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Commentating Circle-Clicking Competitions |
2013-07-31 06:05:00 +0000 |
As competitions start blooming all over osu! and their popularity skyrockets, streaming matches has begun to be a major part of these tournaments. Nowadays, the biggest competitions even provide live commentary on said streams. As a commentator for both the osu! World Cup 2013 and the Taiko World Cup 2013, I will cover in this article my personal interest in commentating, how I do it and why I like it.
With the sudden outburst of various tournaments and World Cups lately (osu! World Cup, Taiko World Cup, Catch the Beat World Cup, and so on) and their managers' constantly expanding ambitions, streaming matches has quickly become an easy way to entertain the osu! community. On the most important and official tournaments, streams even provide commentary.
We've already seen how popular streaming became with the osu! website's integration of streams via Twitch, available in the Community tab. This year, official streams were born for the World Cups. I happened to commentate on both the osu! World Cup 2013 (Won by South Korea, its second win in the World Cup) and the Taiko World Cup (Won by Taiwan, its second win in TWC). I find commentating quite enjoyable and I would like to share the experience with you readers. I will explain what prompted me to commentate matches, why I like it, how I do it, and what it takes to be a successful commentator.
The main reason why commentating matches appealed to me in the first place was through one of my other hobbies, quite unrelated to osu!: Let's Plays. Let's Playing is recording yourself playing through a game from scratch, providing commentary. Said commentary can be informative, funny, or it can mainly be about telling your audience your relationship with the game; for instance, experiences with it as you were growing up. Through watching many Let's Plays from many different people, the concept of commentating slowly became more and more interesting to me.
There's quite a difference between Let's Playing and commentating matches. However, the concept stays the same; it's all about entertaining the watchers by providing interesting info and witty remarks. Although more often than not, it's the match itself that provides great entertainment - if the match is really tense, or one of the players is showing top-notch gameplay, commenting on it is even more satisfying than just watching. As a commentator, there's also a lot of communication with the watchers involved, another thing I love about commentating. You don't always have time to answer all questions and fulfill all requests (singing on the air is a popular one), but oh well.
For both the tournaments I have been commentating on, I've adopted the same method for every match. First off, I open the thread of the competition and I look at two things: The composition of the teams, and the map pool. Second, I make sure to get the multiplayer link from the referees and keep it open preciously: this allows me to announce scores as they happen. I also keep open the Match Schedule to notify the watchers for any incoming faceoffs, as well as the statistics, just to provide interesting trivia. Finally, I open the Twitch stream (that's where commentators watch the game unfold, which causes a bit of delay on the commentary, but it's usually still relevant) and I make sure to open an IRC client to keep an eye on the multiplayer room for any map picks, player switches, or just to see if things are going well. Yes, you can in fact join multiplayer matches via IRC! But it's generally a staff thing.
Being a commentator is actually quite easy. I've asked many people to come in and commentate with me as guests, but there seems to be a lot of camera shyness around. Mainly, people reply to me things like "Oh, I wouldn't know what to talk about" or "I'm no professional" which is quite interesting. We did get a lot of viewers (more than 2000!) for the osu! World Cup, thanks to in-game integration. Indeed, you do have to keep some commentary going, sometimes when nothing of note is happening, but it's mainly all about being natural and just discussing things. You don't need to bring out incredible statistics or trivia to be a commentator. I'd still recommend a good mastery of the English language (which isn't necessarily easy if, like me, English isn't your native language), a positive attitude, enthusiasm and energy, and a clear voice (having a good microphone helps).
I think I've covered just about everything! I will be commentating on later competitions or events as well as next year's osu! and Taiko World Cups. If you'd like to join the fun and think you have what it takes, by all means, contact the manager of said tournament. I'll be glad to share the match with you. Until then, I hope you guys keep watching the streams, listening to my confused self tumbling over my own words and making great slip-ups such as "Korway", or having to announce maps with fantastic names, such as "Macuilxochitl", "Jeg onskerikke a skade deg" or "Suteki na Hakaba de Kuraseru to Omotta noni".
—Mr Color