Hearthstone Championship Tour - Caster Critique Clarifications
Whirthun took to the Battle.net forums today to talk about casting during the Hearthstone Championship Tour.
- The goal during casting of the HCT is to follow the action and then provide in-depth explanations.
- Casters are allowed to dispute plays to show the audience alternative ways of playing the board.
- Players will be respected by the casters when plays are critiqued.
Quote from WhirthunThere’s been a lot of discussion lately surrounding Hearthstone casting, specifically as it relates to the Hearthstone Championship Tour. We on the Hearthstone team wanted to take a moment to share some of our own thoughts on the matter, in the interest of clarity.
Casting is an extremely important part of our broadcasts. Casting allows for viewers to follow the action as it unfolds, provides insight into what motivates specific lines of play, and helps to create an engaging experience that offers illumination into the important narratives surrounding the Hearthstone Championship Tour and its competitors.
Our audience is a diverse one that watches our tournaments for many different reasons. While some players are extremely invested in Hearthstone and spend many hours a week reaching the very highest Legend ranks, many players play substantially less and have a different understanding of what defines high level play. One of our goals with the Hearthstone Championship Tour is to present the action in detail as it happens, and then follow up with in-depth explanations, spelling out exactly what happened, and why it’s important to that particular match. We believe that accessibility will contribute to a dynamic, growing scene that’s always attracting new audiences to enjoy both the game and its competitive aspect.
To that end, we want to clear up a specific misconception. Casters are absolutely allowed to dispute lines of play. Hearthstone matches are often won by the slimmest of margins, and pointing out where players had the opportunity to make stronger plays is important. What we have stressed to our casters at points is the manner in which critiques are presented; we want to ensure that all players are afforded respect, and that our broadcasts reflect the upbeat and positive nature of the Hearthstone universe.
We are constantly learning, iterating on, and working towards improving our broadcasts. The Hearthstone Championship Tour is entirely new to 2016, and while we’re confident that we’ve made some great strides over the course of the Winter and Spring seasons, we recognize that there’s still room for improvement. Community feedback is important to us, so please continue to share it. Our goal, as with many of our competitive players, is to continue improving and creating the best content we can.
As a reply to people wondering why this announcement was made, it was partly due to this: https://frodan.com/2016/07/03/casting-call-2-the-current-state-of-hearthstone-casting-and-why-its-sorely-lacking/
...which followed a wider discussion that was taking place earlier on Reddit.
Я ебал твоего деда в дахао , сын спидозной шлюхи . Где блять нормальные карты АЛО , МУДАК!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Did something happen in one those tournaments? Why did they make this post? I am so confused right now.
anyone got fired tho?
Eh, could be taken either one of two ways:
1) Blizzard is doing a CYA [Cover Your Ass] for their casters because some very vocal noob in the community had a hissy fit when their favorite player was called out on a valid issue
2) Blizzard is doing a CYA for themselves and setting the bar for the casters so they can get rid of casters incase they stop being effective.
Strange, but not the end of the world.
Agree
Please, bigger spaces between paragraphs. I am still able to scroll through it to go to the next comment eventually.
I agree with you, but unfortunately, we live in a time when things like YouTube subscriber counts and number of Twitter followers are more important to companies than education and experience. You can see this everywhere online, especially in the online journalism and news. Websites will commonly pass on applicants with actual journalism degrees and professional writing experience, in favor of kids with a built-in social media following...
This is one of the reason why it seems like the news sucks everywhere on the Web, because so many of those writers don't have a formal education in writing or journalism. (And there's more to a journalism degree than just learning how to write; it's also about ethics, objectivity and recognizing newsworthiness.) So we've got all these kids doing all these related jobs under the banner of "content creators," but most of them never learned how to produce quality content.
@msterian
i copy paste from notepad, since hearthpwn website is utter trash for trying to type into the webpage for me. I copy paste which results in the bigger spacing for some hearthpwn related reason, sorry you had to scroll(i'm really not), maybe invest in a better mousewheel. i hear all web pages scroll. you probably type 10wpm versus my 80 so don't notice how trash their site is to try and type in for forum posts.
Are they responding to some critique on how dry the championship casting has been? I understand now why the casters were giving play by plays without any analysis because they were going for the lowest common denominator. Pretty boring though.
God i loathe this company more and more by the day, being this obsessed with not offending a poor little soul that you have to make a big ass statement, letting people know that casters are allowed to call misplays when they happen, serious stuff. What happened to you Blizzard ?
I have watched SeatStory Cup V and 90% looked ok for me.
( I usually rank 10-5 each month depending on my free time. I have never been legend )
This is probably because it were actual competitive players who casted games of other competitive players.
There were also jokes about cards, meta, strategies and that was really making me laugh in some moments.
If Blizzards could stick same approach - that would be brilliant.
no offense but this is exactly how it is. in a "normal" sport the commentators have rules they have to follow. a sports commentator for the nba/nfl/soccer/whatever absolutely has lines that they aren't allowed to cross. they also get paid for their hard work, and in many cases become a face or a representative for the game. why would you expect any less?
I read it all 3 times and I still don't understand WTF they're talking about.
What is exactly is the problem? And what did they do about it? kek...was this written by the same guy that authorized 7 patches per week?
Also I don't see why all players should automatically be respected by casters...respect must be earned. Giving away all this free respect wll make your society weak and prone to invasion.
You are thinking of a different meaning for "respect". Respect might sometimes mean Admiration. But the respect mentioned here means Politeness. They are allowed to critique the players, as it is part of casting, but they are supposed to do it in a polite manner. That's what they meant when saying Respect.
Some casters do not even know the meta and nuances. They give the impression that they quit HS half a year ago. They are just there and the only reason is; they were there before. That results in rank 15 lvl commentary and me muting the stream. And some of them mistreat, misbehave against relatively newly known players. Blizzard should select the broadcasters very carefully.
I haven't seen any of the HCT but I can't imagine why Blizzard felt it necessary to clarify this.
If I'm watching (any) sport on TV and someone fucks up, the commentators will highlight it. Why should be it any different in e-sports? Part of the enjoyment for me, as I'm sure it is for many others, is having the casters explain and debate amongst themselves what they consider to be the correct line of play, especially in complex situations where there are many possible outcomes.
But perhaps this is a sad indictment of the Blizzard community as a whole that this "issue" needs to be highlighted by a blue post.