Gauging interest for regular PVP tournament series (cash / equiv prizes)

[mutekigg.4561]

So, in order to minimize risk of breaking any rules here I'm not going to start by advertising the details yet, but mainly gathering information at this point.

 

The short version is: launching a new esports focused website / league that will host regular tournaments in a series of games. One of the games under consideration is GW2. As part of this, I'm trying to dive in and get a good grasp of the current competitive space.

 

The short pitch of what we're planning to offer in general is:

A website where you register your account and your team for a given game

Regularly scheduled match-ups, with cash (or cash equivalent) prizes each tournament

A point systems where the leading teams compete at the end of the series for larger prizes

 

So... basically the exact expectation of an esports league.

 

Now, the questions part...

1. Is there enough interest in watching a tournament such as this? I understand you as a forum audience can't answer overall, but it would be good to get an idea of current viewership of these kinds of things.

2. If you were to want to compete, what would your preferred frequency be? Really it's between every week, every other week, or once per month (and based on that, would determine who long each series is).

 

And before it comes up... yes I'm aware of the news of the past week and the doubts that's casting over things, but it doesn't change the fact that the game still has a decent audience and the potential for engaging tournaments.

 

To ArenaNet / moderators - I tried to keep this free of any rule-breakers here (not advertising the details / linking out) - please let me know if there are any edits needed...

[bluri.2653]

I pulled off a peak of 1k plus viewers alone streaming monthly at.

 

Make sure that you get casters that knows wtf they talking about.

 

A good tip could be to copy how go4 esl was. If ur unsure i can explain.

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

@"mutekigg.4561"

 

1. Conquest matches are hard to watch and they are hard to cover for shout-casters due to the nature of 3 node game play and how the spectator mode works. Only one node can be viewed by the shout-caster at any given point in time, yet this does not cover the larger team play that is happening amongst 3 nodes collectively. This results in the shout-casters ricocheting around the nodes for footage and commentary, but never really being able to point out the map as a whole, and what is actually happening regarding each team's current "plan" or "play" that is in motion, and why succeeded or why it failed. So for viewers, even very experienced players who are viewing, it sort of feels like if you were made to watch an American football game where the commentators never had the time or intel to be able to explain the attempted plays that were happening, and they didn't have a camera above the field to show the entire field all at once. So we can imagine how confusing a football game would be when the footage only ever shows very small zoomed in portions of a play but never the full play, and the commentators never had breaks in between plays to be able explain to viewers what happened. <- This is exactly what watching GW2 Conquest feels like, when a single shout-caster is trying to cover every player on two teams, by himself, in a live feed. Single streamers who only stream themselves in a match, are much easier to watch. The viewers need only to understand the build/job role that the streamer is performing within the team, and then they can engage in the excitement of the match with the streamer by focusing on his sole performance. The reason I bring up this point, is that if you are serious about covering a new pro scene project, you're going to need to find a new & innovative way to cover the matches in tournament. Because the old method just doesn't work out so well for the reasons I mentioned above. Although I feel that shout-casters such as Jebro have done a fantastic job with the content they were given to work with, it is widely agreed upon that GW2 Conquest match coverage is just rough to watch. Here is an idea for you, if you want better coverage: Have 3 separate people record a given match, they don't even need to be live streamers. Each person is dedicated to covering the action near a single node that they are appointed to, and they are not focusing on talking at this point, only camera angles. When the match is complete, the 3 people who recorded the footage can send the footage to a person like Jebro who knows the game, who is good at commentary. This person can now go over the footage and EDIT it post-game, capturing everything that is important, and will have plenty of time in an edit, to explain what is actually happening in that match, why things succeeded and why things failed, just like a proper football game coverage. Hell, that kind of coverage would even be the best tutorial a new player could get their hands on. They can even speed up or slow down footage, to show clutch moments that normally go unnoticed. Hey, it might not be a live feed, but this kind of edit the day after, would in my opinion be a much more engaging watch than the rough GW2 Conquest coverage we get now. Or you know, you could do both. Have a live feed on night of tournament, post a triple edit next day on youtube that is more detailed coverage. But to answer your question directly, I personally don't go out of my way to view these Conquest matches anymore unless I happen to not be participating in the tournament, and I happen to be sitting down to eat at the time of the tournament, and there isn't much else to watch. The reason I feel this way, is for all of the reasons I already explained. It's just rough to watch GW2 Conquest with the current methods of single shout-casted live feed coverage.

2. I would love to compete in something new like this, and I can assure you that many others feel the exact same way. I don't think you're going to have too many problems finding players who will show up to a new cash reward scene. Something like what you're talking about might actually bring old pro players back to this game. I think the frequency of your tournaments is really more up to you than the player base. If people are gonna sign in and play 1 or 2 ATs a day, never miss the monthly, it's probably safe to say that you could run a tournament each weekend, and plenty of players would show up. However, one thing to point out is that now after the release of ATs, players are growing used to the "Ease" of being in an automated tournament. What I mean is, it's so much more convenient to let the server sort everything out and make the matches, while the players just sit an wait for que. When the tournaments are all ran by hand, by actual players, the organization time gets kind of crazy when many players enter and actually show up. You can talk to the old Academy Gaming crew about that. I myself have helped & ran a handful of tournaments for the community over the years, and I can tell you that if you want to do this by hand, you're going to need 4 to 6 custom arenas ready to go, and a handful of willing admins to help whisper players and call them into the appropriate place that they need to be. And no matter how hard you try to make this go smoothly, it just never does. If you're talking cash rewards, there are going to be a lot of people who enter, and the tournaments are going to run for very long amounts of time, due to organization time, which entails many hiccups that just simply cannot be described here in a short summary. I mean you're gonna get 20+ teams that join let's say, and that is seriously going to be like a 6 hour tournament, from the start of organizational time before round 1, all the way to the end of the final round. The problem here is that people start losing interest in this stuff because the amount of time that they have to sit down and dedicate is just too long. Again, now after AT release, people have seen how much faster tournaments run when the server is handling all of this, and I believe this will in the long term, cause issues with players losing interest in large tournaments that are ran by hand. I think that if you are serious about a new pro scene, you should contact Arenanet about partnership, and possibly getting them to work with you, to host your tournaments through their AT system. I don't even know if that's possible, but that's what I would do if I wanted a larger project to be successful.

 

I apologize for the text wall, but there was a lot that needed to be said here.

 

[mutekigg.4561]

> @"bluri.2653" said:

> I pulled off a peak of 1k plus viewers alone streaming monthly at.

>

> Make sure that you get casters that knows kitten they talking about.

>

> A good tip could be to copy how go4 esl was. If ur unsure i can explain.

 

the go4 stuff is definitely something we've been keeping an eye on...

 

> @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> (trimming because wow lots of comments)

 

THANK YOU. This is all great feedback.

The difficulty of following a live-stream is something we're aware of across a number of games, and have been considering a mix of live streaming at the time, as well as a sort of multi-cam / edited final product similar to what you mentioned. Different games come with different challenges (WoW arenas for instance, when watching from some angles just look like people running in circles until the druid dies) and with some experimentation on a per-game basis we're confident we'll get something in place that's enjoyable to watch without feeling overly manic.

 

As for having the tournaments be too large, that (plus the no-show problem caused by free-to-enter's inherent lack of commitment) is something we're still working on a plan for.

[Patrick.2987]

Game has become even more viewerunfriendly, many players left already and balance and powercreep is off the charts. Better look out for a decent game.

[Swagg.9236]

The game is an absolute mess to shoutcast, and it is difficult to watch unless one is already rather familiar with the esoteric nature of how combat works in GW2. It'd be pretty difficult to pull in viewers beyond the small core of PvPers who actually still play the game regularly. Moreover, a lot of the most viewed streamers are eternally jaded or salty to one degree or another just due to the nature of PvP in GW2.

[Chapell.1346]

Am dead serious that the Art team have no slight or lack of interest in the game mode itself, i honestly thought that it's not really the communities fault for the lack of networking capabilities. if you're going to ask me and point what is beyond false, i'd say the Marketing team was to blame for not doing their part.

[Eddbopkins.2630]

In stead of 5v5 3cap, how about 3v3 1cap? And the cap wouls move evey 2 min or so.

[shinta.8906]

get those ppl like bluri, jawgeous (cast mATEU), jebro (mATNA), woodenpotatoe on a table. try also getting AnetBen there who is often online on twitch - its gonna be hard to maintain such an idea without anet support. than talk in private on discord and sort things out.

 

the forum esp atm might not be the best place to talk about stuff like that.

[Yannir.4132]

> @"mutekigg.4561" said:

> the go4 stuff is definitely something we've been keeping an eye on...

> > @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> > (trimming because wow lots of comments)

>

> THANK YOU. This is all great feedback.

> The difficulty of following a live-stream is something we're aware of across a number of games, and have been considering a mix of live streaming at the time, as well as a sort of multi-cam / edited final product similar to what you mentioned. Different games come with different challenges (WoW arenas for instance, when watching from some angles just look like people running in circles until the druid dies) and with some experimentation on a per-game basis we're confident we'll get something in place that's enjoyable to watch without feeling overly manic.

>

> As for having the tournaments be too large, that (plus the no-show problem caused by free-to-enter's inherent lack of commitment) is something we're still working on a plan for.

 

How well are you acquainted with the current scene? Are you looking to do a tournament type of event or a league?

The ring of players that could possibly compete at the top is small, I'm certainly not one of those people. But as a potential viewer I'd say this interests me.

 

A few things that came to my mind as I was reading the thread:

 

A. You will have to be very open and communicate to the community on a daily basis through all the available channels(in-game, forums, Reddit, Twitch, YT) to get this thing off the ground. That includes getting streamers/content creators and ANet themselves into the loop. I'd look at Jebro and Jawgeous for shoutcasting, they both have the required game knowledge, and experience with casting. It would be good to have WoodenPotatoes involved as he pulls the biggest audience over all, and could probably be an important channel of information for many people. His involvement would probably be the best kind of marketing you can do. Bluri/Sindrener here is one of the players that belongs in that small circle of players that could actually compete, and a good source of information on the EU side about which players are still playing on the top.

 

B. If you are looking to build a league, you will probably need to make it cross-servers as I think neither region, NA or EU, has enough players to support a competitive league on its own, or separately coming together for a grand final. As you do cross-server matches, there's going to be ping issues for whichever team is visiting the other region. It would be best if individual matches were best-of-3-rounds format but so that Team A and Team B will face off against each other twice, with the home advantage changing for the second match. That's how its done with real sports as well.

 

C. The number of teams should be limited. I don't know the correct number, that's something you'll have to figure out. I'd do this by making the league/tournament invitation only. The mAT's and AT's could be used as indicators, as platforms for screening teams and you could pick team captains that are in charge of putting together that team. Many of those captains will already have a team that they just pull aboard.

 

D. The shoutcaster shouldn't be in control of the cameras. They should be aware where the cameras are going etc but they shouldn't be controlling them. I've noticed that it's a major distraction when casting, deciding which camera angle to use. That's why you need 2 people in a team doing this.

[zoopop.5630]

> @"bluri.2653" said:

> I pulled off a peak of 1k plus viewers alone streaming monthly at.

>

> Make sure that you get casters that knows kitten they talking about.

>

> A good tip could be to copy how go4 esl was. If ur unsure i can explain.

 

I would listen to Bluri hes a former esl champion if not mistaken.

 

Back to the topic, The fact that you are trying to get this going again is pretty amazing imo I would like to support you in anyway possible if need be just let me know in advance.

[zoopop.5630]

> @"Yannir.4132" said:

> > @"mutekigg.4561" said:

> > the go4 stuff is definitely something we've been keeping an eye on...

> > > @"Trevor Boyer.6524" said:

> > > (trimming because wow lots of comments)

> >

> > THANK YOU. This is all great feedback.

> > The difficulty of following a live-stream is something we're aware of across a number of games, and have been considering a mix of live streaming at the time, as well as a sort of multi-cam / edited final product similar to what you mentioned. Different games come with different challenges (WoW arenas for instance, when watching from some angles just look like people running in circles until the druid dies) and with some experimentation on a per-game basis we're confident we'll get something in place that's enjoyable to watch without feeling overly manic.

> >

> > As for having the tournaments be too large, that (plus the no-show problem caused by free-to-enter's inherent lack of commitment) is something we're still working on a plan for.

>

> How well are you acquainted with the current scene? Are you looking to do a tournament type of event or a league?

> The ring of players that could possibly compete at the top is small, I'm certainly not one of those people. But as a potential viewer I'd say this interests me.

>

> A few things that came to my mind as I was reading the thread:

>

> A. You will have to be very open and communicate to the community on a daily basis through all the available channels(in-game, forums, Reddit, Twitch, YT) to get this thing off the ground. That includes getting streamers/content creators and ANet themselves into the loop. I'd look at Jebro and Jawgeous for shoutcasting, they both have the required game knowledge, and experience with casting. It would be good to have WoodenPotatoes involved as he pulls the biggest audience over all, and could probably be an important channel of information for many people. His involvement would probably be the best kind of marketing you can do. Bluri/Sindrener here is one of the players that belongs in that small circle of players that could actually compete, and a good source of information on the EU side about which players are still playing on the top.

>

> B. If you are looking to build a league, you will probably need to make it cross-servers as I think neither region, NA or EU, has enough players to support a competitive league on its own, or separately coming together for a grand final. As you do cross-server matches, there's going to be ping issues for whichever team is visiting the other region. It would be best if individual matches were best-of-3-rounds format but so that Team A and Team B will face off against each other twice, with the home advantage changing for the second match. That's how its done with real sports as well.

>

> C. The number of teams should be limited. I don't know the correct number, that's something you'll have to figure out. I'd do this by making the league/tournament invitation only. The mAT's and AT's could be used as indicators, as platforms for screening teams and you could pick team captains that are in charge of putting together that team. Many of those captains will already have a team that they just pull aboard.

>

> D. The shoutcaster shouldn't be in control of the cameras. They should be aware where the cameras are going etc but they shouldn't be controlling them. I've noticed that it's a major distraction when casting, deciding which camera angle to use. That's why you need 2 people in a team doing this.

 

+1 to this overall but I'll like to Add that certain leagues should be won by a different team. For example If the first league Team A won then they shouldn't go to the next League. Maybe make it 4-5 different type of leagues then have a "world" league where all the winners from the previous league are only invited to enter in.

 

Just something a bit different/better imo.

[Patrick.2987]

> @"zoopop.5630" said:

> > @"bluri.2653" said:

> > I pulled off a peak of 1k plus viewers alone streaming monthly at.

> >

> > Make sure that you get casters that knows kitten they talking about.

> >

> > A good tip could be to copy how go4 esl was. If ur unsure i can explain.

>

> I would listen to Bluri hes a former esl champion if not mistaken.

>

> Back to the topic, The fact that you are trying to get this going again is pretty amazing imo I would like to support you in anyway possible if need be just let me know in advance.

 

And banned on twitch if i am not mistaken.

[Deadlyy.6527]

this game is enjoyable to watch with good commentators. You dont want play by play or color casters, just analysts. Helseth and sind casting is a good example. If you get this I believe it could be a good show

[Daishi.6027]

> @"mutekigg.4561" said:

> 1. Is there enough interest in watching a tournament such as this? I understand you as a forum audience can't answer overall, but it would be good to get an idea of current viewership of these kinds of things.

 

Out of all of the PvP user base very few are interested in watching 5v5 Conquest.

Out of the entire installed user base of GW2 anyone with a fleeting interest is quickly lost when met with the visual noise of 5v5 conquest.

 

Conquest, the structure and way it is now will not be an e-sport. You may get better viewership with 1v1s, 2v2s, or 3v3s but if fights drag on to long people will get bored.

[Flandre.2870]

xxxxxxxxxx

[everyman.4375]

The most important part would probably be the casters, if you get good casters that the community like you're good to go.

(Helseth Sindrener please)

[mutekigg.4561]

Thank you again all of you for your feedback.

The details of how major this would be is still being worked out, and likely a month+ off before anything would happen. We have (as many have noted) questions we still need answers for, and some deals that need to be done.

 

I do believe we could turn this into something interesting for viewers - but as numerous people have called out it's not certain that conquest is the best option.

 

I'll be keeping an eye on this thread and truly do appreciate all of the responses. Will post more details as soon as we have them.

[Elrond.9486]

Watching mAT casts were actually way more exciting than I thought they'd be. That semifinal match in his last tournament stream was hype af

[bluri.2653]

We had a huge cast in 2017 check tournament of groucharoo on youtube. We had 2-2.5k viewers for this

[Asuran.5469]

> @"Flandre.2870" said:

> Don't bother.

> There's a reason all cash prize tournaments died out.

> Lack of interest.

 

No

 

It was about "Was the commercialism being in the ESL still worth it or not?" That's the truth behind it.

[HeadCrowned.6834]

Depends on how much youre willing to invest in it. GW2 is quite unique still, and a more professionalized PvP environment with better incentives to play might be what the game needs currently. I think the game is interesting to watch. Maybe a little harder to understand for general public tho, but with good shoutcasters this can be diminished.

[ParanoidKami.2867]

Would definitely come to watch a GW2 tournament if it had good players and was streamed at 1080p 60fps with a good bitrate. The game is very detailed and when streamed at a low resolution it gets all blurry. Everything on the screen being a blurry mess was one of the main complaints about the old ESL tournaments.

[Tycura.1982]

Anything good for PvP is good for me. ?