Quote of the Week honors this week goes to CCP Soundwave, who pretty much hammered CCP Dolan today:
Are you smarter than a piece of metal?
…he asked of Dolan. Context will help. By the time the day was about half over, Soundwave, Dolan, and CCP Fozzie were all having a somewhat difficult time predicting the winners of matches. There were a lot of upsets! Soundwave and Fozzie took this in stride, but CCP Dolan started flipping a coin before each match to predict the winner.
And he was serious.
He’d flip the coin, then write down what the coin told him to write on his prediction page. Soundwave became somewhat less of his laconic self as the day wore on and Dolan kept doing this. And he finally asked in exasperation if Dolan felt he was smarter than a piece of metal! It was a classic moment. Even funnier: Dolan responded by tossing his coin across the studio! Kudos to Soundwave for controlling his facial expression at this moment, but you could tell he was not happy.
It wasn’t the only time that Soundwave got a little exasperated with Dolan, either. At another point, Dolan was about to launch into an irrelevant side note and did so by saying “Funny story about that…” Soundwave snapped, “Is it actually funny?” Dolan had to admit that maybe it wasn’t and lapsed into silence.
The point here is that CCP Dolan is supposed to be a tournament match expert.(1) And it’s a bit disconcerting to have an expert commentator choosing winners based on a coin toss. Any moron can toss a coin. If the coin toss had been part of a gimmick that would have been one thing, but it wasn’t. It was used in earnest. The tournament commentators in the booth are supposed to use intelligent analysis to predict a tournament match winner and then explain why they’re making the choice to the viewers. The reason doesn’t have to be serious, but it does have to be non-random.
Speaking of non-random: irrelevant commentary at several points today actually prevented intelligent commentary on the match in question.
At one point in a match between Kronoses and Machariels, a Kronos managed to web down a Machariel and the match looked likely to turn on this moment. Problem was during that time, Dolan had Fozzie involved in a conversation about… I can’t even remember. But it definitely wasn’t relevant, nor was it important enough to remember. Meanwhile, a great piece of EVE Online piloting was happening in the actual match. The Mach pilot called on a friendly Griffin to jam out the webbing Kronos, which was apparently successful and this allowed the Mach to escape tackle and side-step a second enemy Kronos.
Both commentators missed the whole thing.
That’s not to say that Dolan was bad all day. At another point, he used a very interesting analogy to compare the many, many Kronoses we saw today to tar pits. It wasn’t all that terrible of an analogy for a new player because in essence that’s what a Kronos or a Vindicator is: a tar pit that will drag you in closer and closer and eventually kill you. But then encouraged by this small success, Dolan launched into a steady stream of irrelevant stories and analogies. Included in this was one very uncomfortable moment where he talked about two Curses involved in sexual relations, and some months later some baby Sentinels would appear–
I swear I am not making this up.
Anyway, all in all it would not surprise me if Dolan found himself having “technical difficulties” next weekend. At the very least, he’s likely to get a bit of a talking to this morning… If he returns, let’s hope he dials this behavior back some because today, he was virtually unwatchable.
(1) Laugh later. He is.
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The commentators have been that way since the first coverage. They do need to understand however that this tournament is on an entire different scale than any previous. Those guys need to get their heads out of their asses and provide esports online coverage in the vein of League of Legends or Starcraft. Cover the match – no one gives a flying blue fuck about your time in xyz alliance when you were flying a (ship) or that two curses were making sexorZ off the Jita undock to birth out some sentinels. I can't believe I'm agreeing with Retard Teg today..its a certain sign that we are fast approaching the end of the Mayan Long Count Calender.
every time, eve commentators are terrible i dnt listen to them and either watch the match muted or just not watch it at all
Could the EVE TV webiste links to the videos be more useless?? Does any1 have a link to the vids that lists the actual fights between teams rather just #n ??
cant believe MB3 got a job at ccp. almost anyone would have been better, what about kil2
+1 for the amazing coverage of the tournament by EVENEWS 24…
CCP has yet to realize the marketing potential of eSports. Not only do they increase publicity about EVE and get more people to try EVE, but it can also be a big money draw. Tournaments like this need to be advertised widely outside of EVE and the coverage should be more professional. In pre-match analysis, talk about alliance history (both past tournament performances and in-game history) and talk about politics. In post-match analysis, look at some of the fittings, look at the tactics, look at the turning points in the match. THAT is professional analysis. THAT is what people want to hear and what gets people excited about EVE.
Agreed. Especially with the amount of scratch in the purse.
The problem here is that CCP has a lot of experience in the mechanics of EVE, and a lot of them probably have a lot of expert analysis on the tournament, but know absolutely fuck all about how to provide commentary and still remain focused on the event. Look at baseball announcers. They can ramble on and on about statistics and player performance, but the moment a big play comes up they are johnny on the spot with the accurate analysis of the unfolding situation.
No doubt this is something that comes with experience, but CCP would do well to remember that, at the end of the day, it's the match that matters, not all the inane bullshit that fills the uncomfortable silence while ships get into position.
Up to date brakets: www.wunder-bet.com/index.php?page=neo&…
awesome review, lol.
Ok, Am I the only one that caught Dolan's idiotic "that ship is moving at 16 meters per sec second, which is as fast as an Olympic athlete" statement? Simple math says that if the 100 yard dash is run in about 10 seconds, and a meter is slightly longer than a yard, then 16 meters a second is about half again as fast.
Also, his comment about meeting a jaguar in the African jungle… Jaguars are from central and south america.
I thought that the commentating was great. Eve is unlike any game out there and by its very nature is probably the most difficult to commentate. Dolan makes me laugh and makes the commenting interesting. I have no problems with their ramblings as they are both ridiculous and entertaining at the same time. To really do EVEOnline commentating at the accuracy that some are expecting would really take a team of camera men and much more effort and planning from CCPs part (not that they are not putting a ton of effort already).
Ok, Am I the only one that caught Dolan's idiotic "that ship is moving at 16 meters per sec second, which is as fast as an Olympic athlete" statement? Simple math says that if the 100 yard dash is run in about 10 seconds, and a meter is slightly longer than a yard, then 16 meters a second is about half again as fast.
Or the whole Jaguar conversation where he said that he'd hate to meet a Jaguar in the jungles of Africa.
Jaguars live in Central and South America, so he'd probably be pretty safe.
Sorry double post
You are working out the AVERAGE speed. Not the maximum as they accelerate from 0 to X m/s.
Do you work out the average speed of a drag car on a quarter mile or do you record the maximum speed which occurs when they cross the finish line (as they keep accelerating)…
Kudos to Soundwave for controlling his facial expression at this moment, but you could tell he was not happy.
Hello there buddy, quite enlightening publish. Make sure you maintain them coming.