Thanks to all the players and staff for making the best of what they had. These tournament finals were definitely very strange to say the least, and I think it was handled well. Personally, I thought these streams were the best AOC streams I've ever seen. I was a huge fan of the old school streams when the caster had to spectate a players point of view because the content was so much more strategy oriented. This was probably the first time since Dreams casted the BO21's from a few years ago that we consistently had such strategy oriented casting. Nelson and Nilpherd did a great job casting, and many thanks to all of the players for sacrificing some of their "time in paradise" to commentate on their own games. Extra thanks to Viper and Jordan for dedicating so many hours to it in addition to their playing. If you notice in many of the expert commentaries, they are frequently asking the mouse controller to check on more than just the army. Things such as checking TC's, checking buildings for production frequency, discussing what is going on in the players minds when deciding between upgrades or army, or to idle their tc, or their building placement. However, I realize that this may just be the way I prefer to see games, so I'll say that I'm just pointing out my preference.
Lastly, it seemed that there was a general consensus among the players (that just so happens to be in line with my thoughts) that some of the settings for major tournaments are not in the best interest of the players or viewers. Obviously there have been many complaints about no TC start maps in tournaments, but I will leave those alone because they are the preferred maps of our current AOC major sponsors, and I absolutely think that those donors should get what they pay for. Instead, I am talking more about water maps, and I think there was general agreement of the players that they only pick them because they have an advantage. A map that tones down strategy to a maximum in an RTS game is a map that doesn't reflect the battle of skill very well, so their elimination, or at least limitation should be discussed in the future. If I were to guess why they are included, I would say that as AOC and tournaments have evolved over the past few years (many thanks to the affortmentioned major donors and AOC staff) we have adopted the use of a standard Arabia game to start followed by a series of home maps. Those home maps are being picked strategically by the players based not on their skill, but their relative skill. And sadly, the picking of the maps involves more strategy than the games themselves. I'm talking of course about the very fast grush maps such as Rooster and Team Islands. These maps require very fast buildups and micro intensive galley fighting, but don't have a lot of options for other starts (such as an early landing), and rarely feature any army composition besides the galley line.
That said, thanks once again to Taff, Gennette, Nilly, Nelson, Memb, Katsuni, and to all of the players as well. I also hope that the more strategy focused casting will become more popular.
Lastly, it seemed that there was a general consensus among the players (that just so happens to be in line with my thoughts) that some of the settings for major tournaments are not in the best interest of the players or viewers. Obviously there have been many complaints about no TC start maps in tournaments, but I will leave those alone because they are the preferred maps of our current AOC major sponsors, and I absolutely think that those donors should get what they pay for. Instead, I am talking more about water maps, and I think there was general agreement of the players that they only pick them because they have an advantage. A map that tones down strategy to a maximum in an RTS game is a map that doesn't reflect the battle of skill very well, so their elimination, or at least limitation should be discussed in the future. If I were to guess why they are included, I would say that as AOC and tournaments have evolved over the past few years (many thanks to the affortmentioned major donors and AOC staff) we have adopted the use of a standard Arabia game to start followed by a series of home maps. Those home maps are being picked strategically by the players based not on their skill, but their relative skill. And sadly, the picking of the maps involves more strategy than the games themselves. I'm talking of course about the very fast grush maps such as Rooster and Team Islands. These maps require very fast buildups and micro intensive galley fighting, but don't have a lot of options for other starts (such as an early landing), and rarely feature any army composition besides the galley line.
That said, thanks once again to Taff, Gennette, Nilly, Nelson, Memb, Katsuni, and to all of the players as well. I also hope that the more strategy focused casting will become more popular.