Battles are chaotic by definition, LoL is chaotic when the 2 full groups are fighting, and commentator are going everywhere when it happen, their skill are to focus on the interesting part of the group strategy not into details, and i don't think its bad, its part of the game. Dueling would be an other matter, but not 5vs5.
Clarity is certainly something to aim for, i won't argue that, but people that watch e-sport are still people that play those game intensively. Honestly if clarity is something to aim for, it think its a bit overrated at this point of e-sport evolution, it's good to push it for future development for sure.
A battle with more than 4 guys will be chaotic by definition, should be, your skill is to go through it, as much as a player, as much as a good commentator. GW2 visual aoe is overdone, everyone agree on that part, they did that as a design decision, they wanted it to be visual and went overboard, i hope they'll fix that as much as they can.
Battles are chaotic by definition, LoL is chaotic when the 2 full groups are fighting, and commentator are going everywhere when it happen, their skill are to focus on the interesting part of the group strategy not into details, and i don't think its bad, its part of the game. Dueling would be an other matter, but not 5vs5.
Clarity is certainly something to aim for, i won't argue that, but people that watch e-sport are still people that play those game intensively. Honestly if clarity is something to aim for, it think its a bit overrated at this point of e-sport evolution, it's good to push it for future development for sure.
A battle with more than 4 guys will be chaotic by definition, should be, your skill is to go through it, as much as a player, as much as a good commentator. GW2 visual aoe is overdone, everyone agree on that part, they did that as a design decision, they wanted it to be visual and went overboard, i hope they'll fix that as much as they can.
I agree with a lot of what you've said. My stance on this is pretty well defined at this point I believe. I disagree that the visual AoE is overdone though. It adds to the excitement I believe of both playing and watching. It definately is not a problem in structured PvP. The only time I've really heard the complaint is when giant mobs of players are clashing. For that not to be chaotic they'd have to have almost NO effects at all. Pick any game you know then up the anti to 50+ players. Its going to be chaotic and your barely going to know what's going on arround except people killing each other, and that's fine because its the feeling you strive for in those situations.
Thus I feel the effects are fine as they were in the last beta. They really added excitement and if you tune them down everything gets gradually less exciting. I feel cool when casting and watching spells and abilities because of the animations and effects. If you tune the game to deal with giant mobs of players then it will surely lack when those mobs are not present. You will have elementalists shooting little tiny streams of lightning and cinders for meteors. The guardian bubble is now just defined by a blue circle on the ground.
This is an extreme example but I believe that kind of effects reduction would be necessary to achieve the kind of visibility some are wanting in a large scale battle.
The only way I believe this would be solved is if everyone had an effects slider, which I think they do in the options. If my memory serves you can just open up the options and slide the slider down to lower the particle effects. Would that not solve the issue?
You nailed it .. I would certainly contest that LoL and Sc2 are -more- chaotic- than Gw2.
For starters .. you have five abilities per character on LoL ( most the time ) , in pro gameplay one of those 4 is simply an auto attacker and another a support. The support gets no attention unless it pops its ult and saves the day, the Rdps is only noticed for its positioning.
Sc2 .. is a bit tougher, it can defintely get way more complicated, the games just not cast the same so theres really not a comparison. Most competitive matchs don't really last that long ... the unit counts never broach a number that makes it difficult, failing to mention the duplication present in the units. In longer matchs the micro in the skirmishs is less comentated on in LIVE matchs because the Casters simply can't keep up.
I would love to be wrong, I can't think of anything more enjoyable E-sport wise currently than watching some Pro tournament streams..... I just don't think its going to happen the way I think you think it is. ( That makes sense ... maybe ) I see very sparse comments maybe only shouting about an ability or two a time, more of a spectator sport.
Its predecessor, GW1, became too heavily unbalanced, lacked casting tools, was not really that easy to follow unless you were already involved in the game, and came in with zero infrastructure. There were no tournies setup and no annual pots for players to get excited about. GW2 doesn't exactly have the luxury of convincing people, casters and sponsors, that they should hold onto it based on its track record. GW1 was a fair shake at it but ultimately dissapated due to the aforementioned issues.
Just want to throw out here that GW1 did have tournaments. Two big ones at the start, and later they got some sponsors to give out prizes to monthly winners.
They are room based action games, you dont grind levels / gear your char, you spawn a new fresh game every time and you carry nothing over from your previous game thats not an RPG
This describes PVP in GW2. You're not too familiar with GW2, are you? I'll be helpful and quote you something from the GW2 website:
When a player takes a character into PvP, they are granted access to all the necessary skills, items, etc. Characters are set to the maximum level, putting everyone on an even playing field. This makes player skill more important than time invested in a particular character.
"GW2 will not be hard for the good casters to cast. If anything its a field day. Keep track of 10 characters and cast the big hits, etc. Again the caster doesn't have to stand by and iterate every single ability every character uses. Its quite obvious when someone is suffering from bleeding (they bleed) or is crippled (they limp)."
I'm just going to single this out because it didn't sit right with me when the OP said it. Gw2 is far to chaotic for the untrained eye to pick out the conditions on people without a casters comment on it. Most conditions in this game only last a few seconds, some last less. With the amount going on .. the untrained eye won't be able to spot that slight limp or multiple stacked conditions on that Human elementalist as he lighting flashes out of the mix to save his skin. Pretend a necro stacks conditions on secondary targets then uses his abilities to bounce them to his intended target ( Pulling from tactics I used in Gw1 ) ... without a caster announcing that your aren't going to know it took place in a fight. There are FAR ... FAR , to many subtlities going on with Guild Wars 2 combat for it to be properly casted or for anyoned untrained to understand it.
Are you sure? I ask that question because if I can point out who is crippled and bleeding in a castle siege involving hundreds of people I don't think it'll be that difficult to see them in a group of 5.
No you can't ... be realistic. Perhaps you can if you watch the video a few times ... but not during a stream as a caster. Even if you COULD see it, you wouldn't be able to process it in sea of people fighting.
No a caster doesn't have to comment on everything going on, but the casters not going to notice the condition stacking by said Necro when the Engineer is dropping his Supply Drop / Slick shoes / and Bombs to keep them in tight AoE range for the Necro to work. There is just far to much going on under the hood .. I challenge anyone to pull a 5v5 from Youtube and Cast it for even one fight.
Don't forget to watch the follow up matches on the side bar. Definitely holds promise.
Very excited to see what gw2 may accomplish as an e-sport.
I'm almost under the impression gw2 needs it's own genre as to confuse people less about it's design intentions and play style....lol
Awesome thread OP, very good discussion
You just proved that its a spectator sport, not an E-sport you can acurately cast such as SC or a Moba. The commentator wasn't letting the audience know what was going on during fights, he just said " The necro has alot of Cc to throw out" or " The thumper turret does pbae" , " Red teams putting pressure on a flag" , " Blue teams leaving a defender" . Those are the sort of things that DONT need to be commentated on ...
Don't forget to watch the follow up matches on the side bar. Definitely holds promise.
Very excited to see what gw2 may accomplish as an e-sport.
I'm almost under the impression gw2 needs it's own genre as to confuse people less about it's design intentions and play style....lol
Awesome thread OP, very good discussion
You just proved that its a spectator sport, not an E-sport you can acurately cast such as SC or a Moba. The commentator wasn't letting the audience know what was going on during fights, he just said " The necro has alot of Cc to throw out" or " The thumper turret does pbae" , " Red teams putting pressure on a flag" , " Blue teams leaving a defender" . Those are the sort of things that DONT need to be commentated on ...
What is the difference between a spectator sport game and an Esport game? Absolutely nothing.
Its all just a video game that is enough fun to watch that it attracts enough of a following to have professional teams and sponsored tournaments. It doesn't matter if the method or way of casting the game is incredibly indepth or not at all, it just needs to be fun to watch.
Don't forget to watch the follow up matches on the side bar. Definitely holds promise.
Very excited to see what gw2 may accomplish as an e-sport.
I'm almost under the impression gw2 needs it's own genre as to confuse people less about it's design intentions and play style....lol
Awesome thread OP, very good discussion
You just proved that its a spectator sport, not an E-sport you can acurately cast such as SC or a Moba. The commentator wasn't letting the audience know what was going on during fights, he just said " The necro has alot of Cc to throw out" or " The thumper turret does pbae" , " Red teams putting pressure on a flag" , " Blue teams leaving a defender" . Those are the sort of things that DONT need to be commentated on ...
What is the difference between a spectator sport game and an Esport game? Absolutely nothing.
Its all just a video game that is enough fun to watch that it attracts enough of a following to have professional teams and sponsored tournaments. It doesn't matter if the method or way of casting the game is incredibly indepth or not at all, it just needs to be fun to watch.
Thats something a lot of people dont get. Even in games that have some great pvp aspects, so many of them are just so boring to play. If theyre boring to play, then just sitting there watching it becomes mind numbingly dull. Once in awhile these games come along that are not only fun to play, but also enjoyable to watch being played, especially by very well coordinated teams locke din competition with eachother.
Why do you think so many FPS games over the past decade have had tons of tournaments and sponsors, and companies like MLG hosting such things. Theyre well balanced as far as numbers/equipment goes, and more action packed and intense where making even the tiniest mistake can completely turn the tide of a battle.
Don't forget to watch the follow up matches on the side bar. Definitely holds promise.
Very excited to see what gw2 may accomplish as an e-sport.
I'm almost under the impression gw2 needs it's own genre as to confuse people less about it's design intentions and play style....lol
Awesome thread OP, very good discussion
You just proved that its a spectator sport, not an E-sport you can acurately cast such as SC or a Moba. The commentator wasn't letting the audience know what was going on during fights, he just said " The necro has alot of Cc to throw out" or " The thumper turret does pbae" , " Red teams putting pressure on a flag" , " Blue teams leaving a defender" . Those are the sort of things that DONT need to be commentated on ...
What is the difference between a spectator sport game and an Esport game? Absolutely nothing.
Its all just a video game that is enough fun to watch that it attracts enough of a following to have professional teams and sponsored tournaments. It doesn't matter if the method or way of casting the game is incredibly indepth or not at all, it just needs to be fun to watch.
There is a HUGE difference in a Spectator E-Sport and one that can actually be casted, huge difference. In one the burdeon of knowledge is on the viewer, if you don't know whats going on .. tough. In the other you may not understand everything, but the casters are providing you enough information to know when big play was made, or why such and such just did such and such.
I don't watch games I don't understand ... its boring, I'm making the assumption that the majority of the E-sport watching community is the same.
Don't forget to watch the follow up matches on the side bar. Definitely holds promise.
Very excited to see what gw2 may accomplish as an e-sport.
I'm almost under the impression gw2 needs it's own genre as to confuse people less about it's design intentions and play style....lol
Awesome thread OP, very good discussion
You just proved that its a spectator sport, not an E-sport you can acurately cast such as SC or a Moba. The commentator wasn't letting the audience know what was going on during fights, he just said " The necro has alot of Cc to throw out" or " The thumper turret does pbae" , " Red teams putting pressure on a flag" , " Blue teams leaving a defender" . Those are the sort of things that DONT need to be commentated on ...
What is the difference between a spectator sport game and an Esport game? Absolutely nothing.
Its all just a video game that is enough fun to watch that it attracts enough of a following to have professional teams and sponsored tournaments. It doesn't matter if the method or way of casting the game is incredibly indepth or not at all, it just needs to be fun to watch.
There is a HUGE difference in a Spectator E-Sport and one that can actually be casted, huge difference. In one the burdeon of knowledge is on the viewer, if you don't know whats going on .. tough. In the other you may not understand everything, but the casters are providing you enough information to know when big play was made, or why such and such just did such and such.
I don't watch games I don't understand ... its boring, I'm making the assumption that the majority of the E-sport watching community is the same.
So wait let me get this right....
According to you, in an E-sport you dont need to know everything about the game, because you have a caster providing the information you may not understand.
Yet in the next sentence you claim that people, including yourself, dont watch E-sport games they dont understand.
Pretty sure you just completely contradicted yourself. First you say its better suited for people who dont understand it all.... then you say people who dont understand it dont watch it. *SMH*
Don't forget to watch the follow up matches on the side bar. Definitely holds promise.
Very excited to see what gw2 may accomplish as an e-sport.
I'm almost under the impression gw2 needs it's own genre as to confuse people less about it's design intentions and play style....lol
Awesome thread OP, very good discussion
You just proved that its a spectator sport, not an E-sport you can acurately cast such as SC or a Moba. The commentator wasn't letting the audience know what was going on during fights, he just said " The necro has alot of Cc to throw out" or " The thumper turret does pbae" , " Red teams putting pressure on a flag" , " Blue teams leaving a defender" . Those are the sort of things that DONT need to be commentated on ...
What is the difference between a spectator sport game and an Esport game? Absolutely nothing.
Its all just a video game that is enough fun to watch that it attracts enough of a following to have professional teams and sponsored tournaments. It doesn't matter if the method or way of casting the game is incredibly indepth or not at all, it just needs to be fun to watch.
There is a HUGE difference in a Spectator E-Sport and one that can actually be casted, huge difference. In one the burdeon of knowledge is on the viewer, if you don't know whats going on .. tough. In the other you may not understand everything, but the casters are providing you enough information to know when big play was made, or why such and such just did such and such.
I don't watch games I don't understand ... its boring, I'm making the assumption that the majority of the E-sport watching community is the same.
So wait let me get this right....
According to you, in an E-sport you dont need to know everything about the game, because you have a caster providing the information you may not understand.
Yet in the next sentence you claim that people, including yourself, dont watch E-sport games they dont understand.
Pretty sure you just completely contradicted yourself. First you say its better suited for people who dont understand it all.... then you say people who dont understand it dont watch it. *SMH*
Why is this difficult ? Let's not argue semantics, its pretty easy to figure out what was said.
Example :
In the second example, I understand after its explained, therefor after every match I have more understanding of the game. Where as in the first ... unless I play the game I won't know whats going on. It obviously gets a lot more complex, where understanding the mechanics of coniditions and certain abilities are more specific game knowledge than say general knowledge such as dodging and auto attacking.
I think Gestalt better ilustrated what I was driving at in my insinuation that Gw2 pvp is just to chaotic to be properly cast. I sometimes enjoy watching PvP videos from Mmog's so I guess those would be spectator sports as you've described them Gestalt? The ones that are interesting to watch , but the viewer doesn't nessecarily know exactly whats going on.
Mmmmmm well I would say anything CAN be a spectator sport. You merely need enough people who care about what is going on.
This could be because its a game everyone played as a kid. This is why american baseball was once so popular. Every single little boy in american played it during the summer. Whether it was in a field or in the street. A long summer day back when there was no air conditioning and your chores were done and school was out. Americans kids used to play baseballs for hours and hours. And they could do so because of pace of the game.
Fast forward to present where kids are and what they are doing the advantages of baseball as a pastime are no longer so applicable. Far less people have knowledge about it or fond memories of it. In fact part of the reason it was a summer sport back in the day, its slow pace, directly works against it in some ways as a spectator sport.
What becomes a spectator sport is pretty complex. But boiling it down to a nutshell you need two things:
1) people need to care about it
2) people needs to have drama they can respond and not get left bored
These two things are multiplicative with each other. The more you care the more dramatic things become. The more drama that is produced the more wrapped up you get and the more you care.
However I would say some sports are simply more likely to become spectator sports if we ignore all cultural considerations (which are extremely important ). If we simply compare two games from the essentially same culture, American footbal and american baseball.
One is fast paced. One is slow paced.
Both have bursts of action with pauses in between. But baseballs action is often non-dramatic for too long. I mean after the 8th Foul ball you start to sigh sometimes. Especailly if there are no outs. Also some of baseballs breaks are interminably long and without some beer to drink really mess with watching the game. Footballs pauses are regular and highly regulated, therefore become part of the dramatic pacing rather than ruining
Football has visceral violence that just kicks it up a notch
Both have many positions that can play very differently and a team requires a mix of talent.
Both have a position that requires extremely highly skilled throwing abilitiy
Baseball is consistently losing marketshare and american football is consistently gaining marketshare. Alot of football marketshare is even coming from women who have not historically cared about baseball at all. Part of that is cultural change but part of it is simply natural appeal. In the absense of the old cultural backing football is proving itself more naturally suited towards becoming a spectator sport.
I would attribute this to the fact that the drama of american football is simply more accessible and obvious on its face. Baseball's drama has been there in the past I mean Field of Dreams. Shoeless Joe Jackson etc etc. But alot of Baseballs drama is in the long term. Its about stats and particular situation that may crop up. Its about things like the penant race.
Anyway as we can see whether people actually PLAY the game has a huge impact. But also the inherent accessibility of the drama is an important factor as well.
So yes I would say that if you are watching a video and you enjoy even if you feel a little lost you have probably somehow at lest picked up on the danger to some degree.
Whether you stick with watching will depend but probably the most important aspect is having the things that make you gasp or go "Oh" consistently validated. If you gasp about something at first because it looked visually appealing but then start to notice that huge flashy fire effect actually does very little you change your mind. What initially appeared dramatic actually isn't.
That isn't say everything must be flashy. Putting in golf is actually quite dramatic and even for laymen you can start to see how if yo urepeatedly watch pros do it. After watching 20 or so putts on hard greens you start to see that ball do some pretty whacky things. You see putts that make you say "WTF that thing just did a complete Zig Zag, how is that possible? How come that other guy's didn't do that?". You start to get tense and pay attention as you watch someone hit a little white ball with a little metal stick. It actually looks pretty silly. At first. But because of patterns you observed that not flashy at all bit of a silly looking game takes on dramatic signifigance.
So I would the only reason the "too chaotic" critique is an issue is if far too often misleads people into thinking something is dramatic when it isn't. In which case they may tune you out. Or if it obscures too much of what really is dramatic that may not be that flashy.
In sPvP, my personal opinion, is that its not too chaotic. My gameplay experience has been that, barring thing that need some adjusting, most all of both PvE and PvP have adequate cues for people to see what is dramatic. But I could definitely see casting in WvW being a problem due to this.
Perhpas its a bit too busy. Perhaps it isn't. But for the most part the important cues are distinguishable.
In point of fact I would hazard that randomly obscuring can in fact make spectators more intrested. Some times you should randomly frustrate people to add some mystery. Might sound dumb but its true.
Don't forget to watch the follow up matches on the side bar. Definitely holds promise.
Very excited to see what gw2 may accomplish as an e-sport.
I'm almost under the impression gw2 needs it's own genre as to confuse people less about it's design intentions and play style....lol
Awesome thread OP, very good discussion
You just proved that its a spectator sport, not an E-sport you can acurately cast such as SC or a Moba. The commentator wasn't letting the audience know what was going on during fights, he just said " The necro has alot of Cc to throw out" or " The thumper turret does pbae" , " Red teams putting pressure on a flag" , " Blue teams leaving a defender" . Those are the sort of things that DONT need to be commentated on ...
What is the difference between a spectator sport game and an Esport game? Absolutely nothing.
Its all just a video game that is enough fun to watch that it attracts enough of a following to have professional teams and sponsored tournaments. It doesn't matter if the method or way of casting the game is incredibly indepth or not at all, it just needs to be fun to watch.
There is a HUGE difference in a Spectator E-Sport and one that can actually be casted, huge difference. In one the burdeon of knowledge is on the viewer, if you don't know whats going on .. tough. In the other you may not understand everything, but the casters are providing you enough information to know when big play was made, or why such and such just did such and such.
I don't watch games I don't understand ... its boring, I'm making the assumption that the majority of the E-sport watching community is the same.
So wait let me get this right....
According to you, in an E-sport you dont need to know everything about the game, because you have a caster providing the information you may not understand.
Yet in the next sentence you claim that people, including yourself, dont watch E-sport games they dont understand.
Pretty sure you just completely contradicted yourself. First you say its better suited for people who dont understand it all.... then you say people who dont understand it dont watch it. *SMH*
Why is this difficult ? Let's not argue semantics, its pretty easy to figure out what was said.
Example :
In the second example, I understand after its explained, therefor after every match I have more understanding of the game. Where as in the first ... unless I play the game I won't know whats going on. It obviously gets a lot more complex, where understanding the mechanics of coniditions and certain abilities are more specific game knowledge than say general knowledge such as dodging and auto attacking.
As a neophyte people make certain allowances because they know they do not understand the game.
It is entirely natural and a rather major sticking point with more people that as they get interested in something they want to know more and more about it. Until they get to be something of an amateur expert.
If your game is initially interesting people will get more and more interested. As they get more interested they examine the game closer and closer.
For example in American Football a neophyte has no idea what plays are being run. After a while they start to have some idea that a particular play is being run. But they may have no idea why. They WILL assume there is a why to it.
If you have a spectator who is at the point where they are starting to get into the game and during that process they start to realize there is no "why" and all your "plays" are essentially random they have a backlash and not only the thing is crap but actively hate it.
But I would caution you not to underestimate a fans ability to reverse engineer the game (or anything). People are actually quite clever in their own ways. And even if they are not actually able to DO many of the things or even quickly respond to many sports style situation due to lack of train almsot all people are amazingly good at pattern recognition.
People are so good and so bent towards pattern recognition they are constantly creating some that don't even exist.
If we go back to wrestling (the real kind). Spectators who have acquired an interest in the sport purely by watching do not actually need to know what a throw feel like. And believe me when I tell that in the execution of all grappling styles the feel of things is so incredibly important that I cannot describe it in words. Its literally impossible. Yet the spectator does not need to have that ability to FEEL a throw. He merely needs to have developed the ability to recognize certain visual cues and understand the significance of what may happen.
I don't think I can stress this enough. Do not underestimate people's powers of observation and ability to reverse engineer things. You will be radically surprised. Yes it does go only so far. But dedicated spectators of complex sports they have absolutely no way to execute in anything even resembling compentency still come up with very very sharp observations. I can confirm that as a fact I have experienced.
I still can't fathom it working into a well cast E-Sport, I spent most of my three days doing SPvP and even then I was doing well to coordinate whats directly on my screen. I understand certain tools might be developed to switch views to various players, Ala every spectator mode in E-Sports... but even in that constrained of a view they will miss the other 9 players actions.
The only viable way I can see them being in a position to cast a stream for 5v5's is some top down view of the entirety of the battlefield. In addition they would need to set up bars ( example ) on the side of the screens which would demonstrate ability presses per character. Atleast then that would take alot of the strain off the casters to really catch the flow of combat. I still see a 5v5 being far to busy even with the above examples to ease the casters jobs. There is simply to much going on in a match that if I was watching I would want to know about.
For example ... in League, if Amumu intiates a team fight its obvious .. that doesn't need to be addressed. If an elementalist gets an Unsteady Ground off in the middle of a skirmish .. you're not really going to notice in the scheme of things. Another example ... I used it in my opening, The Necromancer is arguably one of the best condition spreaders .... say he's working on the sidelines to load up one target in the melee with conditions and THEN pops Epidemic.
I guess we will see how well it all pans out, I certainly hope I'm wrong and there are some skilled casters out there.
I still can't fathom it working into a well cast E-Sport, I spent most of my three days doing SPvP and even then I was doing well to coordinate whats directly on my screen. I understand certain tools might be developed to switch views to various players, Ala every spectator mode in E-Sports... but even in that constrained of a view they will miss the other 9 players actions.
The only viable way I can see them being in a position to cast a stream for 5v5's is some top down view of the entirety of the battlefield. In addition they would need to set up bars ( example ) on the side of the screens which would demonstrate ability presses per character. Atleast then that would take alot of the strain off the casters to really catch the flow of combat. I still see a 5v5 being far to busy even with the above examples to ease the casters jobs. There is simply to much going on in a match that if I was watching I would want to know about.
For example ... in League, if Amumu intiates a team fight its obvious .. that doesn't need to be addressed. If an elementalist gets an Unsteady Ground off in the middle of a skirmish .. you're not really going to notice in the scheme of things. Another example ... I used it in my opening, The Necromancer is arguably one of the best condition spreaders .... say he's working on the sidelines to load up one target in the melee with conditions and THEN pops Epidemic.
I guess we will see how well it all pans out, I certainly hope I'm wrong and there are some skilled casters out there.
Yes and the way conditions/degen work out in GW2 is not as obvious as GW1 since pips are not the mechanic anymore.
However many effects do have obvious visual cues. So while it may be hard to see how long someone is crippled for you can tell they are crippled.
On the other hand telling just how dangerous the degen on someone will be rather hard. 25 stacks of bleed and 25 stacks of poison is VERY dangerous but 5 and 5 not nearly so much. Telling the difference may be hard.
e-sport doesn't even match the primary definition of a sport.
an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess andoften of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis,golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc.
My primary concern with GW2 pvp so far, is the eventual dissapointement that may come after players have had their hands on the game long enough to figure out the best possible tactics, the ones being played by the best players, and will realize there won't be any individual skills demonstration rewarded, therefore rendering the amazing factor out of the eSport equation. In a MOBA or WoW, or even halo, there was always those sick plays happening, and that's what we remember and made a tournament memorable.
The only possible comparison I can find, is 5v5 wow arena; who in god's name would want to see that (no to mention there won't be any healers). Will all the action happen too quickly, looking like a smudged blur even to the initiated?
You nailed it .. I would certainly contest that LoL and Sc2 are -more- chaotic- than Gw2.
For starters .. you have five abilities per character on LoL ( most the time ) , in pro gameplay one of those 4 is simply an auto attacker and another a support. The support gets no attention unless it pops its ult and saves the day, the Rdps is only noticed for its positioning.
Sc2 .. is a bit tougher, it can defintely get way more complicated, the games just not cast the same so theres really not a comparison. Most competitive matchs don't really last that long ... the unit counts never broach a number that makes it difficult, failing to mention the duplication present in the units. In longer matchs the micro in the skirmishs is less comentated on in LIVE matchs because the Casters simply can't keep up.
I would love to be wrong, I can't think of anything more enjoyable E-sport wise currently than watching some Pro tournament streams..... I just don't think its going to happen the way I think you think it is. ( That makes sense ... maybe ) I see very sparse comments maybe only shouting about an ability or two a time, more of a spectator sport.
Your missing a lot of the minutia in LoL and SC2. Each character has five abilities in LoL, true. There are upgrades, item usage, amulets, towers, minions, and a slew of other factors there though that aren't present in GW2. Making the game more chaotic to cast. Most of that stuff just gets passed over though. You don't know, as a spectator, why that hero recieved half the damage of the other hero because the caster never stands back and explains every item purchase the hero's have done.
In SC2, as I explained, big army battles are possibly the most dense events to happen to E-sports in general. Impossible to penetrate what's really going on underneath the wreckage by anyone except the players. We are talking about pro's here.
I see a great deal of explaining as people break off into harrassment groups, take siege towers, capture points, split up, ambush, divulge, lay down epics, all of that can be casted. Casting is not about explaining the minutia of every battle from my small experience. It's more about laying down the gist of the match and making it exciting. People could easily follow the match without knowing exactly how many stacks of what there are on players. Look at LoL. People can easily cast during giant, chaotic, mob battles. Look at SC2. I feel it can be done. Again though, we are back to debating a non-debatable point right now.
I can't tell you if LoL and SC2 are assuredly more chaotic to cast than GW2 will be. Just as you can only speculate that they aren't. We'll have to watch it all in action. To me though, the more going on in an E-sport match the better. I find it hard to stay tuned in during down times in matches and if every match is a plethora of action and strategy. You can count me in as an observer as well as a combatant.
Regardless my team will be competing so I'm definately biased in this arguement. I've seen the sponsorship interest, the audience interest (from just the few poorly casted matches out there already) and the competitive interest. Not only that but I was genuinely excited when I saw that 1 v 1 match I showed you a while ago between the guardian and the warrior. The warrior literally won the second match by a hair and all of them were exciting with dodging and skills flying everywhere and blocking. It was nice. If I was excited by that I'm sure I'll be excited by professionally cast 5 v 5 matches.
The video linked here is a match made at the very beginning when Anet show for the first time their pvp feature to the public, that is why they comment so much about the game mechanism because people watching it was looking at GW2 pvp for the first time. So that example would be really bad to base your judgement, they used this as much to show the spvp as to show pvp as a whole.
And i tried to find you a dev quote about what Anet is trying to do with particle effect Nightverve, but i just couldn't find it. In any case i don't think you have a slider in the option, i just forgot to check during beta but a lot reported it doesn't exist. Anet said they are working on a solution that would be server side (reduce automatically the number of effect when an area is cluttered, or show you whatever affect your character first), server side seam the way they want to try deal with this, but they probably don't want to talk about it much before they are sure it will go live. So take it just as an hint on what they do, rather than what we will see.
Also Anet team said they are planning a spectator mode, but they also said they want it to be right (work as well for player that just want to spend time watching in game, as for pro commentator), so that will come later (after launch?). And from this point of view i think this is not what is the most important right now, not even close, maybe the second step though.
What is very important now for them is to set up a minimal structure for any players, pro and amateur alike to use spvp as the best way to raise their personal skill. It is clear that people will have to "learn" the game first, even the pro. I mean they can show the game potential because it is part of their "job" too, but this promotion aspect is a slightly different aspect. This is the next step here, for me yes, the fact spvp is a real mode rather than a map like Wow did it for ex (you get max leveled, full skills access, have standardized pvp gear, proper maps rather than arena...), all this "mode" rather than "map" design choice show Anet really want to make it happen, and is definitely a very good sign, since no other mmo team did that. But i just can't but point that it miss the obvious ladder and organize your match basic features, so this would be the next step i think, but still a step that should be there (already? maybe not but for launch definitely) but quiet a few people told me i should not worry to much.
Spectator is important for sure, but not up until you have players playing in the game you want to show first, so to speak.
I still can't fathom it working into a well cast E-Sport, I spent most of my three days doing SPvP and even then I was doing well to coordinate whats directly on my screen. I understand certain tools might be developed to switch views to various players, Ala every spectator mode in E-Sports... but even in that constrained of a view they will miss the other 9 players actions.
The only viable way I can see them being in a position to cast a stream for 5v5's is some top down view of the entirety of the battlefield. In addition they would need to set up bars ( example ) on the side of the screens which would demonstrate ability presses per character. Atleast then that would take alot of the strain off the casters to really catch the flow of combat. I still see a 5v5 being far to busy even with the above examples to ease the casters jobs. There is simply to much going on in a match that if I was watching I would want to know about.
In no sport must you focus on all the players at all times. In stuff like American football, you focus on the ball. That's the mechanic that each team is struggling to control. It doesn't really matter what is happening downfield if it doesn't affect the ball. Additionally, you don't even have to know all the techniques the players are using that even directly influence the game. If a defensive lineman uses a Swim move to get past a lineman, that's only something the most experienced fans and players know, yet all that really matters is whether or not he gets past that blocker and makes a tackle. The only time specific techniques come up in broadcasts is usually in slow motion replays.
The ball mechanic in GW2 is the control points. Fighting, splitting, and skirmishes are only important as far as they influence the control points. The actual skills don't really matter to the general public. I'm sure there will develop jargon and lingo that will succintly defines certain areas of play, and for especially important games there will be those slow motion replays that break down a key play for a general audience. The rest of the time, the warrior players will be able to analyse and understand more of what a warrior is doing than the others, just as those of us that have played defensive lineman can do the same while watching football. Everyone else will just keep track of who captures what, and who dies, while being entertained by the visceral nature of the gameplay.
Comments
Battles are chaotic by definition, LoL is chaotic when the 2 full groups are fighting, and commentator are going everywhere when it happen, their skill are to focus on the interesting part of the group strategy not into details, and i don't think its bad, its part of the game. Dueling would be an other matter, but not 5vs5.
Clarity is certainly something to aim for, i won't argue that, but people that watch e-sport are still people that play those game intensively. Honestly if clarity is something to aim for, it think its a bit overrated at this point of e-sport evolution, it's good to push it for future development for sure.
A battle with more than 4 guys will be chaotic by definition, should be, your skill is to go through it, as much as a player, as much as a good commentator. GW2 visual aoe is overdone, everyone agree on that part, they did that as a design decision, they wanted it to be visual and went overboard, i hope they'll fix that as much as they can.
I agree with a lot of what you've said. My stance on this is pretty well defined at this point I believe. I disagree that the visual AoE is overdone though. It adds to the excitement I believe of both playing and watching. It definately is not a problem in structured PvP. The only time I've really heard the complaint is when giant mobs of players are clashing. For that not to be chaotic they'd have to have almost NO effects at all. Pick any game you know then up the anti to 50+ players. Its going to be chaotic and your barely going to know what's going on arround except people killing each other, and that's fine because its the feeling you strive for in those situations.
Thus I feel the effects are fine as they were in the last beta. They really added excitement and if you tune them down everything gets gradually less exciting. I feel cool when casting and watching spells and abilities because of the animations and effects. If you tune the game to deal with giant mobs of players then it will surely lack when those mobs are not present. You will have elementalists shooting little tiny streams of lightning and cinders for meteors. The guardian bubble is now just defined by a blue circle on the ground.
This is an extreme example but I believe that kind of effects reduction would be necessary to achieve the kind of visibility some are wanting in a large scale battle.
The only way I believe this would be solved is if everyone had an effects slider, which I think they do in the options. If my memory serves you can just open up the options and slide the slider down to lower the particle effects. Would that not solve the issue?
http://www.wix.com/guardiansofthegarter/home
You nailed it .. I would certainly contest that LoL and Sc2 are -more- chaotic- than Gw2.
For starters .. you have five abilities per character on LoL ( most the time ) , in pro gameplay one of those 4 is simply an auto attacker and another a support. The support gets no attention unless it pops its ult and saves the day, the Rdps is only noticed for its positioning.
Sc2 .. is a bit tougher, it can defintely get way more complicated, the games just not cast the same so theres really not a comparison. Most competitive matchs don't really last that long ... the unit counts never broach a number that makes it difficult, failing to mention the duplication present in the units. In longer matchs the micro in the skirmishs is less comentated on in LIVE matchs because the Casters simply can't keep up.
I would love to be wrong, I can't think of anything more enjoyable E-sport wise currently than watching some Pro tournament streams..... I just don't think its going to happen the way I think you think it is. ( That makes sense ... maybe ) I see very sparse comments maybe only shouting about an ability or two a time, more of a spectator sport.
Just want to throw out here that GW1 did have tournaments. Two big ones at the start, and later they got some sponsors to give out prizes to monthly winners.
This describes PVP in GW2. You're not too familiar with GW2, are you? I'll be helpful and quote you something from the GW2 website:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FosLJtwNmw4&feature=relmfu
And this is without any spectator tools
Don't forget to watch the follow up matches on the side bar. Definitely holds promise.
Very excited to see what gw2 may accomplish as an e-sport.
I'm almost under the impression gw2 needs it's own genre as to confuse people less about it's design intentions and play style....lol
Awesome thread OP, very good discussion
click this 10,000,000 times to receive reward. ty, come again
You just proved that its a spectator sport, not an E-sport you can acurately cast such as SC or a Moba. The commentator wasn't letting the audience know what was going on during fights, he just said " The necro has alot of Cc to throw out" or " The thumper turret does pbae" , " Red teams putting pressure on a flag" , " Blue teams leaving a defender" . Those are the sort of things that DONT need to be commentated on ...
What is the difference between a spectator sport game and an Esport game? Absolutely nothing.
Its all just a video game that is enough fun to watch that it attracts enough of a following to have professional teams and sponsored tournaments. It doesn't matter if the method or way of casting the game is incredibly indepth or not at all, it just needs to be fun to watch.
Thats something a lot of people dont get. Even in games that have some great pvp aspects, so many of them are just so boring to play. If theyre boring to play, then just sitting there watching it becomes mind numbingly dull. Once in awhile these games come along that are not only fun to play, but also enjoyable to watch being played, especially by very well coordinated teams locke din competition with eachother.
Why do you think so many FPS games over the past decade have had tons of tournaments and sponsors, and companies like MLG hosting such things. Theyre well balanced as far as numbers/equipment goes, and more action packed and intense where making even the tiniest mistake can completely turn the tide of a battle.
There is a HUGE difference in a Spectator E-Sport and one that can actually be casted, huge difference. In one the burdeon of knowledge is on the viewer, if you don't know whats going on .. tough. In the other you may not understand everything, but the casters are providing you enough information to know when big play was made, or why such and such just did such and such.
I don't watch games I don't understand ... its boring, I'm making the assumption that the majority of the E-sport watching community is the same.
So wait let me get this right....
According to you, in an E-sport you dont need to know everything about the game, because you have a caster providing the information you may not understand.
Yet in the next sentence you claim that people, including yourself, dont watch E-sport games they dont understand.
Pretty sure you just completely contradicted yourself. First you say its better suited for people who dont understand it all.... then you say people who dont understand it dont watch it. *SMH*
Why is this difficult ? Let's not argue semantics, its pretty easy to figure out what was said.
Example :
In the second example, I understand after its explained, therefor after every match I have more understanding of the game. Where as in the first ... unless I play the game I won't know whats going on. It obviously gets a lot more complex, where understanding the mechanics of coniditions and certain abilities are more specific game knowledge than say general knowledge such as dodging and auto attacking.
Mmmmmm well I would say anything CAN be a spectator sport. You merely need enough people who care about what is going on.
This could be because its a game everyone played as a kid. This is why american baseball was once so popular. Every single little boy in american played it during the summer. Whether it was in a field or in the street. A long summer day back when there was no air conditioning and your chores were done and school was out. Americans kids used to play baseballs for hours and hours. And they could do so because of pace of the game.
Fast forward to present where kids are and what they are doing the advantages of baseball as a pastime are no longer so applicable. Far less people have knowledge about it or fond memories of it. In fact part of the reason it was a summer sport back in the day, its slow pace, directly works against it in some ways as a spectator sport.
What becomes a spectator sport is pretty complex. But boiling it down to a nutshell you need two things:
1) people need to care about it
2) people needs to have drama they can respond and not get left bored
These two things are multiplicative with each other. The more you care the more dramatic things become. The more drama that is produced the more wrapped up you get and the more you care.
However I would say some sports are simply more likely to become spectator sports if we ignore all cultural considerations (which are extremely important ). If we simply compare two games from the essentially same culture, American footbal and american baseball.
One is fast paced. One is slow paced.
Both have bursts of action with pauses in between. But baseballs action is often non-dramatic for too long. I mean after the 8th Foul ball you start to sigh sometimes. Especailly if there are no outs. Also some of baseballs breaks are interminably long and without some beer to drink really mess with watching the game. Footballs pauses are regular and highly regulated, therefore become part of the dramatic pacing rather than ruining
Football has visceral violence that just kicks it up a notch
Both have many positions that can play very differently and a team requires a mix of talent.
Both have a position that requires extremely highly skilled throwing abilitiy
Baseball is consistently losing marketshare and american football is consistently gaining marketshare. Alot of football marketshare is even coming from women who have not historically cared about baseball at all. Part of that is cultural change but part of it is simply natural appeal. In the absense of the old cultural backing football is proving itself more naturally suited towards becoming a spectator sport.
I would attribute this to the fact that the drama of american football is simply more accessible and obvious on its face. Baseball's drama has been there in the past I mean Field of Dreams. Shoeless Joe Jackson etc etc. But alot of Baseballs drama is in the long term. Its about stats and particular situation that may crop up. Its about things like the penant race.
Anyway as we can see whether people actually PLAY the game has a huge impact. But also the inherent accessibility of the drama is an important factor as well.
So yes I would say that if you are watching a video and you enjoy even if you feel a little lost you have probably somehow at lest picked up on the danger to some degree.
Whether you stick with watching will depend but probably the most important aspect is having the things that make you gasp or go "Oh" consistently validated. If you gasp about something at first because it looked visually appealing but then start to notice that huge flashy fire effect actually does very little you change your mind. What initially appeared dramatic actually isn't.
That isn't say everything must be flashy. Putting in golf is actually quite dramatic and even for laymen you can start to see how if yo urepeatedly watch pros do it. After watching 20 or so putts on hard greens you start to see that ball do some pretty whacky things. You see putts that make you say "WTF that thing just did a complete Zig Zag, how is that possible? How come that other guy's didn't do that?". You start to get tense and pay attention as you watch someone hit a little white ball with a little metal stick. It actually looks pretty silly. At first. But because of patterns you observed that not flashy at all bit of a silly looking game takes on dramatic signifigance.
So I would the only reason the "too chaotic" critique is an issue is if far too often misleads people into thinking something is dramatic when it isn't. In which case they may tune you out. Or if it obscures too much of what really is dramatic that may not be that flashy.
In sPvP, my personal opinion, is that its not too chaotic. My gameplay experience has been that, barring thing that need some adjusting, most all of both PvE and PvP have adequate cues for people to see what is dramatic. But I could definitely see casting in WvW being a problem due to this.
Perhpas its a bit too busy. Perhaps it isn't. But for the most part the important cues are distinguishable.
In point of fact I would hazard that randomly obscuring can in fact make spectators more intrested. Some times you should randomly frustrate people to add some mystery. Might sound dumb but its true.
As a neophyte people make certain allowances because they know they do not understand the game.
It is entirely natural and a rather major sticking point with more people that as they get interested in something they want to know more and more about it. Until they get to be something of an amateur expert.
If your game is initially interesting people will get more and more interested. As they get more interested they examine the game closer and closer.
For example in American Football a neophyte has no idea what plays are being run. After a while they start to have some idea that a particular play is being run. But they may have no idea why. They WILL assume there is a why to it.
If you have a spectator who is at the point where they are starting to get into the game and during that process they start to realize there is no "why" and all your "plays" are essentially random they have a backlash and not only the thing is crap but actively hate it.
But I would caution you not to underestimate a fans ability to reverse engineer the game (or anything). People are actually quite clever in their own ways. And even if they are not actually able to DO many of the things or even quickly respond to many sports style situation due to lack of train almsot all people are amazingly good at pattern recognition.
People are so good and so bent towards pattern recognition they are constantly creating some that don't even exist.
If we go back to wrestling (the real kind). Spectators who have acquired an interest in the sport purely by watching do not actually need to know what a throw feel like. And believe me when I tell that in the execution of all grappling styles the feel of things is so incredibly important that I cannot describe it in words. Its literally impossible. Yet the spectator does not need to have that ability to FEEL a throw. He merely needs to have developed the ability to recognize certain visual cues and understand the significance of what may happen.
I don't think I can stress this enough. Do not underestimate people's powers of observation and ability to reverse engineer things. You will be radically surprised. Yes it does go only so far. But dedicated spectators of complex sports they have absolutely no way to execute in anything even resembling compentency still come up with very very sharp observations. I can confirm that as a fact I have experienced.
I still can't fathom it working into a well cast E-Sport, I spent most of my three days doing SPvP and even then I was doing well to coordinate whats directly on my screen. I understand certain tools might be developed to switch views to various players, Ala every spectator mode in E-Sports... but even in that constrained of a view they will miss the other 9 players actions.
The only viable way I can see them being in a position to cast a stream for 5v5's is some top down view of the entirety of the battlefield. In addition they would need to set up bars ( example ) on the side of the screens which would demonstrate ability presses per character. Atleast then that would take alot of the strain off the casters to really catch the flow of combat. I still see a 5v5 being far to busy even with the above examples to ease the casters jobs. There is simply to much going on in a match that if I was watching I would want to know about.
For example ... in League, if Amumu intiates a team fight its obvious .. that doesn't need to be addressed. If an elementalist gets an Unsteady Ground off in the middle of a skirmish .. you're not really going to notice in the scheme of things. Another example ... I used it in my opening, The Necromancer is arguably one of the best condition spreaders .... say he's working on the sidelines to load up one target in the melee with conditions and THEN pops Epidemic.
I guess we will see how well it all pans out, I certainly hope I'm wrong and there are some skilled casters out there.
Yes and the way conditions/degen work out in GW2 is not as obvious as GW1 since pips are not the mechanic anymore.
However many effects do have obvious visual cues. So while it may be hard to see how long someone is crippled for you can tell they are crippled.
On the other hand telling just how dangerous the degen on someone will be rather hard. 25 stacks of bleed and 25 stacks of poison is VERY dangerous but 5 and 5 not nearly so much. Telling the difference may be hard.
e-sport doesn't even match the primary definition of a sport.
an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess andoften of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis,golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc.
But whatever makes you feel better:)
My primary concern with GW2 pvp so far, is the eventual dissapointement that may come after players have had their hands on the game long enough to figure out the best possible tactics, the ones being played by the best players, and will realize there won't be any individual skills demonstration rewarded, therefore rendering the amazing factor out of the eSport equation. In a MOBA or WoW, or even halo, there was always those sick plays happening, and that's what we remember and made a tournament memorable.
The only possible comparison I can find, is 5v5 wow arena; who in god's name would want to see that (no to mention there won't be any healers). Will all the action happen too quickly, looking like a smudged blur even to the initiated?
Just concerns, only time will tell.
Your missing a lot of the minutia in LoL and SC2. Each character has five abilities in LoL, true. There are upgrades, item usage, amulets, towers, minions, and a slew of other factors there though that aren't present in GW2. Making the game more chaotic to cast. Most of that stuff just gets passed over though. You don't know, as a spectator, why that hero recieved half the damage of the other hero because the caster never stands back and explains every item purchase the hero's have done.
In SC2, as I explained, big army battles are possibly the most dense events to happen to E-sports in general. Impossible to penetrate what's really going on underneath the wreckage by anyone except the players. We are talking about pro's here.
I see a great deal of explaining as people break off into harrassment groups, take siege towers, capture points, split up, ambush, divulge, lay down epics, all of that can be casted. Casting is not about explaining the minutia of every battle from my small experience. It's more about laying down the gist of the match and making it exciting. People could easily follow the match without knowing exactly how many stacks of what there are on players. Look at LoL. People can easily cast during giant, chaotic, mob battles. Look at SC2. I feel it can be done. Again though, we are back to debating a non-debatable point right now.
I can't tell you if LoL and SC2 are assuredly more chaotic to cast than GW2 will be. Just as you can only speculate that they aren't. We'll have to watch it all in action. To me though, the more going on in an E-sport match the better. I find it hard to stay tuned in during down times in matches and if every match is a plethora of action and strategy. You can count me in as an observer as well as a combatant.
Regardless my team will be competing so I'm definately biased in this arguement. I've seen the sponsorship interest, the audience interest (from just the few poorly casted matches out there already) and the competitive interest. Not only that but I was genuinely excited when I saw that 1 v 1 match I showed you a while ago between the guardian and the warrior. The warrior literally won the second match by a hair and all of them were exciting with dodging and skills flying everywhere and blocking. It was nice. If I was excited by that I'm sure I'll be excited by professionally cast 5 v 5 matches.
http://www.wix.com/guardiansofthegarter/home
The video linked here is a match made at the very beginning when Anet show for the first time their pvp feature to the public, that is why they comment so much about the game mechanism because people watching it was looking at GW2 pvp for the first time. So that example would be really bad to base your judgement, they used this as much to show the spvp as to show pvp as a whole.
And i tried to find you a dev quote about what Anet is trying to do with particle effect Nightverve, but i just couldn't find it. In any case i don't think you have a slider in the option, i just forgot to check during beta but a lot reported it doesn't exist. Anet said they are working on a solution that would be server side (reduce automatically the number of effect when an area is cluttered, or show you whatever affect your character first), server side seam the way they want to try deal with this, but they probably don't want to talk about it much before they are sure it will go live. So take it just as an hint on what they do, rather than what we will see.
Also Anet team said they are planning a spectator mode, but they also said they want it to be right (work as well for player that just want to spend time watching in game, as for pro commentator), so that will come later (after launch?). And from this point of view i think this is not what is the most important right now, not even close, maybe the second step though.
What is very important now for them is to set up a minimal structure for any players, pro and amateur alike to use spvp as the best way to raise their personal skill. It is clear that people will have to "learn" the game first, even the pro. I mean they can show the game potential because it is part of their "job" too, but this promotion aspect is a slightly different aspect.
This is the next step here, for me yes, the fact spvp is a real mode rather than a map like Wow did it for ex (you get max leveled, full skills access, have standardized pvp gear, proper maps rather than arena...), all this "mode" rather than "map" design choice show Anet really want to make it happen, and is definitely a very good sign, since no other mmo team did that. But i just can't but point that it miss the obvious ladder and organize your match basic features, so this would be the next step i think, but still a step that should be there (already? maybe not but for launch definitely) but quiet a few people told me i should not worry to much.
Spectator is important for sure, but not up until you have players playing in the game you want to show first, so to speak.
In no sport must you focus on all the players at all times. In stuff like American football, you focus on the ball. That's the mechanic that each team is struggling to control. It doesn't really matter what is happening downfield if it doesn't affect the ball. Additionally, you don't even have to know all the techniques the players are using that even directly influence the game. If a defensive lineman uses a Swim move to get past a lineman, that's only something the most experienced fans and players know, yet all that really matters is whether or not he gets past that blocker and makes a tackle. The only time specific techniques come up in broadcasts is usually in slow motion replays.
The ball mechanic in GW2 is the control points. Fighting, splitting, and skirmishes are only important as far as they influence the control points. The actual skills don't really matter to the general public. I'm sure there will develop jargon and lingo that will succintly defines certain areas of play, and for especially important games there will be those slow motion replays that break down a key play for a general audience. The rest of the time, the warrior players will be able to analyse and understand more of what a warrior is doing than the others, just as those of us that have played defensive lineman can do the same while watching football. Everyone else will just keep track of who captures what, and who dies, while being entertained by the visceral nature of the gameplay.