I'd suspect that any viewer unfamiliar with EVE Online would be terribly confused. The tactics and strategy that we know are inherent in the game, those would be lost on the uninitiated. The new viewer watching brackets float around on the video stream, watching the ships that are not apparently doing much of anything, except for the occasional gunfire flash, the smoking trails of a few missiles, or some strange coloured effects streaming to and from ships, I have a feeling that would not give any viewer unfamiliar with EVE Online the gist of what was actually happening in any given match.
Watching an EVE match is like watching toasters floating about your screen, if you don't know anything about the game. The commentators do their best to convey a sense of excitement, to explain what's going on, but mostly what the uninitiated are hearing is a lot of techno-babble. Webs? Points? Repping? Boosting? Logistics? What?
Compare to League of Legends or DOTA. Watching either of those two, even if the viewer is unfamiliar, there's a better sense in those games of what's happening. Even without a commentator you can more easily pick up what's generally going on. The action is more immediate, you're more able to tell the ebb and flow of a match by what's being presented on-screen. That's unfortunately not the case with EVE.
(That's based on my experience with League and DOTA. I've never played either game, yet have watched streaming tournaments and found the action relatively easy to follow. I found them enjoyable to watch, even with zero play experience under my belt.)
Unlike League and DOTA, ninety-percent of the viewers attention is drawn to the "health bars" in an EVE Online match, even for the initiated. The "health bars" are the only indication of what's mostly going on in an EVE match, and even for the initiated, the conclusions drawn can be wrong. And even then there's a lot of hidden information that is unknown to the viewer (exact modules being used, capacitor management, cap boosters available, etc.)
An EVE Online-only tournament will likely remain a niche product. Something only accessible to people who play the game, understand it. EVE Online lacks a visual excitement that lends itself to online viewing. The enjoyment of an EVE tournament comes from a) understanding the finer points of the game, and b) recognizing the personalities and alliances involved. EVE is a highly complex game, and it is a highly social game.
CCP's best bet for breaking into the esports market will likely be with DUST 514.
DUST has gameplay that is immediate. It's understandable to the average viewer. They're able to more readily recognize what's happening on-screen, even if they're unfamiliar with the game at a specific level. DUST won't be quite the visual mystery that EVE likely is.
So, once DUST is released, if CCP is serious about breaking into esports, they'd be served well on moving towards their first DUST tournament as quickly as possible. Certainly once the game becomes stable enough for tournament play.
What might break EVE into the gaming consciousness as an esport is if it is coupled with DUST. It is one universe, after all. Why not one tournament?
Imagine an Alliance Tournament that wages battle on the ground and in space, simultaneously. Each side has their capsuleers and their soldiers.
Obviously complicated tournament technology would need to be developed (watching a single match conducted on two different platforms ... definitely not a simple technological hurdle to cross.) Watching interconnected battles conducted on the ground and in low-orbit overhead, both vying for a single goal, what does this do for EVE? EVE alone, not viable as an accessible esport. But with DUST? Perhaps EVE becomes more understandable to the average viewer in this context. Now that those brackets and barely animated ships are there to support the DUST players, to support a type of action that the unfamiliar viewer understands, those spaceships have new and added meaning (even if what they're specifically doing is still lost on the viewer.) With the possibility of orbital bombardments raining down, that space battle is given urgency and excitement within the context of the raging ground battle.
At that point, the uninitiated viewer mutters "Whoa!" to themselves and EVE Online begins to pique their interest.
I had to complete opposite reaction to lol or dota or whatever it was. I watched some match when the entire internet was putting some million dollar prize tournament in my face, so I caved and actually watched a match.
ReplyDelete20 minutes in I just turned it off. I have no fucking clue what was going on. Why players where seemingly ignoring the enemy and just attacking npc's. Why these little knights continuously walked towards their death and wtf was going on anyway.
Most confusing game evar.
I like the idea of a combined DUST/EVE tournament, it'd be like watching the Battle of Endor from Return of the Jedi (but with less teddy bears).
ReplyDeleteI agree that the viewing experience of the space battles is hard to sell to the casual viewer. I stand by my oft-espoused view that this could be rectified to an extent with more cinematic camera tools and removing some of the visual clutter (eg. drones should not be as prominent as ships).
For a combined tournament, I think very little of the orbital combat would need to be shown, perhaps just the occasional cut away to snippets of particularly pivotal or impressive action. The focus should remain on the ground, perhaps with the ongoing space battle constantly being monitored by way of a simple boxout of orbital fleet ship icons. They could have symbols showing their activity (under fire/destroyed/commencing orbital bombardment).
Yeah if they improve presentation, with free cameras they can try to deliver more thrilling shots of the action that the cumbersome player view angle.
DeleteI have children who often watch me play pc games. When I am playing internet spaceships they leave the room. As soon as DOTA fires up they are moving chairs to my battlestation to watch...
ReplyDeleteNot quite e-sports, but I have similar experiences.
DeleteGuild wars 2: three children piling on to see what's happening.
Eve: wander off because it's uncomprehensible
Watching Dota is a boring to the uninitiated as it is to watch EVE.
ReplyDeleteA great improvement would be working in presentation. A ship attached screen capture make the broadcasting seem stale and lacks transmitting whats going on in the battlefield.
Create a free cam, or several free cams, that are able to really get nice takes on whats going on in the battlefield, make screen capture more in cinematic nature and less in a 'player view angle' style.
That would add value and would make matches more interesting to watch, making it more dynamic to watch.
I think CCP did an exceptional job at the tournament. The commentary was very good, and the UI they had set up with the rep/attack/ecm bars was excellent. If they do the same with Dust, I don't think they'll have any issue competing with Battlefield or Call of Duty, at least in the pro gaming scene.
ReplyDeleteThat said, EVE and Dust are not "esports". The games are not built for it, like Starcraft or League of Legends are. You'll notice, for example, that the latter games have very 'clean' graphics to make it obvious to both players and any viewers exactly what is happening at any given moment. Additionally, they work very hard at removing any imbalances from the game to make player skill the only deciding factor in matches.
Obviously, that isn't true in CCP's titles. Older, richer characters are straight up stronger than newer ones. This could be remedied by allowing access to max skill characters for tournaments, but CCP isn't doing that. There is also the aforementioned readability issue.
Basically, EVE could make a compelling esports title, but it would require massive changes to the game that would basically make it unrecognizable.
Thats not true, because in EVe people can specialize and thus neutralize any advantage that come from time played. And since only the best go into tournaments, its to be expected they have at least some roles completelly specialized.
DeleteFrom what I've seen via Dust dev twitter feeds, they've already had a testers tournament. So, hopefully they keep regarding tournaments happening right from release too.
ReplyDeleteI spoke to a regular writer for one of the more popular gaming news sites. He said that they have decided not to write about the NEO, after watching it this past weekend.
ReplyDeleteApparently, he, and several others, were somewhat less than impressed by the utter lack of professionalism by the NEO commentators. After a discussion with someone at CCP, it was decided that, as a professional courtesy, CCP would prefer no coverage, rather than suffer bad PR, prior to the Retribution expansion and DUST 514 public launch.
Yeah, EVE needs comentators that scream like teenage girls.
Delete