tatoh and unfavorable draw for Lierey, there could be a one game mirror playoff to determine the seedings prior to the knockout round. Lierey only lost to Viper and came in 3rd/4th. Tatoh lost to several players and came in 2nd.

 

[Naraic]

This is what I liked in this event:
I loved the players included. The event in general the lan format. There was some great casting duos too.
This is what made me tune in:
The lan format.
This is what I think could be improved:
Casting. Or more to the point the double player combination was not something that made me happy. Daut and fire was bad, mbl lierrey tried but it wasn't good.
This is what made me turn off:
DauT and fire.
This was my favorite moment:
I hate to say it but I loved to see Viper lose in the group stage. It threw the tournament open and made things interesting.
General notes/ what I also wanted to say:
If you can schedule a successor lan event (nac3) in such a way that a wider variety of people can attend. I would have loved if yo or vivi came through the qualifiers.

There may be a few too many civ wins with the map pool and draft settings. I don't know what the best idea is but something may have to change.

 

[JaviS]

This is what I liked in this event:
I liked we could get to know some players/casters such as Ornlu, Nicov and Bbq. I personally didn't know them and it's fun to see the person behind the name or character of being simply a player or a caster. That was cool!

This is what made me tune in:
Tbh, I only tuned in for some games that were of my interest because of the players such as mb vs viper and nicov vs fire.

This is what I think could be improved:
- Definitely, new faces. I know this is an invitational tourney but being a super optimist person myself, I don't think you could keep the hype of a tourney inviting always tatoh, viper and liereyy even asumming they're currently the best players in sb's opinion. Of course, it'd be fantastic to invite all the players we'd like to but I'm realistic too and know that it's almost impossible. However, maybe the addition of a themax or a bact (with more time to get things fixed) a riut, a cl, a vinchester or a vivi (if there's a possiblility) would add such an amazing refreshment to the tourney. I know there are so many viper's and lierey's fans so they want them to be there and play but still it's (personal opinion) sooooo damn boring to watch viper winning all the time vs all players (except mbl). He's the best now, we all know that and it's not under discussion, well then give the opportunity to other players to show themselves to the community. Maybe if you plan to do more editions of this tourney, shouldn't invite always the viper and liereyy because even though it's an invitational tourney, surely makes it even with the qualifiers, look totally elitist. It wouldn't make viper or liereyy less of a player and perhaps (contrary to what many people think and expect because this has been hapenning for some years now) not inviting them could give other players the possibility to outstand, otherwise it would be like watching real madrid win the champions league every season, there comes a time when it's simply tiring (except for real madrid's fans).

-If you're gonna invite Jordan, do so but as a caster, please. He is a fantastic caster and can do much more as such than as a player, imo. No offense, he WAS a great player but I didn't really tune in for any of his series cause again it was sooo boring to watch him lose all the time.
-Something NaC could add from other tourneys such as kotd is a sort of rule that makes players (even invited ones) play a certain number of games say one or two weeks before the competition to avoid underperformances like Lierey's, Nicov's, Daut's or Fire's...

- If possible, should change the format of the tourney to make it more interesting, once mirror civs is a must imo, and add something like the paladin cup would be so fun!
-Before each series in that lapse of waiting time for the audience would be nice to display a short or part of a recorded interview of the two players playing that day or the casters explaining who they are and that they tell a bit more about the game and themselves as persons. Something like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpUBa9XmCYQ a "fun fact about the game" or a "did you know that...?" would give it a jump in quality that will attract many more viewers, just like the overlay and the addition of wireless mics did. All those small details make it look much more professional and this would be a great improvement too, I believe.


This is what made me turn off:
Drunk players casting and not caring too much about the game, making some non-sensical comments. I sometimes felt they were the only ones laughing at their jokes which was kinda weird for a stream with 6k+ viewers...

This was my favorite moment:
Also the 11k. It was splendid!

General notes/ what I also wanted to say:
Thank you for this great tourney! GGs n.n

 

[USC_kiky]

Thank you for organizing this great tournament! I definitely love every moment of it especially when Viper played seriously.

I am not disappointed by the one-sided match between Viper and Lierrey at all, but I can see that many viewers have a different opinion. Therefore I am proposing a way to make it more competitive, using Handicap [reference], which is a standard way in Go to judge the gap between two players . To apply the rule of Handicap to AoE, an idea that comes to me is adjusting the starting time for the players.

Supposedly you declare that you would reward the two finalists with a total prize of $X (in your case X=8k), you can partition it into two different proportion depending on how dominant the winner of the grand final is. Firstly let them play a standard Bo5, and assume that Player A wins. Then let them play another set of Bo5, but postpone the starting time of Player A by 10 seconds, while allowing Player B to have the normal start (at the very first second). If in the 2nd set of Bo5 Player B beats Player A, then we can conclude that Player A is better than Player B by no more than 10 seconds, and maybe award Player A 60% of X and Player B 40% of X. If in the 2nd set of Bo5 Player A still beats Player B, they can continue to play the 3rd set of Bo5, in which Player A can't click anything until the 20th second while Player B can start from the very beginning of the game. If Player A fails to defend on this 3rd set of Bo5, we consider him better than Player B by more than 10 seconds but no more than 20 seconds, and you can reward him 75% of X and Player B 25% of X, so on and forth. No matter how good Player A is, he will lose to Player B at some point, but we can see the potential of Player A, and reward him/her accordingly. Viewers will get hyped since everyone is curious how dominant Player A, aka TheViper is, and Mr. Viper will (hopefully) be motivated by this proportionally distributed prize. If you think 10 seconds is a lot, you can use 5 seconds as a step.

 

[Der Zorn Gottes]

This is what I liked in this event:

I really really liked the mappool.

This is what made me tune in:

Well, toplevel AoE Gameplay? Also, MBL!

This is what I think could be improved:

Maybe generally have one caster and one player casting? Two players together sometimes was lacking.

This is what made me turn off:

Viper leading X:0 once again.

This was my favorite moment:

Nili giving the audience the "angry look" during the drunken interview disaster.