by JR Cook - 9 years ago     show comments

Hearthstone is a pretty fun game by itself, just the numbers and cool abilities, different heroes, and the ever changing metagame. Even if some might regard to it as “casual”, Hearthstone has enough meat to it to keep an avid theorycrafter busy for days. But ever since Blizzcon, I’ve become pretty interested with other side of Hearthstone, and that’s its E-Sport potential. I’ve spent plenty of hours not only watching and enjoying, but also analyzing every aspect of Hearthstone’s e-Sport aspect.

One of the first things I want to talk about in Hearthstone doesn’t have anything to do with the game itself. Instead it is all about how the show is presented to us at home, today we’ll discuss things such as stream quality, overlays, casters, interviews, etc.

Casters

If watched Sports are all you are familiar with Sportcasters, the announce team, the commentators. You’ve also noticed that many of the duos consist of a Play-by-play and a color guy, and that’s not the only trend. Whether you look at pairings like Al Michaels and John Madden, Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg, or Jim Ross and Jerry “The King” Lawler. You’ll see that the Play-by-play guy is usually more of a straight man with journalistic experience and going along the company line, meanwhile the color guy role tends to be favored by former sportsmen and people with deep experience on the field. Of course, that’s not always the case, but it is a proven formula.

In Hearthstone, the casters are mainly famous pro players, twitch personalities, and how can we forget the almighty Ben Brode. You can see how this starts to fit the mold as Pro-Players and Game Designers could be an easy fit as the color guys, but one thing I’m missing is a true play-by-play guy.

One of things I really like about our weekly show, Hearthstone Power Hour, is that Twizz has pretty cool voice for hosting. And I think that finding someone like that has a very positive impact on how a show can be perceived. All the Hearthstone knowledge on the world isn’t going to make for a good watch if the casters are talking over each other, they simply won’t be enjoyable if they can’t control the flow of their announcing. Plus, these tournaments usually run pretty long, so bonus points for having a pleasant voice at the helm. Thick Accents can be an issue too, the Hearthstone community has people from all over the world, and many of us have English as our second or even third language. I understand that diversity is all the rage right now, but if I’m going to be listening to someone for hours at the time, I really want to understand him clearly. Personally, I’d made a horrible Hearthstone Caster because as a Latin American my English is pretty rough, and also I’m not that knowledgeable about the competitive scene.

But even if subpar English might be a detriment, it doesn’t have to be a deal breaker. If you have a really good and popular international player that wants to cast your event, you gotta understand his strengths and weaknesses as a broadcaster and be conscious of who you are pairing him up with. With a bit of luck you can create the right balance, where both members of the announce booth cover for each other’s deficiencies.

Casting is a pretty big part of the Hearthstone e-Sport experience, and it is something that shouldn’t be neglected.

Looks, Backgrounds, and Overlays

While there’s a big distinction between Lan and Online events, you still want to have your event look good. Sure, not every organizer can afford a beautiful set like what we saw at the Blizzcon World Championships but there’s still a lot of measures that can be taken to make sure your event looks both awesome and professional. Your caster don’t necessarily need to wear a dress shirt and a tie, but having a T-shirt two sizes too big and looking like your sleep deprived and/or high is not a good look for anyone.

Also, casting from a set makes a big different than casting from home. Even if the event is only, having both of the casters on the same physical space makes the event look more important, even if its just a homemade hearthstone themed set, it definitely beats the old webcam in the bedroom look. If getting your casters on a decent set is not an option, at least make sure their are casting against a neat background, even a green screen would be acceptable, specially if you can doctor in a better background.

But casters and interviewers looking and acting professional is just half the battle, you need to fine tune your production values all over the place. Clean overlays that clearly identify each player, his decks, and are aesthetically pleasing can go a long way towards making or breaking an event. And while these might sound like nitpicking, but its the little details that spring you from good to great.

Finally, if you are going to use pre-taped interviews to hype the players, make sure the quality is up to par, the questions are actually relevant, and that they are the appropriate time.

Technical Issues

There’s a wide array of technical issues that sadly tend to rear their ugly head and detract from what would otherwise would be a fine evening of card playing. Please tick down the ones that you have experienced:

• Lag
• Audio sync issues
• Poor turn transitions
• Casters randomly disconnecting
• Poor volume balance
• Not enough microphones
• Losing one of the players feed mid-match
• Listing the wrong players on the standings
• Spectators highlighting cards and blocking view from the hand

It might seem like the smallest of things, but when you can’t get the smallest of things right, you look super amateurish. Sure, accidents can happen to everyone, but please lets have these things be accidents and not the norm.

Send your Goblins and Gnomes to the tech room and make sure that all systems are working perfectly so your event is as successful as it can be.

Protect Your Reputation

Do you really want to be remembered as the tournament organizer that is known for having poor production values? I know that reading twitch chat can make you pick up a number of infectious diseases, and that every time you log onto reddit your life expectancy drops a few days, but it’s very important to find viewer feedback on what works, what doesn’t, and what has to be fixed ASAP.

You are not the Only One

There’s a lot of Hearthstone action going, lots of tournament, and lot of valuable experience. But its not only Hearthstone, you can check every kind of e-Sports, and even traditional Sports , don’t be ashamed to inspire yourself on the tried and proven formulas.

Build your Brand

Recycling the best elements from both friends and competition is just a really heads up play, but never discount the importance of having something to set you apart from the rest; you really don’t want to be seen as a clone or copycat, do you? Without innovation the product stagnates and for a young discipline such as Hearthstone there’s really a lot of space to be explored before we find out what the best is. Will you come out with a new format that will change the way we perceive Hearthstone E-sports forever?

Presentation is very important, but not the only defining factor. Come back next week when we take a look at Tournament Formats and their effect on Hearthstone as an e-Sport.