Community Question: Watching Multiplayer Matches

[badman]

Competitive play has been part of multiplayer games from the very beginning, with individuals and clans contesting everything from flags and skulls to bomb sites and entire hills. These days, online tournaments and matches of note are often available to be watched live via streams or TV clients, or can be viewed after the fact by way of video-on-demand or demo recordings.

This week's Community Question seeks to find out how many of you have ever actually taken advantage of either form of match coverage, for any game out there (no matter what genre!):

How often do you watch live streams or recordings of multiplayer matches?

To cast your vote, head on over to this week's Community Question poll and tick the appropriate options there. Also, if you can think of any stand-out examples of match coverage, either built directly into a game or provided by a third party, post them up in the comments.

Thanks Community!

[tokamak]

These days a replay site like www.sc2replayed.com is essential for multiplayer games.

[Ruben0s]

voted:

I sometimes watch live match streams
I sometimes watch on-demand match recordings

I also watched brink livestreams when it got released. And I have to say that the lack of 1st person spectator view made it pretty boring.
ETTV is way better.

Another thing that I would love to see in your next game is a proper console, the one of ET is imo one of the best I have seen in games. I use it all the time to chat with other persons, record demo's, change config variables, admin commands, look back kills, etc etc. Most modern games don't have this, which is really a shame.

[Humate]

Great question!

Actually I've watched more games played by other players, than my own in the last year or so.
Ive watched the GSL, TSL3, IPL3, MLG (the last 3 tournaments), DreamHack(Valencia & Winter) and NASL2 for StarCraft II. Whats actually nice about this is, I actually suck terribly at the game. I dont watch to learn, I watch for entertainment.

For ETQW I played on TV quite a bit since we always made the Semi Finals and Grand Finals every season.
From a players standpoint, it just elevates the games intensity, and I tend to play better when the game is more meaningful. From a spectators standpoint, its nice to be able to control the player you want to watch, both in first person and third person view. And its nice to be able to chat about the cool moments with everyone. With streaming you only have chat.

As for demo recording, I always watched my own demos after comp matches to see where I could improve.
I was never really concerned about watching how other players play the game, even when they offered their demos to the community. However I would probably be more inclined to watch how other ppl played, if their perspective was automatically recorded within the demo.

[.Chris.]

Sometimes on all three option, depends if someone I know if playing or not.

[INF3RN0]

Who doesn't like to watch people play a game to its maximum? I don't get super excited, but I do enjoy watching pro-level game play and witnessing a future frag movie live ;); plus you learn a lot too.

[MoonOnAStick]

I voted for sometimes watch on-demand and sometimes watch TV-clients.

I only watch games that I (have) play(ed) and usually only if the commentary is good. The exception to this is Quake 3/Live duels, which I never played much but Greased Scotsman's commentary is pretty infectious. (Stayed up to watch the Quakecon knock-out matches live this year, how sad is that? )

A dedicated TV server doesn't seem as necessary these days, given how easy it is to stream live over the internet. But you do need good (first-person) viewing tools and a spectator HUD to make the most of any action.

[light_sh4v0r]

I love the concept op live coverage and TV servers with shoutcasts, unfortunately you can't watch these at a time you prefer. I spent a lot of time watching vods, but if tehre's a match casted on a TV server and I know of it I will be there to watch it.

[DarkangelUK]

I'd rather watch a live stream from a website than go to a TV server. I don't really care about having my own spectator controls, i'd rather sit back and watch the match with commentary like a TV event and speak to people watching the same thing on IRC or a chat room on the website. I have used TV servers but the last time was probably ETQW and even that was quite a while ago.

[tokamak]

Agreed. But you still need the ability to have both, that way you can have different shoutcasters (of different nationalities) broadcast the same live event.

[Apocalypse_Pony]

Voted sometimes for all, as I don't so much anymore, but I would catch ET:QW TV anytime I could. It was simply the best way to watch a match. I miss that and Greased.

[SockDog]

I enjoy watching the L4D commentary VODs and I don't even play versus. I agree with Tok, there needs to be tools to do all these things.

[INF3RN0]

Let's not forget also that there are plenty of folks out there who would develop these things for free/dirt cheap. A community is sometimes the best tool for the "non-essential" features.

[SockDog]

Let's not forget also that there are plenty of folks out there who would develop these things for free/dirt cheap. A community is sometimes the best tool for the "non-essential" features.

Very true, yet the problem stems from what is deemed non-essential. IMO these things are polish and round off a product, by all means let modders come along an improve or even replace them later but to leave them out entirely from release causes a big gap which can gobble up your player retention.

[INF3RN0]

Very true, yet the problem stems from what is deemed non-essential. IMO these things are polish and round off a product, by all means let modders come along an improve or even replace them later but to leave them out entirely from release causes a big gap which can gobble up your player retention.

I added quotations for that exact reason. I find such features to be very much essential, but if otherwise there is always another means of making them an official part of the game on release. The SD community has a good handful of competent modders that care about the games enough to do most all of their work for free !

[SockDog]

I added quotations for that exact reason. I find such features to be very much essential, but if otherwise there is always another means of making them an official part of the game on release. The SD community has a good handful of competent modders that care about the games enough to do most all of their work for free !

Sorry, I totally missed that!

I do wonder, and I'm not being bitchy here, if SD actually expect this. That being the community to finish off the features. I think my greatest disappointment with Brink was the apparent two steps back they took compared to ETQW on polish, the one thing I really thought they would have nailed is avoiding the six months of patches and features, it hurt with ETQW (apparently also on a financial scale for SD) but totally destroyed Brink.

I honestly think that if SD doesn't feel these periphery items are essential (read: properly budgeted for time and money rather than appearing on a nice to have list) then perhaps they need to look at the products they're creating, to be content to release a stunning B+ game than a incomplete AAA one.

[SebaSOFT]

@badman I think the poll question will not give you a lot of information due the people that care to answer. My opinion is that replay capabilities are right if youre looking for the hardcore competitive scene. Right things for the right customers.

[SockDog]

@badman I think the poll question will not give you a lot of information due the people that care to answer. My opinion is that replay capabilities are right if youre looking for the hardcore competitive scene. Right things for the right customers.

You're thinking this backwards. It's been a tool for the competitive scene because they're the ones who get most from their investment learning and dealing with the demo/recording tools. If the tools were more accessible more users would use them.

[tokamak]

Indeed. The competitive scene is becoming more mainstream in that more and more people start to enjoy watching professional matches being played.

[Dthwsh]

Demo playback isn't just locked to Competitive play, it's also a good way of finding cheats.