Watch the 2011 TCG World Championships Finals!
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pokemandan
New Member
I think this was actually a YouTube mistake rather than people not being interested. People who are subscribed to TheTopCut, like myself, will have noticed the upload and watched both games 1 and 3 of the Worlds finals, however, Game 2 was missing. The videos were then taken down and then planned for release, but since the videos had already been made public, when they were made public for a second time, they wern't put at the top of people's 'new' videos released by their subscribers. I think this may be why they didn't receive as many views.
Just something that I noticed about tat situation. However, the videos were all great to watch and definitely a step forward for the game!
meganium45
Active Member
Hey, what about the Seniors finals match at Worlds...
That was just as exciting, and had the prettiest HJ of the 3 divisions...
Vince
That was just as exciting, and had the prettiest HJ of the 3 divisions...
Vince
Pooka
Master Trainer
First of all, I just want to thank Raen and everyone else who has been supportive of us. What we're trying to accomplish involves a community-wide effort, and I can't stress how much we value each and every person who wants to help see the game grow. Even something small like telling a friend about it or posting on Facebook or Twitter goes a long way to getting more exposure to the game.
As for the release of the Finals videos, they never should have been released early in the first place, but there was an error with the privacy settings. For whatever reason, Games 1 and 3 did not upload as private videos, but Game 2 did; this is why people saw those games and not the second game at first. Honestly it was just an unfortunate circumstance.
I just want to clarify on what I meant about the videos "not getting enough attention." For the entire history of this game, we have not had a chance to watch matches from the World Championships. Sure, TPCI did post some videos every once in a while, but they were either sped up versions of the games or edited so heavily that you didn't know the whole story. Now, thanks to TPCI's permission, we have matches from several rounds of Worlds, including the spectacular finals. If you told me a year ago that a group of players were trying to get game footage from the World Championships and put it online, I would have laughed at the thought.
But wait, that actually happened! For the first time ever, you can watch the best players in the world battle it out! How exciting is that? Well, that's where the problem lies; not too many people did get excited. Don't get me wrong! I appreciate every person who has thanked us and supported us, and those people are the reason I continue to do this. However, as a whole, the reception was very underwhelming. Overall, we got very little feedback, positive or negative. To be honest, I got more feedback from the Starcraft 2 community than I did from the Pokemon community (and they had no idea what was even happening in the videos). If people can't get excited over the World Championships, then what can we do to get people excited? I'm not trying to sound ungrateful, but it's hard not to be a little disheartened.
---------- Post added 12/09/2011 at 04:20 PM ----------
We are uploading the Seniors and Juniors Finals as soon as we can. We'll post here when they go up!
As for the release of the Finals videos, they never should have been released early in the first place, but there was an error with the privacy settings. For whatever reason, Games 1 and 3 did not upload as private videos, but Game 2 did; this is why people saw those games and not the second game at first. Honestly it was just an unfortunate circumstance.
I just want to clarify on what I meant about the videos "not getting enough attention." For the entire history of this game, we have not had a chance to watch matches from the World Championships. Sure, TPCI did post some videos every once in a while, but they were either sped up versions of the games or edited so heavily that you didn't know the whole story. Now, thanks to TPCI's permission, we have matches from several rounds of Worlds, including the spectacular finals. If you told me a year ago that a group of players were trying to get game footage from the World Championships and put it online, I would have laughed at the thought.
But wait, that actually happened! For the first time ever, you can watch the best players in the world battle it out! How exciting is that? Well, that's where the problem lies; not too many people did get excited. Don't get me wrong! I appreciate every person who has thanked us and supported us, and those people are the reason I continue to do this. However, as a whole, the reception was very underwhelming. Overall, we got very little feedback, positive or negative. To be honest, I got more feedback from the Starcraft 2 community than I did from the Pokemon community (and they had no idea what was even happening in the videos). If people can't get excited over the World Championships, then what can we do to get people excited? I'm not trying to sound ungrateful, but it's hard not to be a little disheartened.
---------- Post added 12/09/2011 at 04:20 PM ----------
We are uploading the Seniors and Juniors Finals as soon as we can. We'll post here when they go up!
Great videos, I was there but didn't get to watch the finals matches so this was a treat. Until the finals I thought the voice over had been done in post production but the fact it was live makes me wonder what the wait was for the videos. I think the main reason for the lack of hype for some of the videos is just the huge delay between Worlds and release. Worlds hype has long past and I'm sure people are more concerned with what to run in Cities now instead of how David Cohen won several months ago.
I am glad these videos are uploaded it is a great step forward for our game and getting people involved, making it as big as possible. My only complaints were minor things like a Duosion that was on Ross' field for several turns but was still referred to as a Solosis and just minor missed moves during play that I'm sure eagle eyed viewers were able to catch. Beyond that the commentary was good and that is definitely one thing that needs to be right to garner the most views. Pooka has one of the most creative minds and the commentary he was giving was excellent in that regards, and honestly might even help people up their game as he saw plays that I'm sure quite a few others wouldn't have.
I am a big fan of the Capcom fighting game scene, and nearly every tournament has live streams and excellent commentary from well known and intelligent players. I think moving forward we should try to establish this type of relationship with TPCi and allow live streaming of these events, whether it be matches during swiss, top cut or even just the finals. It can definitely help the TCG grow and get a larger player-base when fans and players of the game show their friends live streams or these videos. The videos are a great step forward and I don't think you should be discouraged yet Pooka.
I do have one suggestion that I feel would help elevate the status of our game and that is live streaming them as mentioned. Whether it is a Battle Roads or another Top Cut Invitational, I think you should take a shot at the live streaming.We still get the videos afterward for upload to YouTube, but do not discount the intrigue and suspense of watching a live match as opposed to knowing who already wins and just seeing how they accomplish it.
I am glad these videos are uploaded it is a great step forward for our game and getting people involved, making it as big as possible. My only complaints were minor things like a Duosion that was on Ross' field for several turns but was still referred to as a Solosis and just minor missed moves during play that I'm sure eagle eyed viewers were able to catch. Beyond that the commentary was good and that is definitely one thing that needs to be right to garner the most views. Pooka has one of the most creative minds and the commentary he was giving was excellent in that regards, and honestly might even help people up their game as he saw plays that I'm sure quite a few others wouldn't have.
I am a big fan of the Capcom fighting game scene, and nearly every tournament has live streams and excellent commentary from well known and intelligent players. I think moving forward we should try to establish this type of relationship with TPCi and allow live streaming of these events, whether it be matches during swiss, top cut or even just the finals. It can definitely help the TCG grow and get a larger player-base when fans and players of the game show their friends live streams or these videos. The videos are a great step forward and I don't think you should be discouraged yet Pooka.
I do have one suggestion that I feel would help elevate the status of our game and that is live streaming them as mentioned. Whether it is a Battle Roads or another Top Cut Invitational, I think you should take a shot at the live streaming.We still get the videos afterward for upload to YouTube, but do not discount the intrigue and suspense of watching a live match as opposed to knowing who already wins and just seeing how they accomplish it.
sdrawkcab
Forum Moderator
It's a little hard to get excited about a game that happened 15 weeks ago. We know who won, with what decks and after reading the tournament reports we have a pretty good idea of how it happened. I know there are technical details behind the scenes that might have gotten in the way, however I'd guarentee that you'd have had more interest had it been posted before this season's tournaments started.
The videos themselves are great, it's clear that the more games you've commentated on, the better you've gotten. However personally I'd prefer to see a more edited version of the game. We don't really need to watch the three minutes of setting up...or Ross contemplating what to grab with collecter for another 2 minutes. Sometimes there are games with turns of "dead action" (draw communication evolve attach eek). Nothing would be missed a few turn of these turns (not nessisarily all of them) are skipped and the annoucer simple states "And we're rejoining the action here on turn 4, over the last couple of turns ross developped his board...into a vileplume and reuniclus with a twin chain, and David has gotten a second magnezone out with about 7 energy on the feild."
This might add a couple hours of editing time, but really makes a game that much more entertaining. I understand that you record live commentary onto the video itself, if you were to follow my lead the commentary would need to be recorded after the editing.
I have to disagree on the more editing point. I don't want the "dead spots" edited out, especially in videos like the Finals which were recorded live. Being recorded live (that is, the commentary) helped add to the energy and excitement of the whole thing, since the commentators are actually there. The best thing to do with dead spots is to just have interesting commentary, and Pooka and Crimz do a pretty good job of that, particularly these days.
But yes, I agree with people who are talking about timeliness. It would have helped the hype a LOT to have had the videos up, say, a week or two later rather than a few months. Of course, I don't really blame anyone specifically for this; there were technical difficulties, and a corrupt harddrive if I remember correctly. Still, if things could be streamlined for next year/future events, that would help out a ton I think.
But yes, I agree with people who are talking about timeliness. It would have helped the hype a LOT to have had the videos up, say, a week or two later rather than a few months. Of course, I don't really blame anyone specifically for this; there were technical difficulties, and a corrupt harddrive if I remember correctly. Still, if things could be streamlined for next year/future events, that would help out a ton I think.
sdrawkcab
Forum Moderator
Perhaps theres a misunderstanding about what I invisioned.....even without skipping the "dead action" turns we really don't need to sit an watch the three minute set up and two minute twins?
Shino Bug Master
Front Page News Editor
You don't have to, you can choose to let the video load and skip over those small parts yourself, which is something i often do! I wouldn't want a third party to decide what parts i dont want to watch though, my own opinion on it is only a few clicks away.
I hate watching edited games, as I like to see every detail that happens, as well as how players react under this kind of stress (being in the finals) which you can see through how long it takes to get something with collector, and how long these world class players take during their turns in accordance with time management. Editing it out takes away from the tension of every move, where every move does count. If you get really annoyed by dead turns, you can easily just skip a minute or whatever, not too hard, and doesn't take away from everyone else that wants to see the whole thing.
Pooka
Master Trainer
Well, I'll take this opportunity to address some of the issues that have been brought up.
1) Why did it take so long to post the videos? The commentary was live!
Trust me, we have been trying to get these videos online since the day we got back from San Diego. We did do the commentary for the Finals (and the Finals only) live from a distance, which is why we were wrong on some of the details (like not noticing Duosion had evolved), but we weren't too inaccurate thankfully. Combine that with the fact that many of Ross's cards were not very well known, and you have one tough match to commentate on.
Anyway, the major problem with uploading the videos was receiving the footage in the first place. For those of you who were there, you know that the Finals were projected on giant screens so everyone could see. Unfortunately, the guys at TPCI recorded the videos in this gigantic resolution, meaning each video was about 150 GB in size. In total, the Worlds videos (TCG and VGC) combined for a total size of nearly 1 TB, making any sort of transfer online impossible. As such, we had to send in a hard drive for them to put the videos onto, and then they would send it back to us. Fortunately the guys over there were extremely helpful and willing to work with us, which made the process much easier than it could have been.
When we got the hard drive the first time, we found out the data had been corrupted, meaning we had to send the hard drive back and get the files again. The second time around, we had experienced the same problem, so we had a feeling something was wrong. Turns out they had formatted the hard drive using a Mac, and we all use Windows... Once we figured that out, we got the videos, edited them to add in the commentary, and here we are. So, that is the unfortunate story of how the videos are over three months late. In the future, this process should be much smoother.
2) Why don't you try live streaming?
When we started out, this was a main goal of ours. In fact, we had planned on streaming our Top Cut Invitational, and we were pretty excited about it. However, we quickly found out that it isn't as simple as recording games. Although we had the streaming software all set up and ready to go, it turns out that the streaming site we use (Justin.tv/Twitch.tv) prevents anyone from broadcasting using Internet from public places like hotels. If you've ever been to a tournament, you know cell phone and Internet service is not easy to come by in the large convention centers, especially not anything reliable enough to stream with. In order to secure a reliable Internet connection during an event, it would be quite costly, and we just don't have the money to do that right now. If anyone knows of a way to do this cost effectively, we would appreciate it because the idea of truly live coverage is exciting and important to the game's growth.
3) Why don't you speed up the games?
When it comes to posting normal games (like the PTCGO games I upload), maybe that would be acceptable to make it more entertaining. However, when it comes to real events, it's better to leave the games as they are. Yes, there is downtime during every game, but part of the reason for commentary is to fill those gaps in action. In fact, those gaps actually give the commentators a chance to explain what is going on. When doing live commentary, as was the case with the Worlds finals, any sort of editing will get rid of the live feel and excitement, so that wouldn't be an option. In addition, any time you have multiple people commentating on a game, speeding up games or editing parts out becomes nearly impossible. I realize that people don't want to spend all day watching a game, but the reality is that Pokemon is a game that takes time to both play and watch. If you want to skip through parts of a game to speed it up, nobody is stopping you.
Thanks everybody for the feedback! It's greatly appreciated.
1) Why did it take so long to post the videos? The commentary was live!
Trust me, we have been trying to get these videos online since the day we got back from San Diego. We did do the commentary for the Finals (and the Finals only) live from a distance, which is why we were wrong on some of the details (like not noticing Duosion had evolved), but we weren't too inaccurate thankfully. Combine that with the fact that many of Ross's cards were not very well known, and you have one tough match to commentate on.
Anyway, the major problem with uploading the videos was receiving the footage in the first place. For those of you who were there, you know that the Finals were projected on giant screens so everyone could see. Unfortunately, the guys at TPCI recorded the videos in this gigantic resolution, meaning each video was about 150 GB in size. In total, the Worlds videos (TCG and VGC) combined for a total size of nearly 1 TB, making any sort of transfer online impossible. As such, we had to send in a hard drive for them to put the videos onto, and then they would send it back to us. Fortunately the guys over there were extremely helpful and willing to work with us, which made the process much easier than it could have been.
When we got the hard drive the first time, we found out the data had been corrupted, meaning we had to send the hard drive back and get the files again. The second time around, we had experienced the same problem, so we had a feeling something was wrong. Turns out they had formatted the hard drive using a Mac, and we all use Windows... Once we figured that out, we got the videos, edited them to add in the commentary, and here we are. So, that is the unfortunate story of how the videos are over three months late. In the future, this process should be much smoother.
2) Why don't you try live streaming?
When we started out, this was a main goal of ours. In fact, we had planned on streaming our Top Cut Invitational, and we were pretty excited about it. However, we quickly found out that it isn't as simple as recording games. Although we had the streaming software all set up and ready to go, it turns out that the streaming site we use (Justin.tv/Twitch.tv) prevents anyone from broadcasting using Internet from public places like hotels. If you've ever been to a tournament, you know cell phone and Internet service is not easy to come by in the large convention centers, especially not anything reliable enough to stream with. In order to secure a reliable Internet connection during an event, it would be quite costly, and we just don't have the money to do that right now. If anyone knows of a way to do this cost effectively, we would appreciate it because the idea of truly live coverage is exciting and important to the game's growth.
3) Why don't you speed up the games?
When it comes to posting normal games (like the PTCGO games I upload), maybe that would be acceptable to make it more entertaining. However, when it comes to real events, it's better to leave the games as they are. Yes, there is downtime during every game, but part of the reason for commentary is to fill those gaps in action. In fact, those gaps actually give the commentators a chance to explain what is going on. When doing live commentary, as was the case with the Worlds finals, any sort of editing will get rid of the live feel and excitement, so that wouldn't be an option. In addition, any time you have multiple people commentating on a game, speeding up games or editing parts out becomes nearly impossible. I realize that people don't want to spend all day watching a game, but the reality is that Pokemon is a game that takes time to both play and watch. If you want to skip through parts of a game to speed it up, nobody is stopping you.
Thanks everybody for the feedback! It's greatly appreciated.
I for one love the videos and seem to learn a lot about strategy from them (only been playing for 6 months or so). Keep posting the videos!!!
People need to understand that y'all (topcut) don't have to post these videos and whatnot. Quit pissing and moaning and enjoy the commentary and videos.
People need to understand that y'all (topcut) don't have to post these videos and whatnot. Quit pissing and moaning and enjoy the commentary and videos.
Prodigiosus
New Member
For streaming, I know that VGC players use their androids/iPhones and the website uStream. I managed to stream all of the Top 8/Top 4/Final's for Worlds this year, and it worked out pretty well even though it was somewhat laggy with my iPhone.
Affiliation is declined because no one honestly likes Pokebeach, I assume mostly for its message boards which must be ran by the same ones who ran PTCO back in the day. Its a decent information site though, but the webmaster and all who run it are quite a unique...............how would you call it?
head case.
I mean everytime a problem arises in Pokemon if it be TCG, information, news, drama, you can bet pokebeach is behind it.
head case.
I mean everytime a problem arises in Pokemon if it be TCG, information, news, drama, you can bet pokebeach is behind it.
Pooka
Master Trainer
To my knowledge, we were never contacted by anyone from PokeBeach to be affiliates, so I'm not sure where that information came from. However, let's not turn this into a thread on that; the site can choose to publish the stories that it wants to.
As for streaming with phones, that's not the direction we want to head in. If we are going to stream events, we want to have a nice video with a camera that allows spectators to see what is happening clearly. For the most part, streaming from a phone produces a choppy and laggy video that isn't anywhere near the professional quality we are aiming for.
As for streaming with phones, that's not the direction we want to head in. If we are going to stream events, we want to have a nice video with a camera that allows spectators to see what is happening clearly. For the most part, streaming from a phone produces a choppy and laggy video that isn't anywhere near the professional quality we are aiming for.
Electric Spider
New Member
I agree that it stinks to put in a huge amount of work and get relatively little reaction back. I want to thank you Kyle and the others on TheTopCut for all your work and helping me become a better player.
Water Pokemon Master
<a href="http://pokegym.net/gallery/browseimages.p
I was told to reply to this thread because there's some misinformation going around!
EDIT: Looks like a lot of work went into those videos. Impressive job!
What? Who are you? When did you talk to me? When did I say that? Since when do I care about TPCi contacting me? Where are you getting your info from?Raen said:
We don't really post competitive stuff on our main page. We're a general TCG website. Serebii barely posts TCG stuff period, let alone YT videos. If someone wants us to do something for them (like TPC), they need to come to me directly. I don't deal through third parties for things like that.
LOL. Why would I go out of my way to ask another website to affiliate with us? We have more visitors than all PTCG sites combined times a jillion. If someone wants to affiliate with us, they have to offer something large since they will be getting a ton of traffic (as you said). At Worlds, a mutual friend wanted our two websites to talk, but there was no real talk. As it stands, we do not have any affiliates because we do not need any.
Yeah, you're right, I'm probably a head case, but we as a website don't really generate drama. Our forums are very peaceful and our members all pretty much get along. If you want drama, you can look to other TCG forums. We don't stand for it on our forums.Crinus said:
EDIT: Looks like a lot of work went into those videos. Impressive job!
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