Battle Commentaries??

[shrang]

So I've been watching some of the matches on the Smogon Youtube Channel, and while the music is nice, I think it would be pretty cool if we got one of the better battlers (Or even a group of them) to commentate the matches that are put up on Youtube. Basically, the commentator would watch the video (Doesn't have to be live) and analyse whatever moves the players made one by one. I know Shoddy battles can be very quick, but you can always just get the players to give say 5-10 seconds break between each move so the commentator can catch up.

Any thoughts??

 

[cim]

This would actually make battles on YouTube a good idea, so I'm all for it as long as someone who isn't me is doing the commentating.

 

[cantab]

You can quite easily edit the video to fit in commentary.

I would say it is very important that the commentator sounds good, not annoying. If it's done, I'd say seriously consider letting the scriptwriter not have to be the commentator. Have an expert battler write the commentary, then find whoever willing has the best voice to do the recording. The commentator wouldn't even have to be a Smogoner. (Of course, if one person can do quality unscripted commentary then that's good. But don't have one person doing BAD unscripted commentary.)

Also, almost all sports have more than one person doing commentary. The discussion helps create interest and makes the commentary more natural. That too would be well worth doing, though the technical aspects could be tricky.

Another thing might be to take a leaf out of televised poker's book (where all player's hole cards can be shown), and instead of just having the battle as seen by one player, show the full teams of both sides. (At least mon and moves, maybe spreads too). Of course this would probably have to be done some time after the battle, since many people don't want their current teams exposed.

The quality of Shoddy videos is often low, because the software is designed for playing, not recording. I wonder if it would be possible to make a Video Generator program. It would take a battle log and both players' teams - or possibly both players' battle logs would negate the need for team files - and create a result. Could have some eye candy, like animations, to make it easier to follow and also slow the pace so there would be time for the commentary. (You'd want it to be quite configurable, eg cutting out the animations in some situations like a PP stall war).

 

[Res Ipsa Loquitur]

Yeah, I watch a lot of Wifi battles on Youtube, but while I do subscribe to the SmogonU channel, I watch it only occasionally. It is just too hard to follow, trying to read the text at Youtube's low resolution, plus the fact that the videos are unedited so there are lots of like 20 second pauses followed by 2 turns in 5 seconds. I end up pausing and unpausing it over and over.

Back when the Smogon Youtube channel was first pitched, a lot of people suggested commentary. It was almost implied from the thread that the music was just a band-aid until that could be put together. I really think commentary is what we need to turn the Youtube channel into a great resource. Most of the very top players almost never post in Stark Mountain, so it's tough to get tips from them except in the very rare events that they post a Warstory or RMT.

 

[ck49]

I like the Idea of commentery, since the process by which the predictions are made is one I would like to hear. Sometimes you see a battler select a move which seems pointless but turns out to be right, and I know sometimes it is luck, and sometimes skill, and I would really like to hear wht=at the battlers though. Or of course, as Cantab said, we could have it more like sports, where there are two battlers competing learning everything they can about their opponent before hand, then two comentaters explaining their thouht process. This makes the battlers feel safer about not giving away their thought process, while making the battles still display some learning chance for newer battlers with the commentary. On youtube, you do see some people have commentery on their wifi battles, and I knwo the way I learnt to play chess well, after a certain point, was listening to live commentery on a match and see how a better player thinks through his situation, which I think could be applied to pokemon as well.

 

[Antar]

Agreed. When I'm watching a pokemon battle on YouTube, I'm looking for a video warstory, not just a battle.

 

[cim]

I keep coming up with ideas, like "hey maybe they could pause the battle and talk!" , or maybe "well since we're pausing the battle we might as well replace a match recording with something more interesting", and i eventually loop back to "why the fuck do people watch battles on youtube when they could read the log instead". So can someone tell me why they watch videos online so i can think of ideas revolved around preserving the positives of that?

 

[-Meowth-]

I keep coming up with ideas, like "hey maybe they could pause the battle and talk!" , or maybe "well since we're pausing the battle we might as well replace a match recording with something more interesting", and i eventually loop back to "why the fuck do people watch battles on youtube when they could read the log instead". So can someone tell me why they watch videos online so i can think of ideas revolved around preserving the positives of that?

I find watching something and listening to its possible music or commentary more fun than reading a wall of text. You can also see how the think, how much they think about their moves etc.

As for the commentary, I like the idea, but it is actually difficult to do with battle played on SB, the battle is just too quick and the idea of pausing it several times seems unappealing to me.

 

[cantab]

Watching a bare battle video is like reading a bare log. Few people like reading logs - they like reading warstories, with commentary and analysis. A commentated video is the equivalent to a warstory.
As for why people would prefer commentated videos over written warstories - the same reasons people prefer watching movies over reading books.

As for the commentary, I like the idea, but it is actually difficult to do with battle played on SB, the battle is just too quick and the idea of pausing it several times seems unappealing to me.

Which is why I said do the commentary after the fact (not live!) and make the pace easier to follow by video editing or generation.

 

[shrang]

I did suggest that since people know that the match is going up on Youtube, that the players may be told to give a 5-10 second break between each move, should the battle be going too quickly.

 

[Antar]

I did suggest that since people know that the match is going up on Youtube, that the players may be told to give a 5-10 second break between each move, should the battle be going too quickly.

You can always get that in editing, though.

 

[TubaKing]

I keep coming up with ideas, like "hey maybe they could pause the battle and talk!" , or maybe "well since we're pausing the battle we might as well replace a match recording with something more interesting", and i eventually loop back to "why the fuck do people watch battles on youtube when they could read the log instead". So can someone tell me why they watch videos online so i can think of ideas revolved around preserving the positives of that?

Having audio and video adds to the experience -- makes it more authentic, if that makes sense. A lot of Smogoners are easily bored by walls of texts.
This generation of kids doesn't appreciate literacy as much as previous generations.

I do agree, though, that more logs of great battles should be made available on Shoddy (not necessarily always in warstory format).

 

[mtr]

The Smogon Youtube Channel is for publicity purposes, it exposes a wide variety of Pokemon fans to us, and some of them might join the website.

I honestly prefer reading commentated warstories rather than watching videos, however commentated they might be.

Anyways, the biggest problem with video commentaries is that the commentator himself must be a skilled battler, and disciplined enough not to reveal any information the players or the audience don't already know. Kind of hard not to do that accidentally, since most commentary is done after the fight.

 

[lilyhollow]

Anyways, the biggest problem with video commentaries is that the commentator himself must be a skilled battler, and disciplined enough not to reveal any information the players or the audience don't already know. Kind of hard not to do that accidentally, since most commentary is done after the fight.

I don't follow. The way I see it, the more skilled the commentator, the better-- who cares if they point out something that the actual players weren't observant enough to notice? I guess if the commentators aren't confident in their ability to commentate without having seen the match first, that could be a problem, sort of. I don't really see that being the case, though; I mean nobody's asking for professional-level commentary here. Just something that isn't "generic Pokemon OST remix."

And I don't like this "the channel is just for publicity purposes anyway" business. Where I come from, it's always pretty cool to improve stuff.

Have an expert battler write the commentary, then find whoever willing has the best voice to do the recording.

Out of all the commentated match videos of like, Smash Bros, Street Fighter, Starcraft, or any televised sport, or really anything: I have never, ever been bothered, ever, by someone's voice. It hasn't like, even been a remote concern of mine. I am much more interested in their actual level of awareness as to what's going on in the match, which I would assume includes "whether or not they are reading from a script" (with "no, they are not reading from a script" being greatly preferable). Especially if that script wasn't even written by them personally.

Honestly, this whole thing doesn't seem to require much forethought or planning. I mean, right now we've got match videos with nothing but remixed background music. Just throw someone in who knows the game and is willing to commentate, and then keep doing that with different people until the cream rises. The worst case scenario is, what? The first few videos have a couple "uncharismatic" commentators, and are... still much more interesting than the videos that are being posted at the moment?


And yeah, I was also thinking about possibly doing Poker-style commentary. Seems like it could be interesting, but kind of a lot of work, so who knows.