Becoming an E-Sport

[Captain Davy Jones]

QWERTY's stream wasn't up but I watched one of his commentaries/spectating games on youtube, and almost all of it was an extremely zoomed out view of the ships flying around shooting each other. This made it extremely uninteresting and got bored within minutes. I think that it's ok to zoom out this far sometimes, but i think the majority of the time the camera should be focused closer to the ships, and maybe locked to them.  I think it will be pretty difficult to develop a good way to show everyone the full scope of the battle, while making it close up.

Just came up with a possible idea (may not be plausible but i'll state it anyway) : Maybe allow spectators to run around on ships of their choosing so they can view battles as if they were on the ship (which they basically are) while remaining invisible to the actually players.

Also it could be cool to keep a constant status of each teams ships on each side of the screen (similar to how spectating works in certain mobas where you see one teams heroes/health/items on one side and the other teams heroes/health/items on the other). 

[HamsterIV]

Qwerty is one man, catering to what was until last weekend a rather niche community. For major Esport coverage Muse would have to find a way of recording a match such that a single user could pause and rewind to view the action and all the variables from every angle, or there to be enough "Camera Men" to record the action on each ship and a director who can swap between channels to bring the best coverage.

[Papa Paradox]

I <3 eSports, which is definitely the kind of spectator event Qwerty is trying to make the COGs.

[Nidh]

Just came up with a possible idea (may not be plausible but i'll state it anyway) : Maybe allow spectators to run around on ships of their choosing so they can view battles as if they were on the ship (which they basically are) while remaining invisible to the actually players.

Sounds like you just want to play the game. I find the overall battle more interesting to watch, because it shows positioning and tactics much better.

[Captain Davy Jones]

Just came up with a possible idea (may not be plausible but i'll state it anyway) : Maybe allow spectators to run around on ships of their choosing so they can view battles as if they were on the ship (which they basically are) while remaining invisible to the actually players.

Sounds like you just want to play the game. I find the overall battle more interesting to watch, because it shows positioning and tactics much better.

Was talking about casters, not me.

[GrimWinter]

Just came up with a possible idea (may not be plausible but i'll state it anyway) : Maybe allow spectators to run around on ships of their choosing so they can view battles as if they were on the ship (which they basically are) while remaining invisible to the actually players.

I disagree with this part from a spectating commentating standpoint. You don't want to limit the screen to having feet on the ground and slow down/limit the possible angles and shots. It'd be better to just use a more open camera in pretty much every situation (not sure how the ship-specific camera works right now, I believe it is just locked to rotate around the ship at a closer view). The ship view camera right now is pretty good, letting you get an easy free roam view of an entire ship would be nice but I think it would be too tedious to do during a match when you're commentating.

[Urz]

Just came up with a possible idea (may not be plausible but i'll state it anyway) : Maybe allow spectators to run around on ships of their choosing so they can view battles as if they were on the ship (which they basically are) while remaining invisible to the actually players.

I disagree with this part from a spectating commentating standpoint. You don't want to limit the screen to having feet on the ground and slow down/limit the possible angles and shots. It'd be better to just use a more open camera in pretty much every situation (not sure how the ship-specific camera works right now, I believe it is just locked to rotate around the ship at a closer view). The ship view camera right now is pretty good, letting you get an easy free roam view of an entire ship would be nice but I think it would be too tedious to do during a match when you're commentating.

One thing I could see as being pretty rad, as a significantly advanced spectator feature, is a picture-in-picture player cam. If a ship is being gunned down, for instance, pop up a small window on the lower quadrant of each side with the player-perspective of attacking gunner and defending engineer.

[Papa Paradox]

One thing I could see as being pretty rad, as a significantly advanced spectator feature, is a picture-in-picture player cam. If a ship is being gunned down, for instance, pop up a small window on the lower quadrant of each side with the player-perspective of attacking gunner and defending engineer.

That would be so difficult XD, I mean if you're talking in game implementation, even if it was the casters, they'd still need a studio lol.

[Urz]

One thing I could see as being pretty rad, as a significantly advanced spectator feature, is a picture-in-picture player cam. If a ship is being gunned down, for instance, pop up a small window on the lower quadrant of each side with the player-perspective of attacking gunner and defending engineer.

That would be so difficult XD, I mean if you're talking in game implementation, even if it was the casters, they'd still need a studio lol.

If we did get to the point where being considered "esports" was realistic, tournaments would probably have a dedicated observer who controlled the broadcast's camera.

[Squash]

Every time I visit this forum I read the topic as "Becoming an escort"

[Morbie]

Every time I visit this forum I read the topic as "Becoming an escort"

I'm sure we could arrange something for you, Squash

[kpenguin]

Every time I visit this forum I read the topic as "Becoming an escort"

That'd be a fun costume piece.

[Lord Dick Tim]

Way to completely derail the topic squash.  Lol, escort.

Anyways, I love what I've been reading here, and some players have taken lengths to promote the game using prizes and saw some success, yet it was also identified that the majority of them showed up for the shinnies then split soon after to never be seen again.
What would keep the competition going?
The cogs has some nasty matches, and the teams that fight in it love it, what we might need is a lighter version, like some of the tourneys players are trying to organize, with smaller crew size restrictions to allow for AI slots, or even wild card ship pairings.

[Arthem White]

Aside from spectating support, I think a major step towards esport territory would be working heavily on the matchmaking system. Currently it's far too basic, and heavily depends on both teams being good-willed and cooperative. if this game truly reaches a bigger audience, all that is going down the drain. There would be griefers, queue droppers, ghosting and all that.

Things I would love to see in this regard:

1- Join as a team. This is just pure quality of life. Let me put together a party and join games in batch, all of us in the same ship(s).
2- Rank based matchmaking (as part of ranked games) backed by a ELO system or whatever.
3- Not seeing what your enemy is picking on the preparation screen.
4- Leaver punishment (sensible punishment obviously, but it is necessary). I really like how Smite does this, and I would do it similarly: There is a passive bonus that keeps compounding as far as you never leave a game, until 100%, in which case it gives you a substantial reward in points after each game. If you leave once it resets to 0 and puts you on a rejoin cooldown.
5- Reward system aside from achievements, such as costumes, flags or ship decals for reaching higher leagues.

[HamsterIV]

Rankings and Reward systems foster a type of competitiveness that does not mesh well with the nature of the current GOI community. I can be cursing the enemy ships and preying for their deaths in game, but the moment we are back in lobby we are all friends again, and can talk about what we did right and wrong. I have advised captains on the other team on what mistakes they made on their ship loadout. I have left fantastically coordinated teams to balance the sides in the name of fair play. I do this because nothing is at stake except how much people are enjoying the game. The more people enjoy the game the further we will be from ghost town the original GOI multiplayer lobbies became.